Two years ago, having developed an autoimmune condition after a period of prolonged, chronic stress, I resolved to do things differently.

I started by changing some of the things in my life that had continually tripped me up.

These all-too-familiar sticking points included:

Over-promising – “No problem.” Lie. It often is a problem, impossible, implausible, or exhausting to say YES to one more thing. Don’t do it.

Perfectionism – “I can’t stop what I am doing until it is perfect”. Lie. I can stop whenever I want and the world won’t stop turning. Good is also good enough (almost always true).

Control – “If I don’t do it, it won’t get done properly” or “My way is the right way because it will keep my kids safe/healthy/well/happy.” Lies. The more they work things out for themselves, the more empowered they feel, and the more they will thrive. Taking their power away disempowers us all.

The biggest one, though, and part of the RESPECT approach (see post, below) to paying attention to my most basic needs & NOT overriding them – was & is to create more non-negotiable, wide-open, consistent & sustained spaces for nourishment.

Space where I could process and regulate.

Space to rest.

Space to be utterly quiet & still.

And through winter, for the most part, I managed it. Managed to hold the busy-ness of life at bay. To honour my needs above external asks.

Managed early nights with delicious sound bath or Yoga Nidra recordings, and Friday mornings with a sauna.

I read, a lot, too… going up to bed early, holding that sacred hour just for myself, the kids were tucked up in their own beds, and all of the day’s work had been put to bed, too.

But, as is naturally the way, with the advent of spring and then fulsome tumble into summer, it can feel as though everyone and everything seems to wake up and run out into the world, guns blazing, all at once, and however much we may want to steady our pace and heed our needs, it’s so very easy to get caught up in the presiding, defining, busy and buzzing forward motion of the season.

My summer so far has brought with it short bursts of rich energy – gorgeously long, slow, laughter-filled brunch dates with local mates; drinks & pizza with friends after work; walks by the sea – and I love having a greater capacity to get out into the world and take in its wonder.

The early days of summer – before the pollen kicks in, but the warmth & sunlight & piercing blue skies feel like a kiss of life – are bliss. Late spring/early summer, and late summer/early autumn, are my favourite cusps of the year.

Regular readers or followers of my work over the years, will know that I often draw on Ayurveda to provide seasonal support, especially during times of transition. I found my way to Ayurveda over 15 years ago, during my first pregnancy, and found it so helpful and insightful that I enrolled at the School of Vedic Studies, and qualified as a practitioner shortly before my second child was born, three years later.

I have blended my work as a health journalist, researcher, wellbeing author, and practitioner ever since. And in terms of seasonal support, I find both Ayurveda and Traditional Chinese Medicine to be immensely helpful. Perhaps because they have a way of understanding the subtle energies of the body in a way that Western Medicine largely ignores –informed, affected, and balanced by Nature.

Also, unlike allopathic medicine, most indigenous, holistic systems of medicine are based on the premise that a human being is an intrinsic and inextricable part of the “whole” of nature, life, the universe.

As such, we are affected by everything around us. The sun, moon, stars, weather, seasons. Light and dark. Scent, sound, sensations. Textures & tastes. The hour and rhythm and cadence of each day and night. Alongside the cycles of our own nature – menstrual, monthly, seasonal, yearly, and our shifting chapters, whether pregnancy and post-partum, or peri-menopausal, menopausal, or post-menopausal.

This level of subtlety is what drew me in and helped me make sense of my own multitudes. Why, I always wondered, could I not be MORE constant? Why could I not optimise and sustain good energy, every day? Why was I sometimes utterly vital and other times, completely spent?

Ayurveda taught me so many things, so many of which a have become second nature – from the warm water I drink year-round (avoiding iced drinks, even in summer), to the way I oil my skin BEFORE I bathe or shower, scrape my tongue each morning before breakfast, and get morning light into my eyes before I have any interactions with screens.

It’s in the soaking & oiling of my feet, the addition of cooling herbs to my meals, the coriander seeds I let soak in filtered water for a couple of hours, before drinking the refreshing, fragrant, herbal golden tonic (always settles my tummy or cools me down if I’m overly hot).

It’s in the gentle reminder to myself to stop rushing… to remember that the way I brush my hair, cleanse my skin, oil my body, is telling. When it is rough, rushed, aggressive, I know that I am out of balance. When it is gentle, I am better in my self… and I feel it in my inner & outer expression.

Summer’s fiery temper

According to Ayurveda, the summer season ushers in a feeling of expansion, dynamism, expression… but I’ve also learned that all of that outward-giving can also deplete us, and quickly.

This season of my life has also been defined by the exponential growth in the social lives of my teenage kids, who this half-term holiday, have had multiple plans, in multiple locations, almost every day.

Alas, I am not a teenager. I am a 45-year-old perimenopausal woman and, seemingly overnight, a very busy, on-call taxi driver. And yes, I am TIRED!

Mr R and I divvy up the schlepping, mostly – but as he works when I don’t work, I often end my own working week and then plunge straight into a full weekend of taxi service; a moon orbiting their Earths, round & round… today’s a particularly prickly case in point – I’ve already done six separate car journeys, and have a final hour-long round-trip at 11pm. Long past my bedtime.

In summer, I often feel that energetic tug of war between the season’s fire, and my own longing for inner cool & stillness.

I love waking early, light streaming in, air still cool, and holding the latent possibility of the day in my hands as I sip water, stretch, take the sky & light into my eyes.

But, come noon, I am often prickly – particularly with this recent heatwave, the rise in pollen, and just living in a sensitive body that no longer wants to live in such a dynamic way.

Transport me into a cool lake, stream, or shaded patch of sea, and I am in heaven. There I find my natural antidote – cool, calm, hydrating.

I’ve come to accept that summer doesn’t bring out the best in me. I’ve too much fire to begin with!

Finding ways to slow, cool, calm, quiet, at a time when life feels like it’s speeding up, is the returning lesson for me, this season.

The opposite of hot & bothered is to be as utterly unbothered as much & often as possible… and it’s certainly a work in progress for me.

Particularly because the rising fire of summer can make us quite literally lose our “cool”; high heat & pollen days make me feel noticeably more irritable & impulsive… nope, fire is not naturally conducive to a chilled, equanimous state.

In Ayurveda, summer is characterised by “pitta” – the element of fire. I too, have a naturally fiery, predominantly Pitta constitution… and every summer, struggle to find that equanimity – balance, slow, calm, cool.

It’s also true that summer’s longer days and brighter light can stoke our energetic & creative reserves. Many, many people (Mr R included) feel as though they come to life in the summer. Ayurvedically-speaking, both Kapha (earth + water), and Vata (space + air) types of people tend to feel better in summer than those who are predominantly Pitta.

Many of my Vata friends live for summer – basking like lizards in the sun and feeling more vital than they have all year. Likewise, my Kapha friends often feel lighter & less sluggish in Summer (they can feel lethargic and lower in mood in Winter).

For me, the longer days, the girls’ expanding social lives, a ramping up of my workload, and a rekindling of creative capacity & energy, requires that I proceed with CAUTION.

My friend, Shriya Grace, a wonderful sound practitioner, wrote: “We live in a society where our sense of worth is entangled in what we do, or what we achieve. It has been a great gift to see all the suggestions of my mind and choose to do nothing.” Ah. There it is. Precisely how I’ve been feeling, too.

I have several swirling projects alongside the happy day job… but it has been almost a month of choosing to do nothing. That driving force which has sent me from lilypad to lilypad over the course of my life – book project to magazine to newspaper to study to practice to book project… is certainly not blazing as strongly as it once did.

Today, quite often, just the idea of a very involved, frenetic, energetic big, new project exhausts me.

I do not want to dance anymore.

I do not want to juggle, chase, push, grow, grow, grow, all of the time. Nor do I only want to rest or hibernate in winter.

As I get older, I quite clearly need to rest, a LOT MORE OFTEN. In the height of summer and depths of winter, both.

What I’m also beginning to understand is that the foundation of deep rest I’d laid in winter wasn’t a launchpad to a supremely energised spring and summer, but rather, an experience of the true pace at which life might be lived. Realising this was a little like opening my eyes for the very first time.

Because, once rest becomes a lived practice, it can’t be unlived. And rest – a lot like source water and the many streams and rivers it feeds – needs continual replenishment if it is to support life beyond its immediate environs.

Rest wasn’t, I realised, an antidote to ‘doing’. It was instead, more like breathing.

Continual, instinctive, life-giving and body-feeding, and in constant dialogue with my body, mind, spirit. We breathe because we must. But we must rest if we are to truly breathe… if we are to touch on that magical potential held within those moments of pure stillness, ease, surrender and receipt.

One of my dearly departed friends, women’s fertility doctor, Emma Cannon, said something that always stayed with me. She said that women are made to receive. That there is an innate receptivity to women – a body that can accept another’s body into herself and a welcoming of seed into fertile soil, that is mirrored by Mother Earth.

And the energy of continually ‘giving out’ – of building, growing, spending – has its important place, of course, but it also needs a steady, strong counterbalance. To both give outward, and receive inward.

Well… that thought has stayed with me. And that’s probably because I’ve spent the majority of my life in defiance of that inner knowing… always working, creating, pushing, moving forward.

Summer is also, often, when our collective need for rest is most eclipsed. All that bright, bold, brazen sunshine that feeds our cells – in Ayurveda, directly linked to our inner ‘fire’, our agni, which also feeds our ideas, our appetites, our sexual desire – is at its height.

That urge to rise and shine, mirrored by early sunrise and latest sunset… our extended day-lit hours literally illuminating our path out into the day ahead, which can run later and longer than at any other time of year.

And, though this natural shift is to be expected, what I am seeing in my own life and among my closest friends, is complicated.

For a lot of women in my close circle, rather than the rich, ripe, rippling energy of Summer, the majority of us are feeling quite the opposite: utterly spent… bone-tired, depleted, emotionally & mentally exhausted.

After years of the pandemic, political instability, global unrest and environmental crises, there is a disconnect between the natural energy of the shifting seasons, and the relentless, frightening, unpredictable and deeply unjust way in which a lot of modern life can play out.

Our nervous systems, too-long held in states of fight, flight or freeze, have been so utterly overworked, that the path back is not one of yet more doing and creating… it’s one of stillness, slowness, rest, reflection and release. And that sleepy, retreating energy may not be naturally in keeping with Summer’s blaze and bloom, YET perhaps it is precisely because of how out of sync we’ve become with nature’s rhythms, that we feel our tiredness more tangibly now, during a month of big energy and expression.

We may sense spring as a time of awakening, and summer as a time of dynamism and growth, but until we can fully root down into the rhythm of the seasons, and mirror the natural, gentle shifts of dawn to dusk, full to new moon, and winter to summer, we’re drawing from a source that is inadequately replenished.

And yes, those small drops of micro-rest may keep us going… but in order to keep flowing, the relationship between what comes into us, and what leaves us, needs to be wholly rebalanced.

The water cycle is unbroken… from source to spring to sea, ever-in-motion, ever-renewed. And we, too, are renewable sources of energy… fuelled by the sun, by water, by air, by vital food sources, rich in life’s energy… but in order to benefit from ‘being nature’, we must reassess the myriad ways in which we fight against it.

Instead, I want to get better at receiving.

At taking goodness into me, delighting in the sensation of holding something – even if just ten minutes of silence and stillness – for all that it is, not what it may become.

If you know of someone who’d love to be part of these Sunday refills, please do share with them. My vision this year is to grow MOTHER NOURISH into a community that does for others what it’s beginning to do for me… a gentle flicker of light, silver-lining the messiness of motherhood, and pouring into a fuller cup as we move into our middle years.

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This early summer, it’s the smallest things that are helping me most.

Consistent bedtimes

Keeping my bedtime and waking time consistent – so my body and mind know where they are, and I resist the urge to let those longer evenings spiral into depleting, too-late nights. I’ve noticed how foggy I feel if I am on my phone before bed, and now make an absolute point of turning it off in the evening and leaving it downstairs before I go up to my ‘rest zone’, where I have a good book on my bedside table, ready to transport me somewhere wonderful.

Dawn light

Getting out into the early morning sun every day to feel the glitter of light on my eyelids and into my eyes. That combination of light, breath, exuberant birdsong and the scent of the herbs in the pots on the deck awakened by the morning dew, is one hearty gulp of a blessing.

Cooling & replenishing foods & drink

I’ve been adding a small pinch of unrefined sea salt to my morning mug of water, to rehydrate after hot & sweaty nights. I love coconut water and it’s one of the things I get strong cravings for… I buy whichever one is on offer at the supermarket or local shop, and also like the raw coconut waters that are pink rather than colourless – they’re naturally sweeter, too.

I tend to crave foods that are naturally high in water, slightly sweet, and have cooling properties, in Ayurveda, these include:

Sweet fruits – melons, watermelons, berries, mangos, peaches

Bitter vegetables – artichoke, leafy greens, rocket, kale, celery, radicchio

Hydrating, cooling veg – cucumber, celery, carrot, fennel

Cooling spices – tulsi, cumin, coriander, fennel; cardamom is tri-doshic, so helps to balance all bodies; turmeric has a post-digestive cooling effect (this is known as vipaka, in Ayurveda).

Cooking with ghee, olive oil or coconut oil – in Ayurveda, all three have a light, cooling action on the body and are good for Pitta. I use ghee for my pancakes and eggs, and olive oil for most other cooking (and dressings).

Cooling herbs like coriander, mint, dill & basil.

Generally, avoiding foods that are fried, pickled, fermented, overly sour or spicy. I am just too fiery to be able to tolerate them well, sadly. Even too much lemon juice brings my lips & neck out in heat rashes (again, a lesson learned the hard way, after enjoying freshly squeezed lemonade and lemon-and-olive-oil doused salads, two days in a row).

This, roughly ties in with the types of flavours that help to balance pitta –sweet, bitter & astringent. Pungent, sour & salty aggravate pitta.

Sweet, sour & salty help to balance Vata. Bitter, pungent & astringent aggravate Vata.

And bitter, pungent & astringent help to balance Kapha. Sweet, sour & salty aggravate Kapha.

My old friend Jasmine Hemsley has an easy test on her website, if you’d like to find out a little bit more about your natural “constitution.” And another friend, Geeta Vara, has a brilliant book & website, for anyone who’s new to Ayurveda and might like to learn a little more.

Today, my cooling tonics have come in the welcome form of:

• Oatmeal pancakes with coconut yoghurt, apple puree & blueberries for breakfast

• Sitting under the shade of an enormous horse chestnut tree and enjoying a cool breeze, instead of sweltering in my car, while waiting to collect one of my kids

• No time to get to the sea, so have soaked my feet in a bowl of water while writing this letter with a tall glass of coconut water by my side, sipping and enjoying, and not rushing the process (rushing is SO heating – aggravating, stressful).

• Cutting a huge salad for lunch – with beetroot, artichoke, fennel, celery, carrot, cucumber & greens, and dressing with olive oil, sea salt, dried mint & dill, which we had with homemade turkey burgers

And, honestly, just trying to be less perfectionistic, rigid, and exposive. These are typically Pitta attributes, interestingly… anything that involves real exertion or a hot temper, typically comes via Pitta’s fire.

Which is harder for me when I am in my late luteal phase (the few days before day 1 of my period), as I get VERY judgey 🤭.

But… I persevere… by reminding myself that the opposite of hot & bothered, is to be utterly unbothered about as many things as possible… this does not come easily to a perfection-prone Pitta type, BUT I cannot pretend that it doesn’t make the world of difference to my mood, energy levels, and wellbeing, when I choose “good enough” over “perfect.”

Here’s to a deliciously imperfect & much fuller cup of nourishment this summer & beyond!

Emine x

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Whether you’re new to MOTHER NOURISH®️ or an old faithful – WELCOME, 👋🏽 I’m Emine – a former health journalist, researcher, and holistic health practitioner.

THE SUNDAY REFILL IS ALWAYS 3 THINGS: FREE, HONEST & NOURISHING ☕️. And my hope here, every Sunday, is to balance the anecdotal and holistic with robust, helpful & illuminating research, and to avoid demonising or assigning moral value to choices that relate to food, body, or health – because life is hard enough without giving ourselves a hard time about what we eat!

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Today I’m exploring a topic I’ve had a deeper interest in for 25+ years: intuitive eating.

• Moving from restrictive eating to expansive nourishment

• What the body’s innate intelligence shares via its cravings + signals

• What throws off our cravings + why we need to understand our own bodies before we listen to others

I’ve written a little before about the restrictive eating of my teen years. I used to play a lot of sport and have always had a big, hearty appetite, but looking back, I realise that I wasn’t eating enough of the right things to properly support my growing, changing body.

“Organic” & “seasonal” wasn’t really a thing back then, or if it was, it didn’t reach the ‘burbs where I grew up, eating a regular rotation of nourishing, home-cooked Cypriot food, alongside a lot of processed food: think squidgy white bread (Hovis was the norm’), margarine, chicken nuggets, fish fingers, ready meals & relatively regular takeaway food (KFC; Wimpy).

I don’t remember eating oily fish very often, or having many seasonal, organic vegetables, although we always ate big Mediterranean salads with tomato, cucumber, coriander etc, with almost all of our Cypriot meals.

I loved & enjoyed food, but also had a complicated relationship with it. I remember feeling hungry a lot of the time – sometimes eating seconds or thirds of my favourite meals. I also LOVED sweet things. Biscuits, donuts, chocolate, cake… I was never satisfied with one serving.

Other than the home-cooked food my mum or family would make (often, when we gathered together at weekends), much of the food I was eating as a teen would have been low in nutritional value.

I can see now – crystal-clearly – that I was often hungry because I wasn’t eating enough nutrient-dense food.

Satiety relies on gut-brain communication via hormones such as ghrelin (hunger) and leptin (fullness). Nutrient-dense foods stabilise blood sugar and optimise these hormonal responses, whereas highly processed foods bypass these signals, driving overeating.

If you’re not getting that “I’m satisfied” signal, you will, of course, continue to eat. This isn’t bad programming – this is your immensely intelligent body pushing you to consume more in the hope that it will, finally, receive the nutrition it needs to carry out all of its myriad functions to the best of its ability.

When I say “empty calories” (even though I have never used calories as a helpful measure of anything much when it comes to true, holistic nourishment) – what I really mean is “non-foods” – foods that deliver a quick fix hit of satisfaction – often being overly salty or sugary they stimulate the pleasure receptors in the brain that deliver that addictive little dopamine hit – but do not promote those all-important, satiating hormonal responses because they’re so low in vitamins, minerals, micronutrients, and often macronutrients too – a “low fat” convenience food will likely be high in processed fat, sugar, salt… with little to no protein, fibre, or complex carbohydrates.

Conversely, when we eat a complex, balanced meal – with plenty of protein, fat, fibre, carbohydrates, vitamins, minerals & phytonutrients – we receive a very different signal.

As a teen, I didn’t really trust my body. My appetite felt insatiable and I always wanted to eat the stuff that I knew wasn’t good for me (think McFlurries and donuts and chips). This isn’t surprising – I was authentically hungry and so my body, rather smartly, needed fuel for energy which, in the most basic terms, often translates as cravings for high sugar carbohydrates. We can break carbohydrates down into energy (ATP, the body’s own form of energy “currency”), quickly and efficiently.

Hunger > crave sugar > eat sugar > convert glucose to ATP > hello, energy!

And while we get that energy boost (the same cycle that has us reaching for biscuits at 3pm), it isn’t sustained, and neither is our hunger properly met or satiated.

Now I can see – as clear as day – that I was hungry because I was quite simply not consistently eating enough, and not consistently eating enough real food.

My body was growing, highly active, menstruating, cycling – and I thought she could be fobbed off with a portion of chips in lieu of a real dinner, or a Slimfast shake instead of what everyone else was having (a real, though thankfully short-lived, low point of my life, around the age of 15). An ultra-processed liquid meal instead of mum’s homemade lasagne; lamb steak with new potatoes and salad; or a hearty, delicious spaghetti bolognese.

It makes me so very sad to think of that teenage girl – shakily hungry after a two-hour life-saving swimming lesson – sipping on her shake, determined to drop another couple of pounds before the weekend.

Thankfully, and quite naturally, I learned through trial and error, that my body did not actually lose weight when I ate less and trained more. It just struggled. I got ill more often. I was tired more often. My mood was lower, more often. And I actually gained weight, overall, during that time.

Nutrient Density & the Female Body

I have written about this many times before here at MOTHER NOURISH, but the female body is acutely attuned to nutrient density, reliability & consistency.

Study after study has found a marked difference between the ways in which the male and female bodies respond to extended windows of fasting and low caloric intake.

Chronic stress elevates the stress hormone cortisol, while starvation mode – scientifically termed “adaptive thermogenesis” – occurs when the body slows its metabolism to conserve energy during severe calorie restriction.

When you consistently consume drastically fewer calories than your body burns, it perceives a famine. To keep you alive, it prioritises essential functions (like breathing and brain activity) by slowing down non-essential processes.

Your basal metabolic rate (BMR) drops, meaning you burn fewer calories just staying alive.

The body starts breaking down muscle tissue for energy, as muscle is metabolically expensive to maintain.

In women, the hypothalamus is highly sensitive to energy deficits. A perceived lack of food causes a downturn in reproductive hormones (including oestrogen and progesterone) and thyroid function.

For a lot of women, signs of this might be persistent cold hands and feet, hair loss, fatigue, brain fog, and intense food cravings.

In the end, my body found her natural centre when fed more – both eating more overall and eating more nutritious food at every meal – and staying relatively, though mostly “incidentally”, active.

Moving to eating three really hearty, complex, seasonal + mostly organic meals a day changed everything.

My cravings shifted from crisps, cakes & fast food (with its addictive fat + sugar + salt), to specific things: juicy, roast chicken; crunchy, green vegetables; sweet, juicy berries; brown rice and miso soup; homemade curries rich with lots of coconut milk, spice & veg.

I’ve been eating intuitively for a good 25+ years now.

Which basically means that I don’t fight or resist my body’s needs.

My cravings are often super-specific: golden, warming porridge for breakfast, topped with nuts & seeds & raw honey; oily fish with crunchy greens & nutty, brown rice; deep, dark, rich cacao or cakes/brownies, made with cacao nibs, beetroot, and dark choc.

What I’ve also noticed, is that the way I eat shifts hugely according to the phase of my menstrual cycle, but also, as I get older and enter perimenopause, my cravings have changed to support my changing body.

For me, at this time in my life, my body has craved more meat & wild, oily fish. I now eat more organic chicken, including chicken liver and broth made from the bones, and organic lamb. I am lucky to work for Riverford Organic Farmers, and get a generous discount, which helps enormously when choosing organic. If you’d like to get £15 at Riverford you can use my refer a friend code, here.

More fibre – whole grains (I get regular, strong cravings for brown rice), beans, pulses, fruit, veg. Also, another nod of gratitude to my body which sent out repeated, sky-high cravings for (flaxseed) pancakes with (prebiotic-fibre-rich) apple puree – a brilliant, yum, high-fibre combination if ever there was one.

More bitter veggies & greens – chicory, endive, artichoke, rocket, dandelion greens, nettle – again, all things that my body has craved, insistently & particularly, over the last year – super-smart, as bitter foods are immensely supportive to the liver, kidneys & gallbladder.

More protein overall – from both plant & animal sources, and also fresh, young (as opposed to aged or matured) dairy such as mild goat’s cheese & yoghurt.

Being open to food…

The best way I can sum up my approach to food now is: OPEN.

And, admittedly, I have been listening a lot more to integrative and functional medical doctors and practitioners whose approach and advice I value… and do feel there’s merit in being able to eat as expansively and abundantly and variously as possible.

When I had to cut out a huge amount of foods while trying to isolate what was causing my flare-ups and histamine intolerance, I did manage, relatively quickly, to return to ‘normal’, but I also knew from the very beginning that my new normal couldn’t feel restrictive.

That if I had had to continue to eat lowest histamine foods & remove fish, gluten, most dairy, citrus, nightshades, chocolate, spinach, tomatoes, fermented foods – then my life would have looked & felt very different.

And that expansive abundance – rooted in WHOLE NOURISHMENT – which I write about, week after week, would have been lost.

So, my approach, since feeling back to ‘normal’, has been to get really curious about how I can eat in an even MORE expansive way.

I am interested in understanding how the things I had once avoided might no longer need to be avoided (red meat, organ meats, cheese)… and what it feels like to be in a body that can digest and assimilate and absorb optimal nutrition from more sources in more ways.

To be, in fact, the very OPPOSITE of restrictive.

Feeling satisfied

And so we come back to satiety.

I need quite a bit of quality protein to feel properly full, and to sustain my energy. Even with pulses and seeds and nuts and grains such as quinoa which contain all of the essential amino acids, I get hungrier faster than if I’ve had animal protein (including eggs and high-protein dairy, such as cottage cheese (the Riverford Dairy Cottage Cheese is a REVELATION – unlike your usual wet, watery cottage cheese – so creamy, spreadable & so high in protein).

I need plenty of good fats too, mostly from olive oil, but also grass-fed organic butter & ghee (and avocados are great, but I’m allergic to them!).

The foundation of my food intake is now three good, hearty, balanced meals every day.

If I have a smaller breakfast, or something with little protein (e.g. honey & butter on toast), I will not be able to go more than 1.5-2 hours before I need to eat again. I will start to feel sick, shaky, hollow and hungry.

I know that my metabolism is high (my body has always been naturally quite muscular, and muscles are the primary “engine” of our metabolism), and that I can struggle with low blood sugar if I’m not eating enough, or regularly enough, to keep my body fuelled.

So, what works for me (and this will be a little different for everyone, as we are all in different bodies and life phases, cycles & stages, with different dietary requirements) is plenty of protein, good fat, complex carbs, loads of veggies, warm water, good salt (I use unrefined sea or rock salt which has a far more complex micro-mineral profile), + plenty of herbs & spices.

In a nutshell: VARIETY.

How depletion distorts cravings

I’ve also come to understand that when my body is depleted – if I have not slept well, am stressed, overwhelmed – it will not always crave the things that help.

This is obvious when I’ve woken after very little sleep, and might crave jam on toast, or a croissant, rather than a savoury or more sustaining breakfast.

That’s actually a sensible, self-protective move by the body – it knows it needs ENERGY and energy in the form of glucose is the most readily available as it hits the bloodstream so quickly and can rapidly be converted into ATP – BUT it also craves glucose because it’s in a state of depletion or panic.

Adrenaline levels are also likely higher when we’re very tired (tired but wired, a case in point) – so the body is operating in survival mode: FEED ME, FAST.

But, if we can pause… recognise that the body really does need energy, and is simply trying to support you, and then make a choice that will do that in a wholesome, sustained and nourishing way – well, then we can really begin to shift the dial on how we nourish ourselves, particularly when we don’t feel our best.

Coincidentally, I didn’t sleep at all well last night for a number of reasons, but once I did get back to bed, I couldn’t find that deep, restorative slumber I longed for.

When I woke up today, I felt a pang of hunger… and not the usual ‘I need to hydrate & feed myself’ signal, but an off-centre, hollow, sweet craving, for a croissant, or toast and jam.

Not at all surprising – the link between lack of or poor quality sleep and blood sugar dysregulation is well-researched. The research (of middle-aged Caucasian volunteers) discovered that there was a substantial association between poor sleep quality and metabolic syndrome, as well as between sleep condition and insulin, fasting glucose levels, and insulin resistance.

Perhaps because my paternal grandmother has diabetes, I’ve always had a vested interest in my blood sugar and managing my appetite, cravings, energy + satiety levels.

Had I not known any of the above, perhaps I would have enjoyed a sugar-heavy breakfast, with little or no protein, and not thought any more of it (p.s. I love a good pastry, but would likely have one in addition to some scrambled eggs, veggies & seedy bread, rather than as a standalone breakfast).

But because I knew my energy would need a helping hand today, I started my day with plenty of protein, and then felt into what I was craving for lunch/dinner… and a collagen-rich broth was calling me, so I added the carcass from yesterday’s roast dinner to a pan with herbs from the garden, red onion, carrot & black pepper, and knew I’d then have a big pot of fresh stock to sip and sup on, as the day wore on. Ideal for the youngest, too, who is at the tail-end of a virus.

Sustaining and maintaining my energy levels on days when I’m tired isn’t all about food of course… I’m grateful it’s a quiet weekend with few plans, allowing me to finish up this letter, and then rest to my heart’s content – dinner taken care of, thanks to that bubbly stock pot, which I’ll ladle over noodles for a speedy ramen; cooked rice, torn chicken & veggies for a soupy ‘risotto’ in moments; or enjoy with some ghee-buttered sourdough, as a simple soup with added veggies & chicken, later on.

We all have our ‘vulnerable’ spots and times too… for me, late nights or evenings, when dinner hasn’t been as satiating or nourishing as it might have been (or just didn’t meet my particular craving)… which often leads me to have a hearty ‘snack’ or second mini-meal before bed.

I often crave a thick layer of cottage cheese or fresh goat’s cheese on toast or a thick, nubbly oatcake (like the amazing ones they sell at my local Ben’s Farm Shop – made with organic oats, olive oil & sea salt) & drizzled with raw honey… and found it amusing to listen to a podcast last week when the functional nutritionist, who has a particular interest in pro-metabolic eating, recommended eating that exact combination of foods – raw/organic cheese + complex carb + raw honey – before bed, to provide enough glucose in a sustained way, to keep blood sugar balanced throughout the night and promote better sleep.

In general, I don’t eat close to my bedtime, but if I do feel hungry as my bedtime approaches, I will always eat something rather than go to bed with that hollow sensation. I’ve learned that the latter invariably results in night-time waking as my blood sugar dips, cortisol spikes, and wakefulness ensues.

After reviewing the data – which splits into two camps:

1. Those who posit that eating late at night has negative impacts on insulin sensitivity which can lead to type 2 diabetes (something Dr Casey Means writes about in Good Energy)

and

2. Those who support a snack before bedtime of around 200 calories, which should contain complex carbs, protein & a source of tryptophan (as explained here, by a registered nutritionist).

I ultimately go with what feels RIGHT for me, day by day.

If I have eaten well all day – in basic terms: three hearty, balanced meals + plenty of warm water, coconut water or water with a pinch of unrefined sea or rock salt – I don’t tend to feel hungry again after dinner.

There are, undoubtedly, times in my cycle when I am also hungrier – the week before my period, for instance – and that’s no coincidence as the body requires around 300 extra calories a day during the luteal phase (as explained rather helpfully here, by neuroscientist, Dr Emilé Radyté).

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Again, I share this not to be prescriptive, but to stress that we are all different – a wondrous array of shapes, sizes, metabolisms, cycles, life stages – and that the more each woman gets to know and understand her own body’s signals & language, the easier & more satisfying it becomes to nourish yourself with confidence.

To know why you’re craving a sugar hit when you really need a good meal..

Or, the exact opposite – to enjoy something sweet & sticky & delicious after a good meal!

The moral of this story? YOU and YOUR BODY are a marvel – and deserve to be well nourished, every day!

Here’s to a fuller cup,

Emine x

“Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them.”

I’m sitting with this, this month, for so many different reasons.

I have two living grandmothers – both approaching their 90s. I lost my sweetest, paternal grandfather in his 60s; my beloved maternal dede at 87.

I am now 46. My dad is 70. Numbers frighten me now in a way they never did. Double my years on earth, and I reach 92. I feel in my bones that I might weather another 30 beautiful summers, if the Goddess wills it so. And I am determined not to go to my grave with the song of my soul, still silent, within me.

Unlikely, given that as I get older, the raucous roar gains strength. “To hell with nice! To hell with polite! To hell with pleasing! To hell with smiles and nods and swallowed rage!”

I have written before, often, about the unsilenceable roar that builds in many women as we get older… for me, I felt a shift the year I turned 40.

I wrote the words below, two years ago, and there is so much power in recognising how many things have shifted, and so significantly, since I wrote them.

If you have done the same – journaled into a diary – poured it all out and let it go, it can be powerful to return to what you wrote, a year or so down the line.

I share my words with you now, for context and to remind myself that even though I am still roaring about what matters most to me, I have also moved a lot of anger out of my body… I can feel it… and that’s both powerful & hopeful.

What I wrote in 2024

Perimenopause begins in different ways for different women.

For me, my first inkling of shifting hormone levels didn’t come with irregular periods, migraines, anxiety or gut health issues, it manifested superficially – i.e. glaringly obviously – through + in my skin, in the form of sudden, extreme sensitivity.

I am 44. I began to notice that my skin felt drier than normal a couple of years ago, and switching to deeply hydrating serums, oils + creams, seemed to do the trick.

Then the heightened sensitivity started to kick in… I noticed that after a day in a centrally heated office, my skin often had small, red, itchy bumps over the surface, often around my eyes (where skin is thinnest + most sensitive; and also more prone to TEWL (transepidermal water loss)). I noticed small, dry, scaly, itchy patches appear out of nowhere – on inner elbows, torso, neck…

I upped my moisturising masks + layered jojoba oil or squalene over a lighter serum or hydrating cream, and again, things seemed to settle.

Until October 2024, when I woke up with puffy eyes + lips. Which, over the course of the next month, would go on to escalate until I ended up in urgent care with eyes swollen shut, and eczema flare-ups all over my face and body.

GPs went on to prescribe a slew of steroid + antibiotic creams, alongside petroleum-based emollients – and as I know from a long history of experience with eczema + sensitive skin, the root-cause, holistic, long-term solution was not to be find on the other side of those prescriptions.

I had acupuncture, and then an appointment with a Chinese Medical Herbalist. These helped enormously.

The herbalist took one look at my red-raw-ringed eyes and asked, ‘What’s making you angry?’

Not what I’d expected to hear, when there to ‘treat’ my sore eyes.

Anger, I asked myself? Why am I angry? And the feelings tumbled out.

I’m angry because parts of this beautiful world we share feel irredeemably broken. Unfair. Cruel. Because I can’t stop terrible things happening and those who can, care only about themselves. Because I feel impotent. Unheard. Unseen. Because cruel, mad, angry, greedy people are in power the world-over.

Because I want to take a year off work and sleep and read and rest and fill my cup all the way to the top…because I’ve never been away from work, not when pregnant or postpartum or perimenopausal… and I don’t mean a day here or there, or a week with the whole family when I return more knackered than when I arrived, or the half day that ends up a half-hour, because too many things get sandwiched into the ‘space’.

I mean REAL TIME, REAL SPACE, REAL REST, that goes on & on & on… like a dream, but better, because it’s DELICIOUS, RICH, REAL LIFE.

Because sometimes I worry that my kids are living in a world that feels less safe, sound, kind, by the day. The things I have always stood for – kindness, community, compassion – eroded by greed. Every child is my child. I have said this often. It will never change. Flag, creed, kin, religion make no difference whatsoever to the love in this heart. Every child is innocent. Every child must be protected. And I feel how – because of this weight on my heart – I clip the wings of my own mothering… the love I have to give… the hands I get to hold. I know my children can sometimes see the sadness in my eyes.

Because I don’t know how to be a “wife” right now… and I can see my partner struggling with so many things that would soften with kindness, support, compassion – but I feel unable to reach out to him. It’s as though I am done with giving and caring in ways that used to be instinctive. The old adage: we can’t pour from an empty cup (and what inspired The Sunday Refill).

Because mothering our kids + our selves, while working full time, while supporting a family, while trying to keep everyone healthy + happy… can feel utterly impossible, so much of the time.

Because I want everything to slow down. I need everything to slow down.

I think about the fact that I was 33, when my mum reached menopause. Fully fledged, grown, and a mother twice over myself at that point. My mum entered her Second Spring without tethers. She slept when she needed to. Rested at home and navigated hot flushes, anxiety, sleeplessness, day by day, with little else asked of her. She was not working… she spent time in Cyprus, by the sea and in the sun… she had a gentle journey.

I must create my own gentle journey.

Perimenopause is not a blip.

“This” is not going away. All that I feel, I feel for a reason… and I am not going to ignore any of it (not this time).

We talked for an hour… the herbalist & I; he took notes, asking about sleep, menstrual cycle, diet, lifestyle, work, home, family… he took pulse readings (lung, spleen, liver, kidney, heart)… inspected my tongue… and determined that my liver was ‘damp and sluggish’, and reminded me of all the things our bodies process that have nothing to do with food, hormones, biochemicals, waste or ‘toxins.’

Emotions, thoughts, feelings, fears… the pent-up stuff that will not stop until it finds a way out. Along with pent-up heat, there was also a picture of disordered wind… think of a naked flame and how it is affected by a breeze… how it dances and jerks from side to side, wild and unpredictable.

That pairing has been at play in my body. Heat + wind… fanning the flames, and making the results increasingly unpredictable, popping up in the form of sudden flare-ups across my face, neck, arms + hands.

And at the root of it all (according to the herbalist I sat with, who has been practising Chinese Herbal Medicine for 30 years), something that almost all women in their 40s + 50s will come head to head with at some point: Yin deficiency.

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Revisiting what I wrote two years ago has reminded me of all the ways in which I really did pay attention. That the tipping point – over from chronic stress and depletion, into an autoimmune condition – was the biggest wake-up call of my life.

I have “functioned” while struggling, for many, many, many years. But there was something so stark and smart about my body deciding to send its flares up into my face – literally, to my eyes, which I couldn’t ignore – there it was: stress staring back at me in the mirror – that really did FORCE me to change.

Firstly, it made being out in the world quite difficult. It was just so noticeable. Each time I ventured out of the house, a well-meaning colleague, or complete stranger (this happened twice, on different days), would ask if I was OK – perhaps it looked as though I’d been crying for days, or that the rings around my eyes weren’t rashes, but bruises.

Finally, I had no choice but to FACE just how depleted I was and become utterly stubborn about nourishing myself.

What the doctor explained, back in 2024, wasn’t confined to the framework of Traditional Chinese Medicine. That’s what I love most about TCM, and Ayurveda – these complex, “whole” systems of medicine do not work with singular symptoms, they work with the foundations – holistic, root causes, interconnected; their own vast mycelial networks – impossible to pick up or separate a single thread.

For me, being deficient in Yin amounted to something very simple. My life was not nourishing enough.

I was, more than anything, deeply, emotionally, chronically depleted – and my body had been burning through all the energy it had, simply to keep my “functioning” at a time of heightened stress and insomnia.

Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) is founded on the principles of restoring balance and harmony within the body, encapsulated by the dynamic interplay of Yin and Yang energies. Yin energy is characteristically feminine – not as in ‘woman’, but as in genderless, universal ‘feminine’; also ‘shakti’ energy, in Vedic philosophy.

If Yang is the masculine energy of the Day + the Sun, of showing up in the world, of getting things done, of movement + growth + transformation, then Yin is its opposite.

It is the energy of Night, of Rest, of the Moon. It is slow, silent, still. It is the energy of receptivity (receiving + surrendering), and of nourishment.

Common symptoms of Yin deficiency include night sweats, dry mouth and skin, a sensation of heat, and disturbances in sleep patterns, with one of the major clinical manifestations of Yin deficiency being dryness (vaginal, mouth, eyes, skin, hair…). You may experience excessive thirst (particularly later in the day), insomnia, restlessness (tick, tick, tick).

The herbalist asked if I get headaches. Apparently this is the most common way for women to experience the build-up and attempted release of heat or wind from the body… and for that reason, migraines often become more common as we approach menopause. I had never had headaches before, but started to get them more regularly… they felt like classic “tension” headaches, as though my head was an over-ripe melon, too full, and ready to burst.

Looking back on what led me to that point, it was all so clear, so simple… too much DOING. Too much worrying. Too much rushing. Juggling. Carrying. Shouldering. Pushing. Yang, yang, yang.

Where were those moments of sweet surrender?

Few & far between.

The times when I could just lie down and let life unfold around me?

When I could rest my weary bones, knowing the important things would be done by those I shared my life with?

When I could close my eyes for a day or two at a time, and surrender to my need for deep rest, sleep, replenishment?

When, instead of rushing out of the door, I could wake in my own time, go at my own pace, enter a day of my own making (or un-making)?

Where were they?

So many things leaped out to me as I began to navigate my own life… and, the irony of it all… because I knew, of course I knew, what it meant to live in a slower, softer way… I had done it before, when I moved more deeply into a more seasonal, intuitive, Sattvic way of showing up in the world, and felt better in my body, bones, mind & heart than I ever had before.

So, what had changed?

Everything.

We’d left friends & family behind to move across the country. A mad rush to find the girls the right school & a new home. So exciting, but deeply exhausting. A different job. Financial over-stretching, anxiety. A marriage that just wouldn’t “settle” anymore… like a dying match inside a box of fireworks… forever on eggshells, not knowing when the next explosion/implosion would come.

Children who were definitely not babies anymore. And much later nights up with those kids – those deep, glorious heart-to-hearts at 11pm, into midnight.. but when you’re up at 7am for work & the school run, a 16-hour-day takes more than you have… yet, you carry on giving. Pour, pour, dribble, drop.

A body that simply needed to SLOW DOWN just as life got busier than ever. 24/7 taxi service for the kids… weekends with their myriad late-night collections from dropped pins across the county. A family calendar with so much colour-coding you forget what anything means. Who’s where, when, and who’s responsible for getting them there, then?

Too much coasting, too many broken promises to myself, too much “next time, week, year”, “when I…”, ad infinitum.

And then, this year – the real shift. January 1st. Crystalline clarity.

I am not doing this anymore.

I am not living at the bottom of the day’s pile.

I am not getting by on the crusts & crumbs that are left behind.

I have choices, and I will choose them.

I will not shoulder the sole weight of the family’s finances, life admin, Motherload, full-time work, full-time mothering, as though it’s OK. Nothing about this is OK.

I can and will ask for help.

I will build my day differently. My week. My evenings.

I have learned, through repeated failure, that only the very simplest, easiest, or more pleasurable things will “stick.”

There is no grand plan. There are multiple, practical, supportive things I do, every day, that fill my cup up, up, up.

Mostly, I return every day to “RESPECT” – which I first shared in the post below:

**R – Rest when you are weary.**

Rest isn’t only about sleep. It’s about building in slowness, inaction, recalibration, and many micro-moments to refill that cup.

**E – Eat when you are hungry.**

Don’t push your hunger cues away. Prioritise your own nourishment, just as you do everyone else’s. You deserve more than the crusts and crumbs.

**S – Slow down before you reach capacity.**

Notice the signs before you snap. Slowing down is powerful – like gently shifting to a lower gear before you hit the corner.

**P – Pause to meet your physical needs.**

Go to the loo when you need to, stretch, drink water, breathe. These small acts are how you honour your body’s signals.

**E – Express your needs and boundaries without apology.**

The more you express what you need, gently and unapologetically, the more natural it becomes. You’re a busy, plate-juggling human – you don’t need to justify your needs.

**C – Check in with what you feel, need, and want.**

When life gets busy, your body can go into mute mode. Take a moment to scan: what’s true for you right now? What are you craving? What’s your body asking for?

**T – Take time to tend.**

Don’t cut corners with how you care for yourself. Be kind, not cruel. Even five minutes in the morning sun can help you build nourishing habits.

And I am doing this, every day. That’s so powerful. It’s such a simple, strong foundation. And once you start catching yourself in the instinct to put off your own growing hunger, thirst, or need for a wee, you get really curious about it… WHY am I doing this to myself? And then you can take action. For me, realising my mug is almost empty and I need water – right, stop, refill, drink, onward – or that my bladder is filling – stop, wee, stretch, good.

I am going to bed at 9.30pm every night, reading, and falling asleep around 10pm. I wake, naturally, at 7am every day. This is extraordinary after two years of broken sleep.

I get morning light into my eyes, every single day. Before screens. Often while drinking a mug of hot water. Rehydrate, recalibrate.

I eat a good breakfast within an hour of waking, every day. On an office + school run day, this means not being distracted (keeping my phone off until later in the morning helps here!). Eating isn’t negotiable now. I used to wake at 7am and wait until 9.30am, to eat in the office, by which point I’d be overly hungry, low on energy, and likely pretty high on cortisol. Not ideal.

I shake or tap or body brush every morning. 2 mins before a 2 min shower. Do-able.

I ensure I get enough protein, fibre, fat, and plenty of carbohydrates, every day. Goddess, I love carbs. They are so crucial to the female body and yet so many of the women I know no longer eat bread, rice, grains at all. This concerns me. In the most basic terms – and this is a topic I am going to unpack in much greater depth next week – carbohydrates represent an immediate source of energy: they go in and the body (the female body in particular, which recognises, utilises, and deploys energy sources from carbohydrates differently to the male body) breathes a big sigh of relief: yes! Fuel! We now have what we need, to do what we need to do – no more stress or panic! We bang on and on about protein for satiety and blood sugar balance and all of that is true, but carbs are the building blocks of life – and we’ve maligned potatoes, bread, rice for too long. Bear with me on this… I will share the argument & supporting science next week… it’s FAR too big a topic to dive into here!

Simply – I am prioritising my nourishment in ways I used to leave to chance.

I am eating, moving, sleeping, supporting my body, day after day, consistently. And my goodness, it’s made the WORLD of difference.

Want to read more about building stability? I explore it in more depth, here:

The Six Cs of Communication

With my kids, I’ve also returned to something I first explored a few years ago: the six Cs in effective + gentle communication.

Calm, Clear, Concise, Confident, Consistent, Compassionate.

Do I always approach conversations with my children like this? No.

Am I trying? YES.

I would like to think that I am often compassionate (unless I am downright rageful), but being calm, clear, concise + consistent can also feel as though it flies in the very face of all I’m experiencing right now as a perimenopausal woman.

I do not, conversely, find it hard to be these things at work. I love my work, but it is not the be all + end all. My kids, however, are. They are my everything. And after almost 15 years of mothering, I think it’s fair to say that I am hitting walls, all over the place.

Walls of extreme exhaustion; running out of ideas; borderline desperation when my kids make poor choices or do things that I can see are affecting their wellbeing (screens, screens, screens) – while also being aware that I can’t ‘steer’ my almost-16 year old down the path… she will step off it, and follow her own lead (as she increasingly does) more and more, and if she doesn’t, then she’ll be ill-equipped for the future (it feels plain mad that she’ll be a legal adult in just TWO YEARS).

Looking over those six important words, I can see how I fail her. My fear getting in the way of my very best intentions. My eldest wants to strike out. She is so HUNGRY to grow + find her own feet. This is so complicated for me, not only because she’s neurodivergent + a superstar masker who is driven SO STRONGLY by NEEDING to CONFORM, but also because I know her so intimately and can see how much she struggles with the seemingly simple, day to day things, like getting up, ready + to school on time.

I see this fiercely intelligent, wise, courageous, brilliant person in front of me. All of her truth + embodied power + also infinite potential. I have never pushed my kids to ‘fulfil their potential’. Truth be told, working full time with a few projects on the side, means that I am VERY HAPPY to be VERY LAZY when I am not at work.

I have never signed them up to things or pushed them towards things or directed their interests. When they’re interested, I don’t need to. We spend a lot of time at home. She spends a lot of time in her room – her happiest place, where she curls up with favourite films, sketches, dreams, rests. I know now that this is healthy for her. She spends most of her life at school – it has been a good year since she found her feet there, and her attendance rose and stabilised. She has great friends – funny, silly, honest, un-vain friends – and is in a really good place in her life.

Are things better? Yes… they really, really are. And I can see that now.

And things have improved exponentially between us as she has grown happier and steadier in her own being (Goddess, I love her so much, it hurts).

But they’ve also vastly improved because I have been much clearer in my communication with her. Calmer too – because she feeds off my fear + frustration so easily. That I need to be, first of all, CONFIDENT in my own decisions, before I say them out loud, to her. And I must stop making promises I can’t keep. A horrid hangover from 10 years as a working-full-time-away-from-home-mum, who held onto promises like stardust… a promise will make it better. And when they’re tiny, it can… they’re the promises that aren’t hard to keep – a bedtime story, bubbles in the bath, an episode of ‘Hey Duggee’.

We cosy up together and have soup + dumplings for dinner. She pours her heart out, as she always does, when she’s nestled into my nook.

And nothing else matters… that’s what love is, they say: time, given lovingly + unconditionally, because that other person is pure joy to be with. And not that they are always pure joy at all – but you get to HELP THEM FEEL that they are, because of how you love + listen to them.

Just by loving them, and showing them. By being the person to smile at them whenever they enter the room, because you are just, genuinely happy to see them, always. Because they’re my very favourite people (kids 1 + 2; joint first, forever & ever).

And even as I write that, some deep, dark, knowing part of me rises up + resonates… the body that knows what it knows… and that the route to unmitigated mother nourishment has this week, for me, been through my kids, and seeing, hearing + meeting their needs, which have, at the end of a frenetic week, somehow reached out + met my own, too.

And then I see it for what it really is – surrendering to what my heart wants & needs. The softness, slowness, receptive, tender underbelly of my being. The Yin I’d been missing, woven into the absolute miracle & magic & mess of motherhood… folded into my arms, cuddles & kisses… and it’s all the nourishment I could ever have dreamed of… right here.

Here’s to a FULLER CUP,

Emine

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How to build a stable foundation in unstable times?

I began a deeper dive into the question above two weeks ago, in the post below, fully intending to return to the thread last week… but what I’ve realised is that the answers to the above question are myriad, complex, personal…

Any enquiry into what feels good, safe or stable is necessarily, deeply individualistic. But there are also areas of helpful commonality, well supported by women’s own lived experiences AND science, that I will try to explore a little more, below, and in the weeks to come.

♥️ There is emotional safety – being in relationships & community that hold, hear, see, strengthen and support us.

🏡 There is physical safety – a safe & sheltered environment, food, water.

🧠 There is psychological safety – a brain that has time to rest, process, understand. A brain that is supported to carry out its myriad functions without being overloaded or overwhelmed. We are naturally wired to be alert to potential threat, but a brain that is hyper-alert & hyper-reactive, much of the time, is problematic.

💪🏽 There is physiological safety – when our individual bodily biology – nervous system included – is stable enough to function well because it has been consistently supported. It can soften, de-escalate, and get on with the work it needs to do - from sleep, hormone production & regulation, to digestion to detoxification.

Beginning where we are

It’s perhaps unsurprising that my thoughts have recently been returning, over and over, to emotional safety.

A short passage in Sue Monk Kidd’s The Dance of the Disssident Daughter –quoting the work of psychologist, Jean Baker Miller, leapt out at me last week:

Jean Baker Miller, who has done extensive research on women’s development, has written about a “growth-fostering relationship” as having five characteristics. She says that in a relationship:

1. Each person feels a greater sense of zest (vitality, energy).

2. Each person feels more able to act and does act.

3. Each person has a more accurate picture of herself or himself and the other person.

4. Each person feels a greater sense of worth.

5. Each person feels more connected to the other person and a greater motivation for connections with other people beyond those in the specific relationship.

Monk Kidd, who was navigating her own marital dissolution following her mid-life, spiritual awakening, then wrote:

Though it was slow, hazardous, and often exasperating work, Sandy and I worked to undo the old marriage and create a new one stripped of the old dependencies and patriarchal set-up, a growth-inducing relationship that offered each of us freedom to choose and be, that not only allowed for but enhanced the soul in each of us.

When I read Monk Kidd’s words above, many things jump out at me. A feeling that she is lucky to have been in a relationship with a true partner – someone who was willing to take everything apart… to choose the pain and fear of growth and enormous change, over the false surety of fighting to keep things the same as they’d always been.

And recognition of the fact that they were both able to do that for one another – to hold the other person to a higher, shared cause; the slow, hazardous, exasperating work of starting over, because: “each person feels more able to act and does act.”

In a growth-fostering relationship, each person feels stronger, more vital, and has more energy in RELATION to the other, and as a RESULT of being in partnership with the other. If there are battles to be fought, they can be fought, hand-in-hand, or, at least, eye-to-eye, and won, together.

An almighty thing: LOVE. When it is mutual, balanced, and strong enough to question, dismantle, cut away the dead, dying & rotten parts, and rebuild itself into something better; to actively support the rebirth of a relationship, for all the right reasons.

This, I am learning, is what emotional safety must equate to in its most empirical form – simply, being as WHOLLY YOU within a relationship as you are within your own self… and possibly even MORE you, because a growth-supporting relationship fosters truth & authenticity, too.

And if that has not been your experience in a relationship – however loving, well-meaning, compassionate – I wonder, does that relationship offer you true, authentic, unconditional emotional safety?

The words of – whose essays here, I read with gratitude and a deep, mutual understanding – mirror much of mine and myriad other women’s mid-life descents into a period of reckoning; when all the things that used to feel right, good, or simply, ‘ok’, become untenably agitating, frustrating, exhausting, or downright painful. When what once felt like home begins to feel strange or strained… because you are no longer who you used to be.

In Cooper’s own words, taken from her book, When Everything Changes: “Walking away didn’t feel like a choice so much as a necessity. I ended my marriage, I quit my job, sold my home, let go of almost everything I owned, and stepped into nine years of uncertainty, rebuilding my life piece by piece with no roadmap, only instinct and the hope that something better existed on the other side.”

She continues: “Here’s what I didn’t know then: oestrogen doesn’t just regulate the physical body; it subtly shapes behaviour. Higher oestrogen often aligns with being more nurturing, more accommodating, and more willing to keep the peace. It’s the hormone that made it easier to prioritise others, to smooth things over, to swallow frustration, and to stay agreeable even when something felt off.

When oestrogen drops, so does tolerance. Suddenly, the things you once absorbed now feel intolerable Emotional labour becomes draining. Relationships that were “fine” start to feel suffocating. Work that was manageable feels soul-depleting. Patterns you once accepted become impossible to continue with.

When hormones drop and tolerance plummets, the body can no longer hold what has been stored. Suppressed grief can surface as exhaustion. Unspoken anger can appear as inflammation. Years of self-abandonment can show up as auto-immune issues, digestive problems, or chronic pain.

What feels like your body betraying you is often a call for the truth. Your body isn’t turning against you; it’s trying to get your attention. It’s saying, “I can’t carry this anymore.”

Sue Monk Kidd also writes: “It’s a curious thing that a woman can prefer the safety of cages to the hazards of freedom.”

I think the problem, for many women, particularly in mid-life, is that the relationship they’ve co-created – entered into lovingly, hopefully, devotedly –has unwittingly become a cage that is, by its nature, unable to shape-shift along with the caged shapeshifter. Like a snail that outgrows a shell… and must go in search of another home, we have no choice but to leave the old shell behind.

Within just my smallish circle of female friends, around half have chosen to leave their marriages. All are in their 40s and 50s. All are navigating perimenopause, or had arrived at menopause.

Dr Jolene Brighten writes that: “Research consistently shows that women initiate divorce at a higher frequency than men – a 2015 American Sociological Association study found that nearly 70% of divorces are initiated by women, with college-educated women initiating up to 90%.”

The figures here in the UK are comparable to those above. She continues:

Couples in their 40s and 50s face the highest divorce rates. According to the Geriatrics Journal, by 2019, 36% of U.S. divorces were among adults 50 and older. Other sources cite the “peak time of divorce” as the perimenopausal years, roughly 45 to 55. One U.K. survey even reports 73% of women cited menopause as a contributing factor in their decision to divorce.

Perhaps every one of those women stood at some point, at the very same threshold, and cried the very same words:

“I can’t do this anymore!”

I imagine that most of us have, at some point or other. The same arguments, like an endless, grudging episode of Groundhog Day; the same jealousies or pettiness; the same failings, frustrations, and disappointments.

But for so many women in mid-life, these words have new gravity. There’s just no wiggle room anymore... no capacity to negotiate, smooth over, concede, pretend. It is not that we wake up one day and decide we’ve finally had enough – it is not some mythical tipping point – it’s that our bodies and minds no longer have the capacity to carry the same load in the same way. And we don’t decide that – our bodies do.

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As someone who is navigating this terrain right now, surrounded by friends who’ve reached the end of their relationship roads too, what I know for certain is that not one of us imagined we’d be stood at this threshold, in our mid-40s & 50s, many of us with older kids, or children who’ve already flown the nest.

Dr Jolene Brighten continues: “Survival of the marriage is dependent on the male partner’s willingness to hold their wife’s hand and learn the steps needed to perform this new dance of life. She no longer has the energy, executive functions, or desire to carry the couple through alone. There’s something about midlife clarity, perhaps fuelled by profound endocrine shifts, that empowers women to stop defending emotional labour and start demanding mutual adaptation.”

Mutual adaptation

If we return to those qualities of a growth-fostering relationship, we can see that it’s precisely this mutualism that is crucial to the healthy evolution, energy, vitality, and future of a relationship. And at the heart of what it really means to FEEL emotionally safe in that relationship.

A woman has little choice but to change… biologically this will happen whether we want it to or not.

But when the capacity we once had – to carry and smooth and support others’ feelings, needs, wishes, desires, dreams in our own minds & bodies, day after day – is noticeably diminished, alongside our day-to-day executive function (at a time when, law of sod, you are likely having to make many more decisions for yourself, your kids, ageing parents, at work, at home, and for the entire family unit) – is it any wonder that life as we once knew it, can feel more and more like a cage with each passing day?

And this doesn’t diminish the joys, blessings and beauty of her life, either. For many women in mid-life, their capacity for delight and wonder, awe and gratitude, increase – getting older brings many welcome shifts in perspective, after all.

But, along with welcome shifts in perspective, come the tricky, prickly, sticky things you are not at peace with – pulled into starker & starker focus.

Are you walking on eggshells?

This year, I have been thinking a lot about what it means to live in a home, with parents, or with a partner or family, where you spend a lot of time “walking on eggshells”.

It’s a curious expression but so immediate too – we can all imagine the feeling; perhaps it’s an all-too-familiar one in your home?

It used to be in mine. It’s far less dominant now than it was… perhaps because in the past, my desire to keep the peace and lubricate the fragile family dynamics around me were stronger than my desire to express the truth (my truth; described so aptly by Linda, in her words, above).

I walked on eggshells because I loved and lived with a man who was particularly porous to the world and environment around him. To loud noises or music (unless, ironically, it was his own music), to tones of voice, to clutter, to anything out of place, to scent (synthetic ones, mostly perfume, which I too am sensitive to), loud voices, too many people talking at once (particularly in the car or a loud restaurant), too many windows open or closed… any number of things that made him feel ill-at-ease. Most of all, a mis-perceived tone of voice, "wrong” look, wrong way of asking him a question… stuff I never fully understood, but often got “wrong”… the consequences of which were often withdrawal & silence (for him), and confusion & hurt (for me).

For many, many reasons, our home – a loving, family home – with plenty of laughter, adventure, kindness, affection, and deepest, devoted love – was also at times an eggshell home… and looking back, I can see how we all walked on eggshells around each other, more often than we ought to have done.

I also see just how often my partner was scared to talk to me about things he knew I didn’t have capacity for; another “life admin” problem laid at my feet, that I had to scrabble to find a fitting solution to. Often, he’d put it off, and off, and off, until he ran out of other options (or the problem had escalated to a point when it HAD to be voiced) – and then the exact same pattern would play out again: invariably: a wife who flew off the handle, overwhelmed by yet another THING THAT NEEDED TO BE DEALT WITH – because she was already half-buried under the weight of everything else… bills, work, kids, life admin, housework. Hard for the receiver, yes, but also for the messenger… neither of us feeling safe or supported in either exchange.

Sometimes I walked on eggshells around my kids… particularly if they were struggling; not wanting to rock an already unsteady boat. Not wanting to say the wrong thing. Ask the wrong thing. To be told (is there any more painful sentence for a mum to hear than) “You never understand me!” I have, so often, contorted myself into an agreeable pretzel, day after day, in a bid to avoid offence, misunderstanding, tension, conflict. There’s a particular voice a mum might use when talking to her teenage daughter on the other side of the bedroom door… it is most definitely my “eggshell voice”. Higher pitched, quieter, more strained than my usual, relatively low, steady voice. Who is that woman, too scared to speak with her own voice? Eggshells, right there.

Ironic, because I am not naturally conflict-averse. In fact, I find it far easier to call something out when it galls me, than I do to bite my own tongue.

I also grew up in a very different sort of home to the one my partner grew up in. My childhood home was one where people were always very clear – and vocal – about where they stood, with each other, and on everything else. Everyone had an opinion! My parents just naturally said what they thought –my mum even more than my dad who often pauses and reflects before speaking – and certainly, they were always wholly honest with one another.

Come to think of it, I do not ever remember my mum biting her tongue (I am sure she has, but it’s not her default state). If my dad annoyed my mum (relatively rare… they’ve had an unusually wonderful marriage), she would tell him, straight away. I remember her saying, many times, “You’re so annoying! Stop doing that!”. Sometimes he’d apologise; or laugh, good-naturedly, and they’d end up laughing about it together. He’ll often agree with her! But if she was wrong, or unfair, or being impatient, he’d simply have a go back. Within about 30 minutes (usually) they’d have aired their grievances and cleared the air… a cuddle and kiss often followed.

I grew up in a home where hearts were worn, boldly, on sleeves, and no one had to bite their tongue. There were big, raging fights, of course, but also a huge amount of very vocal love, celebration, kinship, kindness and goodness. My sister, the middle child, likely bit her tongue far more than anyone else… the peace-keeper, often stuck in the middle when my brother and I would argue. I hope that as she gets older, she bites it a lot less… just as I now bite my tongue very, very rarely with my own family – I just can’t do it anymore.

And this is difficult, of course, but also, I feel, a lot healthier for me than it was. It’s not easier for the partner – no one likes to be reprimanded and reproached – but the list of pet peeves that almost every relationship grows over the space of many, many co-habiting years, can reach a crescendo for women in their middle years… as patience wears thinner, and frustration rises.

Now, if I see it, I have to say it. That’s the big shift in our home since I entered perimenopause: how vocal I am when something doesn’t feel good or safe to me. And being able to express what we feel without fear – both good and bad – is a core facet of emotional safety.

As my dede would say with glee – “Better out than in!*”.

*Which I’d simply footnote by saying – truth is crucial, but it need never be unkind. Back to what we learned with Boundaries – namely: there’s a key difference between being nice and being kind. [Read the full post here]

If I fixate on being nice to everyone – and being viewed as “nice” by everyone in my life – I will continually subjugate my own needs & twist myself into a pretzel to please others. But if I am being kind to myself – honouring my needs – there must be no shame or wrongness attributed to this. I am simply being kind! And when I communicate what I need – very clearly, again with no attribution of guilt or resentment or wrongdoing towards my recipient – I can set boundaries with ease, that are also met & respected in that same spirit.

Re-shelling the body

How the body responds to lack of safety is fascinating (& can also be heartbreaking). While researching this letter, I have been poring over various studies… I was specifically looking for research that found correlations between children who’d grown up in “eggshell” homes, and compromised health in adulthood. Then I began thinking about how our external environments can affect out internal environment… something in me was drawn to the curious idea that an “eggshell home” might impact the mineral levels within our body… specifically, calcium, which in a way is a little like oestrogen: a buffering, calming, peace-making mineral.

And the very next day, I was listening to a podcast on postpartum nutrition and depletion – and in the interview, the functional nutritionist who’d spent 10 years working with new mothers, many of whom had had traumatic childhoods, mentioned that most of them presented with calcium deficiency.

My ears pricked up as she described how those who’d learned, from a very young age, to walk on eggshells in order to feel safe in a volatile home, often had unusually low levels of calcium – known as hypocalcaemia. She described how the body was burning through its calcium stores too rapidly… think of an egg without a shell… all it has is that very thin, vulnerable membrane around it. It’s a huge oversimplification of the science, so forgive me (far beyond my very limited biochemical knowledge!), but anecdotally, she explained how in, patient after patient, the body had responded to an eggshell home by attempting to “re-shell” itself – seeking to pull calcium from other parts of the body, because it was burning through its stores too rapidly.

While researching this further, I found a 2025 study in Psychoneuroendocrinology, on the association between childhood trauma and bone health. The UK study found that childhood trauma is significantly associated with altered bone metabolism and an increased risk of osteoporosis in later life, underscoring the importance of early-life stress management in promoting lifelong bone health. The in-depth study of 165,920 participants measured multiple determinants and biochemical markers, including alkaline phosphatase, calcium, and vitamin D, all of which are essential in the physiological and pathological process of healthy bone formation and metabolism (Christenson, 1997). When the body experiences sustained or chronic stress, it may leach calcium from bones and teeth, which act as a reserve, to help neutralise cortisol or assist in other essential bodily functions. This then weaken bones over time.

The more I learn about minerals and their crucial role in creating our inner “environment”, and how this then shapes the outer experience of our bodies, mind, senses, the more I understand how subtle, nuanced & intelligent our biology is. Calcium, for example, is often described as a calming, or sedative, nutrient because it plays a crucial role in emotional regulation, supporting the nervous system and brain function. It helps regulate neurotransmitters (including serotonin) that manage mood and, when in balance, can help reduce anxiety, stress, and irritability. Low calcium levels are often linked to higher anxiety and stress, particularly in women.

Studies have also shown that adequate calcium intake can significantly reduce PMS symptoms, including irritability and mood swings. As oestrogen levels fall (during the natural troughs within the menstrual cycle, or peri/menopause), a woman’s ability to retain calcium decreases, which can be one of the factors behind increased anxiety and stress.

Safety as a feeling… and fundamental need

Safety is complex. It’s a visceral feeling, a state of being, and a fundamental human need. It is often felt in relation to the absence of other visceral feelings e.g. fear and threat. It is also linked to physical safety… it is not possible to be physically unsafe – i.e. to be under physical threat – and to feel emotionally safe at the same time.

For the vast majority of our time on earth, human beings have learned that safety comes in numbers; you’re only as safe as your protectors, your tribe, your clan, your “people”. If out in the wilderness on your own, the likelihood of being or feeling safe, long-term, was very, very low.

Yet, in a relatively short space of time, human beings have begun living in smaller and smaller units. We’ve moved from villages, clans, settlements, to multi-generational extended families – a tapestry of grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins – to single-family households of just parents and kids, towards rising numbers of single parent households, where one person shoulders the entire weight of the family with little to no support. It’s like moving from a vast, sprawling, interconnected commune, to a single desk cubicle.

And the problem is that the full weighted NEED – a core, basic, fundamental human need – for safety, connection, communality, kinship, often rests on the heads & shoulders of the parents, both of whom are also alone. We’re wired to need a village… and we can’t turn that wiring off; it’s primal and sensible.

We know that we’re better off when we have a broad support system all around us. But in the absence of such a system, we’re still wired to expect the benefits of the village from our own, small, singular family units.

Think about that for one moment – all of the connections we would once have forged with our communities, alongside the multiple generations of our own extended families – all the helping hands that would have reached out to help us carry our individual loads – have evaporated in the span of just a few centuries.

The author of Matresence: On the Metamorphosis of Pregnancy, Childbirth and Motherhood, Lucy Jones, wrote in The Guardian, last year: “Research suggests 80 to 90% of new mothers feel lonely. One study found that 43% of mothers under the age of 30 in the UK felt lonely all the time. Loneliness is more prevalent in new parenthood than in the general population, and it is more common among certain at-risk groups, such as young parents, immigrant and refugee mothers, mothers without supportive partners, mothers looking after a child with significant health problems, and transgender and non-binary parents.”

At such a crucial point in our lives – when many new mothers are already feeling scared, raw, vulnerable – to also feel completely lonely all the time, is heartbreaking, isn’t it? And it also speaks to the complexity of feeling “safe” within the limitations of societal, familial, cultural constructs, which were never created to foster feelings of community and healthy co-dependency, but rather individualisation, competition, and relentless productivity (at any cost).

And here, within it all, is another story of safety. One that we get to define, create, and model – for ourselves, and our children.

Namely: that I can also choose what feels emotionally safe, good, nourishing & stable to me, even as life & the lives of my family, spin all around me.

I have written before about my ongoing struggle to just sit still and ‘be’ – my mind says ‘lazy’ even as I write ‘be’ (that’s some deeply darkly shitty conditioning, right there)… but what I’ve come to realise is that I have no trouble ‘being still’ when I am alone. Or alone at home with my children.

They’re at the ages now when they wake up with their own agendas… time with friends, homework, taking dog for a walk, making themselves a snack, watching movies, phone calls & the zillion other things they fill their time with (from making £££s on Vinted to curating their Pinterest boards). ZERO judgment from me. And likewise, I get ZERO judgment from them…

This weekend, for example, I have been home alone with the kids and all I wanted to do was take it slow with minimal driving & housework. I’ve ended up driving for 3.5 hours anyway, but have also read books, listened to podcasts, stared up at the sky for a while… even drifted off for a wee nap.

Following the ask of my own heart is how I build that feeling of peacefulness within… and it’s this quiet, calm, easiness that feels most like emotional safety in my body, in a lived, day-to-day way. Not swimming upstream, not juggling, not rushing, not second-guessing another’s needs, or walking on eggshells…

I love doing things deliciously slowly, letting a process unfold, taking my own damn beautiful time… I am holding my space within this wider, spinning, family space. While the girls whirl + shift + come in + out of my orbit with their needs + wants, I feel myself more + more at the centre of things… I am here, me, for me, as me… and I can navigate this day according only to my own desires + needs.

And that does not preclude the needs + desires of my family.

The more I open myself up to this freeing idea of not being tied to any one person – of agency, autonomy, healthy separation – the more open I feel to embracing the time I CHOOSE to co-create with my children.

The eldest is fledging… a couple of years + she’ll be driving, heading off to University. The youngest, however, is still nestled in the nook… but thrives on her own time, space, choices. SO we dance together… we make + eat breakfast, lunch + dinner, side by side. The eldest tends to wake later + eat on a slightly different schedule (often eating her meals later, and also getting her solo cook on around 11pm, for ‘girl dinner’ – the pile of pans + dishes in the sink each morning giving clues to what she’s conjured up while we’ve been snoring away).

We have these stabilising pitstops every day… regular check-ins + cuddles, and an episode of Downton or something light + easy, and the nightly pull of an card, while we check in one last time + unspill our days + share our hopes for tomorrow. Neat tops + tails… helping us to know were we all are. This consistency feels beautifully safe and stabilising for me and the kids. On the very very rare nights when I am away from them, the youngest will always say that things don’t feel quite right without our little check-ins. I feel the same.

I love the ‘quality’ connected loving time I have with my kids now because it’s consciously chosen + co-created. Not always of course – there are still bickers + tantrums + slammed doors when things escalate (ordinarily if I am under-resourced + simply can’t meet their immediate need with a YES).

But a lot more than ever before… life on our own terms… each of us finding a new rhythm, rooted in truth, built on truth, love & compassion (not eggshells).

Here’s to a fuller cup,

Em x

Enjoy these free letters & want to say thanks with a cuppa? ☕️ You can do that here! ♥️

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It started on Tuesday, at work.

An away day with a big team, the sort of thing I usually enjoy – but the night before, things at home had been really upsetting… and I had not managed to sleep more than a few, anxious hours.

In the past, my body would have pushed through.

Goodness, I used to be a complete pro at pushing through! A 12-week-old baby at home, breastfeeding through the night, pumping in lunch-breaks, commuting into Central London four days a week for a high-pressure job, before my body had even had time to process the birth of my first child, let alone have any chance of replenishing itself.

The older I get, however, the less I can fake it. And that day, well, the wheels really came off.

I went into the day utterly exhausted, heart-sore, fragile, anxious.

I managed to wake up on time, eat a good, sustaining breakfast, have a hot shower and a short body brush… but as soon as I arrived at work, I knew I wasn’t right.

My heart, body, mind, hurt.

I tried, so hard, to smile and interact, to mask the tears that were so close to the surface, all day long; to make sense, be “on the ball”, chat and appear upbeat. But my mind & body kept betraying me. I muddled the names of friends, struggled to hold onto my train of thought, and at about 3pm, I felt the most almighty surge of exhaustion… to the point where it took additional, physical exertion to keep my eyes open (I had to keep stretching in my seat, just to keep myself awake).

It has been a long time since I have felt so… well… fragmented. I have felt deeply depleted, chronically stressed, but that day – just a few days ago – one really bad night, and all of the sadness, grief, worry, tension & discord that led up to it, decided to hit me, all at once, and I just couldn’t pretend otherwise.

When I got home after work that day, I couldn’t speak. It was as though someone had flicked a switch. Turned off the power.

I burst into tears and sobbed my heart out.

Then I got undressed and climbed into my PJs and warmest dressing gown. And pulled on the big, thick socks. I had been cold all day – it had been so hot the day before, and I’d been over-hot all day, in jeans and a jumper, so I’d worn a dress and Birkenstocks. My feet were cold, all day long… and I’ve always been sensitive to cold feet and extremities. I felt frayed and fragile.

I made soup – simplest turkey soup with carrots, celery, onion, chard, sea salt, olive oil, herbs. The youngest had had a tough day too, so we sat, side by side, watching Downton Abbey for an hour, even though I had my eyes closed for much of it. I climbed into bed shortly afterward.

I woke up the next day, feeling deeply tired and heavy-hearted. The sort of tiredness that begs for a week in bed.

I’m also deeply familiar with this sort of tiredness and know it has far more to do with my heart than my body.

My heart knew, a long time ago, that it was time to separate from my partner of 26 years. It became wholly clear on January 1st of this year. The decision was made and the clarity that fuelled it, unquestionable. There is no grey area in me. But while my heart is clear, my body lives on in limbo… one of the toughest things about separating from a partner who is not financially independent is that you cannot make a clean break.

Necessity dictates that we must co-habit until he is able to find a path forward. This is so much harder than you might imagine. Even when you’re resolved to be kind, compassionate, and respectful, being unable to cleanly delineate the past and future you, is exhausting.

It is also painful because what you had is no longer there. All the beauty and magic and wonder you shared, replaced by an empty lost-ness that saps colour out of the day; that rests on the chest like a heavy cloud.

There is an entire ocean of unspokenness in the gap between us now. I am always full to the brim with it and occasionally breach the container… messy, angry, hurt, confused stuff spills out, all over the place. The opposite of constructive.

And even if he could hear it, understand it, which I know he does in lots of ways, he cannot talk about it. So, one of us is howling while the other retreats, further and further away, into silence.

Work, as is often the way, has been extra busy this week. And there have been so many crucial things to do ahead of a big launch next month. I have had to shut down and show up – there is no room for error. And if an error is made, I will never stop beating myself up about it. I have always been my own toughest critic when it comes to my work. That’s one to unpick another time.

Today, though, I am on annual leave. And I had grand plans for the day – much to plan, organise, fix, and finish.

But, thank the goddess, I really am learning.

This is what has come up for me today, as I have taken everything at a snail’s pace, stayed inside where I feel easeful and “safe”, and started to feel some of that weight in my heart, ease.

I wrote the words below, lying in bed, and shared them on Substack. Quite a few others seem to be feeling the same this week. I would never wish it on anyone else, but there is comfort in knowing that we, collectively, as women, are navigating so much of the same, at the exact same time.

Yes – a reminder that nothing & no one is meant to function at full capacity, full-time.

And so I really am taking my own advice. I have just had a bath (epsom salts + jojoba oil; gentle face mask; hair scrub & wash)… the urge to clear my own “air”.

I’ve opened every window, burned some dried olive leaves (a cleansing custom in my Cypriot culture – much like burning sage is, in other cultures), wafted and waved stuff out of the way.

I peeled and roasted some sweet potatoes (craving them), made a huge salad with cabbage, celery, carrot, cucumber & bitter leaves, lashings of olive oil, and air-fried a small, lamb steak.

I’ve had several mugs of herbal tea and hot water. I feel noticeably thirsty today, so am hydrating regularly.

I’ve sat outside in the almost-sun of a cloudy day, and watched the clouds.

I finally, after over 10+ years of saying, “I wish I had some help at home”, asked a friend for a recommendation for a lovely, local lady who will come once a fortnight and give me a hand with the cleaning. I could never justify the cost, but after getting very clear on my finances this month, I can see just how much I fritter away for very little or no return.

A family meal out a couple of weeks ago, for example, was okay, and it did feel like an “occasion” because we haven’t been out for food as a family of four at all this year.

BUT the food itself was average AND expensive (never a good combination), and I realised that for what I paid to be out for two hours, eating ok-ish food (that isn’t even organic), I could do a properly big food shop, including my regular weekly order from Riverford, OR for that same money, I could afford to have someone come and give me a hand at home, twice a month. Which felt like a no-brainer!

What’s particularly helped me get clear on my finances is downloading the Emma app. I used it for a year in the past but didn’t engage with it enough to make it worth my while. This time, I have checked in daily, linked my accounts, and set realistic budgets for every part of my life, from groceries to the kids. I love that it gives me little heads-up for what’s going out & when, and lets me know if I am on track or heading towards overspending. SO helpful in reducing the cognitive load (every little helps!).

I tried it for a full 30 days, free, to see if it was worth my time & investment, and you can do the same if you use the link below (not sponsored or affiliate – just the bog-standard ‘refer a friend’ code that all users get). The link will give you a 30 day free trial to Emma Pro. You can also cancel before you’re charged, swap to a cheaper version, or cancel/downgrade/upgrade at any time and receive a pro-rated refund. Can’t say fairer than that!

Use my link to get 30 days of Emma PRO, free:
https://emma.to/rushtonemine

In the end, I opted for the cheapest version (Emma Plus, not Emma Pro), and also got 30% off that, so it is costing me around £40/year. Given that it’s already helped me see the red flags in my spending and gaps in my logic 😅, I’d say that’s more than worth it for me…

It’s these little, incremental, simple & speedy steps forward that help me out of these quagmires.

The stuff I don’t need to think much about. Or the ways in which I can realistically delegate, so that the entire effing weight of the Motherload is not always on my shoulders – and swinging from branch to branch in my mama-monkey-mind – alone.

And in that same spirit – though different from what was “advertised” in last week’s letter – is a second, bonus letter, below, filled with all the things I relied on to help me through a bugger of a rough patch, a few years ago now.

I hope, from the bottom of my heart, that it helps anyone who needs it.

Here’s to a fuller cup!

Emine x

If you know of someone who’d love to be part of these Sunday refills, please do share with them. My vision this year is to grow MOTHER NOURISH into a community that does for others what it’s beginning to do for me… a gentle flicker of light, silver-lining the messiness of motherhood, and a fuller cup as we move into & through our middle years.

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Low input, high return nourishment 🍜 (for when you’re feeling bruised by life)

Finding pleasure along the path of least resistance (transporting books, assembly-job-meals, soothing podcasts... it’s all here)

Sometimes doing nothing is the most efficient way to resolve a problem.

I wrote those words into my diary on January 10th 2024… as I sat on a train home from Oxford, following hours of cancellations and delays.

The first train – the train I was on – got diverted and held at the station for 45 minutes. During that time, the conductor announced, every five minutes, that passengers were better off disembarking and trying to catch connecting trains from other platforms. No promises, but it might end with a better outcome.

The train was divided into two types of people. Those who hastily gathered their belongings – bags, coats, scarves, suitcases – and raced off the train, up and down stairs and across bridges, and attempted to board the other trains, all of which were full to bursting.

I was not feeling well that day. I had had a bad flare-up in Oxford, felt exhausted from late nights and early starts, my skin was red, raw & tender all over, and I was desperate to get home, land, rest and recalibrate.

I surveyed the scene… did I grab my heavy suitcase off the train, along with my bulging backpack, and big, insulated coat… my skin already prickling and hot… or did I stay where I was, trusting that the situation would resolve itself?

I stayed put, popped my earbuds in, closed my eyes, and rested a while, listening to music. Eventually, the train left the station, and when it arrived at the connecting terminal, the hundreds of passengers who had left my train were on the platform… still waiting… for the same train, that would take us down to the South West, and then on to London.

I remembered that this week, when, I had one of those gruelling, gut-twisting days… when, to put it bluntly, a lot of very personal, intimate, long-festering shit, hit the fan.

And it’s OK, because it’s been a very long time coming.

Some of you may know that my family are a complicated, beloved bunch. Mr R and both our children are neurodivergent, and from the outside, that doesn’t mean much to anyone other than the four of us, who live out the highs and lows within the confines of our own four walls.

When things get hard, we can go one of two ways.

We can push against it, force + fight. And sometimes that’s absolutely right and necessary.

At other times, we can choose to surrender, walk away, make peace with what is, and move on when we’re ready.

I’m in a making peace place now. It might change. But today, and yesterday, and the day before, the urge to be kind to myself, by taking the path of least resistance, has felt completely right.

And I’ve noticed that whereas in the past, that path might have led me to make choices that didn’t support me – such as neglecting my own needs: eating less well, staying up late, dressing and getting ready without care or kindness – this time, and perhaps because of the nourishing stepping stones I’ve been laying down, one by one, for the past six months and more, the choices I’ve been making have been immensely easy, gentle + nourishing.

There’s a bit of ‘habit stacking’ at play here too… something I’ve found helpful since beginning to navigate perimenopause… which simply means that one positive choice is gently layered up with another… such as choosing to be in bed at a nourishing time (for me, before 10pm), and then listening to a Yoga Nidra recording; reading some beautiful, soul-salving poetry; journalling; stretching. Instead of, perhaps, scrolling or losing restful time to the draw + flicker of the blue screen.

This week, housework is not a priority, at all. I will not be vacuuming, cleaning bathrooms, or doing extra loads of laundry this weekend.

This is my week of least resistance… gifting myself time to fill my cup, lick my wounds, feel into what’s changing and dying and falling away… and just simply to be as kind as I can be to myself, while conserving as much of my precious energy as possible.

It’s a very simple list… but when we’re struggling, it needs to be.

I hope it helps anyone who’s feeling a little (or a lot) lost at sea right now.

As with ALL of my Sunday Refills, it is FREE for all. So please feel free to share it with any + all friends + family who might benefit from receiving it over the next few days.

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I will take the easy road, the easy road, the easy road… 🎶

1. If you can, get up, get dressed

   I have two cosiest, warmest, softest tracksuits… they fit me well, look ‘put together’ (even when I feel anything but), and feel like a hug each time I pull them on. I used to be guilty of keeping holey, fraying, stained and damaged clothing ‘for home’. I hate throwing textiles away (we try to recycle them at the local tip and set aside old blankets and towels for the Pup) but I didn’t like the feeling of wearing old and stained clothes either.

   Now, if I am struggling, I will still get myself dressed (even if that day is bed-based). And once I am up and prepared to dress, it’s easier to do the other things that help me enter the day: brushing my teeth, washing my face (gently, because how you touch your own skin matters), having a quick rinse in the shower, moisturising, brushing my hair.
   
   I used to hate the feeling of constriction + restriction I felt if I had to pop out, or even open the front door, in stained joggers and old tees. My self-consciousness sky-rocketed, and I’d find myself avoiding interactions… I wanted to hide away (those clothes, unwashed face, unbrushed teeth became a bit of a shield to hide behind).
   
   Having a clean and ‘together’ outfit ready, that keeps me warm and cosy, and that requires absolutely no thought or effort, has helped. It’s a tiny thing… but every little counts.

2. If you don’t have the energy to cook, pick up/order in/online shop a few nourishing meals that will help you ride out the wave
   
   This week, while waiting to collect the girls from school, and knowing I’d have a few days at home alone with the kids (when scratch cooking felt like a Herculean ask) I did an online groceries shop, focused on speedy, nourishing, meals (more ideas in no.3).
   
   Soup has always comforted me in wobbly times. Being able to eat something on the lap, hands wrapped around the bowl, feels soothing. The girls like the Yeo Valley & Covent Garden Tomato Soup which is lush with cheese toasties, and I often get carrot & parsnip or a veggie soup for myself (histamine sensitivity means I’m not great with tomatoes 😥). I bung tinned or jarred beans or lentils into mine, or have it with a chicken/turkey wrap.

   I will also buy the Kallo Organic Chicken Broth (stock) or any other good stock that’s on offer, and that will bring a ramen-type bowl together in minutes. For the girls, pour stock into pan, add dollop of miso, chop a spring onion, bung it in, add frozen prawns, let them cook in the stock, and then top with “instant” noodles (the type you cover with boiling water and then strain; ready in 5 mins). We often have packs of Clearspring Seaweed in the larder (the youngest likes it as a lunchbox snack), and that goes on top, with coriander if we have it in the fridge.

   
   We get the Crosta Mollica wraps (always on offer, at Sainsbury’s, our local supermarket) for wraps & burritos, and their pizza bases for homemade pizza – any cheese works for us, but halloumi, onion & mushroom always goes down well with the kids.
   
   I’ve also defrosted some homemade veggie bolognaise sauce, and that’ll be our dinner. Leaning on my freezer & air-fryer when I feel this way, is a no-brainer. And if I feel the urge to cook, I might…

3. Make a simple meal, with a handful of ingredients, such as…

• An omelette, by chucking some chopped veggies, herbs, sea salt + olive oil into a pan, then cracking two eggs over the top.

• Or just scrambled eggs or a fried egg on toast/crumpet/muffin, with herbs, olive oil & sea salt, if chopping/washing veg is too much.

• Nut or seed butter on toast, topped with raw honey / seeds / halva… high in protein, satiating, sweet… comforting.

• Beans on toast; beans from a tin, to which I’ll add some herbs to the pan, and might sprinkle with seeds and feta, and drizzle with olive oil, if I fancy it.

• Porridge; oats, milk (I love the creamy coconut milk from ReRooted), seeds, spices (cinnamon, ginger, turmeric for me), and topped with nut/seed butter and raw honey if I fancy it. Fruit such as berries or slithers of juicy pear, too, if I have a stronger appetite.

• Assembly-job-soup. If there’s leftover, cooked chicken in the fridge, and stock in the fridge/freezer, I will chop some veggies (greens, courgette, broccoli, leeks, cabbage all work well), soften in a pan with olive oil, sea salt, and herbs, then pour in stock, add chicken, and heat to a gentle boil. An assembly job that tastes like a loving meal. Also spurs me onto prepping stock, or buying a back-up bag or two from the shops, and keeping in my freezer. And if I’m feeling utterly flat, I won’t even bother chopping veggies, I’ll just throw in a handful of greens from the fridge, and let them soften and wilt in the stock while it heats up.

• Tofu scramble on toast; I’ll mash a half-block of firm or silken tofu with a fork, with loads of olive oil, sea salt, and fresh herbs if I have them (dried if I don’t).

• Pesto-something. Favourite pasta in a pan of boiling water (or rice if pasta’s not my jam that day), cooked, strained, and then stirred through with pesto from a jar. Top with whatever I fancy – seeds, extra parmesan, sun-dried tomatoes, olives… or nothing, if simple tastes better that day. I also keep GF pasta, made from lentils or buckwheat (good sources of protein), in the cupboard, and this is helpful on days when I need nourishment, but can’t put a lot of thought into it.

• Speed-rice. We don’t buy boil-in-a-bag rice, but that could be really handy – or the ready-cooked rice with spices + lentils from places like Merchant Gourmet – which you can just tip out into a bowl, and add some veggies, feta, olive oil to, for a really speedy meal.

• Perk-up picky plate. Another assembly job of things I keep in the cupboard & fridge – oatcakes / crisp breads / breadsticks; simple veggies e.g. salad leaves, cucumber, cherry tomatoes; berries or apple slices; hummus; cheese; leftover cooked meat; dried seaweed; nuts; seeds; edamame; antipasti such as sun-dried tomatoes, artichokes, olives.

• Apple + nut / seed butter – a favourite snack with the girls too.

• Hummus + oat cakes / toast / crisp breads / lentil or potato ‘chips’ / crisps – being Cypriot, I’ve grown up on hummus, but this protein-rich dip often saves me in hungry moments, when a few crunchy things (crudités if I can be bothered), dipped into the pot, hits the spot.

• Dates, split open, stuffed with nut butter and perhaps cacao nibs / halva / chocolate drops or buttons. A sweet mouthful or three… with a cup of tea.

• A big mug of a protein-rich golden milk (I like nut or hemp) warmed in a pan with turmeric and bit of sweetness if milk isn’t sweet enough (maybe brown sugar or maple syrup).

4. If you get the urge to get out, don’t put it off

Even if just to pull on a coat and sit outside in the garden / on the deck / patio / doorstep. That recalibration that kicks in when we have sky above our heads, and leave our four walls behind (even if just for a moment), can be all it takes for a little boost. And please don’t feel bad if that urge doesn’t end in a long walk, or any form of movement at all. This isn’t a time to chastise yourself with a big, hefty bar, held too high above your own head.

5. Listen to something lovely

A favourite of mine… I have lots of easy-access recordings on my phone, from sound baths and Yoga Nidra, to guided meditations, and my own curated playlists via Spotify. And sometimes, if my mind is really loud but my body is very still, I appreciate the opportunity to get lost in another world for a while. I also download a few podcasts a month, which I save up for when I have time for a listen. I’ve listed some of the resources below, for easy access.

• Morphee, pictured above, is a non-digital device, pre-loaded with gentle, natural sounds that soothe & aid sleep and rest. It’s lovely to have on the bedside table, to click on and drift off to (you can set the time, volume + track), as it turns itself off at the end, and there are no screens to navigate or blink us awake.

• Activations app. This has become a daily part of my life this year – I find it so helpful to drift off to the JUST MUSIC tracks, such as ‘Feel Chilled & Reduce Anxiety’, and the sleep tracks, including “Rain Sounds + Gratitude Affirmations for Sleep’. A friend of a friend created the app, so I am lucky to have a HUGE discount (I asked nicely, and am sharing it with you, via the link: https://share.activations.com/emine).

• Insight Timer is great for FREE meditations and a favourite with our MOTHER NOURISH community, who often mention it in comments + notes.

• Calm app. Some features are paid-for, but many are free to access, and include guided meditation, sleep stories, breathing exercises, and calming music.

• If you’re new to Yoga Nidra, you can try a recording I made for MOTHER NOURISH subscribers, here.

I am very ‘out of touch’ with podcasts in general, but a few I regularly listen to include:

• The Soul Mama Podcast – sadly, Nehanda is no longer producing new episodes, but her back catalogue is a beautiful treasure trove, and I love her voice + energy

• On Health for Women by Aviva Romm MD

• The Menstruality Podcast by the co-founders of The Red School

• The Hagitude Sessions by

• Herbs with Rosalee; a wonderful, highly experienced US-based herbalist, whose books I’ve really enjoyed. These ‘dip in’ short episodes explore different plants, their benefits, and invite guest experts on for insights & rich conversations.

• Kalliope’s Sanctum by . I subscribed to this during lockdown and didn’t even realise until I was adding this link, that it was created by the same author whose book, The Venus Year, I went on a quest to find last year (you can read about it here). I’m also very happy to see her here at Substack… she’s a rare writer… magic in the bones.

• And the back catalogue of past episodes from ’s podcast, Unravelling.

6. Read (or watch) something lovely…
Definitely not a time for true crime, the headlines, or online doom scrolling. Recent nourishing reads have included:

• Year of Yes by Shonda Rhimes, which is honest, funny, down-to-earth, and revealing. Shona Rhimes (creator of Grey’s Anatomy, Bridgerton, Scandal, Inventing Anna, and Queen Charlotte), is just as you’d imagine… and I found her a fine bedfellow for a couple of months, as I too eased into wanting to live with a lot more YES in my life.

• The Forest House by Marion Zimmer Bradley. By the author of The Mists of Avalon (a retelling of the King Arthur myth, from the point of view of Morgaine (Morgan le Fay) which I also adored. This is a magical, mystical, female-centred book – transporting + rich in historical detail; I read it in one hungry, gulping week on holiday a few years ago, and enjoyed every single page.

• Emma by Jane Austen. I can’t resist a little Austen when feeling life-beaten. Giggles and getting lost in another world. And Mr Knightley has always helped assuage a sore heart (I also love Johnny Flynn’s earnest, tender take on him, in the latest film adaptation).

• Little Women by Louisa May Alcott. A book I’ve read + re-read with my daughters, and which feels like a warm hug of a return. As above too, with the most recent film adaptation by Greta Gerwig, and the earlier one with Winona Ryder as Jo (odd casting, given that she was meant to be tall, lanky & gawky, but she has the right spirit – and LOVE Susan Sarandon as Marmee). Adore.

• Walking with Persephone by Molly Remer. I have read this book three times now… it is a rare thing… very personal (it reads like a diary for the most part), and an intimate unravelling of one woman’s story, as she seeks to live a more magical, restful, and nourished life. I love her honesty, the parallels between her life and mine (and the lives of many women in their 40s, raising kids while trying to raise themselves)… writing about it now is calling me back… I think read four is on the horizon this month.

• Arcadia by Lauren Groff. Groff has gone on to become a real star in the literary world, and that makes me immensely happy, because she was little-known when I first received a preview copy of Arcadia, to review for Psychologies magazine (though I was Health & Wellness Director, I also put my English Lit degree to good use, and looked after a lot of book reviews – bliss). This story, of the families who come together to live on a commune in hope of a better life (and how things begin to fall apart, and go terribly wrong), is utterly captivating. The characters have all stayed with me, I’ve recommended it to everyone I’ve met (Mr R loves it too), and I am overdue a re-reading.

7. Small acts of self-kindness

All of the above fit into this category too, but it’s so important, it warrants its own point on the list.

Simply – being gentle and compassionate with yourself when you are struggling.

When you don’t feel or look your best.

When you are lacking energy and any inclination to do anything ‘useful.’

REMINDER: rest is not only USEFUL, it is ESSENTIAL.

Mostly – I may feel ‘crap’ but I am not crap. And I will not eat crap or watch crap or think all I deserve is crap.

Making up my bed with clean sheets was my gift to myself on day one of my bruising week. Slinking into them – fresh + crisp – with window open, to air the room, and a spritz of sleep spray before bed… made me so grateful.

We can still do and choose and create good things for ourselves, in the messy muddle of a bad day/week/year.

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It’s the ultimate paradox, health.

Because it can be both immensely simple – move, breathe, eat, sleep as well as you can – but simultaneously individualistic, conditional, subjective, and biologically-speaking, enormously complex.

I wrote earlier this week about the fact that we need energy to sleep. Oddly counterintuitive in a way… because we think that we fall asleep when we have no energy left and must replenish the store before entering another day.

In fact, sleep requires a complex, finely tuned and balanced cascade of biological, hormonal, chemical reactions to occur – regulated and triggered by many things, including light, ambient & body temperature, the build up of adenosine in the brain throughout the day which reaches a tipping point, making us drowsy; the release of melatonin by the pineal gland in response to a signal from the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN) in the hypothalamus; the release of GABA and galanin which inhibit the more wakeful parts of our brain…. and the list goes on (& on).

A huge amount of work taking place in the background of our bodies simply so that we can slide into bed and find our way into slumber. Miraculous, isn’t it?

And it was this train of thought that got me pondering just how the body detects “safety”  – and what, specifically, might in fact signal “safety” to the female body.

This is admittedly far too broad & nuanced a topic to tackle in a single letter, but this theme of “safety” – from a physiological standpoint – is one I will continue to return to because what I am learning is that it touches, shapes & informs pretty much everything else when it comes to our health.

An embodied, “lived” and “felt” sense of safety is the foundation for good health – for all humans, but particularly acutely for women.

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs – for Women?

I wrote in an earlier Sunday Refill that:

“Sensitive bodies need constant, continual ‘you are OK’ signalling – something that more and more female health experts, including doctors, endocrinologists, integrative health & somatic practitioners, are increasingly recognising – and specifically, the role that safety signalling plays within the regulation and stabilisation of our hormones.”

Safety represents the second level of Maslow’s hierarchy – focused on establishing stability, order, and protection from harm once physiological needs are met. And in basic terms, safety includes physical safety, financial security, health stability, and emotional wellbeing, driving individuals to seek structure and security in their lives.

The brain detects danger primarily through the amygdala, which acts as a rapid "threat detector" and alarm system. Senses gather information and send it to the amygdala, which triggers the fight-or-flight response via hormones like adrenaline and cortisol, often before conscious awareness.

Interestingly, research indicates that women’s amygdalae often show greater activation and higher, more persistent reactivity to negative emotional stimuli.

Neuroscientific research in women also highlights a heightened female sensitivity to environmental, social, and physiological cues. Studies indicate that women generally display increased brain activity in regions related to emotion, anxiety, and social engagement, when compared to men.

This is something I’ve already started to unpack a little here at MOTHER NOURISH® (I find the science behind female physiology beyond FASCINATING), because – in the most simplistic terms:

A safe body is also a self-regulating body is also a healthy body.

“Safe” is, of course, a HUGELY loaded word and it feels that it’s more loaded at this point in our own collective history than it has been in all of my preceding years on this shared Earth.

Yes, life is A LOT in so many ways right now… I sometimes go through the day with a vice-like grip in my chest… aware that my heart is racing, breath is shallow, and that my mind is unusually vigilant and overactive.

I would argue that this is a completely normal response – biologically & psychologically speaking – to a completely unnatural situation: modern life, with its instantaneous, relentless information overload (which also relays horror after horror).

We are touched – whether personally or impersonally, individually or collectively – by awareness of so many truly enormous, terrifying, terrible things, moment after moment, day after day, week after week… that the body and mind cannot cope.

This is not overstatement – humans are as yet very poorly evolved to be able to process the amount of information we are privy to.

While our ancestors likely had similar cognitive abilities to us (roughly the same number of neurons), they operated in a "narrow-bandwidth" world of information. News travelled very slowly, if at all, and the realms of their 360 awareness would have been vastly limited by their geography.

The modern brain, however, faces a "wide-bandwidth" world of almost instant data access, which, while allowing for immense access to information (both helpful & unhelpful) has outpaced our biological, evolutionary capacity for processing it, leading to widespread cognitive overload.

We are simply not built to fathom, process, assimilate, make sense of, or healthily respond to THIS level of information. Even as we each try to navigate it as best we can – to be conscious, responsible, and speak up for what we believe in.

Modern life is inherently destabilising.

Imagine receiving an unexpected, unkind text message. Imagine how that lands in the body. There might be fear, anxiety, sadness, grief… there may even be panic, tears, fury, overwhelm.

That dull weight in the pit of the stomach that tells you something is not right… even if you forget about the message for a moment, the bodily sensation will remain and remind you… you may even stop & try to put your finger on why you just don’t feel OK.

Multiply that text message by a million, billion, trillion (it’s estimated that the world now creates 403 million terabytes of data every single day). And while we are not, of course, consuming anywhere near the total amount, we are flooded with data in ways that our ancestors would never have dreamed possible and that would have posed enormous problems and risks to their health, had they been – just as we modern humans face, today, every day.

This sheer volume of data leads to "information overload," with 80% of us experiencing it. It’s even led to shorter attention spans – dropping from 2.5 minutes in 2004 to roughly 47 seconds today.

And all of this adds up to the very opposite of SAFETY.

I wrote, a few weeks ago that:

“Slow, soft & steady wins the race for women.”

And these words are the basis for everything I hold to be true about women’s bodies, women’s innate wisdom, women’s holistic health.

Slow, soft & steady also equate, of course, to a FELT sense of safety. And to feel safe in your body is to be in a body that feels self-sustaining, self-regulating, and self-contained; autonomous, sovereign, strong.

A body that trusts itself to be heard and responded to.

A body that hasn’t been denied or ignored for so long that it’s learned to scream if it wants to get attention (hyper-alert, hyper-reactive; high cortisol, adrenalised), or to simply shut down entirely (chronic illness; lengthy convalescence without full recovery; repeated bouts of illness & low immunity).

Whereas, when the body learns, through consistent reinforcement, that it is safe – e.g. that it will receive all the food it needs to feel strong, function well, complete all of its essential functions without having to make sacrifices or suffer deficits – it no longer needs to raise its voice. It no longer needs to panic. It no longer needs to shut down.

I want to start this line of enquiry with the following research.

A 2025 study – Illuminating birth: exploring the impact of birthing environment lighting on labor – confirmed what birthing women have known for centuries (or post-1900s… when the lightbulb entered our lives!) –that a dimly lit room feels far more supportive to natural birth than a brightly lit one.

The study found the following:

• Women in dimly lit rooms are more likely to have a successful, unassisted vaginal birth compared to those in bright rooms, with reduced incidences of unplanned caesarean sections.

• Dim lighting is significantly associated with fewer, less severe perineal tears during childbirth.

• Dim conditions minimise anxiety and promote a sense of security, which helps lower catecholamine (stress hormone) levels. Lowered adrenaline allows oxytocin to function more effectively, leading to improved pain management and shorter labor.

• Birthing in the dark helps mothers focus inward on bodily sensations, enhancing a “flow” mental state that promotes relaxation and reduces reliance on analgesia.

• By fostering a calm environment, darkness promotes early, uninterrupted bonding and supports better breastfeeding initiation.

This data is powerful because:

• We know that women tend to be more acutely tuned into their environments (as explored in the opening of this letter). In this case – if the environment feels like a safe, contained, supportive one, our bodies are able to move into a parasympathetic state, where oxytocin stimulates uterine contractions, dilates the cervix, and prompts the late-labour surge that aids in pushing. Melatonin then acts in tandem with oxytocin, often working best in dim lighting or at night to accelerate labour. Beta-endorphins (natural pain relief) are also released to manage the intensity of labour, promoting a calmer, inward-focused, and “dream-like” state.

Supporting the biological cascade
To maintain this optimal state, environmental factors must facilitate, rather than disrupt, these processes, which once again, are ALL rooted in SAFETY.

• A quiet, dark, and warm environment encourages melatonin and oxytocin, while reducing fear – which triggers an “adrenaline rush” that can stop labour.

• Freedom (ie, again, autonomy that feels safe, secure & supported) to move and change positions allows gravity to help the baby descend and reduces pain.

• Immediate, uninterrupted skin-to-skin contact after birth increases oxytocin, facilitating breastfeeding and strengthening the mother-infant bond.

• Continuous support from a midwife and/or partner has been shown to shorten labor and increase the likelihood of a spontaneous vaginal birth.

I share the research above, not because it relates specifically to birth, but because it tells a very clear story about just how powerfully & intuitively a woman’s body is in relationship with the world/conditions/environment/ community around her.

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So, how to build a stable foundation in unstable times?

This is deeply individualistic, but there are areas of helpful commonality, well supported by women’s own lived experiences AND science, that I will introduce below, and then unpick more deeply in next week’s letter.

There is emotional safety – being in relationships & community that hold and lift and raise and hear and see and support us.

There is physical safety – a warm, clean, safe & sheltered environment, food, water, sleep.

There is psychological safety – a brain that has time to rest, process, understand. A brain that is supported to carry out its myriad functions without being overloaded or overwhelmed. We are naturally wired to be alert to potential threat, but a brain that is hyper-alert & hyper-reactive, much of the time, is problematic.

There is physiological safety – when our individual bodily biology – nervous system included – is stable enough to settle, soften, switch off.

All of these are things I will explore in more detail next week. There is so much to say… I feel I must pace myself a little (again, slow & steady!).

For me – and drawn from my own lived experience and experience of supporting other women as a holistic practitioner – it is precisely those feelings of slowness, softness, steadiness that have had to become the foundation of my simplest, consistent daily choices – in and around a very busy work/home life, mothering, working full-time.

There’s no pretending that I am in a position to be able to live all of my days in a slow, soft & steady way, but I have found that if I am able to top and tail my day with slowness & softness – and pepper doses of it throughout my day – this is enough to move the dial in the right direction for my body & mind, and maintain that feeling of regulation and harmony, as opposed to chaotic reactivity, dis-ease, and disharmony.

I do not have the time, money or capacity for lengthy, complicated morning or evening routines. Even now, this last working week has been unusually busy, bookended by a very busy Saturday, ferrying the girls from A to B to C and back again, and I have left myself short on time to write this letter. It is later than I would like and I am still tapping away…

But what I do know – because it’s now rooted in repetition and habit – is that, once the letter is complete, I will turn off all screens, have a warm shower in a dimly lit bathroom, climb into bed, again, lights low, and curl up with a book for as long as it takes to feel sleepy & peaceful.

I also know that I will wake without an alarm tomorrow morning. I will let the morning light wake me, naturally. I will stay in bed, eyes closed, and move my awareness into and around my body, before I let my thoughts run away with themselves & me.

I will then reach for the thermos on my bedside table and rehydrate my body before I get out of bed. I will then stretch a little… gently, gently… still in bed, bringing movement and life back into my half-asleep, half-waking body.

Once up, I will walk around the house, opening up the curtains and blinds, letting the morning light in. I will not turn on my phone or look or engage with social media for at least another hour. This, I realise, rather fights the fact that The Sunday Refill is delivered via a screen at 8am! I hope you might be able to enjoy it in a way that feels MOST nourishing for you. With a cuppa is always recommended ☕️

I will step outside for five or so minutes (it’s Sunday morning, so it may well be longer… a heavenly, unrushed start to the day), and carry on gently stretching or tapping my body, while letting the light pour into my eyes and kiss my skin.

I will pour a fresh mug of hot water and sip it slowly, while still outside, and then go to the loo when the urge arrives. I will not put off the urge to go to the loo by keeping myself busy or prioritising things around the house.

Within 30 or so minutes of waking, I’ll begin to make myself breakfast. It’ll be whatever I really fancy and hanker after… at the moment, it’s pancakes almost every day…. I make them with a mix of flours (GF, oat), seeds (hemp, flax), milk, vanilla, cinnamon, turmeric… and top with yoghurt, seeds, fruit, raw honey… whatever I most crave.

If I am in a rush in the morning, I will make up the dry pancake mix the evening before – leaving it in the pyrex jug that I always make my pancakes in, and simply add milk & egg in the morning. Saves about 3 mins & any subsequent tidying (which helps on schooldays). Jug and pan go into the dishwasher once done.

Today though, being Sunday – I’ll sit in the morning light that comes in through the kitchen window, or outside on the deck if it’s fine, and enjoy every bite. That’s my promise to myself this morning, when we have a day without set plans – just enjoy it.

If there is time, I will always go as slowly as I can. I won’t juggle. I won’t cut corners off my own pleasure. I will sit to a meal or with a cuppa, and really enjoy it.

I won’t jump up if someone walks in and try to appear busy. I won’t rush what I am doing because something else needs to be done. I won’t diminish my need and love for stillness… won’t keep my body on edge with thoughts of appearing productive and purposeful.

At first, stillness felt deeply uncomfortable to me. How can I sit here, while looking at all of the stuff around me, that needs to be DONE? I found myself reaching for something, ANYTHING, to fill the time & space. Even as I sat to eat a meal, if alone, I would reach for my phone, or play some music, listen to a podcast, or read something while I ate.

As I get older, I consciously choose to UN-DO this, to choose this slowness – quite stubbornly – because I have spent much of the last 20 years doing EVERYTHING else instead, and that has not served me well.

I have burned out more than once, been chronically depleted and stressed for years on end, struggled with autoimmune conditions… all while somehow convincing myself that my own nourishment, rest, and feelings of safety & stability in my own body were far less important than clean carpets and an empty laundry bag.

What has replaced those mistaken, conditioned beliefs around productivity, perfection, is a new foundation of very different beliefs… around ease, kindness, slowness, self-respect and self-compassion.

You can read more about self-respect and my RESPECT practice in the letter below:

A simple, practical foundation for the average day might look like:

🌅 Morning light in eyes & on skin (around 5 mins)

💦 Drinking hot water upon waking (a few seconds; you could keep a thermos by your bed, for ease)

🥞 Eating a good breakfast within an hour of waking (pre-mix if in a rush; it takes me 10 mins to cook a batch for me + kids)

🙆🏻‍♀️ Gentlest movement (you could do this while also getting morning light. Keep it simple: a few stretches, shakes, or strokes/pats up and down your body, following the direction of lymph drainage – roughly speaking, this might be: back of ears> neck> shoulders> arms>chest>tummy>knees> bottom> back>calves>feet and then back up to neck. Dips above & below clavicles then get a few extra strokes/pats, to aid with lymphatic drainage. (This need not be elaborate – 2-3 mins is average for me).

These have become the foundational choices I make every single day –whether working from home or in the office; whether on the school run or at home with a poorly kid; whether I am up later or working later than planned, or up earlier or later than I’d like.

It is these choices along with several other gentle micro-shifts that have gently accompanied my body out of a state of hyper-reactivity… and make up the foundation I am committed to building on & strenghtening, day after day.

Continued next week in The Sunday Refill

The research-supported choices that signal safety & support the female body – particularly in mid-life, through perimenopause and beyond.

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A good place to start today?

What feels most supportive, most stabilising, and most sustainable, for YOU – in your own life?

Ultimately the most important question anyone can ask themselves when deciding whether or not to choose / do / put something into their body is:

“How does it feel?”

• Does it feel good in my body/heart/mind?

• Does it feel kind & nourishing?

• Does it feel energising, invigorating, activating in a positive/expansive way?

• Does it feel safe & supportive?

When we ask ourselves these questions, we might find our own way to a gentler daily foundation that better supports that growing feeling of safety… and leads to a body which is less reactive, hyper-alert and vigilant.

Here, as always, is to a fuller cup,

Emine

x

If you know of someone who’d love to be part of these Sunday refills, please do share with them. My vision this year is to grow MOTHER NOURISH into a community that does for others what it’s beginning to do for me… a gentle flicker of light, silver-lining the messiness of motherhood, and a fuller cup as we move into & through our middle years.

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Other nourishing ideas I’ve enjoyed this week…

I’ll end with these thoughts from John Uke, who wrote The Organised Mind: Thinking Straight in the Age of Information Overload.

They’ve helped me overload my brain less and build in better ways to enjoy, process & recall things (very important in my day job, with multiple meetings every day, mostly back-to-back), which have helped build that feeling of safety in my own mind & body.

I hope you find them interesting/helpful, too.

- Write things out to get them out of your head so you stop thinking about them. Create calendar reminders so your brain doesn’t need to remember and then remind you.

- Multitasking also leads to miscategorising info in your brain. Chunk similar chores together like paying bills. It takes about 50 minutes to get into “focus time.”

- Manage your dopamine. It 100% controls your attention. This is why I dopamine “diet” every morning. (Emine: I’d add in here that, for me, this means avoiding social media in the morning as it sets off that dopamine cascade so powerfully & artificially that it’s hard to bounce back afterwards… and it does not mean avoiding gentle, nourishing pleasures which are not based on that ‘reward’ feedback loop. This, again for me, looks like morning sun, cuppa, delicious breakfast. VERY different “pleasure”, indeed).

- Make time for daydreaming/wandering mind. Today’s world is very entertaining and covetous of your attention, at the cost of your peace and creativity. I find it hard to do nothing, but also find doing nothing/meditating to be my most productive time and highly correlated with how well I’m doing in life.

- Break big goals into small manageable chunks. Then pause, reflect, evaluate if reality is mapping out to your ideal mental image/expectation.

- Grow faster by acting as if you have the new identity (Emine: funny one, but effective. I decided at the end of last year that I was going to be the epitome of a nourished woman… it is early days, of course, but a stubborn commitment to doing just that – nourishing myself in all available ways, within the practical remit of my busy, working life, has really STUCK. The best bit – it’s unapologetic… because it’s become WHO I AM, and WHAT I DO).

- Early risers are happier, more productive, and more organised than night owls (Emine: as I’ve gotten older, going to bed early and rising early has felt so much better in my body. Now, if I head to bed after 10pm, I feel a little hang-overy the next day… and if I oversleep, the same).

- Give your mind time to process, relax or ease between meetings — take + review notes before/after every meeting, rather than at the end of the day/week (the latter puts a lot more strain on the brain).

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Let’s talk about boundaries…

Today I wanted to pick out a single thread from the RESPECT practice that I first shared in the letter below, two weeks ago.

Living with RESPECT

This is the foundation of the ‘whole’ or holistic way I approach women’s health.

It’s a way of living that honours your body, your energy, and your needs.

It’s how you return to yourself, again and again, until self-advocacy becomes second nature and self-respect becomes your quiet strength.

RESPECT isn’t another thing to remember or do. It’s a living, breathing practice – a way to ensure your most basic needs are met, every single day.

Each part of RESPECT is a gentle reminder to pause and reconnect with yourself.

Think of it as a daily check-in: a way to notice what your body and heart are asking for.

As you move through each letter, you’ll begin to recognise your own rhythms again — the moments when you need to rest, to nourish, to slow down, to speak up, to tend.

This is how you build a life that feels softer, steadier, and more deeply resourced from within.

**R – Rest when you are weary.**
Rest isn’t only about sleep. It’s about building in slowness, inaction, recalibration, and many micro-moments to refill that cup.

**E – Eat when you are hungry.**
Don’t push your hunger cues away. Prioritise your own nourishment, just as you do everyone else’s. You deserve more than the crusts and crumbs.

**S – Slow down before you reach capacity.**
Notice the signs before you snap. Slowing down is powerful – like gently shifting to a lower gear before you hit the corner.

**P – Pause to meet your physical needs.**
Go to the loo when you need to, stretch, drink water, breathe. These small acts are how you honour your body’s signals.

**E – Express your needs and boundaries without apology.**
The more you express what you need, gently and unapologetically, the more natural it becomes. You’re a busy, plate-juggling human – you don’t need to justify your needs.

**C – Check in with what you feel, need, and want.**
When life gets busy, your body can go into mute mode. Take a moment to scan: what’s true for you right now? What are you craving? What’s your body asking for?

**T – Take time to tend.**
Don’t cut corners with how you care for yourself. Be kind, not cruel. Even five minutes in the morning sun can help you build nourishing habits.

When you live with RESPECT, you begin to move through life with more ease and awareness.

You start to notice your own needs before they become urgent, and you learn to meet them with compassion instead of criticism.

But, in order to begin living with respect, it’s also important to begin getting clearer on your own boundaries.

When was the last time you expressed exactly what you need (& then did it)?

Mine was three months ago, after an “out of nowhere” flare that showed me just how run down I had become. No surprise, really – navigating separation, perimenopause, two wild & wondrous daughters, oh and full-time work during the school holidays (because I’d used up most of my annual leave over the summer, when Mr R was really struggling and needed dedicated care).

So I’d crawled along – as I have dozens, and dozens of times before in my life – hoping that I could just continue to keep my head above water because, if I am honest, the energy it can take to stem or stop the flow of daily life, with all of its endless to-dos, can feel utterly overwhelming when you’re already on your knees.

My thinking was: “Better to coast along than rock the boat.” I definitely DO NOT have the energy to rock the boat right now.

Until, once again, my body took my health into her own wisest hands and sent up a stellar flare – swollen eyes, rash up & down the neck, sensitivity, digestive issues & sleep problems – to remind me that I had no choice. You’d better get out of that boat and fashion a new one, baby.

Mr R was far more stable in himself and at home with the kids and I knew he’d be more than capable of looking after them for a weekend – so I did it. Booked a little cabin in a neighbouring village – secluded, quiet, A Room of One’s Own.

I did not, as I have so often in the past, give a long list of reasons, explanations, suggestions, or “handover notes.” The kids are 16 and 13 for goddess’ sake and Mr R has been the stay at home parent for most of their lives (which, embarrassingly, did not preclude me from proffering said notes every time I went away for a work trip. Though I never cooked ahead because he’s the chef so that would’ve been borderline insane).

“I am struggling. I am knackered. I am not sleeping. I am chronically stressed. I am heading for burnout. I have been running on empty all year. I am a perimenopausal woman who is still expected to live and function like a 30-year-old woman and I now know that working full-time, running the home, carrying every last scrap of life admin and the whole effing Motherload, every single day, has broken me (again, again, again).”

Nope. Didn’t say any of that.

Just said: “I’ve booked two nights away for a rest. I’ll be home on Sunday morning. The girls don’t have anything planned this weekend so you can all have a quiet one.”

Don’t think I have ever done that before – forgone the need to mumsplain everything in order to EARN my permission slip (please Sir, may I go to the bathroom?). And it felt bloody good. Clean. Powerful.

When I arrived at the cabin – as has happened to me many times before – my tiredness hit me like a ton of bricks. I climbed into bed, pulled the covers over my head and slept for four hours without so much as a toss or turn.

When I awoke, it was early evening and I headed out for a gentle walk –picked up some simplest, fresh bits for dinner, sat out in the sunshine with a cup of tea, and then went for a 6pm sauna session.

Back at the cabin, a shower, a bowl of soup, and back into bed. Books, low light, soft music, and fell asleep again at 9pm… and slept for 11 straight hours. Bloody hell – I really needed that.

The next day, I woke early, used an app on my phone for simple yoga stretches (I’ve had the app on my phone for two years and have used it ONCE. O.N.C.E.). I journaled. I sat out in the morning light.

I had a cuppa and a fresh, sweet, crunchy apple from the market. And headed out to the little market town for market day – pottered; daydreamed; listened to a local band, busking; sat in the sun with a book… and felt happier and calmer and clearer than I had in months. No epiphanies or lightbulbs or grand transformations.

Just 48 hours to step away and out of the fray… and to realise that the biggest impediment to me doing this more often wasn’t how busy I was at work, or that the kids needed me 24/7 for 2427 different things, or that Mr R is unwell… but that I have a story that plays on repeat which goes a little like this:

• Going away is selfish – leaving everyone behind and spending money to be somewhere else is irresponsible (ignore the fact that the cabin cost £50 for two nights and I spent a grand total of £20 on food, cuppas & one book, that weekend).

• Mr R won’t cope. (Except he more than coped… the girls said he was in good spirits, laughing & joking, and seemed more like his old self. Take that, guilty conscience).

• I can’t even rest properly when I’m not at home – my mind is too busy and I always find ways to pick holes in nice things… to sabotage them because in some weird way, I think that that’s what I deserve. (Just: ENOUGH with all that rubbish. You’ve made this decision and made the time and you are damn well going to embrace every bit of it. Belittling something lovely isn’t noble or self-sacrificing – it’s just plain wasteful).

• The girls will struggle without me, especially my youngest. She’ll be lonely without our usual “snuggle” time and the special things we do together, which top & tail our days. (She’s spent very little if any alone time with her dad in the last 9 months. Time with him has been precious for both of them. He lives in the shadows when I am around because I take over and “get stuff done.” Let him be and breathe and find his own feet with fathering again… as he did…and as they did, together).

• You’ll get back to a mess of a house and dirty laundry and all of the housework you usually motor through at the weekend, left undone. (Firstly, SO BLOODY WHAT? “I only wish I could have done one more load of laundry” said NOBODY EVER on their deathbed. And Mr R, as he always does, saw the important things that needed doing, and did them. And the rest can always wait… as I have let it wait for over a month now because, well, for one thing, finding precious, enjoyable, sacred time to sit and write The Sunday Refill (which fills my cup too, every time) is SO much more important to me than the dust bunnies, cobwebs, and grimy corners of rooms that are overdue a “deep” clean. Hey ho.

p.s I LOVE artist & writer, Jackie Morris’ blog which is called, no less:

The balance of life as an artist and writer living and working in Wales: or, how to ignore housework.

Majestic!

What are boundaries?

I used to believe (perhaps unconsciously) that boundaries were selfish.

I knew that I didn’t want to be a mum who said “No you can’t have that, it’s mine,” or, “I need to be alone right now”. I thought it would hurt my kids if I did that. And actually, because I never did it, when I began to do it, it did ruffle the youngest’s feathers (whereas the eldest seemed almost relieved that I had finally stood up for myself, ha!).

I’d also noticed that my youngest had started to do things that weren’t always respectful. I could see that she was beginning to take me for granted – expecting me to give her anything she wanted (the food off my plate, the clothes off my back – both of which I have done, many times!) and how it had become an expectation (a-very-hard-to-admit-it-out-loud-but-undeniably-selfish-one). The belief: I am less important than she is.

And this is no shock because I do actually believe that I AM less important than she is, because my kids are SO BLOODY important to me and I’d do anything for them (I know, I know… rod + back), so she has learned all of this from me.

But it is wrong. I was wrong. And I needed to correct that belief and how it was starting to play out in our family.

I recently watched a documentary with Stanley Tucci where he travels around Italy in search of delicious food, and with one particular family, they were serving dinner, and there was a very clear hierarchy playing out – the father and “provider” is served first, and gets the biggest portion, and the best bits of meat. Then the other men, followed by the children (who are also prized), then the women, and finally, the mother – who is given the neck i.e. the scrattiest bit of meat, and the last dregs from the pan. The mother cooks for everyone, serves everyone first, and eats last. She is loved and appreciated by all, but the man of the house is respected and valued more.

I am not happy with the scratty bits, thanks very much.

I do not think I am more important than my kids and I can still struggle with valuing and nourishing myself as much as I do them, but nor do I want to be the selfless (& increasingly bitter) matriarch (did anyone else watch Michelle Pfeiffer in Oh What Fun at Christmas, and relate a little TOO much to that character?? 😥).

Ultimately, I am teaching my daughters WHO A MOTHER, and a WOMAN, is. How she shows up for herself and her family. And I don’t ever want my girls to find themselves in relationships or family units where they’re expected to give & never receive; to endlessly serve without their service being reciprocated, seen, respected or valued.

And nor do I want my daughters to think it’s ok to finish their two sausages and then ask for my one, lone sausage because they know I’ll give it to them, and be left without any sausages at all. Everyone gets two sausages! Everyone is valued equally. And respect can only be truly respectful when it is reciprocal.

And that’s why boundaries are so important.

A clean, clear, respectful boundary does many powerful things:

1. A boundary is a way of marking out your emotional territory – of letting others know what is and isn’t OK for you.

2. A boundary should be clear and fair. These are not diva demands – they’re solid, and based on your core values and needs. One of my boundaries is that, when I am in the bathroom with the door closed, I be left alone until I come out of the bathroom.

   

   I set this boundary after 10 years of both of my kids coming INTO THE BATHROOM whenever I was in there (honestly, I got to a point when I almost believed that they both waited for me to go to the loo so that they could rush in at the same time). Now, it’s simple. Door closed, mum inside, walk away. Let her poo in peace!

3. Boundaries are bi-directional. When I tell someone that this is or is not OK for me, they are given valuable information about me and how to have a positive relationship with me. It also opens a conversation around what is OK for them, which is really helpful for me (I love knowing, for instance, that some friends never check messages at weekends. Helpful!).
   
   Like a boss at work, for instance. If I say, “I do not answer emails or phone calls at weekends or after 6pm, because I am with my children and have turned all of my screens off”, that lets my boss know that I have a boundary around family time, and that family time really matters to me.
   I’ve upheld that truth as a core value for myself and for my home life, and my boss has learned about one of my non-negotiable values.

4. Following on from the above, boundaries are not to be used as punishments or manipulation i.e. you can’t set a boundary as a way to hurt someone / shut them out / shut them down / push them away.
   
   If you want to shut someone out, that’s a different set of decisions and goes far deeper than simply letting someone know – in a proactive and positive way – what your values and reasonable expectations are.

5. If my boss breaches a boundary because there is a bona fide out-of-the-ordinary reason or “emergency”, I can respond accordingly. It’s a one-off, no problem, so I can treat it as a one-off. Boundary breaches shouldn’t result in a ‘one strike & you’re out!’ response. If my boundary e.g. leave me alone while I’m in the bathroom, is breached repeatedly, then I know that my kids are disrespecting my boundary and there needs to be a consequence.
   
   Also – helpful to realise that anger is most often the result of a breached boundary – it says, quite clearly, back off because what you are doing is NOT okay with me.

   
   And anger has its place here – this sort of anger can be helpful in signalling to someone (who has been slow to get the message), that they’ve crossed a line too many times. I have a friend, for example, who really does not like to be hugged. It is deeply uncomfortable for her. And I learned this the first time I tried to hug her! She got upset and flustered and I apologised. We moved on. Knowing someone’s boundaries, and honouring them, is part of what makes all good relationships work.

6. In order for you to uphold your boundary, sometimes you need to be prepared to protect it. My girls are both teenagers, now, so it’s far easier for me to sit with them and make it very clear that when they ignore a boundary I’ve put in place around something that’s important to me, it makes me feel ignored, devalued, frustrated & cross, when they breach it. They get it. They have boundaries too – plenty of them – which include never walking in on them in the bathroom! And I TOTALLY respect that!

   
   With a younger child, for example, there might be a boundary around not shouting or being disruptive when mum is on a work call (been there many, many times). They also need to learn that if they keep testing or breaching that boundary, that there will be a consequence.
   
   In the past, I might begin by explaining why I was on a work call or working from home and why it was important to me and to our whole family (eg I work because I love creating and writing and editing and my job pays me money every month, which pays for the house we live in, the food we eat, the clothes we wear etc). So, yes – it’s important. If I am on a work call, that’s important to me. I work from home sometimes so that I can be closer to you and your sister, but I also need some of that time to be quiet and uninterrupted.
   
   The kids liked me to work from home and they also knew that if I couldn’t work from home without being interrupted or having work calls/meetings disrupted, that I would have to work outside of the home more often. This was something they didn’t want, and an incentive for them to honour the boundary. Essentially, we both had skin in the game.
   
   By and large, the girls were respectful and understanding of the times when I had a meeting or call, and when they weren’t – that’s life! I have kids, I work, deal with it, world! Again – boundaries helped here – work colleagues knew I worked from home with children around me (through a pandemic, and a further year of home-schooling, for instance), and that this was just the way it was.
   
   On the odd occasion when the girls really crossed a boundary, there was a consequence – I do remember them both having a screaming row right outside the “office” door when I was on a high-stress call with a new client in New York (yep), and which involved me having to mute myself, go off camera, and yell down the stairs for Mr R to come and carry them, kicking & screaming, out of the house so that I could finish the meeting (with my nervous system in tatters!!). And yes, I did spend the rest of that week working from the local library and they knew why!
   

7. Women’s coach, Maisie Hill, says that when it comes to setting boundaries, there’s also a key difference between being nice and being kind.
   
   This distinction really helps me when setting and communicating boundaries. If I fixate on being nice to everyone – and being viewed as “nice” by everyone in my life – I will continually subjugate my own needs & twist myself into a pretzel to please others.
   
   It was precisely this mindset that pushed me to cancel half a dozen other weekends away and a longed-for women’s yoga therapy training week in Frome, because my youngest daughter begged me to stay with her, instead. And I did, and have never regretted it because I have never regretted the choices I’ve made from and in love. And because I cherish and treasure my girls so very deeply (they are my precious 💎).

   
   BUT – I also set a precedent that became so deeply rooted that it’s taken over a decade to loosen. That precedent being: mum doesn’t get to go and do her own thing. Mum belongs here, with her kids, who need her more than she needs anything for herself.

   
   In being “nice” – ie in this case, putting the kids’ wants before mine, every single time, I was actually being unkind to myself. I was ignoring my own needs. I was allowing myself to get more and more tired, run-down, depleted. And, on many occasions, I’d get ill as a result.
   
   Today, and conversely – I can always be kind. And kindness is a two-way street. If I am being kind to myself – honouring my needs – there must be no shame or wrongness attributed to this. I am simply being kind! And when I communicate what I need – very clearly, again with no attribution of guilt or resentment or wrongdoing towards my recipient – I can set boundaries with ease, that are also met & respected in that same spirit.

8. Another really big point here – again, one that Maisie Hill makes – is that boundary setting is not a space for negotiation. A houseplant that needs strong light and daily watering won’t say “I would quite like some water every day unless it’s too much, in which case, a dribble every now and then is fine, and if daylight just isn’t possible today, or tomorrow, or for the rest of the month, please don’t worry about it.” No, it’d just die from being under-watered & starved of light!
   
   Remember – your boundaries protect YOU – your values, needs, standards. They’re not negotiable.
   
   And when I booked myself two nights away, that’s exactly the space I was in – I need rest, so I am going to rest. And that clarity is really freeing – for both parties. It lightens the load, immediately & immensely. No back and forth. No blame or guilt-tripping. Not: “I need this because you NEVER give me what I want”, or “I have to do this because I have been running on empty all year because of YOU.”

   ---

I’ve built on it, too. That’s the really cool thing about boundaries – once you begin setting them – kindly, clearly – it gets easier.

If you know of someone who’d love to be part of these Sunday refills, please do share with them. My vision this year is to grow MOTHER NOURISH into a community that does for others what it’s beginning to do for me… a gentle flicker of light, silver-lining the messiness of motherhood, and a fuller cup as we move into our middle years.

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Boundaries I’ve been setting & sharing with loved ones

1. "I’m lying down for 30 mins – I’ll close the door and don’t want to be disturbed while I rest.”

2. "You are welcome to borrow my clothes, but please look after them, and ask me first.”

3. "I’m going to read quietly for an hour and we can watch a movie all together after that.”

4. “I will help you with that once I have finished my breakfast. I don’t like to rush my meals, so I will come and find you in 30 minutes.”

5. “I am in the middle of something and need to finish it before I lose my train of thought. Once I’m done, I can give you my full attention.”
   

And of course, where kids & real life & egos & exhaustion are in the mix & muddle, things do not always play out in ideal ways… but even when imperfect, I have found the above RESPECT framework, and that initial foundation of boundary-setting, to be SO BLOODY HELPFUL.

Nourishment, it seems to me, really must begin & end with clarity around your own needs & values.

Ultimately, a way for every mum to say to those she loves & pours care & energy & time into: I love you with every atom of my being BUT I MATTER TOO.

Here’s to a fuller cup,

E x

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The similarities were uncanny. As children, every morning, our alarms went off at the same time. We would wake ourselves up, get ourselves ready, pack our school bags, and make ourselves breakfast – likely a bowl of cereal with milk – and then we’d head off to school. Every. Single. School. Day. No arguments, no alternatives, no questions asked.

Their mothers didn’t work. Nor did my mum. She sometimes helped my dad with his business, but for most of my childhood, her main role was as a mother to her three children.

She’d always wanted to have kids and became a mum at the age of 21, having married my dad when she was 18. We lived quite far away from our school, so most mornings, mum would drive us; as we got older, some of us would get the bus, and then she would have the day ahead to do what needed to be done at home (our home was always clean and tidy, and there was always food in the house) and beyond that, the day was hers to shape and fill.

Thinking back on it, my mum would have had a lot of time to herself. I, on the other hand, am a mother who has, out of necessity and also, up to a point, choice, always worked. I worked full-time up to giving birth to both children, and went back to work soon after both were born. As the breadwinner for my family unit since before my kids were even born, it’s a very different picture to my mother’s.

When a woman works, has children, manages the home and the full weight of the Motherload (with all of its life + kids’ lives admin), the load is undeniably large. We know this, and yet we rarely ask why so much has shifted within the space of a single generation.

The researchers of an oft-cited 2019 study of working mothers, run by The University of Manchester, found that the biomarkers indicating chronic stress, including hormone levels and blood pressure, were 40% higher for women working full-time while bringing up two children than among women working full time with no children.

I fall slap-bang into the category above. 40% higher. Oof.

The study also found that:

• Women who were working full time and bringing up one child had 18% higher levels of stress than women with no children.

• A high percentage of working mothers report experiencing anxiety, burnout, and depression, with 66% reporting negative mental health impacts during challenging times like pandemics.

• Many working mothers struggle to meet recommended physical activity guidelines, with around 39% engaging in no exercise weekly. I would say here, that running around after and carrying children, plus multiple ‘loads’ throughout the day, is ample exercise! But, once past the young kids age (which is where I live), I know how tough it can be to fit in intentional movement, when I am working full-time and both kids are at home.

• Working mothers often face a “double burden mental load” – carrying the invisible labour of household planning and childcare, contributing to emotional and mental exhaustion.

When I revisit my childhood, I remember that my mother lovingly looked after us, ran our home & managed all of the associated life admin (although every big purchase, investment, or financial decision would have been made alongside my dad, who is an astute businessman and a numbers whizz).

But she wasn’t PRESENT in the way that a lot of modern mums are present. She was THERE, certainly, but she always had things to do… and the “norm” was that she would be left alone to do what needed to be done, while the kids took themselves off and found ways to stay entertained. Mr R, for example, would spend every weekend out of the house, playing with neighbouring friends. He remembers only ever going home when he was ravenously hungry… and unless it was dinnertime, he’d just grab a snack and then head straight back out again.

I see how different my mum’s lived experience must have been, given that the rhythms of her day weren’t defined by that familiar, stressful see-saw of work-kids, which means (for me at least), that I often feel I am never wholly in one place at any given time.

Also, very different to my mum’s experience, has been my own kids’ experience with school. I loved school – it felt rich, interesting, sociable… I had great friends, always had a laugh, and liked most of my teachers, several of whom became mentors (my English teachers: Mrs Broadbridge, Mrs Jurksaitis, and Miss Martin, thank you!).

I had friends who’d “bunk off” because they couldn’t be bothered, but if they didn’t return, they’d be suspended. It was black & white in those days. Aside from that, none of my friends legitimately missed school for any reason other than physical illness. Back then, mental illness was greatly misunderstood… I do remember experiencing an extended period of very low mood in my early teens – and being told, repeatedly, to stop being so miserable or difficult. The big life changes I was navigating – puberty and menarche among them – were never talked about. It was just what happened. You got up and got in with things, no excuses.

My children, on the other hand, have never attended school to a completely predictable degree. My eldest plain-sailed through primary school with scarcely a bump… but secondary school was a different picture. Today, I would estimate that they miss around 2-3 days of school every month. This is a really strong and positive place for us because they CHOOSE to go to school every day – they are not being coerced or forced or threatened.

A few years ago, when things were far more challenging than they are now, my eldest missed entire weeks, which turned into months off school, which turned into full-time homeschooling; my youngest also missed 1-2 days a week for several months while she was struggling with anxiety, post-Pandemic. Attempting to continue with full-time work during this time almost broke me. We had no map… no idea of where we were going… just blind hope that things would get better in time.

The schooling terrain I’ve navigated as a mother bears little resemblance to my own mother’s. A WhatsApp message from my mum which became all-too familiar: “Did both girls get off to school OK today?” speaks to the shift (a silent assumption that they probably did NOT go to school)…

I would attend school with coughs, colds, low mood, period pain, exhaustion… it never occurred to me that I could NOT go to school. It was just what I did. Every day. Unless I’d thrown up, had a raging fever, or was recovering from an operation (tonsils & adenoids, around the age of 5, I think).

In the evenings, we’d return from school, change out of our uniforms, and plop ourselves in front of the TV until dinner was ready… or we might play outside in the garden until we were called in for bathtime. As we got older, we’d spend our time after school in our own rooms… I read voraciously, half-heartedly completed homework, or watched movies all night long, on a little TV/Video combi I had in my room. Sometimes my siblings and I played games, like Monopoly or Scrabble… I don’t ever remember our parents joining us. The kids played – the parents had other things to be getting on with.

It’s interesting to consider how little our evenings were shaped by interaction with our parents. My dad wasn’t home – he worked all hours, 6.5 days a week, and was gone before I woke up in the morning and returned long after I’d gone to bed. Mum would pick us up from school and get on with dinner. She’d put on some music or watch VHS recordings of Top of the Pops. She’d often spend evenings sat on the chair by the telephone, catching up with friends or family. I remember her stood at the sink, washing up, and hanging clothes out to dry. But her days and nights had a lighter rhythm than mine do… certainly, a much lighter load to carry.

She always looked amazing too. It became a running joke throughout my teens, that half the boys I knew would meet my mum and be left slack-jawed. A good way for me to root out the boys who weren’t worth my time. She wasn’t manicured, but effortlessly beautiful. Red lipstick and Opium, with tight blue jeans & a simple shirt or tee… outside the school gates in the summer. At home, she couldn’t care less about how she looked; she was always comfortable in her own skin and self.

There was a sense with mum, too, that she didn’t give a crap about what other people thought. I’m sure she did to some extent, but I remember her chatting away to other mums at the school gate; she was far younger than many of them, many of whom also had careers, or had graduated from university with interesting degrees. If I were in her shoes, I might have felt awkward, or inferior in some way, but I never saw that in her. She did mention a few mums who looked down their noses at her – how she dressed, the bright lipstick she wore, the songs she blasted out, just for me – car window wound all the way down, so that I could enjoy my favourite music while languishing away in Double Chemistry, last thing on a Friday afternoon (until the school caught on and delivered a telling off to my mum via me).

Finding my feet as a mum

I compare her confidence with my uncertainty. When my eldest started school, I didn’t quite know how to navigate the school gates. There were easy, casual, funny mums I immediately hit it off with, and then lots of other types of women with whom I’d had little experience… PTA mums who were always juggling kids, events, social engagements, and seemed both preternaturally positive and unnaturally busy; full-time career mums whom I never met – the children always picked up by childminders or grandparents; mums who felt unwelcoming – who’d form little circles and talk under their breath about others in the vicinity. It was a strange new world… I had not been part of any NCT groups and had never been part of “mum” world, outside of actually, you know, BEING a mum.

It’s only now, with one kid in year 8 and another in year 10, that I feel completely at ease with who I am, and how I present within this world. Perhaps the school the girls attend – a beautiful ragtag mix of kids in their own clothes, with rainbow hair, piercings, and big smiles (and where teachers & students are all called by their first names) – has made it easier to assimilate. I think, back then, because I was one of the working mums, and Mr R was most often the parent at the gate, I always felt like the outlier. I found it a lot easier to make friends with the mums of my younger daughter’s year… found a handful of warm, welcoming, open women who weren’t playing pretend (as I had been, to a degree), and moved from niceties to real conversation. I’ve always struggled so painfully with small talk.

Social media has undoubtedly shaped the terrain of modern motherhood, too. Comparison is rife. We can watch “real mums in real time” – making Michelin-star-worthy dinners, effortlessly dwelling in drop-dead gorgeous homes, feeding their kids every colour of the rainbow, crafting & singing & reading & creating realms of such magic and awe and beauty, that your own all-too-real life, with its cobwebs and crumbs and crumbling bits, feels like a whopping failure.

Everything from birth to school, shared & compared. And, yes, there are wonderful things that can also come from sharing stories and walking alongside one another. But that niggling “why is it so easy for her, and so hard for me?” question, is rarely far away.

Private healthcare provider, Bupa, ran a study among mothers in 2022 which found that:

• Nearly two-thirds of mums (63%) surveyed¹ agree they have driven themselves to exhaustion with the pressure to be a ‘supermum’, with one in five (20%) saying the plight has affected their mental health.

• A fear of judgement and people seeing their imperfections has also led to mums masking or ‘filtering’ their lives. Almost one in three (31%) mums say it makes them put on a facade of coping to appear infallible and 43% agree they struggle to ask even their partner for support.

• More worrying is that almost one third (29%) of mums agree they have sought help from a medical professional for mental health concerns, but kept it a secret from their loved ones.

A ’supermum’ is defined as an exemplary or exceptional mother, especially one who successfully manages a home and brings up children while having a full-time job. The term is frequently used in society to compliment mothers or acknowledge their achievements (OK… I can now begin to see where the conditioning kicks in…).

Bupa UK’s research, however, shows it can be damaging to depict mums in this way, with three quarters (75%) of mums agreeing that portraying or calling mums super can be harmful to their mental health.

There have also been multiple studies on the negative effect of social media when consumed by pregnant and post-partum mothers. And all this before we even mention the mothers who have turned mothering into a lucrative social media career (you may want to read this study in the Journal of Indian Association for Child and Adolescent Mental Health, if this is something you’re interested in learning more about – the basis of which serves as a call for action to set up child protection laws in the digital sphere).

A happy home life… how has it changed?

My mum didn’t have many friends outside of her family. Her two first cousins, and her two sisters, were her best friends. Most weekends were shaped by family – we’d drive to North London to see my aunt and grandparents (with one of us almost invariably sick in the back of the car), or 10 minutes up the road, to our other aunt, who had two kids, around the same age as me.

Mostly, we stayed at home. Family visited, or we just filled our time with TV, books, playing in the garden. My brother discovered gaming when he was about 10 and that shaped most of his life from that point onward – GameBoy to Game Gear to Sega Megadrive… no one ever thought to monitor how much time we spent on screens… we were just kids being kids.

And, because this was an age before social media, I spent the vast majority of my free time at home reading. The local library, five mins up the road, was my Friday evening treat. School was out, the weekend sprawled ahead of me, and I’d return the books I’d gobbled up the previous week, and leave with another stack for the week ahead. I can still, vividly remember the pure JOY of that feeling – armfuls of books and endless free time to enjoy them.

I might ride my bike for a bit, or hang outside in the apple tree if the day was fine, or retreat to the garden shed, which became my spy lookout (did anyone else become obsessed with Usborne’s The Spy’s Handbook, circa 1990??).

My parents did not feel it was their responsibility to fill our lives with anything much bigger than what was held within our own four walls and the realms of our family. We weren’t members of anything either… no Wildlife Trusts, National Trust, or English Heritage trails to fill the weekend… the local park was a real treat… an ice-cream from the van and an hour to run around on the green.

How we ate

Convenience food came in with a bang in the 1970s and by the 80s, it was ubiquitous. I remember watching the reruns of the 1970s BBC series, Butterflies, and the episode where the matriarch, Ria, heads to the supermarket and discovers freezers full of ready meals and loads up the trolley with dozens of them, realising she’ll no longer have to wage war in the kitchen (a long running joke of the series was Ria’s inedible cooking, which her two sons and husband were unfailing diplomatic about).

At home, for the most part, we ate well. My parents’ Cypriot heritage shaped much of the food I enjoyed… There were lots of Cypriot classics, from çorba (chicken, rice and lentil soup), fasulye (a fresh green bean stew, or dried & soaked white bean stew), köfte (a fried ‘meatball’) and dolma (stuffed vine leaves)… but more often than not, this was weekend food. I only really remember us having dolma when my grandmother was over, or perhaps my aunts, and the women would sit around the table spooning the stuffing - rice, minced lamb, herbs, tomato - into the vine leaves, wrapping them carefully, and then placing them into the large stainless steel “tencere”, ready to cook. The process took several hours, so not one for a weeknight.

At weekends, she might also make a big lasagne, shepherds pie, “chicken & rice” (our version of a roast dinner, with pilav rice, plus traditional roasties), or a one tin “tava” roast - when she’d pop chicken thighs, potatoes, and veg into a single tray and let it slow cook through the morning. Oh and lots of makarna - a simple, Cypriot staple of macaroni cooked in chicken stock, served with a grating of white cheese or hellim and dried mint on top.

During the week, there was a lot of convenience food courtesy of the freezer – chicken nuggets, sausages, chicken kievs (as they were called back then), mini shepherd’s pies, and even the odd Findus crispy pancake (my sister loved them, but mum put her foot down when she saw what was inside them… anaemic glue).

At weekends and during school holidays, I rarely remember mum cooking lunch. If we had family over, we’d eat at around 3 or 4pm – a late lunch or early dinner. Most weekends, I would just cobble stuff together when I got hungry – a staple favourite was a fish finger and cheddar sandwich on squidgy white bread.

I think about Instagram and how images of food have come to shape how we eat. How tables laid with platters, salads, whole foods, fresh fruit, eating the rainbow have become commonplace… it’s a rare family that shares a shot of their frozen nuggets and chips supper – even though convenience food is even more prevalent today than it was when I was a kid.

Had instagram existed back then, it would’ve captured a very different picture. Breakfast was almost invariably a bowl of cereal that I served myself. I remember eating 2 or 3 big bowls of cereal before I felt full. We always had rice crispies in the cupboard; occasionally Mum might let us get Frosties but even she thought they were too sugary; I had Coco Pops a lot… in fact, I think I had Coco Pops for breakfast every school morning for several years without a break… two of three bowls, with pints of cold cow’s milk (to which I’m intolerant – hence why much of my childhood was spent with a runny nose and chesty cough).

My kids had cereal a bit when they were little – those wholegrain ones without “sugar” – but it’s been years since they asked for or wanted it. What do they have instead? Pancakes, crumpets, porridge, omelettes, scrambled eggs, smoked salmon, sourdough… that’s the norm over here… and far more involved. A running theme of motherhood, today.

As a kid, at weekends, I remember the breakfast table being a little more adventurous… I remember there being boiled eggs, piles of toast, honey or jam, and then as a teenager I seem to remember turkey rashers being a regular feature… my brother would eat these in a white bread toastie with ketchup. Mum or dad (if he wasn’t working, and he was pretty much always working) might also cut thick chunks of hellim (halloumi) and pop it under the grill with salty black olives… He’d have this with toast, fresh tomato and cucumber. A Cypriot breakfast transplanted to South London… but only on days when he wasn’t in a rush… a holiday or a rare Sunday when he wasn’t working.

I remember being hungry a lot of the time, as most growing kids are… And think back to what I would eat to keep myself going between mealtimes… There were hundreds of tall glasses of chocolate Nesquik, endless cheese sandwiches, far too many slices of cake (shop-bought madeira or Jamaican Ginger Cake), hundreds of foraged biscuits; occasionally I might cut a hunk of cheddar and have that with an apple… That was something I did when I got a bit older.

There was always fruit – oranges, apples, the occasional pineapple – but no sense of seasonality. We had a large supermarket a couple of minutes up the road… I don’t think my mum ever shopped at a local market because we lived in the city; our links with the farming community were non-existent. My mum is and has always been a good, natural cook… And I know that we ate a lot better than a lot of my friends. My lunchboxes were often seen as exotic by my friends, who’d be jealous of some of the Turkish pastries or interesting sandwich fillings I’d show up with.

The family unit

Growing up, I remember that I spent as many weekends away from home as I did at home… often dropped off at an older cousin’s or aunt’s house – heaven for me, because I got to play with my cousins for the WHOLE day.

I recall being dropped off early in the morning and picked up long after it had gone dark. Or, sometimes mum would call and plans would change and I’d end up staying overnight (this was invariably welcome & exciting!).

Away from home, there would be long stretches of the day without adults present. If I was with me sister or cousins, and we’d get hungry, we’d ransack the fridge or freezer, grab what we fancied, and then run back outside or upstairs to carry on playing. When dinner time arrived, an adult would usually appear, and food would be ordered, cooked, or assembled. I remember big takeaways showing up – sometimes KFC (with Vienetta!), McDonalds, or the local Turkish – trays of kebab, salad, rice, hummus.

If we stayed overnight, my sister and I would wake up whenever everyone else was asleep, run back down to the kitchen, raid the biscuit tin, chocolate boxes and sweetie jars, and return to our beds with heavy pockets and spend the rest of the night giggling and gobbling. It was one of the main reasons we loved sleepovers with relatives… To this day I’m not sure if anyone ever worked out what we were doing!

I’m not sure what my mum did while my sister and I were out of the house… she still had my younger brother to look after. She’d often go shopping; she might hop on a bus into London, or she might have spent part of the day cleaning and dancing around the house with Top of the Pops blasting (I have very clear memories of her doing this!).

If we were all dropped off at an aunt’s or relative’s house, or if my nene (my mum’s mum) came to babysit, mum would often head out for the night – clubbing, dancing, dinner with her two best friends.

In comparison, I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve left my girls with family, or made plans to be out for the night. I wonder if a large part of the reason that Mr R and I have untethered and crumbled is rooted in just how little “quality” time we’ve ever had alone. Date night is a fiction here… it never existed. We always, always put the girls’ needs ahead of our own. And we moved like a set of scales… when one of us had more capacity, the other could rest and regroup… which also meant that we rarely escaped together… and when one of us was up, the other often slipped down.

As a modern mum – far more acutely aware of the impact of my choices and behaviours on my children – I found it far too easy to convince myself that going away, or someone else stepping in to help with/look after/support my kids, just wasn’t worth it. An anxiety-fuelled, perfectionist obstinacy which barked: “If you go away, the girls will be unsettled, uprooted, out of routine… it isn’t fair on them.”

But when I was a kid, there was always a sense that children were moveable and amenable. That they were less “real”, somehow. Adults called the shots and kids went along for the ride. I don’t remember being part of any of the big life decisions made for our family – moving home, school, holidays, travel plans, weekend arrangements. I remember being invited to birthday parties and having to say “no” quite a bit, because mum had already planned something with the wider family that day. I was never allowed to attend sleepovers either… my parents vehemently disliked the idea of us staying in the homes of those who weren’t family. This, thankfully, changed as we got older and my mum got to know the parents of my closest friends… I think I was 14 the first time I stayed at a friend’s house!

Mostly, though, my childhood revolved around family. From the age of 10 up to around 12, I babysat one of my baby cousins (which began when she was around 4 months old) every other weekend, all weekend long. I would feed her, play with her, read and sing to her, take her out for walks around the garden in the pram, put her to sleep, change her nappies, bathe her and get her ready for bed. The baby’s mother had left her father, and she was being looked after by her father (who was often out at work) and her grandmother (my great aunt). I knew the baby’s schedule as though I were her own mother. I knew exactly what she needed to fall asleep. The exact temperature of her milk (lukewarm). Her favourite lullaby (You are my sunshine).

Looking back, there was an enormous amount of responsibilty on my shoulders which I readily accepted – I loved babysitting more than anything else in the world… but I also remember the baby in her walker, and me stripping beds, dusting and hoovering while my great aunt busied herself in other ways – likely doing laundry, cleaning other rooms, cooking. I do remember getting tired and bored… but being unable to say ‘No, I don’t want to do that.’ For the most part, if an adult told me to do something, I did it. I am not sure when that changed for me… it felt like the primary, normative response of the age.

I imagine what my girls would do – or how I’d react if I learned that the person looking after them was giving them endless chores and tasks to complete, or charging them with caring for an almost-newborn child.

I have joked, often, about how little responsibility they have – the old “you don’t know how easy you have it / lucky you are” narrative, that every single generation has chided the generation beneath it with, since the dawn of civilisation – but I have also created the lives they inhabit.

Yes… I have made my kids’ lives as easy as I could.

This is a loaded gun that I have regularly harmed myself with. As a working mother, there has been an ENORMOUS amount of guilt festering away in the background of my parenting years. Societal expectations suggest “good mothers” should always be present – patient, attentive, receptive… well, when you are working five days a week, you have already failed at that.

I know that the guilt I felt – while also, superficially, being wholly at peace with my choice to work and for Mr R to be the stay-at-home parent – led to a lot of impossible bar-setting. I think I felt, like a lot of working mums, that I had to prove myself to be both successful at work AND at home (yes, back to the “supermum”). But unlike my mum – who wouldn’t have given a crap about a load of undone washing or a messy kitchen, because she’d sort it out in her own time and never felt judged by anyone – I have always desperately cared about APPEARING to be wholly in control, organised, efficient.

I have also felt guilty at work for not being at home (and don’t get me started on the palpable, visceral pain of nights when I was stuck on a train and couldn’t make it in time for bath and bedtime… I can still FEEL it in my body), and guilty at home for not focusing on work… a surefire route to maternal stress and depletion.

I’ve also been guilty of “hyper-parenting” – zooming in on the minutiae at home, with my kids – from what they eat to what they watch – largely because I felt that I had so little time with them, that I wanted to dial up the “nourishment” and “goodness” as much as I could, whenever I was home. Of course, the quickest way to make something UNnourishing, is to make it enormously stressful and pressurised… like not eating any veg for a month and attempting to force it all down in the space of a few hours.

I have also, very regularly, ignored my own personal needs, in order to fully meet my children’s needs, or to keep a clean, tidy, organised home.

I do sometimes ask my children for help, but not nearly enough. There are certain expectations I have about how they should treat and respect their own spaces and possessions. The eldest, for the most part, is very responsible with her space & belongings; the youngest is naturally messy and far more chaotic in her activities – her room is always an explosion of half-done things… damp towels, dirty underwear, used tissues scattered across the floor. I sometimes clean and tidy her room TWICE a day (madness, I know… but I can’t bear the mess… again – a condition I set for myself, like a rod for my own back).

My mum, on the other hand, would expect us to clean our own rooms, pick things up and put them away, and prepare ourselves for the day ahead. She wasn’t one to set chores and we didn’t have to earn our pocket money – she ran and looked after the house, and mum & dad always provided what we needed – clothes, food, books, toys… I felt then, and still feel, very lucky.

How fear shapes Motherhood

I think about my conditioning as a Mother, often. Did I inherit it? No… it was not what was modelled to me by my mother, grandmother, aunts. Was it an instinct? Yes, possibly… but one, I have come to understand, that is rooted in a lot of fear. Fear that I would somehow harm her. This life – the most precious thing I was ever going to be responsible for – was mine to protect and nurture.

I remember how, even when I was pregnant with my first child, it felt so crucially importance to eat, sleep, “think” well. I had this profound sense of a growing life within me, and a lot of anxiety that ran alongside that – not wanting to mess things up before they even started. I pretty much cut out all sugar, and most gluten, when I was pregnant with my first child. I followed an Ayurvedic protocol, not strictly at all, but just a rough-ish direction of travel. I had an uneventful, easy pregnancy, which extended into her birth. She was a small, healthy baby – 6lb 7oz. To this day, the foods that I craved the most when I was pregnant with her are among her favourite foods… Cucumber, & watermelon at the top of the list.

I compare this to my mum – without any judgement whatsoever – and know that eating for a healthy baby was not something people knew much about in the 70s and 80s. Fish and chips was her biggest craving. Oh, and strawberries. Cypriots have a saying that the thing you crave while giving birth translates to the child… apparently my mum called out for strawberries shortly before I was born, and I arrived with a strawberry-shaped, red-pink birthmark on my left arm, which has all but faded away.

For me – from the moment my eldest was born – that will: “to do the best that I could for her, took over. And somehow formed itself into a whole set of beliefs that I didn’t inherit from my mum, but that had been shaped by the emerging movements, opinions, and comparisons around me.

I learned about “gentle birthing” and “gentle parenting”… I bought a book called “The Gentle First Year”, and thought, yes, this is for me. I wish to do my child no harm.

In the years since, I have learned, that even with the very best will in the world, our children will have their own ideas about everything. And as much as I wanted to be that “gentle parent” – sometimes, there were times when I lost absolutely every atom of my shit, and the pent-up wrath of the serially stressed-out Mother was unleashed like the fury of Vesuvius… burning everyone in the vicinity.

So, I’ll say this until I am blue in the face – Motherhood is a really bad place to introduce rigid ideals. The happiest mums I know are those who have always loved their kids but never pretended that they or their kids were anything less than wholly, fallibly, messily human – or that life can be brutal, heartbreaking & bloody hard.

I was adamant about breastfeeding, even though I got mastitis three times in the first three months, and was in excruciating pain; scabbed over nipples that cracked and bled anew, with every single feed. I said that I would rather give birth to her a second time than have to breastfeed… but rather than open my mind to any possible alternative, I forced myself to continue… Even though so many of those early breastfeeds were done through gritted teeth and pouring tears. How was that good for her, or me?

If I could go back to that obstinate, frightened new mum, I would tell her to do what my mum did for me and my siblings – give the baby formula so that she’s not hungry, and give your poor, exhausted, newly-birthed body enough time to heal a little… then, try breastfeeding again, from a better place. I just couldn’t do it. The day I bought formula I sobbed for hours before attempting to feed it to her. She vomited repeatedly a few minutes afterward (she was so hungry, she guzzled it down) and I took that as a sign that I had harmed my child. I shoved the formula to the back of the cupboard and swore on my life that I’d breastfeed her even if it killed me… I can see from this place in time, just how fragile my mental health was in those early days and weeks.

Unlike me, my sister had no qualms at all about bottle-feeding after birth… Her belief was: a happier mother, a happier child. That was her peaceful and confident choice, and she held no guilt at all about it. That is powerful to me.

My ideals prevented me from considering any other alternative. Even as I sobbed my way through every feed and was too stubborn to take the antibiotics I’d been prescribed when I got repeated bouts of mastitis… Again, a decision fuelled by an overly anxious belief that I could not take a medicine that might transfer into my milk and into my child… so I chose illness and agony over antibiotics.

A pattern of “the right way is often the hardest way”, has, in many ways, been the backbone of my mothering experience. Something I am only beginning to make sense of now, 16 years after first becoming a mother.

Just some of the “rules” I applied and followed, with my kids:

All of my babies’ meals would be organic. We would make everything from scratch. We would steam, purée, freeze everything she would need to eat. Once weaned, we’d allow her to feed herself – to squish and taste and play with her food as much as she wanted to.

We would never try and force the spoon into her mouth. We would never encourage her to eat more than she wanted. If she was to be looked after by someone else – at this point it was only my mum whom we trusted enough to do that – all of the expressed milk and food would be packaged up, labelled, ready for the handover. We occasionally bought readymade baby meals –organic ones – but these were for “a rainy day”.

Even though I would go back to work after just three months, I would continue to breastfeed her through the night, and express during the day and evening – freezing packets of breastmilk that Paul would defrost and feed to her when I was not there.

When she naturally transitioned away from breastmilk, at a year old, we moved her over to a complete infant formula - based on organic goat’s milk - which cost twice as much as anything else. Having already tried her with two different cow’s milk varieties – which she invariably threw up within seconds – we felt certain when we were doing the right thing.

I do know that the angriest I have ever been with my mum was when she took my then 3- and 6-year-old daughters to McDonald’s for dinner on New Year’s Day. Or when my dad took one of them to CostCutter and she came back clutching a bag of giant marshmallows that was bigger than she was. 13 years on, I can look back and laugh.

Realise how skewed my idea of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ was… how very rigid. I forgot how I’d gorged on sweets at every family sleepover I’d ever had… how I’d snack on cake and Nesquik all weekend long. I didn’t want that for my kids. I didn’t want them started on a life-long sugar addiction. We still provide nourishing, home-cooked meals, most days. They love food. They love cooking. They choose to eat well, mostly. The foundation is laid… but it’s theirs to build on.

Sensitive beings

Our eldest was so very sensitive from the very beginning. I do not know if that came through me, or her father, or whether that is just how she is made.

I could not walk into a room full of people with her in my arms. She would have to be eased in very, very gently, shielded from the rest of the room by me or her father; occasionally my mum or dad could do the same job. The minute we entered a room and people started cooing over her, she would burst into screaming tears. She was not the sort of baby you could tickle or tease… it was too much for her. She had to get to know you first.

All the Turkish relatives found this confounding… They were used to grabbing babies, pinching their cheeks, bouncing them on their knees, and watching them laugh and shriek in delight. I remember, when her sister came along, built quite differently – smiley, naturally sociable, chatty – an elderly relative commented that this one was “sıcak” - warm - whereas my eldest daughter was viewed as more removed and reticent.

Only a Mother can recognise the lack of nuance in the external world’s reading of their children. My eldest is, in fact, one of the most deeply feeling people I know. She has a fierce sense of loyalty, love, justice. She has a huge, huge heart, even if the vagaries of her emotions are often masked and dulled to make them palatable to the outside world. At home, we see her for who she is. With her closest friends, her closest family, we know. And she knows that we know.

Even with my parents, who are deeply loving and supportive, it has taken time for them to understand my kids. Taken time for them to understand our family. Why and how we talk so openly about everything. Before making the move to Devon from Kent, we consulted the girls many times over. It made things a lot harder. My dad told me, time and time again, don’t ask them! Just tell them! It didn’t feel right. When the time came, however, we were all aligned, and the girls weren’t uprooted so much as co-planted… their agency and autonomy as important as mine and Mr R’s.

I also know that this approach to parenting has resulted in an inordinately heavy emotional load to carry – every wobble held, seen, supported, discussed; exhausting, but a privilege, too. When my kids are unsure of anything, they come to me. Whether in hour-long outpourings in bed, beside me, late at night, as my eyelids sting with tiredness, even as my heart swells with gratitude, or in multiple daily interactions – questions, asks, plans, check-ins, debates… I am here for them, and they know that.

Or when something has worried or upset them and I receive an angry, tearful child who will shout or swear or slam a door… but will, at some point later that day, or week, come and pour it all out into my lap, and I will drop everything I need to do, or the time I had allotted to my self, and just give them my whole heart & self… until it’s better, so much better, than it was.

The dizzying lengths I go to, as a mum, to walk the road before them… planning a route, ordering tickets, filling a calendar, late-night checks & life admin…one-step-ahead-at-all-times… just so that they can go into any given day with a packed lunch, a readied school bag, clean clothes & the right permission slip. What we do to lighten their loads.

That emotional load isn’t, by and large, the same as the one our parents carried. I learned, for the most part, to deal with my inner turmoil alone. There were many big moments in my life that I didn’t dare speak out loud. I couldn’t talk to my mum about crushes, or (secret) boyfriends, or sexual awakenings, or desires I felt or feared. That was utterly taboo for us, back then. As young as she was, she was also quite traditional. The idea of sex before marriage was a wholly outlandish one in our home.

But there were many others that I did share with my mum… times when I was scared, or confused, or just struggling with something.

My girls are both open books. They tell me things even when they make me squirm (even as I fight to keep my face neutral and open). They share their deepest fears with me. They offload all of their anger and rage onto me, too. I am both the butt of their pain and the receptacle for their struggles. When they were both really struggling at the same time, I didn’t know if I’d make it. Every day was so heavy with tears, tantrums, fear, anxiety, sadness… my heart felt lost beneath the ocean.

How to “juggle” as full-time, high-responsibility day job with two unwell children who are unable to go to school? You can’t. Lots of things just start to fall apart. And if they don’t, it’ll be you that falls apart first.

These last two years, then, have been an exercise in opening up my arms (and mind) and letting them go… aware than in two short years’ time, my eldest will be heading off to University (if that’s her choice, which it presently is).

They are the most glorious, interesting, funny, wise and warm people. A day in their company is a good day (one at a time, though, otherwise they bicker like crows); they flood the day with so much joy, laughter, and much-needed truth – both of them so free of BS… honest and insightful. Mostly – that they are who they know themselves to be; the moral codes they live by, solid; the beautiful people & choices they fill their lives with.

Our shared journey hasn’t always been easy. We’ve navigated an unfurling awareness of neurodivergency with both children… we’ve walked through anxiety, PTSD, depression… all in their 15 short years on this Earth. That they both speak of their childhood as golden and magical, bursts my heart. A tapestry of forests, foraging, home cooking, crafts, camping, CBeebies, bedtime stories, bubbly baths…

I have been strict with so many things that my mother was never strict about – or simply did not know/see the harm in… with screens and processed food, most of all. And I think I was wrong at times, and right at others.

What I can see most clearly, casting my mind back to my own childhood, is how little guilt my mum battled with, and how much it has eclipsed and underscored so much of my own mothering. How fear played a part in both of our lives in different ways – fear of doing the wrong thing and unwittingly harming my kids, for me; for her, fear of the wider world – keeping us close and cloistered.

And how, even as we’ve taken such different approaches to so many things, we’ve also been identical in other ways. And how, I am a lot like my mum in many ways, and my daughters are a lot like me, and her.

I wonder if this letter has brought up anything for you too? Admittedly, it has turned out rather differently to what I thought I was writing (a simpler, shorter essay about the myth of the supermum, and the harm it has inflicted..). But, as with every letter I write, I trust that it came out this way for a reason… much like our beautiful babies!

Here’s to a fuller cup for every mum…

With love,

Emine

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“Make yourself comfortable…”

A few years ago, I completed my Shakti Yoga Therapy for Women training with Uma Dinsmore-Tuli. It was a year-long learning journey with monthly held teaching sessions… which almost all the attendants absorbed from the comfort of their own beds. There was something deeply reassuring, humbling, load-lightening, about showing up precisely as you were – at the time, I was almost always exhausted – juggling full time work with two struggling children… one who was navigating deep anxiety and PTSD, and the other, in between secondary schools, “trying” home-schooling on for size, but desperately missing the daily buzz and inclusion of friendship groups and social lives.

Looking back, I place a hand on my heart in recognition of and gratitude for just how much my life has shifted. How my girls (thank the goddess) are presently both happy, healthy, rooted & secure in their lives, friendships, school, local community.

That year, each time we gathered for our opening circle, we shared a little “weather report”… mine was invariably, cloudy, foggy, misty, stormy… occasionally the sun would break through and the girls would both have really good days… and I felt as though I could live off the joy of that for the rest of the year.

Uma – one of my favourite humans – so very funny, wise, truthful – has not lived an easy life. Some truly devastating and unjust things have happened to her… yet she continues to navigate the world with kindness, humility, hope. I learned such an enormous amount from her. But the most important thing I learned, was how to get really comfortable.

At the beginning of a Yoga Nidra class, or perhaps at the end of a Yoga class, as you recline back into savasana, your teacher will invariably invite you to get comfortable. What I’ve noticed over the years, is how few women really take the time and care they actually need to achieve this.

Of course, for many people, unmitigated comfort – i.e. the absence of any dis-comfort – is not possible… but nor is that the goal. It is not about negating what your body or mind or heart feels… it is, for me at least, about taking the due time and care needed, to ensure that for those moments – this allotted, sacred window of care and rest – I feel as comfortable as I possibly can.

Am I the right temperature? Am I likely to get cold mid-way? Yes? So, I will layer myself with another blanket, ensure my feet are cosy in thick socks, and tuck them in.

Are there parts of me that need to be moved, reorganised, stretched out, cushioned, in order for me to be able to close my eyes and fully welcome what’s about to come next? Almost certainly. OK – grab a pillow; place my hands by my sides rather than on my body which requires a bit more effort to stop them slipping off my torso; let my legs and feet fall out and away, comfortably… mmm. This is starting to feel good.

Am I thirsty or hungry? Admittedly, if I am in a class that’s about to start, there’s not much I can do about that. Although this certainly won’t stop me reaching for my flask before/during/after class (I rarely leave home without a little thermal flask filled with tea or hot water), or taking a few satiating bites of whatever I have in my bag that day (again, I always have some sort of lentil crispy thing, or nut-butter-oaty-flap-jacky type thing, or sometimes, if I’m organised in the morning, maybe a pot of apple slices & nut butter, just in case I get caught out and hungry later on).

Or, am I at home? Yes? So… I will pour myself something hot, take a few sips before I start, and if hungry, will either eat a meal first (if I have time, and it’s not a work-from-home day, when I have a set-ish lunch time) or have a hearty snack to keep my body happy, and enable me to enjoy what comes next without hunger pangs or discomfort.

Do I need a wee? Come on, be honest. Not – “can I hold it?” but would I feel a little/lot better if I went for a wee now, enabling me to fully embrace the rest practice that’s about to come my way. For me, the answer to this question is almost always ‘just go for a wee’. Even now – writing this, I realise that I need a wee. Off I go!

And this long-ish list of considerations can be registered in two different ways. Perhaps, thinking, ‘who has the time to do all of that stuff BEFORE they even get to have a rest?’ My brain has often taken me there too. Which is why cutting corners with our comfort is so compelling – it is just too darned easy to convince ourselves that these things are frivolous, so we simply must suck it up and make do.

Except… it will likely take less than one minute to grab a pillow or blanket or pair of socks and place them where needed. It might take 1-2 mins to pop to the loo for a wee. It’ll take little more time than that to shuffle and rearrange your body until it’s just so. We’re talking ourselves out of optimal comfort for the sake of five extra minutes…

But when we begin to take the time we need to meet our most basic needs (wee, poo, breathe, hydrate, eat, move), we also begin to realise how often we might have ignored them – or how strong the conditioning to override our basic needs actually is.

This year, I have started working on a very simple framework for nourishment that includes some of our most basic needs. It will be the foundation of the new ecosystem I’m building around MOTHER NOURISH – which will include a rich library of resources, reads, audio, video, and a membership for those who want to drip-feed nourishment into their lives in small, sustainable, real-life approved ways (every day).

While beginning to feel into this framework – which naturally built into the apt acronym, RESPECT – I realised how many of my most basic needs were regularly ignored.

• How often I’d sit at my desk and push myself onward, even when my body needed to stretch out, move, change position.

• How often I’d ignore that call from my heart to step outside, let the sun into my eyes and air into my lungs, before returning to the task in hand.

• How often I ignored the growing pressure in my bladder while I fed the kids/dog/wiped down surfaces/finished an email/hoovered.

• How often I pushed past hunger for 20, 30, 40 minutes, even as I knew that I’d still have to cook, and then ended up too hungry to do so, and made do with leftovers, or a half-meal – bread & hummus, a few olives, a few crisps, a few nuts.

And in myriad, building, micro-tears to my bodily fabric, too.

• How often I ignored that niggling feeling of discomfort as a clothing label irritated my neck, or a bra cut up too high or low or tight, or a threadbare sock chafed against my sole.

• How often I pulled on the same jumper that I didn’t even like, because that day, for whatever reason, I convinced myself that it didn’t really matter what my clothes felt like… I just had to get on with the day.

I scrawled in my journal:

• Wee when you need to wee

• Eat when you need to eat

• Rest when you need to rest

• Move when you need to move

• Stop when you need to stop

From that, it evolved into:

• Rest when you are weary

• Eat when you are hungry

• Stop whatever you’re doing, before you reach capacity

• Poo/Pee as soon as you get the urge

• Express your needs and boundaries without shame

• Check in with what you feel, need, want, consistently

• Take Time to do any/all of the above – or move, change position, step away, catch your breath

It felt so powerful. But also, kind of heartbreaking. Why did such basic, obvious choices need to be articulated? Why – unless I catch myself in that urge to ‘hold it’ do I not take myself immediately off for a wee? Why, when I begin to feel that lightness and escalating pre-hunger, do I not pause, feel into what I need that day, and prep/cook/assemble/buy the thing I want to eat?

What I feel heartened in saying, having moved into 2026 with a much clearer commitment to my own nourishment, is that what really helped me draw the line in terms of my own RESPECT – was starting exactly where I was, and holding myself accountable for the key things listed above.

I no longer put off going to the loo. And every time I went, immediately, my body registered a little safety signal – like a sigh that whispered “ah, yes, she is listening” – and this signal built, several times a day, day after day, and became something far more important than the sum of its parts.

A side note on going to the toilet, as a woman…

When we consider what many children encounter in schools – often not given permission to visit the toilet when they need to – or the number of times girls & women have had to ‘hover’ in order to hygienically urinate, or to rush and be unable to complete a full bladder or bowel movement for any number of reasons – from feeling guilty about taking too long because the queue for the ladies is out the door, to having to ‘go in a rush’ because we have small children/food on the stove/x,y,z time-sensitive responsibilities to rush back to – we begin to see how something as seemingly simple as going for a wee, is a lot more complicated… and riddled with conditioning.

Our body holds onto a lot of stories around this too. For a lot of brand-new mothers, that first toilet trip is extremely challenging. If there has been surgery or mechanical intervention, many women may be understandably scared to look or touch down there. This is a story my mother told me, repeatedly, after having been given an episiotomy – without her permission – and visiting the loo after my birth, to no longer recognise those most intimate parts of her own body. She was 21 and had been mutilated. Those were her words. That really stayed with me. For many new mothers, there is worry about passing that first or subsequent bowel movements. Or if a catheter has been fitted (which can also be extremely painful when both fitted and removed), will I be able to urinate independently? Will it hurt? Who will help me if I can’t sit down or get up or feel as though I am going to pass out? I remember accompanying my sister to the bathroom, shortly after her second caesarean section, when she was in great pain from both the procedure and the building pressure to go to the loo. I felt utterly helpless as I watched her howl in pain and that feeling of despair really stayed with me too.

Admittedly, when I sat down to write this letter, this wasn’t the route I had planned to take. But as so often happens with these letters – and anything rising from the realms of my own body/heart/mind – one moment of awareness touches and awakens another. And another. What I am really saying here is, that need to have a wee is a really bloody important one. A sovereign one. As important and valid as any other urge that your body produces – from a pang of hunger to a throb of desire. Listen with love.

And this year, I really have been listening a lot more, and responding far more quickly.

Part of this has come from feeling into my body’s own feelings of safety… sensitive bodies need constant, continual ‘you are OK’ signalling. It’s heartening to read more and more female health experts – doctors, endocrinologists, integrative health & somatic practitioners – recognise the role that safety signalling plays within the regulation and stabilisation of our hormones.

Simply put – within 30-40 minutes of waking up, the body will kickstart its wake-up protocol – called the Cortisol Awakening Response (CAR). Cortisol promotes alertness – we need it to move out of sleep (when melatonin and progesterone are higher), into a wakeful state (when melatonin drops off, and progesterone also dips).

This wholly natural spike in cortisol in the morning can be problematic for some. For women who are experiencing anxiety, the 50-60% surge in cortisol (again, wholly “normal”, as part of the CAR), can be registered by a sensitised nervous system as an elevated threat – to which the body responds as though it’s in acute danger. If this happens, you may experience sensations of pure panic, have high anxiety, racing thoughts, and the physiological symptoms that accompany it – e.g. rapid heartbeat, sweating, sudden hot/coldness.

I’ve also experienced this firsthand, while dealing with histamine intolerance. Histamine intolerance is a condition where the body accumulates excess histamine due to an inability to properly break it down. Many women will only begin to experience issues with histamine as they get older. There are a number of reasons for this:

• Oestrogen Dominance/fluctuation: Even if total oestrogen is declining, rapid, unpredictable fluctuations often lead to high oestrogen relative to progesterone (which also begins to triggering histamine release from mast cells.

• Reduced DAO Enzyme: Progesterone helps support the production of Diamine Oxidase (DAO), the primary enzyme in the gut that breaks down histamine. Low progesterone levels reduce this capacity, leading to histamine accumulation.

• Reduced Mast Cell Stabilization: Progesterone acts as a stabilizer for mast cells, keeping them calm. As progesterone drops, mast cells become more unstable and release more histamine.

• Gut Dysfunction & Stress: Perimenopausal changes can disrupt the gut microbiome and increase stress, both of which increase histamine levels.

Cortisol, oestrogen, and histamine also have an intimate relationship. Oestrogen increases histamine release and inhibits its breakdown, while histamine stimulates more oestrogen production, creating a negative feedback loop:

Higher oestrogen (in relation to lower progesterone) = histamine release = make more oestrogen = release more histamine. And on & on it goes.

Cortisol, released as part of a stress response, then triggers mast cells to release more histamine, exacerbating this relationship.

And just for added fun – high histamine can also trigger cortisol release, contributing to chronic stress.

In essence, high oestrogen combined with high cortisol creates a “perfect storm” for high histamine, which can cause symptoms such as:

• Skin: hives, flushing, itching, eczema

• Respiratory: rhinitis (constant runny nose), sinusitis, wheeze, shortness of breath, chronic cough

• Gut: acid reflux, nausea, constipation, diarrhoea, bloating, wind

• Vascular: dizziness, fainting, migraine, oedema (fluid retention), palpitations

• Neurological: migraine, brain fog

• Anxiety, insomnia, fatigue, tinnitus

• Joint pains, breast pain, painful and/or heavy periods, bladder pain syndrome

I spent over a year trying to understand why my body was caught in the above cascade – and most mornings, I would wake up to a cavalcade of symptoms – mostly skin-related, including welts and hives down both arms, eczema-type rashes across my neck and around my eyes, and when it was particularly bad, a racing heart and racing thoughts (which, once or twice, tipped over into anxiety which lingered for several days).

For anyone reading this who is navigating histamine intolerance, or other conditions which relate to their mast cells – including Mast Cell Activation Syndrome (MCAS) and Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome (POTS) (a chronic autonomic nervous system disorder characterized by an abnormal, rapid heart rate increase (tachycardia) upon standing) – I know how frightening, unpredictable and destabilising it can be.

It’s so easy to write about staying calm, measured, and simplifying things, when you are in a GOOD PLACE. And I want to recognise that. My instinct, when things fall apart, is to leap into FIX IT mode. And, to some extent, to register any wobble in my overall wellbeing as a personal failure. I have spent most of my life as a women’s health editor, researcher & writer! I can’t be seen to be “unhealthy”! I can’t be struggling! I have to be a beacon of health at all times! Ps What utter BS.

Because this is something I really want to get clear about:

Health is never static.

We don’t suddenly ‘become healthy’ and then live there for ever. This is not nirvana. I will have challenging days – when I am juggling a lot of work on tight deadlines, the kids who may be having tricky days themselves and need more of me than I have to give, and the entirety of the motherload/home/life admin on top – as it all reaches a bottleneck-crescendo – and yes, of course, I will likely feel bloody stressed out & overwhelmed as a result.

If it goes on for a little while – even just a day – I will probably begin to feel the effects of higher levels of cortisol being released. Sometimes it’s a mix of cortisol and adrenaline, as I respond to being in ‘fight’ mode – I might sweat, flush, develop hives, start itching, or feel the beginnings of a headache or muscle ache…

This is when the learning curve kicks in. Or, more precisely, when ignoring what was happening in my body for long enough, didn’t give me any other choice.

At first, my response to these early morning baptisms of fire, was denial. I was certain it related to something external… mould, perhaps, or poor air quality; laundry liquid; a nutritional deficiency of some kind; overly high humidity in the home.

Admittedly, yes, during the cold, damp winter months in Devon, humidity in our home can rise past 80%. We got a dehumidifier. It helped with the damp.

I asked my GP to do some blood tests. All in “normal” range, but a little low when checked over by a functional nutritionist. Addressed. Some small improvements.

I reduced the amount of histamine going into my body from the food that I ate. Initially, with a strict exclusion diet. Bloody miserable but helpful. If your body’s a bucket filling up with histamine, it occasionally needs emptying out. And for the tap to be turned off at source. Eating a low histamine diet did that to a partial degree – an adjustment to the flow coming in. Which helped quite a bit at the beginning... but is not a long-term solution.

Also – it didn’t take me long to realise that even on days when I ate an extremely low histamine diet, I could still have a bad flare. It was helpful in reducing my histamine load overall, yes, but enough for me to understand that food wasn’t the main issue (it’s problematic to a point – I still can’t tolerate fermented foods or collagen – both of which are very high in histamine).

Then, as things began to settle a bit, I adjusted my thinking around it… my body was crying out for something it needed – almost literally, given my red, raw, raging eyes (it looked as though I’d been crying for days).

I sat down with a functional nutritionist who specialises in MCAS and histamine intolerance, and the message started to seep through.

There was no tablet I could take that would get me “better”. As a kid I had eczema, asthma and hay fever. My eczema and asthma only cleared up when I stopped having copious amounts of cow’s milk (I would drink about two pints of the stuff, every single day). But when I was stressed, run down, depleted, exhausted, I was still sensitive to flares. I remember having a particularly stubborn patch of eczema on my arm while studying for my finals at uni. For a year, it got worse & worse, regardless of what I applied to it. And when the exams were over, we broke up, and I slept for days… it cleared up.

Similarly, after a more recent flare – when my neck and eyes once again came up in rashes and welts – eating low histamine foods and getting early nights, didn’t really help.

What my body felt was so much deeper than that. I felt utterly exhausted but sleep didn’t take the edge of the fatigue. It didn’t help that sleep was often interrupted, light, fleeting. Some nights I’d fall into bed and stay humming on the uppermost surface of sleep – like a pond skater – unable to really, truly drift off. I was eating as nourishingly as possible, but my body still felt on edge, prickly, high alert and irritated.

Why do we not recognise chronic stress when it’s staring us in the face?

Even a cursory glance at my life – full-time job, income provider, two kids, the breakdown of a 26-year marriage, a deeply unwell husband, managing the sale/purchase of a home, ALL of the life admin, every damn day… hello, TRUTH.

Nervous system in tatters. Heart in bits. Mind racing.

But, I wasn’t broken. Along with the relationship breakdown came oceans of clarity, compassion (for him, and for me), acceptance, and a true, unequivocal feeling of relief. I don’t need to keep fighting. Pushing. Holding. Fixing. I can let go, and let it all be.

And through it all, I felt this growing stubbornness which started as simply deciding to feed myself well – to not make do with the burnt crusts and crumbs.

I knew, around the time when parts of my life began to fall apart, that I would NOT fall apart. Nope. Not happening. I love my life. I love my kids. I love the person I have become/am becoming… I want to fight for me. I want to protect me. I want to nourish me. I deserve someone who will love and care for and look after me. Yes, me!

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But – I also had to stop pretending. Emine, you are bloody strong, woman, but you are not OK. And so, I took myself away. Only for two days and two nights. No epic quest. No novel-worthy wake-up. I only went up the road. But it was long enough to clarify things I’d forgotten about – and to trigger something that went in the opposite direction to the vicious cycle I’d been caught up in. Long enough to be by the sea, to move (gently), to sleep (for hours & hours, at any time of day), to sauna (bliss, bliss, bliss), to read before bed, to dream. To recalibrate.

I’d been SO tired. Bone-marrow-tired. And within no time at all, I suddenly felt energised again. I felt hopeful. Joyful, even. I felt the difference – like night & day – of being in a space free from tension, pain, disharmony.

I’d absorbed so much of my partner’s pain. Could feel the heavy, impenetrable, midnight-cloak of it around my body at all times. The silence. The inertia. The deepening hole & chasm.

The rash I’d had on my neck for OVER A MONTH cleared up before I came home. I actually laughed – it seemed so unlikely. Could it really be THAT simple?

Maybe it can. Sometimes.

And it was during those days that those little nudges – which built up into that single word: RESPECT – came together in my rested mind & body.

Responding to my own needs – not because nobody else needed me – but because I needed me. I needed to see myself, hear myself, respond to myself. And to recognise how often I diminished my own needs in order to meet the needs of others.

This isn’t one of those neat ‘life was never the same again’ stories. No tidy “before & after”. But there have been significant, simplest shifts in my life this year, all of which have stacked up to something that feels safe in a gentlest – and crucially, SUSTAINED – way.

Am I comfortable? I ask myself all the time now. Right now – noticing that my feet are crossed at the ankles and that’s not comfortable – so I uncross them and place them both flat on the floor while I sit at my desk and write. Ah, better.

While watching TV? Why are my fists clenched? Unclench. Why am I resting the back of my head on the sofa while this hairclip digs into my head? Take clip out. There you go.

In bed. Feeling tense and tight. Bring knees to chest, cuddle them in, rock from side to side. Do a few delicious twists – knees off to one side, head and arms to the other. Feel that snake-coil of tension soften. Do this as many times as I have need of or energy for. Always sleep better afterward.

What else dripfeeds into my feelings of comfort and safety? Signalling to my whole self – body, mind, heart, soul, nervous system – that I am OK, it is OK, I don’t need to panic.

This sort of thing:

1. When I wake up, I stay with my body for a bit. Take my mind down to my feet, little wriggles, waking them up, slowly slowly. How does that feel? Little neck rolls, side to side with the head, ever so gently, beginning to wake. Anything achy? Anything feel “off”? Flutter my fingers. Let light into the eyes, little trickle by little. Not letting the monkey mind in yet… this is body time… thanks body, for being so bloody amazing. For pumping this heart, filling these lungs, moving these muscles. Wow – you’re brilliant.

2. When I am beginning to feel hungry – as I am now, 12.24pm on a Saturday as I write this – I stop and prioritise that hunger. I will warm up the soup I made yesterday – the same sort of soup (see soup notes, at the end of this epic letter), I have been making for myself since my little 48-hour escape to that cabin up the road. I will spread a slice of yummy bread with ghee (something I am craving every day right now), and dip, and slurp, and enjoy it all without a screen anywhere near. When I push my hunger away, cortisol will eventually start screaming at me. Don’t want that, ta.

3. When I need to move, I will move. I have taken the dog for a long, stompy walk around the village I live in, three times this week. I like feeling the blood pumping up through my legs, into my chest, feeling the wind against my skin. I love walking in the early evening, after work, before sun sets. A line drawn in the sand and a way to move things out of my body that don’t need to be there. To rest and clear my mind too. The village is so beautiful in spring. My youngest reminds me that even when I don’t want to go out, I always come home feeling better for it. Even when it’s pouring (huge waterproof coat – perfect).

4. I shower or bathe every night before bed. Again – a safety signal. Steam, salt, oil. And the day left behind. Certainly helps with my sleep.

5. I shake or jump or body brush each morning. I like tapping, firmly & with flat palms, my entire body from neck, clavicles, throat, back of neck, down the shoulders, arms, chest, tummy, groin, all of it, down down down. It just feels really good! I can feel blood pump, energy move, the body readying itself for the day ahead. I usually do this outside on the deck so that I can get some yummy morning light into my eyes too. Light + breath + movement. Good, good, good.

6. I eat a really good breakfast with plenty of protein and fibre within an hour of waking. I know that everyone is banging on about fibre and protein now & I don’t want to be one of those people. But it helps. I would never weigh anything (least of all myself), but just mix up what feels right for me on any given day. Eating breakfast within an hour of waking has been immensely helpful for regulating that morning cortisol spike (a little on why this is, via this study, here: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0031938414006684).

I have always eaten breakfast (I am, unlike a lot of people, hungry quite soon after waking up), but now I eat a really good breakfast, every single day. More often than not, pancakes, made with flour of choice, plus a couple of tablespoons each of flax, chia, ground almonds. Spices of choice (craving ginger and turmeric right now). Milk (I like almond – one of those simple three ingredient ones, from Plenish or Califia). Egg. Mix. Hot pan + ghee. And then top with whatever you fancy – seeds, coconut, yoghurt, fruit. I had diced apple, seeds, raw honey on mine today. Yum.

7. I go to bed at the same time almost every night. Even at weekends. Not in strict way… just in a “I have done the day now, all is finished with, kids are good, and off I go”. Often in bed around 9.30pm. Asleep around 10.30pm. Up just before 7am most mornings.

8. Sometimes I sleep with low volume music playing. A gentle audio for sleep, usually. No words, just music. When I resurface, which I might do around 2-3am, my body hears it and it feels comforting. Like a mother saying, ‘there there’ and stroking your little nose. I like it.

All of this – this 5394-word letter – could be a record? To ask: how can you make yourself a little more comfortable? What would feel a little safer, more delicious, more nourishing? What’s niggling or draining or chafing – can you take it off or get rid of it?

It started so small for me. A more regular bedtime. A little more movement. A bowl of soup for dinner every night. That’s just how I feel right now. It’ll change. I may not want to see a bowl of soup next month. This is just what my body relishes now.

Listening, listening, always listening.

Here’s to a fuller cup,

Emine

A final note on soup

Soup signals safety to my body. That mix of broth and herb and veg and chicken, is so immensely comforting for me. I grew up being fed çorba (Turkish for soup), whenever I was poorly. The soup I make for myself all the time is ridiculously simple –

· I pour a really good few glugs of olive oil into a heavy bottomed pan and let it heat up. The olive oil is key really… as I don’t use bone broth (but by all means do use it if you want to – extra yummy), it adds necessary richness, flavour and good fat.

· I then toss in the diced veggies I’ve chosen that day (I always want carrots and onion or leek, and will also mix and match based on what’s been in my veg box that week: parsnip, broccoli, cauliflower, courgette).

· I add generous amounts of sea salt (recently swapped to unrefined sea salt, which I picked up at a local health shop. It was much cheaper than Maldon and has a much richer flavour. It feels almost oily to the touch. Can taste the minerals in it! Love it!).

· Toss in herbs of choice. We have marjoram, thyme, rosemary, chives growing on the deck. I toss in a handful of those. If I don’t have fresh to hand, I’ll use a generous amount of Herbes des Provence – a classic blend that works well in veggie soups.

· I then add in diced fresh chicken (I have also made it with trout or haddock, which I’ve cut into morsels, quite nice).

· I like chicken thighs for flavour and will leave skin on for flavour too. Sometimes I use breast if that’s what we have. The kids like it with prawns.

· Once the chicken is slightly golden, veg is softer and herbs have released their yummy smell, I top up the pan with water and let it cook away.

· I might add in a handful of rinsed rice – basmati, or jasmine, or long grain, perhaps – or a handful of pasta (usually GF – I quite like the organic Dove’s Farm GF rice/corn pasta – basic, but comforting). Both rice and GF pasta cook quickly – a bonus for me, as I am getting hungry.

· Once chicken is cooked through and broth has lovely flavour (I always taste test – does it need more salt? Herbs?), that’s it.

· The process takes all of 20 mins from start to finish. Honestly. Hence why I do it almost every day!

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I remember being a child, around nine or ten years old, watching an episode of something fantastical one evening, on TV. It was one of those series, like The Twilight Zone, where alternate realities play out in various thought-provoking or dystopian ways, serving as a morality-imbued wake-up call: ‘Perhaps the lives we presently live aren’t so bad after all?’

In this episode, Death lost a bet and was subsequently banished from the Earth. As a kid, I remember buying into the “wouldn’t it be brilliant if we could all live for ever?” message… until the episode unravelled the myriad flaws within that thinking… those with agonising, terminal illnesses unable to find peace; decrepit, frail, immobile bodies with nowhere to go, needlessly suffering; the Earth overrun with dying, diseased & competing living beings, from trees to insects… as Nature was unable to run her course: to cleanse, clear, renew, rebirth.

As a former health editor and researcher, I have spent around 20 years of my life deeply curious about health. In my late teens and early 20s, I was certainly more susceptible to fads and protocols that left me off-centre: hungry, restrictive, dogmatic in my approach to food & movement. It took me about 10 years to realise that the stricter and more rigid I was with my body, the less happy she was. I began eating completely intuitively – guided by my own body, needs, cycle, seasons – in my mid-to-late 20s. My body found her centre… and physically, she hasn’t changed very much at all in the 20 proceeding years.

At 30, I had my first child… and the year that led up to her birth was coloured, beautifully, by my studies in Ayurveda… learning to support my unique constitution, nourish my unborn child; a renewed focus on sleep, breath, gentle movement, in preparation (I hoped) for a positive birth experience. Once the initial nausea subsided at 15 weeks (almost to the day, in both of my pregnancies), I felt strong, vital, grounded & powerful.

As my interest and knowledge of Ayurveda deepened, post-birth and beyond, I began to feed my increasingly holistic perspective on health – also informed by studies in different holistic therapies, including Shakti Yoga Therapy for Women, taught by the brilliant Uma Dinsmore-Tuli – into my research and journalism.

From the age of 30 to 39, I was the Health & Wellness Director at UK magazine, PSYCHOLOGIES. I have had a very intimate insight into the fuel that powers the engine of the Industrial Wellness Complex; I am also guilty of adding fuel to that fire – ultimately, it’s an editor’s job to sell stuff… and even though I relaunched PSYCHOLOGIES as the home of natural health & wellbeing – and am still loyal to many of the brands, products & practices I championed (from Weleda, MV Skin Therapy, Marie Reynolds, and Madara, to Therapie, Mauli, Tabitha James Kraan, TWELVE, and Wild Nutrition), there’s no removing the recommendation from the remuneration.

The UK health industry is now worth over £170bn – the fourth largest health market in the world. We are spending more and more money on supplements (almost 20 million Brits take supplements, daily), fitness clubs & memberships (£38bn+/year), nutrition & weight loss (almost £28bn), personal care & beauty (this exceeded £4600 per person, per year, on average, in 2023).

In my 20 years in health, I have seen so many trends come & go, from the predominance of low-to-zero carb diets to extreme HIIT (high intensity interval training) workouts. On the whole, I would say that in the last two to three years, some metrics have started to shift in a better direction… in nutrition, we are increasingly seeing a return to more ‘common sense’ eating: plenty of fibre, protein, good fats, polyphenol-rich plant foods including whole grains & pulses (with 30 a week, a good guide), frugal cuts of meat including organs, or on the bone, which also contain important sources of vitamins, minerals, gelatine & collagen.

The expensive ‘super foods’ of 10+ years ago (when açai bowls were on every London ‘health cafe’ menu) are being slowly usurped by simpler plates… and I have also seen those complex, often processed powder-based protein shakes, increasingly swapped for eggs on sourdough, with sides of avo, fish, crunchy veg… alongside more traditional, culturally appropriate breakfasts such as congee (an easily digestible, slow cooked rice porridge, often cooked in broth, with ginger) or light miso bowls with gelatine-rich broth & additional protein.

But, what I am also seeing, is a rise in the longevity market. Last year, I watched a series of videos which followed Kayla Barnes-Lentz around her home, as she explained the various protocols and gadgets she’d invested in as part of her laser focus on longevity.

From red light panels, hyperbaric chambers, air and water purifiers to countless supplements and dietary adjustments, it was a fascinating insight into the world of life extension and health optimisation as one’s primary focus for living. That Kayla is only 36 years old came as a surprise to me… she has already spent a significant percentage of her life focused solely on extending it beyond the present day… and the level of control needed to live in such a way is extraordinary. She lives in a light- and temperature-modulated environment – from a bedroom that is completely light- and sound-sealed at night, and maintained at the optimal, cool 19-21 degree temperature, to living areas that are filtered, lit, and maintained accordingly. She rarely eats out or visits friends – instead, she prefers to host… whereby all factors remain within her control.

Then this morning, an email from a health website, breaking down the $1million protocol for longevity ‘pro’, Bryan Johnson, who goes to bed at 8.30pm every night and wakes at 4.30am, to optimise his circadian rhythm; spends $5-10k per session on plasma therapy and transfusions to slow cellular ageing; $1-2k/week on shock therapy to target tissue repair; $25k per session on follistatin gene therapy to optimise protein and muscle mass; $12ok on a hyperbaric oxygen tank to promote new blood vessel formation… the list goes on. Extraordinary, and in service of Johnson’s singular aim: to live forever.

While I view the above approaches to life with curiosity, incredulity, and even a little awe, I mostly wonder why someone would choose to spend their entire life focused on extending their life… it seems to be the opposite of what philosopher, Satish Kumar, says is the foundation for a good life: spend no more than 10% in your past, 20% in your future, and the rest on your present.

Life, it seems to me, truly comes alive when it is lived as a wide-open adventure… going with its flow, shifting with the seasons, responding intuitively to the whispers & song of our body-soul-heart.

There is self-optimisation, and there is self-actualisation… and the latter is where I want to live. To embrace who I am, trust who I am, live in alignment with who I am; not pour all of my time, energy & resources into being something that nature never intended me to be in the first place.

I have no idea what my biological age is. When I am well in my self – when I am sleeping well, eating well, enjoying my children, my friends, my surroundings, my life, moving with joy, making plans with excitement, learning with curiosity, listening & growing & responding… when my eyes sparkle and I smile and laugh without impediment… then I feel wonderful. I feel vital, clear, strong, confident. These are my best biological markers.

And perhaps that flies in the face of health journalism which loves its baselines and biomarkers… but the latest, more balanced studies into women’s health seem to mirror what we instinctively know to be true: that hard, fast & more, rarely suits or supports the female body.

Intense exertion is intrinsically stressful. In order to find those sustained or repeated bursts of highest energy, we must complete a complex, taxing cascade of biological functions – it’s energy-expensive. That’s the point, of course – to burn energy. But the ways in which the female body breaks down and holds onto energy – and how it recovers – are different from men’s bodies… and the research that has informed almost all of the fitness & health space does not apply to women (much more on this to come, in future letters). And not only does it not apply – it can be damaging.

Those HIIT and intense (often cruel) Bootcamp-style workouts of the early noughties – which pushed every woman I knew past her endurance limits (I had a friend who regularly ran out of class to vomit, the effect on her body was so unpleasant) – have, thankfully, been largely challenged and debunked.

No black-and-white, cut-and-dry, fitness ‘regime’ will ever fit a cyclical body. Adaptability, and I’d argue, intuiting your own capacity and needs, on any given day, at any given time, is crucial.

Some days I want to pull on my walking boots and stomp for miles; others, I need to slowly stretch & twist my body, gently easing the tension out of my joints and muscles until I reach that ‘mmmmm’ spot. While I never get the urge to go for a long run, I do get the urge to rebound/bounce, shake, twist, walk & swim… and rarely feel as though I want to ‘push’ myself to do anything.

We need both movement and stillness. We need both exhilarating, energising ‘action’ and rest & recovery. I can’t hold with any protocol that causes pain, dizziness, nausea or vomiting, or that feels intensely pressurised or stressful (why would I want to pay to stand in soggy kit in a sodden field to be shouted at by a militant man? I ask you!).

Given that so little funding is put into women’s health (we are talking about a meagre 4 to 5% of global Research & Development capital – the vast majority of that spent on maternal & reproductive health) – we’ve all been forced to feel in the dark. An area where this is crystal clear is in the area of female autoimmune disease, which disproportionately affects women (78-80% of all global cases, are in women).

13% of women in the UK have now been diagnosed with an autoimmune condition. The system is dramatically failing us.

And when we take a look at the predominant health trends, we can begin to see why:

• Women have 10–20 times less testosterone than men and possess more Type I (endurance-based) muscle fibres. This means women are better suited, and respond better, to moderate-weight lifting with higher repetitions rather than heavy, low-rep, high-intensity training.

• Intense, chronic training can cause adrenaline and cortisol levels to rise in a way that interferes with female hormones, potentially disrupting the hypothalamic-ovarian axis and causing irregular or missed periods.

• Caloric restriction or continual adherence to low calorie diets leads, rather obviously, to low energy availability – this can reduce active thyroid hormones and disrupt menstrual cycle regulation within days. Chronic restriction also increases stress hormones (cortisol), encouraging the storage of fat, particularly in the belly.

• Similarly, longer fasting periods – such as 14+ hours of intermittent fasting – can signal ‘starvation’ to the female body. This “starvation state” (also called Low Energy Availability (LEA) or adaptive thermogenesis) can have negative knock-on effects. A woman’s hypothalamus (which regulates appetite and endocrine function) is highly sensitive to nutrient density. If it perceives a low-energy, high-stress state, it acts to down-regulate energy-consuming processes such as ovulation and metabolic activity. Prolonged calorie restriction can thereby significantly disrupt reproductive hormones, leading to lower levels of oestrogen and testosterone, which can cause amenorrhea (loss of the menstrual cycle) and a sharper decrease in basal metabolic rate (BMR). This is often why some women who eat too little and exercise a lot might struggle to reach a stable, healthy weight.

• Studies have also shown that during peri/menopause, fasting might also exacerbate declining levels of specific hormones including oestrogen, thereby increasing anxiety or sleeplessness.

SLOW, SOFT + STEADY wins the race for women here.

And there’s a simple reason for this. Every human being needs to have their physiological needs met to survive – we need food, water, oxygen, sleep. But we also need to feel safe ie protected from harm & danger. And that urge to feel safe has its basis in our biology as reproductive beings (whether or not we choose to reproduce our selves) and has a strong bearing on whether or not we can conceive, gestate, and give birth to a healthy child.

Neuroscientific research, for example, suggests that women often display higher activity in brain regions such as the amygdala which are associated with empathy, interoception (awareness of bodily states), and emotion regulation – all of which may increase alertness to potential danger. We’re better-wired to read the room… not only scanning for danger (which also has roots in cultural & societal conditioning, given that 1 in 3 women will experience physical or sexual abuse – a truly horrifying statistic that in turn causes many women to feel unsafe) – but also relying on different nervous system responses for our survival.

While men tend to rely on their fight-or-flight response, women tend to lean more heavily on their tend-and-befriend response (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10941275/). This response – which is supported by the release of the ‘bonding hormone’ oxytocin – enables women to protect themselves and their children by minimising risk (befriending the enemy removes the risk), and also lowering chronic stress – the fight-or-flight response is an expensive one: driven by surges in the release of adrenaline and cortisol: it is physiologically highly stressful.

So, instead of fighting (putting yourself and/or your unborn child at risk of harm), or flight (removing yourself from the ‘herd’, whereby isolation may decrease your overall safety), we can see how that urge to stay, fix, tend to conflict, and befriend those who may otherwise be a threat (the phrase “sleeping with the enemy” springs to mind here), are likely the more sensible physiological responses for a woman.

It is a lot to consider, admittedly, when simply trying to navigate our way to feeling well. And I’ll admit, having spent 20 years questioning, dismantling and challenging the health ‘norms’ that didn’t sit right with me, my physiology or my biology (from raw food diets to high intensity interval training), I do feel we’re collectively beginning to emerge into a more measured approach to health that feels a little more sane & safe for women.

Ultimately, the most important question I can ask myself when deciding whether or not to do or put something into my body is, “How does it feel?”

• Does it feel good in my body/heart/mind?

• Does it feel supportive & nourishing?

• Does it feel energising, invigorating, activating in a positive/expansive way?

• Does it feel safe & supportive?

When I consider the expensive, controlled, complicated longevity regimes… I feel constricted. Instead of a feeling of supportiveness, possibility, nourishment, my body registers a tightening… “this, my love, feels like a lot of bloody hard work,” is the whisper from within.

I don’t want to stave off life’s natural conclusion. I don’t want to control my climate, environment, diet to the point where I am acutely attuned and hyper-vigilant to any potential threat or danger; when a room filled with unfiltered air or light is felt as a threat. I know from experience – having navigated an increasing sensitivity to histamine for the last 18 months – that dis-ease can grow from many roots, and that literal loss of ease – or how far we move from feeling innately relaxed, peaceful, accepting, equanimous of what is – is harmful too.

I also know that we’ll never be able to control what’s OUT THERE. And rather than obsess over potential triggers, allergens, toxins, residues… I will make the decisions that sit peacefully within me… and focus, instead, on strengthening my INNER resilience. How can I support my mental health? My nervous system? My somatic system? What feels supportive, safe, nourishing? What feels like home, for me?

Nor am I suggesting that in these hugely challenging times – when even the briefest glimpse of the daily news is enough to cause huge distress, grief, pain & fear – that we move along in some blissfully oblivious cloud.

We, each of us, must put one foot in front of the other, as best we can, and in ways that feel instinctively right to us.

The final thing I’ll say today is that, perhaps, the healthiest, most nourishing, safest sensation we’ll ever know, comes not from finding or learning or seeking, but from accepting. From getting deeply intimate with who you are, how your body works, what it needs to thrive. What feels delicious? What feels like a deep, heavenly exhale? What feels comforting, strengthening, supportive to you, right now, or later on, or tomorrow?

I can’t tell you what that is – and I’d advise you not to outsource your choices to anyone who places themselves in the position of god/guru/expert, either.

But what I hope to do, here, every Sunday, is to provide space to question, feel, listen & respond.

Here’s to a fuller cup!

(which for me, today, means finishing up this letter in the glory of the morning light, & not taking my self too seriously 🤣).

Emine ☕️