What I’ve Come to Accept as My Calling…

As the youngest of my three children becomes a teenager, I find myself in a transition phase. I’m moving from a place where most of my work has been of a volunteer nature; supporting the growth of my family and home-education community, to a shift more towards creating a business. It is important to me that my work continues to serve my community, albeit a wider audience, as well as my family, through positive modelling and making a sustainable living.

I want to put my experience, skills, and passions to good use. I want to continue to enjoy that feeling of fulfilment.

I’m a home-educator and herbalist. Passionate about health, the freedom to learn, nature connection and building community. It’s what I do. How I live. Exactly what I’ve dedicated my life to since before the turn of this millennium. I look back and see its threads beginning to emerge in late adolescence.

Early on I was inspired by a young man I met travelling who told me that his mother had only ever used natural home-made medicines for him growing up which she’d made from the herbs in her garden. I made this a reality by becoming a qualified medical herbalist, (by dedicating myself to a degree course throughout the first decade of motherhood), and have now lived this vision proudly for 18 years!

I was inspired to home-educate through reading accounts in the The Green Parent magazine. This journey has been so much more than I ever imagined! One benefit is discovering a love of getting people out in Nature, in Community. One manifestation of this is that I co-organise the Bristol Home-educators annual camp. We’ve enjoyed, and continue to enjoy, a rich community in which we feel a great sense of belonging and gratitude.

This was not always the case. I was lonely in the beginning which inspired me to co-create a home-education community co-operative. This raised me up beyond belief! In support of this I completed a certificate in Community Organising, learned about conflict restoration, how to have difficult conversations, the art of hosting, sociocratic decision making, holacratic organisation, transforming cultural assumptions, privilege, power dynamics, and basically how to support groups to identify what’s matters to them most and to make positive change that is more life giving. The re-earning of what it is to be in community. The re-creation of the village.

I used to struggle with powerful emotions and a desperate need to express myself and to be heard with love. I found NVC and the process of Compassionate Communication. I completed two one-year courses which deepened my connection to myself and allowed everything else to flow with greater ease. Particularly increasing my capacity to listen with empathy and feel more than competent to express my needs straight from the heart in a way that can be received. I now co-organise the annual NVC Community Camp, Southwest.

I learned that to give my family and community my best, I had to prioritise my health and expand my capacity to not only hold others but to hold myself as well. I now include myself in all the care I dish out. I do not want to return to a state of exhaustion from excluding myself from the care I need to flourish.

In my herbal medicine practice I’ve moved from simply ‘doctoring’, (diagnosing & prescribing), to health coaching and lifestyle medicine. This works from the assumption that everyone holds their own innate wisdom, and my job is to help connect people with that so they can feel empowered to create the life they desire. It is a sharing of responsibility where my skills at prescribing and connecting, added to your own wisdom and aligned action steps work together.

I’ve followed a strong desire to help people re-connect to the natural medicines on our doorstep, both that which we take internally as tonics and teas, plus the spiritual medicine we gain from nature immersion. This led me to Nature Facilitation of which I enjoyed two, weeklong residential camps to learn how to bring people together in Nature, in Community in a way that feels nourishing, held and inline with the rhythms and wisdom of nature.

I’ve learned through personal experience, witnessing, and intentional exploration that people’s unique lived experience matters. Our stories matter and they must be heard. Especially the stories of marginalised and oppressed identity groups. People of privilege must recognise their own ease of accessing resources and the efforting of those with less access, capacity and protection. Recognition that the world is set up inequitably, lacking consideration for non-normative manifestations of life. I want to live in a world where compassion is at the forefront, and our interconnectedness is honoured.

I now understand that prolonged stress, including the suppressive and unequal pressures and expectations of our society, culture and systems, (including the school system, including sleep deprivation, including parenting expectations, including excessive efforting, including the masking of neurodivergence, etc, etc…), leads to a trauma response. This is a physiological response of our body trying to keep us safe and alive. It is not a maladaption. It is a coping mechanism in an oppressive society where the majority of people have been surviving without thriving and it is unsustainable. It has left us with the task of healing our nervous systems, supporting our brain’s ability to integrate our experiences positively, of the collective task of changing our systems and culture to better support our healthy evolution. This understanding has led me to learn a whole wealth of somatic tools to restore nervous system functioning and build real resilience, not just the act of coping through suppression.

I’ve learned of a new approach to psychology where instead of working from the past, we start from the future. Visioning what we want to see in the world, that which we need in our life. Positive psychology that exercises our powers in designing a unique-to-me future that fits our values.

I’ve been inspired by those who have married up their life’s passions with their everyday work. Found deep satisfaction in purposeful and meaningful contribution and I have started to learn how to run a business that aligns my skills and passions.

I’ve noticed that Health Needs Thyme in so many ways. Thyme representing nourishing foods and medicines that gradually build up the health and resilience of the body, immunity, and neuroendocrine system. Time representing rest and restoration; that which is often so missing from our culture. Time from others, as in that accompaniment, mutuality, collaboration and partnership. Our health is foundational. With it we have the freedom to live and contribute our gifts.

And throughout all my learning these past 28 years since leaving school, I’ve always trusted my intuition. Always allowed myself to follow my heart. Followed each intense learning desire. Even when I had no idea where it would lead me, other than deep satisfaction.

Now in mid-life, just as my youngest becomes a teenager, it’s all coming together. This is me. I am a herbalist, home-educator, nature facilitator and community organiser. I love to listen to people’s stories, restore health, build capacity and empower individuals and groups to do the things that matter to them most.

I want to help home-educating parents to have an easier time of it. I want to help them to recognise their innate capability and empower them to create a life that nourishes their growing family. Let go of the doubts, metabolise the pain of the inner critic and outsider judgement. Turn them into a source nourishment and power. Find their own gloriously unique and joyful groove…

References:

The Green Parent; https://thegreenparent.co.uk/

Community Organisers Ltd; https://www.corganisers.org.uk/

Art of Hosting; https://artofhosting.org/

Change in Nature; https://www.changeinnature.org/

Nonviolent Communication with Seed of Peace; https://seedofpeace.org/

MindBody Breakthrough; https://mindbodybreakthrough.net/workshops/