Just as deer feed their bodies for strength and endurance particularly leading up to colder weather, we can also feed our minds! As we immerse ourselves in the winter season, let’s tune in to our breath to help with calm and resilience while we build our brains. All that’s needed are a few moments to reset and refocus, enabling us to continue with a clearer mind and greater sense of inner peace. Let’s be resilient like deer!

The cold winter months and busyness of the holidays can sometimes leave us feeling blue and overloaded. We can turn to nature and to our breath for help! Think of bright yellow and orange Wintergold pines and firs that light up dreary skies and bring warmth to the landscape. We can bring this warmth and light into our lives too, while practicing gratitude for what’s within us and around us.

Learn evidence-based mindfulness activities and exercises that bring calm, connection and healing to you and the little ones you support, as well as tools to help build resilience.

This creation of a safe space can allow an individual to feel supported, able to let go of worries and stresses, and just simply be. We believe that when an individual feels calm and safe in a space, this can help open up communication and develop creativity, allowing them to be seen and heard.

Learn evidence-based mindfulness activities and exercises that bring calm, connection and healing to you and the little ones you support, as well as tools to help build resilience.

As the world begins to regenerate around us, we too can encourage growth and expansion within ourselves. We can choose to support ourselves by bringing light and warmth into our everyday through mindfulness practices. We can use this time of the year to get outside more and notice the beautiful changes in nature, draw in some morning movement perhaps, write in a journal, or begin daily practices to positively bookend morning and night.

Let’s talk about social prescribing, something being trialled by the NHS in the UK to help reduce demands on GP’s and the system overall. This model involves connecting individuals to link workers and prescribing them what they need to bring into their lives to feel more connected to themselves and the community around them. The crux of social prescribing is to work with people to identify how they can support their wellbeing and social relations, and in a move away from medication to meditation, we at HERE are aware of the connective qualities that mindfulness can bring into someones life.

With the holiday season upon us, we are embracing the theme of resilience and giving yourself a break. When times get tough, one mindful method you can try to bring yourself some peace, is to give yourself a time-out!

Our kids’ earliest experiences play an essential part in the construction of their brain architecture. It is at this stage that the foundation for lifelong physical and mental health is laid down. But what about the architecture of the parents’ brains? Can we still make structural changes or do some rewiring for our own wellbeing?

I didn’t know it walking into hot yoga at Lumi Power Yoga Hammersmith yesterday, but I desperately needed the lesson teacher Katie and her assistant Christina taught me. It was one of the most intense classes I have been to in my many years of practicing yoga, but also one of the most meaningful. (In all honesty, most all classes are meaningful to me, but this one had that extra special punch to it.) The theme seemed to be about letting go…. “Let go of your morning. Let go of your week. Let go,” were the words Katie used to guide us in the beginning.

It was an honour to be invited to the announcement of the NSPCC’s Look, Say, Sing, Play campaign at the Fulham Central Children’s Centre, the first London Authority to launch the campaign. The event was attended by Leader of H&F Council, Stephen Cowan, and CEO of the NSPCC, Peter Wanless, Family Support Managing Director Peter Watt and stakeholders in Hammersmith and Fulham children's wellbeing.