20/01/2026
It’s mid-January.
It’s wet.
Not “fresh winter air” wet.
Bone-soaking, wheelbarrow-won’t-roll, life-questioning wet.
Forget yoga.
Forget breathwork.
Forget journalling with a £40 notebook you can’t even open because your hands are numb....and wet and muddy and stink of p*e (hopefully not yours)
If you want true presence, try poo picking in a flooded field.
Phone down (because… we all know theres a risk of dropping in that huge puddle!).
Eyes scanning the ground like a crime scene investigator.
One fork. One wheelbarrow. One job that absolutely does not care about your feelings.
You cannot ruminate while holding a fork.
You cannot think about your life choices while counting piles.
You cannot people-please a wheelbarrow that’s actively trying to take you out in the mud.
It’s mindfulness because your brain has zero spare capacity for existential dread.
It’s therapeutic because the movement is repetitive, the rules are brutally clear (see poo → pick poo), and the results are immediate ..... even if everything else feels like a mess.
And at the end, soaked through, boots ruined, staring at a marginally less destroyed field, you can honestly say:
I did something useful today.
Is it glamorous?
Absolutely not.
Is it grounding?
Painfully so.
Sometimes healing isn’t talking about your feelings…
…it’s sorting literal s**t in January and carrying on 🐎💩🌧️
Not mine but can relate!
