Creatrix Counselling

19/08/2026

Have you ever tried just sitting with your pain?

It’s hard.

Especially when the pain is anger.

But sometimes, when we have a healthy outlet for what we’re carrying, we can free the body to feel something else — a little more peace, a little more space, a little more contentment.

This is something I played with yesterday, and I’m sharing it here today.

Step 1 — Let it speak

Find somewhere you can sit comfortably — cross-legged on the floor, or at a table.

Take a big sheet of paper and several coloured pens.

And stay in contact with whatever you’re feeling.

Then write.

Write every word. Every sentence. Every thought.

Scribble. Draw. Turn the paper around. Write across what you’ve already written.

Let it say everything it needs to say.

You don’t need to keep it neat. You don’t even need to keep it within the edges of the paper.

Keep going until you feel you’ve heard enough of it — until some of what you’ve been holding in your body has found its way onto the page.

Step 2 — Witness

Put the pens down.

Open your eyes.

And simply sit and notice what is there.

All the words. The sentences. The colours. The crossing over and merging together, creating one big pattern.

And imagine a part of you that can sit and witness all of this.

A part that doesn’t need to fix it.

Just witness it.

How amazing is that?

Then ask yourself:

What image would I draw right in the centre of this?
Maybe another image forms in the centre of that?

Step 3 — What else is here?

Now, from this place of having expressed, released and witnessed, notice what other words might support you in being here.

What words want to emerge now?

Add them to the page.

Let them find their own little spaces.

For me, this was where something beautiful happened.

As I sat witnessing everything I had put onto the page, the presence of a part of me who could simply sit and witness appeared.

And at the centre of her was a heart.

From that heart came the words:

Love.
Choice.
Beautiful.
Tenderness.
Compassion.

I added them afterwards, in different colours, wherever they naturally wanted to go.

And there it was.

My work of art.

Just as you are a work of art.

Even in your pain.

Even in your anger.

Even in the mess of it all.

There is a part of you that can witness.

And sometimes, when we give what we’re carrying somewhere to go, something else has the space to emerge...YOU 🤍

B x

15/08/2026

She is walking beside the river.
It is a warm day, and the river is moving gently beside her.
And then she hears it.

A whisper.
So soft she almost thinks she has imagined it.
She stops.

Listens.
There it is again.
A sound she has heard before.
Somewhere.

But she cannot remember where.
It seems to be coming from the river.
She looks at the water.

Nothing.

Just ripples catching the sunlight.
Trees reflected on the surface.
Clouds moving slowly across the sky.
A duck paddling quietly through the shallows.
A swan gliding effortlessly across the water.

And yet…

Something is calling her in.
She doesn't know what it is.
She can't see it.
But she can feel it.

And the whisper is so soft.
So gentle.
Almost like it knows her.
Almost like it has been waiting for her.

She walks closer to the river.
She stands at the edge.
And she cannot resist.
She dips her toes into the water.

And the moment her toes taste the river, something happens.
The whisper meets her there.
It tickles her toes.
Moves through her feet.

It softly says,
Come a little further.
She takes her feet out.
She returns to the riverbank.

Of course she does.

She's not ready to jump in.
And the voice doesn't ask her to. It knows better.
It knows that she has spent a lifetime learning how to stay on the riverbank.

A lifetime learning how to silence the whispers.
To ignore the ripples.
To turn away from the things she feels in her belly.

In her pelvis.
In the deepest places of her body. So the voice waits.
It trusts her.

It knows she will come back.
Because once she has tasted the river, she cannot un-taste it. She cannot un-hear the whisper.

She cannot un-see what she has glimpsed beneath the surface. She cannot un-feel what has begun to move through her.

She has had a taste of something she has been longing for all her life.
Something she didn't know was already there.

Waiting.

Deep in the waters.
Waiting for her to return.
And so she does.
She comes back to the river.
And this time she wades in a little further.

To her ankles.

Then her calves.

The voice whispers,
Come a little further.
And she does.
Knees...
Thighs.

The water moving around her body. Now she can feel something shifting inside her.
Something ecstatic.
Something wild.

Something that feels so fu***ng alive.
And also…
Fu***ng scary.

Because her feet can no longer quite reach the bottom.
For a moment, panic rises.
What the f**k have I done?

She could turn back.
She could swim towards the shallows.
She could climb onto the riverbank and pretend she never heard the voice.

But she knows she won't.

Because she has spent too much of her life doing that.
And this time, something in her knows.

She has found something she cannot unknow.
A part of herself that has always been there.

Not new.
Never new.
Just waiting.
Waiting beneath the surface.

Waiting in the depths.
Waiting for her to come home.
And so she goes deeper.
Not because she is fearless.

But because she is curious.
Because something in her is calling back.
And deeper she goes.

And deeper.

And deeper.

Until the river is no longer something she is standing beside.
She is in it.
She is swimming in it.
She is held by it.

And perhaps this is what this next chapter asks of her.
Not to know exactly where the river will take her.Not to understand every new part that rises.

Not to make sense of the wildness, the rage, the grief, the desire, the creativity, the fu***ng aliveness.
But simply to listen.

To feel.

To become curious.

To trust the whisper.

And to ask:

What is this part of me that has been waiting so patiently beneath the surface?

What does she want me to know?

What does she bring to my body?

To my breath?

To my life?

Because perhaps menopause isn't about becoming someone new.

Perhaps it is the moment she finally meets the woman who has been waiting for her all along.

Bella 🤍

02/08/2026

Today, in the middle of a Sainsbury's car park, I found a queen lying on the tarmac.

The Queen of Pentacles.
She was upside down.
So I walked around her.
And there she was.
The Queen hadn't turned.
I had.

Perhaps that's how transformation happens. The earth doesn't move for us. We simply find ourselves standing in a different place.

This season has been one of endings. Menopause. Children growing into lives of their own. Parents becoming ancestors. Beloved animals returning to the earth.
There is grief here.

But there is space too.

I can feel the Mother in me softening, making way for the Wise Woman. Less busy doing. More deeply rooted in being.

Everything I have loved, lost, feared and survived is becoming rich soil. The work I have dreamed of for so many years is no longer waiting for me somewhere in the distance.

It is already growing.

Perhaps all it needs now is my trust.

When I arrived home, I lit a candle for the Queen of Pentacles. I offered incense and a song in gratitude. Not because a tarot card has magical powers, but because I wanted to acknowledge that something had spoken to me, and I wanted to answer.

I wonder what would happen if more of us treated life's quiet synchronicities this way. If, instead of rushing past them, we paused. We listened. We gave thanks.

A gift received becomes part of us.
A gift honoured becomes a relationship.
Perhaps that is how we tell Life, the Earth, the Great Mother...

"I hear you. I accept what you are offering. And I am willing to walk with it."

If you find yourself standing at this threshold too, perhaps you don't need to search for a sign.

Perhaps you simply need to notice the ones already waiting for you...
..and remember to say thank you.

B 🤍

31/07/2026

Would you like me more

If I smiled sweetly at you, tilted my head just so, held your gaze, blinked softly, nodded at all the right moments, kept my body open, gentle, small enough to soothe your discomfort—

would you like me more?

Could I earn my place beside you? Could I become someone safe enough to keep?

But if I snarled—

if I pressed my face into the earth until the soil stained my skin, if my spine twisted with old knowing, if my fingers curled like ancient roots, if my face carried every year, every grief, every wildness, every truth—

would you still look at me?

Or would you turn away?

My fingernails are full of dirt. My feet remember the ground. My body is not performing softness. It is remembering something older.

An old woman lives beneath my skin. She is wrinkled, naked, untamed. She smells of rain, of smoke, of moss, of decay becoming life.

She does not smile to be chosen.

She does not tilt her head to make herself easier to love.

She belongs to the earth, not to your approval.

So tell me—

am I sweet enough for you?

Or must I amputate the wild, wash away the soil, straighten my crooked fingers, silence the old hag, and become palatable?

Because I have spent a lifetime learning how to be liked.

Now I am learning how to be true.

And if truth costs me your affection,

perhaps the earth was always waiting to call me friend.

16/06/2026

Stepping into my power as a woman does not require me to leave the little girl behind.

For a long time, many of us were taught that strength meant becoming harder, louder, more stoic, more certain. That power looked like pushing through, holding it together, and proving ourselves.

But I am discovering a different kind of power.

The little girl within me is not an obstacle to overcome. She is part of who I am.

She carries my wonder, my imagination, my sensitivity, my playfulness, my capacity to feel deeply and to delight in simple things.

The woman in me carries wisdom, experience, discernment, and the steadiness to navigate life's challenges.

My power is not found in choosing one over the other.

It is found in taking the little girl by the hand and walking forward together.

The woman says, "I know the way."

The girl says, "Let's not forget to play."

The woman says, "We can survive this."

The girl says, "Let's make sure we're still living."

As I welcome the girl, she learns that she is safe to be exactly who she is.

As I listen to her, I remember parts of myself that I was never meant to lose.

And in walking side by side, neither ahead nor behind, I step more fully into myself as a woman.

MidlifeAwakening

14/06/2026

Don't disappear from your own life.

Don't disappear from the places inside you that still dream, that still wonder, that still ask,

What next?

Don't disappear from your body, this faithful messenger that has carried you through love, through loss, through becoming.

Listen.

Don't disappear from your desires. They are not selfish. They are seeds, waiting for light.

Don't disappear from your voice. The one that knows when to say yes, when to say no, when to speak, when to rest.

Even if the women who came before you are gone.

And I mean gone.

Not one aunt to call. Not one grandmother to ask. Not one mother to say,

"I know, love. I've been there too."

At fifty-four, I find myself standing in a place I never imagined.

A woman in midlife, looking behind her and finding no older women left.

And sometimes the enormity of that takes my breath away.

The mind-blowing, body-blowing, voice-blowing truth of it.

The grief. The loneliness. The fear.

The strange realisation that there is no one ahead of me now, no woman from my own family to light the path or tell me what comes next.

So I am learning to weave my own way.

To listen more carefully to my body.

To trust my own knowing.

To remember that those who loved me have not vanished completely.

They live in the way I laugh, the way I comfort, the way I endure, the way I begin again.

Even if you feel lost.

Even if you cannot see the shape of the road ahead.

Stay.

Stay present.

Stay connected.

Stay here.

Let yourself be held by the women beside you.

Let yourself be witnessed.

Let yourself be known.

You do not need to earn your place.

You do not need to disappear to make room for others.

You do not need to wait until you are exhausted to choose yourself.

Take up your space.

Trust your body.

Honour your longing.

Speak your truth.

And when the road feels uncertain,

when the silence feels too loud,

when you wonder who will walk beside you now—

call on your tribe.

The women who see you.

The women who hear you.

The women who remind you that you do not have to disappear.

Stay present.

Stay connected.

Stay here.

Call on your tribe.

Don't disappear.

12/06/2026

"It is better to travel well than to arrive."

I came across this quote recently and it made me stop and think.

So much of life seems focused on getting somewhere. Achieving. Improving. Keeping up. Reaching the next thing.

But what if we're missing the journey?

What if the reason so many of us feel exhausted is because we're constantly rushing towards a destination that keeps moving?

Maybe what we're longing for is more space.

More nature. More creativity. More connection. More being and less doing.

That's the spirit behind Rooted Minds Gathering.

A gentle monthly gathering for neurowild souls.

A space to slow down, connect with yourself and others, and remember that you are nature too.

🌿 Starting Sunday 5th July ⏰ 10.30am – 12.30pm 📍 Bradmore Green Community Hub, Coulsdon 💚 £25

I'm looking forward to creating a warm, welcoming space and building a little community of people finding their way home to themselves.

If this resonates, I'd love to hear from you.

05/06/2026

I came across this Mary Oliver poem recently and it really touched something in me.

I think many of us are carrying a longing for something quieter.

A slower pace. More creativity. More connection. More time in nature.

A chance to step out of the noise and simply be.

That's really where the idea for Rooted Minds Gathering came from.

A space to gather, connect, create and remember that we are nature too.

🌿 Rooted Minds Gathering 📅 Sunday 20th July ⏰ 10.30am – 12.30pm 📍 Bradmore Green Community Hub, Coulsdon CR5 1PE 💚 £25

A monthly gathering for neurowild souls to reconnect with themselves, others, creativity and the natural world.

If this resonates, I'd love to hear from you.

📧 [email protected] 📱 WhatsApp to book your place

01/06/2026

01/06/2026

🌿 THE THERAPISTS GATHERING 🌿
I'm exploring the idea of creating a monthly gathering for neurodivergent and creatively-minded therapists near Caterham, Surrey.

As a therapist in private practice, I've often noticed how rewarding the work can be, but also how surprisingly lonely it can feel at times.

And for those of us who are neurodivergent, there can sometimes be an additional feeling of not quite fitting in within the therapy world, in the same way we may not always feel we fit into the wider world.

I'm wondering whether there are other therapists who might enjoy a different kind of space...

☕ Tea and connection

🎨 Creative exploration

🌿 Nature-inspired reflection

💚 Authentic conversation

✨ A space where you don't have to be "the therapist"

This wouldn't be CPD, supervision, training or networking.

Just a welcoming space to gather, connect, create, and be human together.

At the moment I'm simply exploring interest before taking any further steps.

If this sounds like something you'd enjoy, I'd love to hear from you.

Donna
Creatrix Counselling
Please leave a comment or message if you're interested...feel free to share ❤️