A friendly Friday companion for your real-life self-care journey.
Trying to improve your wellbeing can feel like a bit of a hero’s journey — especially during the long, messy bit between starting something that might help and knowing whether it’s actually helping.
That’s the soggy middle. And it’s where we can spend an awful lot of time after we start following healthy living
The Friday Field Note is a little something to accompany you there.
Each week, it’s here to give you:
A reminder that you’re still on a journey — even when it doesn’t feel as though much is happening.
A little support for the soggy middle — including those ordinary Tuesday afternoons when you’re wondering how it’s all going.
A fresh perspective — something that might make you think, “Oh… I hadn’t looked at it like that.”
A reminder that you’re not alone — lots of us are quietly figuring this out as we go.
A chance to notice your own strengths — including those your journey may be revealing along the way.
A moment to reconnect with yourself — rather than another piece of advice telling you what you should do.
One simple question to reflect on your week — no right answer, no homework required.
Because here’s something that’s easy to forget when your health or wellbeing has become something you’re constantly thinking about:
You are the hero of your self-care journey — not the problem to be fixed.
That’s the question Make Self-Care Simple was created to help you answer.
Most healthy living advice tells us what to do.
Walk a certain number of steps each day. Add or remove particular foods. Take a recommended supplement. Try a new health or wellbeing product. Follow a specific sleep routine or relaxation technique.
And that can be really helpful.
Someone has done the research, worked something out or found an approach that helped them. We have somewhere to begin.
And sometimes the advice describes what you’ve been experiencing so accurately that it feels as though it was written for you.
When the solution makes sense and the promised result sounds clear, it’s natural to expect that result will be yours too.
But bodies don’t always respond as simply as the advice suggests.
Sometimes we follow the advice, feel better and think: brilliant.
Keep doing it. You’ve found something that works for you.
But sometimes it isn’t that simple.
You follow the advice and the improvement you expected doesn’t appear.
Perhaps you rarely notice much difference when you make healthy changes and are left wondering whether anything is happening at all.
Or perhaps something has changed, but you’re not sure whether it’s enough.
One thing improves while something else gets worse.
You feel better some days but not others.
Something helps at first and then seems to stop.
Now what do you do?
Do I keep going?
Should I change something?
Is this actually helping?
Or is it time to let it go?
This is where Make Self-Care Simple begins.
A lack of obvious results doesn’t mean a lack of useful information
For more than 20 years, I worked with hundreds of people who had done their research and were trying very hard to look after themselves.
And I kept seeing the same thing.
They weren’t necessarily following bad advice.
They just weren’t getting the simple, obvious results they had expected.
I know that feeling myself.
It’s very easy at that point to assume the advice hasn’t worked, wonder whether you’ve done something wrong or go searching for the next answer.
But when I looked more closely at what was happening, I often found something else.
The way their bodies were responding contained useful clues about what they needed at that particular time.
Perhaps something was improving, but not where they had expected.
Perhaps their body needed something else first, or more support alongside it.
Perhaps the advice needed adapting to suit them.
And sometimes their response really was showing that something simply wasn’t right for them — or wasn’t right for them now.
Because once you follow the advice, another source of information becomes available: your response to it.
Your body is always responding — and that response can help guide you.
The feedback doesn’t look the same for everyone, and it isn’t always obvious.
I think of this as your Body’s Guidance Style — the individual way your body gives you feedback as you make changes.
Learning to recognise that feedback can help you decide whether to give something more time, make an adjustment or let it go.
Good advice gives you somewhere to start. Your body’s response helps you discover what you need next.
That’s the part of self-care I want to help you with.
Making self-care more personal
Make Self-Care Simple isn’t another health plan.
I’m not here to tell you what to eat, which supplements to take, how to exercise or which morning routine you should follow.
There are already plenty of people doing that very well.
Instead, I’ll help you learn to notice how your body responds to the changes you make.
To recognise what seems to support you.
To adapt good advice when it needs adapting.
To give something more time when the early signs are encouraging.
And to recognise when it may be time to let something go.
Over time, those small discoveries help you build a more personalised approach to self-care — one based not only on what should help, but on what you discover actually supports your body and your life.
You don’t have to stop following healthy advice.
You just learn how to make it your own.
And this doesn’t need to be complicated.
Learning to notice your body’s feedback and use it to decide what to do next is a simple skill that anyone can learn.
The more you practise, the better you get at working with your body rather than simply following instructions and hoping for the expected result.
And over time, you build a skill you can draw on whenever your body, your circumstances or your needs change.
If you’d like to learn more, choose whichever next step feels most useful to you.
Where would you like to begin?
🧭 Your Body’s Guidance Style Your body has its own way of showing you how it responds. Learn why recognising your body’s feedback can make it easier to judge whether healthy advice is actually helping.
📖 Learn alongside me Follow my weekly Field Notes, where I share the small things I notice and learn as I use this approach in my own everyday self-care.
A simple first step in the Make Self-Care Simple Method
The Feedback Finder helps you discover your body’s guidance style.
When you follow healthy living advice and don’t see the improvements you expected, one of two things normally happens.
You give up too soon, before the early signs of improvement have had chance to become clear.
Or you continue long after the body has been indicating that something isn’t helping.
Both can leave you feeling confused and doubting the advice or product, your body, and even yourself.
This was exactly what I saw with new clients who had done their research and were doing almost everything right, but still weren’t seeing the improvements they expected.
And yet, when I assessed them, I found that the body had often been offering guidance all along.
The Make Self-Care Simple Method is based on the idea that your body isn’t just the problem – it’s also a messenger.
Because once you begin to recognise your body’s guidance, you have a much better idea of what’s happening and what to do next.
The Feedback Finder is a simple DIY way to discover your body’s guidance style and learn how to use it.
Most healthy living advice focuses on what to do.
The Feedback Finder helps you understand what happens when you do it.
As a therapist, I quickly realised that two people following the same advice could experience very different results.
Sometimes the advice was helping both of them.
But their early feedback looked completely different.
One person might notice obvious improvements.
Yet another might notice very little at first.
And a third might experience mixed or confusing results.
That’s why the next step isn’t always the same.
Sometimes you need to continue.
Sometimes you need to make a small adjustment.
And sometimes it’s time to try something different.
The Feedback Finder helps you recognise your body’s feedback patterns, so when improvements feel unclear, you know what to do next.
Discovering your body’s guidance style is usually quick and surprisingly obvious – one of those insights that, once someone points it out, you can’t unsee.
But the real value isn’t simply discovering your style.
It’s learning how to use that information in real life.
Based on over 20 years of working with clients, I’ve included practical guidance to help you understand what your body’s feedback may be telling you and how to respond.
Inside the Feedback Finder you’ll discover:
how your body naturally gives feedback
the common ways you may have misunderstood that feedback
what helps your feedback style make clearer progress
what to do next when you’re not seeing the improvements you hoped for
My wish is that you don’t simply discover your body’s guidance style.
My wish is that you learn how to use this information, so you know what to do next.
Because every time you understand your body’s feedback, you make better self-care decisions.
And over time, those decisions become your personalised Menu of Self-Care– a practical guide to what supports your body, your life and your wellbeing.
When you want your body to relax – but it just won’t…
This is a simple place to start.
The Relaxation Switch helps you find what actually helps your body settle – so you’re not guessing or forcing something that doesn’t work.
The hidden reason your healthy efforts might not be working — even when you’re doing everything right
It felt like something must be missing.
I was doing the right things to support my health – but not seeing the results I expected.
After a vague diagnosis of long covid – and being told it was “just age”, I researched everything.
I had learned how to listen to my body. Changed my diet. Tried countless supplements. Explored different remedies to see what helped.
And there were definite signs of improvement.
But…it was as if something was blocking my results.
It felt like I was riding the clutch – both the accelerator and the brake on at the same time.
Maybe you can relate?
If you can, I want to share the hidden reason this was happening – and the simple shift that helped.
The reason
I wouldn’t describe myself as anxious or a worrier.
In fact, I’ve always felt quite resilient – able to keep going with a cheerful smile, whatever life throws at me.
So when nervous system support and vagus nerve exercises started appearing everywhere, I didn’t immediately see myself in it.
But something made me take another look.
What I hadn’t realised
The nervous system and inflammation are closely linked.
When the body feels safe and relaxed, it can focus on repair – including calming inflammation.
But when the nervous system stays in alert mode, the body leans more towards protection.
And inflammation is part of that protective response.
Midlife changes aren’t caused by just one thing.
But research suggests that low-level inflammation is one of the key processes happening in the body at this stage of life.
And when I looked at my own symptoms, many of them could be described that way.
Why this can be easy to miss
The part that surprised me most was this.
I didn’t feel stressed.
Life had its demands, yes – but there were also many good things happening.
Then I came across an idea that immediately resonated.
That the nervous system can act like a quiet guard on duty.
Listening. Watching. Ready to step in if needed.
Not overwhelmed.
Just… always on.
And for the first time, I could see it.
Maybe my body wasn’t fully switching off.
Maybe it was quietly waiting for “what next?” – because it had learned to stay ready.
A quiet shift
I’ll be honest – that realisation changed how I saw things.
I began to feel a lot more empathy for my nervous system.
Not broken. Not failing.
Just… working hard to protect me.
Why relaxation felt so difficult
Once this clicked, I set about supporting my nervous system.
I had a long list of exercises ready.
And…
I kept forgetting. Didn’t have enough time. And felt a quiet resistance when it was time to do them.
I kept trying – because I really did want to feel better.
And I knew relaxation was important.
But if I’m honest, I wasn’t sure if they were actually working.
The strangest part?
The exercises themselves were simple.
So why was it so difficult for my body to relax?
The moment everything changed
Then I remembered something.
For years, I had been able to meditate daily with no problem.
So what had made that feel easy?
There was one simple element that had always been part of my practice.
When I came back to that – on its own – everything changed.
It was like finding a switch.
Where before there had been resistance, now my body softened almost instantly.
For the first time in a long while, I could feel real relaxation again.
There was no second-guessing.
It felt familiar. Natural. Even enjoyable.
What I discovered
That experience made me curious.
Would the same thing work for everyone?
And the answer was… not exactly.
Because what I began to see was this:
There isn’t just one way the nervous system relaxes. There are different pathways.
Different “switches”.
Over time, I could see six clear patterns in how people’s nervous systems responded to those pathways.
I call these nervous system signatures.
Each one reflects the kind of support your body responds to most easily – the pathway that acts like a “switch” for your nervous system.
So it can move into rest… and allow repair to begin.
A simple way to find your relaxation switch
If any of this feels familiar, you don’t need to figure it all out on your own.
This is where you can begin to understand what helps your body relax more easily — so the things you’re already doing can start to work better for you.
You’ll begin to see:
• the type of support your body responds to most easily • how to recognise when your body is starting to settle • and how to work with your nervous system, rather than against it
Alongside this, you’ll find a gentle exercise called the Drop Test – a simple way to notice which type of support your body responds to most easily, without needing to try everything or second-guess yourself.
It’s not about getting it perfect. Just finding a place to start.
