Many people have asked what inspired me to start the Yorkshire Wellbeing Collective and Feel Good Yorkshire wellbeing directory. The short answer? I struggled to know how to support my wellbeing, and after lots of searching, I found practitioners who really helped me. I believe it shouldn’t be that difficult. It should be something we’re taught at school.
Very few people know the full story.
In the last six months, multiple people have encouraged me to share. My initial response was: “People don’t need to know the detail and I don’t want to trauma dump.” I brushed the idea aside, convinced no one would read it, and because facing the messy reality of what I’d been through still felt too raw.
But I’ve come to realise that my story matters.
It matters to speak the truth about our minds, bodies, and spirits, and share the options we have to support ourselves to live life to the fullest.
If you’ve ever felt lost in the dark, not knowing how to help yourself, this is for you.
This is my honest story, from 2012 to 2025, of how I moved from a decade of survival mode into thriving as my self again.
The breaking point I wish I avoided…
One year after I graduated, I hit rock bottom.
Each morning I woke up with dread. My legs felt like lead on my commute. I had no energy. I found myself crying in the bathroom at work for no reason.
“Why do I feel this way? This makes no sense.”
Yet each dark winter’s morning, I blasted positive music in my headphones, that classic Princess Diaries tune ‘Miracles Can Happen’, yearning to reconnect with my former bright, happy self.
It didn’t work.
My mind and body felt the same every day: low mood, fatigued, emotional.
Growing up, everyone said I was constantly smiling.
Where did that Lauren go?
I tried to keep going. But I reached a breaking point.
The doctor’s words didn’t compute: depression.
“I have no reason to be depressed. I just got a 1st class honours degree in Public Relations, started my career, got promotions, have friends and family around me. How could I possibly be depressed?”
Family encouraged me to take some leave from work.
In that pause, I realised the emotion surfacing was unprocessed grief.
Six years earlier, when I was 15, I lost my dad.
The beauty of hindsight
I had no idea how to process grief at 15.
So I switched into survival mode.
I threw myself into being productive, GCSEs, A-levels, teaching dance classes, life admin, supporting family, being the agony aunt for friends.
I always thought it was strange that I felt numb to the loss. I didn’t even feel excitement for leaving school or going to Prom.
In hindsight, I distracted myself with keeping busy. I was trying to provide the security I’d lost when my father figure was gone.
University ramped everything up. Making new friends, Dance Society, setting up an Oxfam Society on campus, volunteering in the local Oxfam Bookshop, leading the student-run PR agency. From the outside, I was “perfectly fine.”
Inside? I felt flat. I’d lost my spark but was too busy to notice.
It was after university, when I started a 9-5 job and most uni friends had moved away, that I found myself with more time and space.
That’s when the suppressed emotions surfaced – in random moments even when busy at work.
I realised that bottling up feelings to be ‘strong’ and ‘resilient’ had taken such a toll on my mind and body. It sneaked up on me six years later, at a time when my logical brain thought I had everything I wished for.
If nothing changes, nothing changes
At 22, I started counselling on Tuesday evenings after work.
This helped me process emotion and gave me awareness of how I was feeling and why. I created space, in and outside the sessions, to be still with my thoughts and feelings. To let anything arise. To cry as much as I needed to.
Hitting the pause button, slowing down, and processing was key to honoring my feelings and starting to feel like myself again.
My counsellor gave me a new perspective on how emotions and the mind works.
I felt stronger within myself (between the cathartic releases and snotty tissues).
Even then, the “doer” in me wouldn’t quit. “I need to go to that work meeting. I need to stay productive so I’m safe.”
I still felt fatigued. My legs were still heavy.
“What Is This Magic?”
A friend recommended a Reiki Therapist. I was curious, so I traveled five hours on the train to see them.
The moment the session ended, I felt lighter in my body. Brighter in my eyes.
“What is this magic?” I asked.
They smiled. They were also a lymphatic drainage massage therapist and recommended I try that for the heaviness in my legs.
“I didn’t know I had inflammation in my legs… I’ve never even heard of the body’s lymphatic system before.”
I gave it a go.
My legs felt so much lighter afterwards. Walking didn’t feel exhausting anymore. Each day became easier to navigate. I had more energy.
I kept having regular Reiki and lymphatic drainage massages, and each time I felt even better. I eventually felt more like myself, energised and brighter.
Something was shifting.
Working vs resting
My tendency to overwork was still there, though.
I continued working long hours and weekends, even though no one asked me to. I volunteered for a local Book Festival on weekends, managing their social media.
I realised my default mode was being productive, striving forwards. I needed to chiiillll.
I learned the hard way before that slowing down is absolutely essential. So why couldn’t I just relax? My autopilot was to keep working, keep striving, to protect and provide for myself. A tendency I now understand was psychologically linked to stepping into the father figure role of providing myself with security and safety.
But old patterns don’t disappear overnight.
The Fire in My Belly
I saw a local meditation class advertised with Beth Fuller and went along each week.
Each guided meditation helped me connect with myself and decompress. Afterwards, I felt energised, like the fog had cleared from my eyes and I was seeing the world in a brighter way.
Beth mentioned she was a Life and Wellbeing Coach. I signed up straight away to one of her group coaching programmes.
We all shared the same struggle: carving out time for ourselves around work and life. We set intentions to create that space. For some it was an early morning run or doing crafts. For me, it was taking time before and after work to do guided meditation on Insight Timer or yoga on YouTube. Or practicing being comfortable with doing absolutely nothing. Like watching tele.
I signed up for 1:1 coaching with Beth. We explored ways to support my wellbeing and set intentions. In one of these conversations, I realised I was seeking more fulfillment in my work. Having volunteered for charities in the past, I knew I would always gravitate to doing meaningful work.
The next words that came out of my mouth surprised me.
“I just want people to know the truth.”
A fire ignited in my belly. Tears followed.
The truth about how their minds and bodies work. The options they have for their wellbeing to be happy and healthy.
I felt frustration rising: “Why aren’t we taught this at school?” Why didn’t the doctors tell me about these options?
I went round the houses searching for answers to how I felt… like being in a maze with darkness over me. Walking around wellbeing fairs struggling to understand the jargon on displays: “Sound therapy… Reiki… Somatic therapy…” but desperately searching to understand.
Then came clarity.
“I’m going to help more people discover their options for health and wellbeing. Everyone deserves to know how to support their minds, bodies and energy.”
I worked in a technology PR and marketing agency at the time, so I knew what I needed to do: go freelance and do marketing for wellbeing businesses. Help others find the practitioners who helped me turn my life around.
Yorkshire & an unexpected blessing
Four years later in 2023, I moved to Yorkshire for a fresh chapter.
When I was made redundant in early 2024, I saw it as a blessing from the universe to go all-in on being a freelance marketer for wellbeing businesses and continue growing the Yorkshire Wellbeing Collective and connecting with local wellbeing practitioners.
But old habits emerged.
I went straight back into working six or seven days a week to “survive.” Even as I preached to others about wellbeing, I told myself: “I’ll rest after this launch. I just need to finish this social media strategy.”
After my first successful networking event in October 2024, I burnt out completely.
I was bedridden with a virus. Unable to move without feeling nauseous.
My body was forcing me to stop the “hustle.”
Rewiring: “I Am Safe”
In 2025, I began working with Mindset and Empowerment coach Sam Richardson.
We explored the mind-body connection, linking the chronic inflammation in my legs to stored emotion and my need for control. By letting go through hypnotherapy, I rewired my brain to realise something fundamental:
I am safe.
I didn’t need to overextend or people-please to be secure anymore.
I learned that when we don’t process emotions, they’re stored in the body, leading to physical “dis-ease.” My body had been holding onto that 15-year-old’s grief, that father-loss insecurity, for over a decade.
The moment I realised I had let go and healed was in summer 2025.
I stood behind a stall to promote the Feel Good Yorkshire wellbeing directory at the St. Gemma’s Hospice Sunset Walk – a cause very close to my heart. Around me, families walked together, some in tears, some in laughter, all in remembrance.
Months earlier, this would have touched on an open wound. I would have said no the opportunity for fear of being an emotional wreck. But I stood there sharing wellbeing prizes kindly donated from our YWC community of wellbeing practitioners – reiki sessions, day retreat vouchers, yoga class passes and more.
Seeing those individiuals feel thankful and touched by the gifts and positive affirmation cards we shared during a tender time, made me realise: when we heal ourselves, there’s a far greater ripple effect on the world. We become beacons of light for others – in a world that can, at times, feel dark and dense.
There is a @iamsahararose quote that says “Sharing our healing is often the final stage of our process, where we can fully overcome the adversity and create meaning for it. Sometimes sharing is the alchemy we need to transmute pain into healing.”
Re-discovering my spark
Society tells us to keep doing, producing, staying busy, We’re taught to prioritise the “hamster wheel” over the essential work of resting, recovering and healing. But I’ve learned that true strength is found in slowing down, and allow ourselves to feel the feelings.
Of course, my healing journey will continue. Another layer of the “onion” will be met. And life will happen.
Each day I make an effort to intentionally choose to rest, to let go, to prioritise the things that bring me joy… and tell my to-do-list it can wait if it needs to.
The therapies that helped me, counselling, Reiki, lymphatic drainage massage, meditation, yoga, qi gong, life coaching, mindset coaching, and hypnotherapy, gave me back my life. Each one addressed a different layer: my mind, my body, my energy.
It’s this integrated approach to wellbeing that turned my life around.
It took me many years to figure that out. Precious time.
I want you to know: you don’t have to stay “lost in the dark.”
I hope by sharing, you’ll know there’s support available and feel empowered to find your own path to healing.
Because your life matters. You deserve to feel happy and healthy to live your life to the fullest. And you don’t have to figure it out alone.
If this resonated with you at all, I welcome you to drop me a message @yorkshirewellbeingcollective or @feelgoodyorkshire on Instagram of Facebook. And if you’re in Yorkshire and looking for support on your own wellbeing journey, please take some time explore the wellbeing practitioners in the Feel Good Yorkshire directory – the ones who helped me, and many others who may help you.
