Holistic Self-Care for Busy Women: How Small Changes and Hypnotherapy Can Transform Your Wellbeing
I’ve always been curious.
As an ex-scientist, asking why has always been part of who I am. I like to know how things work, where they came from and why systems operate the way they do. The answer “because that’s the way we’ve always done it” has never sat well with me.
Often, that’s exactly why things stop working as well as they once did. Times change, and we have to change with them.
We can see this happening in the world around us. Education systems evolve, medical practices develop, and even our approach to energy is shifting. Yet when it comes to our own lives, we often forget to apply the same thinking.
What worked for you at 21 may not work for you at 40.
Your routines, habits, food choices and lifestyle all evolve over time. But many of us try to keep everything the same, even when life has clearly moved on.
Why Life Changes Affect Our Wellbeing
Sometimes the smallest life changes can have a ripple effect on everything else.
For example, moving house might seem like a practical change, but it can affect far more than you realise. A longer commute could mean you arrive home later. That then affects when you eat, where you shop, and how much time you have to exercise or relax.
Yet we often overlook these connections.
Instead, when something feels “off”, we start questioning our entire life rather than looking at the small tweaks that might restore balance.
I’m quite sensitive to change, and I can usually feel when something isn’t quite right. But it can take time to pinpoint what has shifted.
Sometimes the solution is simple.
Maybe you need to declutter a room that’s no longer serving its purpose. Perhaps the playroom the children never use could become a quiet reading space or a home office. Maybe taking a slightly different route to work could give you an extra ten minutes of fresh air and movement.
Or perhaps your job has changed from being active to sitting at a desk all day, and your body now needs a new way to move.
These are external adjustments we can make fairly easily.
But sometimes the changes we need to make are internal.
When the Change Needs to Come from Within
External adjustments can help, but they don’t always address what’s happening inside.
Facing critical thoughts, processing old experiences or dealing with long-standing stress requires a different kind of attention.
It requires focusing inwards.
Over the years I’ve read countless self-help books, completed quizzes, taken courses and attended classes, all in search of ways to understand myself better.
Eventually, that journey led me somewhere unexpected. I changed careers and trained in one of the modalities that had helped me most: hypnotherapy.
Hypnosis became a powerful way to calm the mind, shift patterns and build confidence. It helped me understand my thoughts and emotions in a completely different way.
Exploring Holistic Self-Care
Alongside hypnotherapy, I’ve always been open to exploring other approaches to wellbeing.
People often refer to these as “alternative therapies”, but all that really means is that they sit outside the traditional Western medical model.
And both approaches have their place.
Doctors, medication and surgery have helped me many times in my life, and I’m grateful for that. But I’ve also discovered that I personally need more than what the NHS alone can offer.
Over the past 30 years I’ve explored many different therapies and noticed how each one supports wellbeing in its own way.
For example:
Acupuncture has helped my skin.
Reflexology eases muscle pain and tension.
Hypnosis helps with fear, worry and building calm.
Reiki provides grounding.
Sound baths help reset my energy and bring clarity.
What works for me might not work in exactly the same way for someone else. That’s why I believe it’s important to explore and discover what supports you as an individual.
Creating a Space to Focus Inwards
This belief is what inspired me to create Focus Inwards, my online wellbeing membership.
It began simply as a monthly check-in for past clients – a chance to pause, journal and experience a relaxing hypnotherapy session together.
But over time, I realised I wanted to share much more.
Because I’m not trained in every therapy I enjoy, I started inviting experienced practitioners to join us each month. They share their knowledge and introduce members to different ways of supporting their wellbeing.
Some of the topics we’ve explored include:
Somatic therapy for anxiety
Laughter yoga to bring more joy
Feng shui for refreshing living spaces
Tapping techniques to release emotional tension
Each session lasts just one hour. We spend half an hour learning something new with the practitioner, followed by journaling and a calming hypnotherapy session.
The sessions take place on Zoom on a Monday evening at 8pm, once the day has settled. Everything is recorded, so members can watch later if they can’t attend live.
The aim is simple: to give busy women a moment to pause.
The Power of Small, Consistent Changes
One of the most important lessons I’ve learned on my wellbeing journey is that change rarely happens overnight.
Take sleep, for example.
If you’re used to going to bed late, drinking wine in the evening and falling asleep with the television on, you might decide to change everything at once.
But when you wake up tired the next morning, it’s easy to think the effort didn’t work.
In reality, the brain responds better to small, consistent changes.
If you cut out the wine for two weeks but keep everything else the same, you’ll likely notice your sleep gradually improving. That small change then makes it easier to adjust other habits later.
The brain builds new patterns through repetition, not through sudden transformation.
A Personal Journey of Growth
Looking back, I realise I used to expect instant results. If something didn’t work immediately, I assumed it wasn’t effective.
Hypnotherapy helped me slow down enough to notice the subtle improvements that were already happening.
Sometimes we become so focused on what we don’t want that we overlook the progress we’ve already made.
Learning to recognise those small shifts can change everything.
A Place to Pause
Life is busy. Responsibilities pull us in many directions, and it’s easy to keep moving without stopping to ask how we truly feel.
Focus Inwards is simply a space to pause.
A place to reflect on where you are, how you feel and what small changes might help you move forward.
It’s a personal journey, but one shared with other women who are also curious, open-minded and searching for new ways to support their wellbeing.
Sometimes all we need is an hour to reconnect with ourselves.