Well, that went quickly.

I’m sitting here on my son’s final day of childcare for the year in what will almost certainly be the last period of uninterrupted writing (and perhaps thinking) time that I will have for the next few weeks, so I’m doing what I would encourage my clients to do - I’m taking this space and time for me.

I will begin this piece by admitting that I’m feeling a bit tired. 2025 has been a year of incredible ups and downs for me outside of work, and I’m very much happier to be sitting here writing this from my desk at home rather than the hospital bed where I spent far too many weeks at the end of 2024. It feels a little self-indulgent to revisit that memory (not to mention unpleasant), but even the most cursory comparisons between my lead-up to the end of 2024 and 2025 reveal that this year is treating me much better.

Sepsis recovery

This time last year, I was in the very, very early stages of recovering from sepsis with months of strong antibiotics ahead of me, even after weeks of powerful intravenous ones. It was truly a miserable experience. January, February, March and April passed me by in a haze of medication and a PTSD diagnosis. It’s safe to say, I never want to go back to that place again. And here, almost a year on, I’m very fortunate to be able to note that I have not experienced any recurrence of sepsis and am approaching the one-year point from which likelihood of recurrence statistics become much more favourable. However, I did, and still do, struggle with post-sepsis syndrome and an ongoing impact on my physical mobility from the damage done to my foot by the infection that spread from my joints, to my bones and into my bloodstream.

Being chronically unwell is not totally new to me - I have had spondyolysthesis since my teens - however, having it be physically noticeable that I was unwell was. This time last year, I could not leave my house, go upstairs, walk or move around without a wheelchair. It was incredibly frustrating to lose mobility and autonomy in a flash, and the psychological impact will probably always be with me to some degree.

Grateful reflections

The only thing that I wanted when I was in the hospital was to be back with my son. He was 16 months old and a late walker, so he required a great deal of parental input. Then, when I got home, all I wanted was to be able to stand to pick him up, which he solicited constantly. It broke my heart to be unable to do that. Then, once I could do that, I desperately wanted to be able to walk him in his stroller; however, as the weather improved, I became more able to do it for short periods, using the stroller for support. Finally, what I wanted more than anything else was to be able to lift him out of his crib in the night when he cried and wanted comfort. It was the most heartwrenching feeling I’ve ever had to hear him call for me and to be unable to soothe him in the way that he needed.

Now, thankfully, I can do all of these things. Not without pain, not without consequences on my mobility for the next day or even week, but I can do them. And just typing out and recognising these things that I longed for and reflecting on how I do them instinctively now, without the angst I struggled with a year ago, makes me conscious of how the goalposts for the things that we want so very dearly change. And often we don't have the time or the inclination to reflect on just how grateful we are for them coming to pass.

Recognising how far we have come

It has made me think that it would really be useful to have some way of recognising just how far we might have travelled on a recovery journey - either physically or in terms of our mental health, or both - and how much I would have appreciated a structure to remind me of the changes that my healing body was going through. To point out to me how much it had achieved that I could be grateful for - even when there is still so much work to be done. In fact, that’s the point at which I find myself now. Even a year into my recovery, it’s still easy to stumble back into negative thoughts and feelings about why this should have happened and what I’ve missed as a result. I developed health anxiety under my umbrella PTSD diagnosis, and even now, occasionally, I will notice my hypervigilance kick in and start worrying about something that looks or feels like an old symptom that I thought had gone away.

So what better way to encourage reflection, appreciation and recognition than to write it down?

Anyone who knows me will know that I am in a serious, long-term relationship with the written word. I share the same ethos that Joan Didion did:

“I write entirely to find out what I'm thinking, what I'm looking at, what I see and what it means. What I want and what I fear.”

I’m guessing that there are lots of other people out there who feel the same as she did, and I do.

That by giving myself space, time and reverence for my feelings, thoughts and experiences, that I can come to know how I really feel about a thing - because if I rely on my in-the-moment, managing-101-tasks brain to do it, then it will probably struggle - because there are just too many priorities in my busy life vying for my attention at any given time.
Only by making time for myself, my thoughts, my feelings and allowing them to flow privately and freely on paper, can I summon my gratitude, so often buried under the next great want or need.

A workbook for those who are still going through it

So, for myself as much as those of you out there reading this who are also going through something challenging, I have been inspired to create something which will allow us to do just that. I’m going to create a psychotherapeutic workbook that will offer structure, reassurance, accountability and the space for quiet reflection and gratitude as we pass healing milestones and recovery targets.

It’s not a gratitude journal.

It’s a tool for figuring out how you really feel.

It will offer questions, prompts and enquiry into what the events that you’re going through really mean to you, to your past, and crucially to your future. It will encourage you to ask yourself some really difficult questions about why you might think the way you do, and illustrate what the consequences of that might be.

It’s going to be a way to access a therapeutic conversation directed by me, and delivered by you. You’re going to have the space and occasion to follow a difficult thought or feeling down a road and understand why you might have acted or be acting the way you do, and what you might be able to do to change that, if that’s what you seek.

I’m excited to offer this to you

And to myself - I know that if I had accessed a tool like this from the darkness and isolation of my physical and mental health challenges over the last year, that it would have brought me structure, a feeling of reassurance, and peace in knowing that I was paying myself and my process the due attention needed to come out the other side in the best place possible. I want to frame it so that it helps many people - the grieving, those healing and adapting to physical challenges, the new parents whose lives have changed unrecognisably, those struggling with enormous decisions, those on a mental health journey - basically anyone who has healing to do in some way, to take care of themselves and support their future wellbeing.

2026 is my year of publishing

In all honesty, I’m unlikely to get much time to sit down with this idea until January, and I find that hard. I’m full of inspiration and thoughts about what to put into this workbook in order to make it as useful and impactful as I can. And I know that I’m also reaching the tail end of my second edit of Confidential Grief*, which will be published in a few months. Clearly, I like to have a full plate.

But in the interim, I’m going to try to stay present and focus on the immediate, as I enjoy this end-of-year period with my son that I so wanted and needed this time last year.

And as I tuck him into bed on Christmas Eve, I will try to remember that previous me would have considered present-day me to be the luckiest person alive.

I must make sure I write that down...

Joyeuses fêtes
Laura x

*Confidential Grief is my latest book due for publication in early 2026. To be updated upon its release and other offerings from me, you can subscribe to my mailing list.

What is money trauma?

When we think about the concept of money trauma, we might imagine someone who has had to declare themselves bankrupt, or who has lived with homelessness, or suffers from gambling addiction. And we would be right to assume that these more extreme experiences of suffering due to a lack of money are responsible for traumatic consequences. However, I would argue that there are far more of us walking around with unconscious money trauma that is going unrecognised and potentially damaging our relationships, our careers and even our lives.

Why is it even more prevalent at Christmas?

Christmas is a time when our generosity is most visible. It is expected that we will participate in and receive transactional gifting with friends, colleagues and loved ones. Even if our gifting is not transactional, donations or charity offerings, for example, it is often visible to someone. How generous we can afford to be financially is not usually the issue - most of us can find a way to offer a gesture, favour, gift or food offering to someone in some form, no matter the size or cost - however for many of us we feel a cultural expectation of spoiling and treating others that is particularly intense at this time of year.

There are certainly many people - often parents - who worry that they are not able to provide their children with the quantity and quality of gifts that their peers may be gifting, and that comparison can lead to some complicated feelings about their worth as a parent.

It can be even more complex for the self-employed - especially counsellors and service providers

Being a self-employed person is no mean feat, and it’s not just a question of turning over enough money to keep afloat - the mechanism of transacting money with customers and clients can itself be layered in years of trauma response and shame. If you are a self-employed service provider - particularly a therapist or counsellor - it can feel even more difficult to confidently and tactfully ensure that invoices are paid and clients do not fall behind with payment for sessions due to our own loose management of financial boundaries. It can feel awkward to chase payments from people who have shared their vulnerabilities with us, and for some therapists, it leads them to leave private practice altogether.

Where does it come from?

Money trauma can arrive for any of us at any stage of life - including divorce, property repossession, redundancy or illness. Anywhere where money shows up as a means of transacting in the world or accessing services, money is also to be found. It can also stem from the environment that we grew up in and the level of exposure that we had to financial stressors, or conversations beyond our ability to understand, when we were too young to be able to do anything about them.
If you grew up in a home where money was scarce and your parents struggled to feed you, clothe you or access services, then you will almost certainly be impacted by the effects of growing up in poverty. Conversely, if you grew up in a very affluent family setting where money was always available, but required great sacrifice through the absence of one or both parents, or you were housed and schooled away from your family, then a less recognised - but no less painful - impact can be made on a person via this kind of money-influenced trauma.

Ok, I recognise some of these feelings and behaviours. Now what?

The good news about money trauma is that it’s never too late to work on. Money is a tool which we must all use to move through the world, and it is something that will always exist in some form or another, so working on how we feel about these necessary transactions is a piece of counselling work with perennial value.

• This could mean delving into why you find it so hard to chase clients for unpaid invoices, and recognising that you have internalised messages about your own financial worth that are impacting you as a professional.
• It might mean looking at what financial success really means to you, and challenging ideas that you picked up from family members or teachers.
• It might mean reassessing whether you can build resilience to retrain or change your working schedule to accommodate other activities that might not pay, but which fill you up in other ways - without panicking about a lack of financial security.

Counselling for money trauma

As a certified Trauma of Money Facilitator, I have been trained to identify and work with money trauma of myriad styles and flavours. There are activities, behaviour modifications, texts and resources which we can collaborate on to better understand and modify how you relate to money in your everyday life.

If you would like to understand more about your own money trauma, then click here to book in for a free 30-minute introductory session to discuss how we can work together to change your relationship with your financial future.

This year, my partner and I have decided to gift each other the same thing; we have purchased Oura rings with a year’s subscription to their health app to devote some energy to the project of feeling as physically well as we possibly can in 2026.

2025 - Sepsis, PTSD and losing mobility

This is off the back of a very difficult end to 2024, where I was gravely ill and hospitalised with septic shock and the ongoing impact of sepsis. It has taken me all of 2025 to return to the point where I can do many of the things that I ended 2024 with. I was on intravenous antibiotics for some weeks, followed by an incredible cocktail of medicines upon discharge from the hospital, and unfortunately, I went on to develop PTSD and health anxiety as a result of my experience.

Last year, I was lucky to spend Christmas at home with my partner and baby, but I was severely weakened by my infection and had lost the ability to walk. I was in a wheelchair for some months and then on crutches for longer. I have only really regained the ability to “walk” in the last few months, and my energy levels have begun to return to normal (though what is normal with a toddler remains to be seen!).

I remain impaired physically and cannot walk for long periods without pain. I can’t participate in exercise or sport the way I used to, and driving long distances can be difficult. My life has been profoundly changed, and so have those of my partner and child. I mention all of this to contextualise my decision to go “all-in” on this innovative health tracking device and focus so much attention on my wellbeing in 2026.

What impact on mental health?

It wouldn’t be like me to only focus on physical health, for without my brain, I am lost, and with everything that it went through over the last year, I am keen to treat it kindly and do my best to support it. Working through the PTSD of post-sepsis syndrome was difficult, and the health anxiety that came with it has now, thankfully, been processed. But I’m really interested in how this health data impacts how I feel about myself. Will it marry with the scores that Oura gives me? Will I be able to tie good mental health to certain outputs and make feeling good feel more predictable? Will having so much data at my fingertips mean that I pore over the numbers and obsess over metrics? Time will tell.

Tracking my wellbeing

I’ve had my Oura ring for a week now and have been wearing it comfortably without noticing it in my everyday tasks - bar showering or bathing my son. For me, this element is important because for health monitoring to really become something that I integrate into my routine, I’m the kind of person who really needs to not notice it. As someone who doesn’t usually wear a watch, this is where the jewellery format of this tracker piqued my interest. If I can forget that I’m doing something good for myself (until I reap the benefits), so much the better.

I’ve already had some sleep readings and activity readings that make the act of living feel a little more gamified. As a former avid gamer, I really enjoy being scored and feeling challenged to improve my numbers - so for a person who is extremely competitive with themselves, this works well! However, I can see that if our personality has a tendency to focus on this kind of data with a negative lens (i.e. our inner critic takes hold and uses this data as a means of admonishing us for our shortcomings), then I can see that this level of information could potentially be problematic.

Interaction with health anxiety

One of the principal concerns with sepsis is that the infection that has become blood-borne will have travelled to major organs, including the heart, and have begun to damage the tissues there. As I have a family history of heart issues, this is something that concerned me greatly, so the combination of this pre-awareness, coupled with the vulnerability of the situation and the worry that swirled around me in the hospital, eventually manifested in some overdeveloped concerns in my brain once I was back home and convalescing.

Developing health anxiety - even for a relatively short period, such as I experienced - was exhausting and very consuming. Fuelled by the fact that I had not recognised the grave nature of my symptoms and the shock at my diagnosis and urgent hospitalisation, did some work to undermine my confidence in my body and in my ability to recognise when it was in danger. Essentially, this and living through a deeply traumatising hospitalisation and a great deal of physical pain made me the ideal candidate for this kind of suffering.

How Oura is helping me to push back on anxious thoughts

I’m very lucky to be able to say that I am no longer struggling with this. Over time, my confidence in myself returned, and as my health improved, my belief that I would be okay eclipsed the fears that I might not. One of the ways that I decided to put data to good use in support of this recovery is to have a device do the work of monitoring my well-being for me. At the time, I began to use my old Fitbit Charge to track my heart rate. I have experienced periods of having an irregular heartbeat several times in my life, and there has usually been a precipitating factor linked with it, so when I started to notice a few off-beats, I decided that I needed something less subjective to monitor my heart whilst I waited for an appointment with my doctor.

The act of giving the task of monitoring to an unemotional, unbiased machine, such as the Fitbit or Oura ring, means that I can delegate the task of paying attention to it, and for me, it is the burden of noticing, which can feel so weighty. I cannot - naturally - always trust myself to be an unemotional, unbiased reader of my own data. But I can trust these devices to do so (to a degree, I would always advocate that a medical professional would be the ideal data interpreter, but they can be difficult to come by), and they are available at any time to respond to my needs, truly what a brain with an anxious propensity can benefit from.

So does this mean guaranteed good mental health in 2026?

Here’s hoping for a better twelve months to come in terms of both physical and mental health in 2026. I’m going to be rounding off my year with some good intentions and plans in place for supporting myself the best I can. I’m going into the new year with more information, more confidence in my body’s ability to heal, and more awareness of how profound the mind-body link impacts us deeply. I’ll be checking in with my own mental health needs as the year progresses and being sure to maintain my journaling practice, which is the cornerstone of how I proactively take care of how I think and feel. I'm going to dive into my Oura data when it feels right to, and use it to encourage me to build positive physical habits, including significant periods of rest, which can be hard to come by as the parent of a toddler, to support my brain to be the most well it can be, whilst also being kind to myself.

What are you planning for yourself in 2026? Perhaps now is the time to note your intentions? Will you be investing in a device? Journalling? Going to therapy?

Let me know in the comments.
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• This is an unbiased and unsponsored article which has received no remuneration for the mention of the products of brands therein - all opinions are authentically my own.  I include my referral code here if you would like to try Oura 4 with a 10% discount.