A short history

I spent a long time struggling to exist in the world. I had every mental health thing going. My childhood and early teens were less than ideal but after being rescued by my teachers (see Matilda for my story) and then again by my husband (genuine knight in shining armour) I managed to find my home, my people but I couldn’t find my place, couldn’t find peace.
 

I was still struggling. Just 24, one year sober, trying (and constantly failing) to have some semblance of ‘control’ over my emotions.
 

I tried it all.
 

AA (helped a bit then got a bit culty), therapy (opened all the boxes, nowhere to put the stuff), women’s circles (hugely helpful but still no idea what to do with all the stuff), menstrual cycle awareness (life saving, literally), yoga (probably the most helpful thing of all alongside nature) and yoga nidra (essential for life).​

I quit the music industry to teach yoga full-time, toured with music, hosted wild woman retreats, hosted mountain biking and yoga retreats, trained in Well Woman Yoga therapy, discovered menstrual cycle awareness and yoga nidra, spent most of my time in the woods, hiked and wrote (a lot).​
 

I slowed down, found community, met my stuff and developed what I thought was a chronic health condition. I was better than I had been in a long time but I was far from ok. I was still holding too much inside. Still trying to be someone I wasn’t (without even realising it).​​
 

Then 2021. Covid, the birth of my daughter and a year without sleep (which became three) cracked me open profoundly. It wasn’t at all pretty. But it was inevitable. You can only hold on for so long.​
 

It felt as though it changed my nervous system completely but in fact it simply changed my relationship with the nervous system I’d always had. I discovered and finally accepted that I was more sensitive than I’d ever acknowledged. I finally understood myself.​
 

And that understanding changed the course of my mothering and of my life.​
 

I suddenly felt I had to stop offering my women’s work but I had no idea what was next but I jumped anyway.

And I began to weave my way home to who I was before I lost myself.​
 

And the net appeared.
 

As I found my way back to animals.​
 

I said yes to learning how to take care of alpacas and so began the best years of my mental health to date. I still wasn’t sleeping but I was content. Happy. Eating. Safe. The safest I’d ever felt.​​
 

It astounded me. It confused medical professionals. After my experience(s) I should be in a bad way. But I was thriving.​
 

Outdoors, with animals, working with my whole body and mind with my daughter on my back.​
 

I learned a gentle, respectful handling style called CameliDynamics and it gave me language for my own experience of life. Suddenly I could communicate my emotional needs with my husband and understand my experience, so similar to that of this nervy prey species.​
 

I found my way home.
 

I then began spinning as a way of processing the many, many alpaca fleeces we produced every year but continued as a way of processing my mind and emotions. Spinning, knitting, felting and rug became the place my hands went to in the quiet moments. Turning pasture and water into yarn. Actual magic. Shifting anxiety and rumination into peace and creation. Serious magic.
 

Carly x