Welcome to Hannah's Blog
Browse Hannah's blog articles which encompass a range of different topics relating to Meditation, the Mind, Women's Health and Wellbeing in general. One article is featured each week in the Mindfully Hannah newsletter - if you're not yet subscribed, click here to sign up.
28th July 2025
The toll of stress in pregnancy - and the simple techniques you could use to overcome it
Pregnancy is a relatively rapid period of transformation - of the body, of the mind, of life in general. While this process for some is a beautiful phase, with excitement and joy, for others this time can be riddled with anxiety, with fear and with uncertainty. There is no ‘right’ way to feel about a pregnancy, and it is totally normal for emotions and mindset to fluctuate over the course of those 40 (on average) weeks - the hormonal changes occurring in the body to facilitate growing and sustaining a pregnancy and altering the mother’s physiology will naturally have effects on the mind as well, just as they do on a smaller scale each month with the menstrual cycle. Therefore it is also normal to feel both excitement and worry. Stress and happiness. Fear of uncertainty and enthusiasm for raising a child.
So why does it matter if a woman feels stress in pregnancy, if it can be part of a normal reaction to the changes pregnancy brings to the body and to the woman’s life?
19th July 2025
I really wish more people understood this…
What comes to your mind when you hear the word ‘meditation’?
Perhaps a monk in burgundy robes sitting cross legged? Or a room of young women sitting around a circle of cards and crystals burning sage? Perhaps you think of religion. Certain parts of the world. Yoga. Hippies. Certain types of clothing.
And now I wonder how you feel when you hear the word ‘meditation’? Intrigued? Uncomfortable? Curious but from a distance? Enthusiastic? Sceptical?
Despite meditation becoming far more mainstream in the West in recent years, the word ‘meditation’ holds many particular connotations in people’s minds. Even typing ‘meditation’ on your phone keyboard will suggest an emoji of someone sitting cross legged with their hands on their knees, palms upwards. And here’s the thing - many of the connotations aren’t wrong...
12th July 2025
Expectation Vs Reality
In Saturday’s online meditation class, I talked particularly about one of the pillars of mindfulness: letting go. This refers to the fact that when practising mindfulness - maintaining non-judgemental awareness of the present moment - we are often attached to certain ideas or thoughts we may have about the practice, and so we need to let go of these in order to be truly present, and to enable us to see the moment for what it is. For many (myself included) the expectation could be that sitting to spend 15 minutes of meditation *should* make me feel relaxed and calm. Or it could be that you’re more of a skeptic about the whole idea of meditation, so you’re anticipating not feeling any different afterwards, or thinking it’s all a bit ‘woo-woo’. Our experience of the reality is then clouded by this lens through which we see our present moment - meaning we don’t see the moment for what it truly is, but as a biased view based on all our attached thoughts about the situation.
Let me give you an example…
1st July 2025
How are you managing the waves?
Thanks to the lovely (or not, depending on how you see it) hot weather we’ve been having lately, there have been a lot of little sailing boats and yachts going past my flat on the river. Day to day, this stretch of river is relatively busy with Uber boats going up and down as well as tug boats pulling barges which get moored together here. So as I was sitting on my balcony watching these different boats going up and down, it occurred to me how much some of the little sailing boats get rocked by the wake of the bigger or faster boats going past it. Now I love a good analogy and this image on the river made me think about how we react when faced with people, events, situations that may ‘rock’ us...