It’s two years this month since I took my first steps towards germinating an idea I’d for bringing together my love of working with women and gardens.

In November 2017 I was recovering from what I now recognise was a breakdown of my auto-immune system. There were many things that led my being so ill, and it’s hard to believe it was so recent, and I’m not going to go into them here, but the upshot was that the excema I have lived with since babyhood exploded and I became extremely unwell.

I was working, at the time, as a psychotherapist, in my own practice in London, but had been gradually living more and more in Oxfordshire where we had recently moved to the cottage of my dreams (thatched with water at the bottom the garden) and where my heart was happier.

The more I embedded myself deeply into, what I now know is, the right place for me, the more difficult returning each week to work in London became until it was practically impossible and I began to have panic attacks when it was time to get ready to leave. This Inevitably, combined with the extreme skin difficulties I was experiencing, left me depleted and even more seriously unwell.

So it was with tremendous sadness, and no little frustration, that I took sick leave for six months from my practice and clients, and when this wasn’t enough and I didn’t recover, closed my practice in January 2017. Having hit rock bottom I became depressed and life seemed very bleak.

I can see now that I was over-whelmed, by my work, the city and various personal experiences and that I had been for years. As I write this in my studio in Oxfordshire in Autumn 2019, the door is open, there is a chill in the air and I am surrounded by green. The leaves on the willow tree next to the stream are turning orange, the red kites fly overhead and all is quiet. Nature works for me. I love it and the more I immerse myself in green places and align myself with the seasons the happier I am. I needed to be here and feel clearly now that the wisdom inherent in my physical self knew this - it was time for a complete rethink of the way I lived my life - the city and the way I worked were just too much for me.

Nature, my new home surrounded by green and a heavy dose of oral steroids, is what finally healed me and then time, and my garden, finished the job. it took many months for me to feel better and then several months after that to build up my strength again and it was then that I began a slow and important process of taking small steps towards ownership of my garden.

During that period of recovery it dawned slowly on me that I needed a new way to work and the idea for Growthfully was born. I wanted a way to bring together my design skills and love of gardens and gardening with my ability to listen and be with women; a way to express my passion for supporting women to find space in their own lives for themselves.

I realised that my own experience of creating gardens, and being healed in the process, had relevance and the idea was born. Just the seed of an idea at this stage. Frustratingly nothing more. And I remember vividly now, sitting in bed talking to my daughter one day and saying ‘I need a website’ and her replying ‘but Mum, you need to know what it is you do first’.

Wise words indeed and since I didn’t have a clue at that stage, just an idea I thought could work plus lots of frustration that I didn’t already know the answers, there was quite a process ahead of me.

Growthfully - a very personal journey...