Richard Stuttle

Tag: Mental health

Putting Philosophy and Methodology into Perspective

Putting Philosophy into Perspective

Looking back through the years, I can see where my philosophy has evolved, changed and transformed. Honestly, some days my philosophy changes from hour to hour, there are no objective truths, only subjective opinions.

The difference between philosophy and methodology explained. In today’s world it’s easy to get lost down a rabbit hole of teachers, mentors and the many life philosophies out there pulsating in the world. The world is saturated with the right way, the best way and the only way to achieve success, enlightenment, deeper understanding or financial freedom. Whatever you are searching for, there is a philosophy, a 5 step process or business model ready to tell you how to get there.

Difference between philosophy and methodology explained

I am not including cultural traditions, religion or ancient teachings passed down from master to student, or any teaching which have evolved over time through deep spiritual practice. These tend to become a way of life for the practitioners, rooted in love and personal journey. I am talking about the fast track journeys to success that have appeared everywhere over the past decade. Shiny systems with no real grounding in time-tested teachings. Fast track philosophies promising transformation without offering any deeper teaching or understanding.

As people we feel the difference, we feel the lack of authenticity although may not fully recognise it fully but something just feels off.

How does a so called new philosophy come into existence?

Let’s try to understand how this happens. Philosophy might be too generous a word, perhaps ‘method’ is better summary.

What is a method to success? It is simply someone’s opinion, supported by subjective truths, a handful of success stories and a personal journey to reach a particular way of thinking. Often it is beautifully packaged, enticing and inspiring. But when you dig deeper, much of it is marketing and spin. The goal to make money or push a narrative rather than obtain personal deeper understanding.

The method may work for a few in a certain energetic time and space, but it will not work for the majority. Why? It worked for the person who created it because it was theirs, their authentic experience and inspiring story. A moment of clarity turned into a working method through the filter of their conscious mind. It should never have become a journey to success but remained an inspirational story.

What should we really seek from these methods?

In every philosophy or method, there is always something special, the spark of an idea, a moment of genuine connection to authenticity, and this is what we are looking for. I have looked at many methods, philosophies and tutors over the years and the pattern remains constant, this is my thoughts on how this occurs.

A moment of alignment arrives, we find a space, clarity, an idea has had time to land and process though our system. Finally, it moves forward into our conscious mind and just makes sense. We put the idea into practice alongside our life experience and skill set and success is the result.

The cogs begin to turn, I want to share this with others, this method is new, exciting and it works! The idea runs through the pathways of the mind, our psyche, catching on to our past experience and the stories we carry. It begins to materialise through imagination and creativity, taking form in this world.

The method is regurtitated time and again through our thought process, our emotional self and includes part of our journey, our life struggles, our failures and successes. It becomes a teaching, a methodology and way of working towards success.

This new method gets launched into the world as something new, exciting and a game changer in the way we should approach life, business, personal development or success!

At the core of every philosophy or method is this spark, the inspiration unfiltered.
Once we understand this, we understand the true teaching. The rest is simply the mind’s interpretation to fit into the filter of business or success in today’s world. This is the part people often miss. The shiny and polished interpretation is followed instead of the essence, or original spark. We missed the mark. Follow the spark, filter it through your system and find where it feels authentic to you.

“Find the spark and aligned connection of any idea or philosophy. Sit with it and pass it through your system, then you can live it through your authentic self rather than through the teachings of others.”

Returning to the feeling and no fixed philosophy

This is where I find myself, no longer chasing philosophies, but returning to the feeling of the spark. The feeling of alignment and direct contact with your deeper self. Feeling is honest, intimate and unfiltered. It doesn’t follow the narratives of our minds or past experience. It’s live and direct.

Every genuine realisation I’ve ever experienced arrived not through thinking harder, but through softening, allowing the process to cascade, finding the spark which resonates with me and developing my own unique and creative way of working.

Let’s touch back on the deeper teachings and time old philosophies, they all also carry a similar thread. Simply to search inwards, find authencitiy, love and take personal responsibility. Manifestation is just as simple; reflect the love you feel internally outwardly in this world through creativity. Find your way of doing things and experience the deeper joy of the present moment. It is far deeper than we could possibly comprehend with our conscious mind.

The mistake we see in the commercial world is one rigid way of working, one outlook and philosophy, one recipe for success. This is not the human experience. Our outlook on life, our philosophy, our live experience should change and flow from moment to moment. The realisation comes when we know the deeper spark of alignment and clarity is everpresent and ever changing, this space is where our personal wisdom flows from. Treat these methods or philosophies as inspiring stories and nothing more, they are just like the proverbs of old, meant to inspire the moment and not define a lifetime.

Share your authentic self by becoming the best version of you, not telling others how to do it, but hold space for them to find their authenticity within themselves. We are all unique in our beauty, creativity and the way we manifest love in this world.

“Just be your authentic yourself, ever changing and ever present.”

Take a moment today to notice where your guidance truly comes from. Not the mind, not the methods, not the voices of others. Listen to people, sit and listen to the rythum of nature but most importantly listen deeply to the inner resonance of your own wisdom. When you speak from your own wisdom you will always have the answer and personal success is the result.

Written by Richard Stuttle

November 19, 2025
We Are More Aware of Energy Than We Think

How is it that in the morning we can feel balanced, relaxed and ready for the day. Fully in touch with our emotions, clear in our thoughts and calm in our body, despite this state as soon as we step outside, everything changes! We walk into a town high street, a shopping centre or a crowded supermarket and suddenly feel unbalanced, stressed or anxious. Thoughts start racing, emotions rise, tension grips our body and we always feel rushed and late.

Here’s an important consideration: “what we feel is not always us.”

We are sensitive beings, far more aware of energy than we often give ourselves credit for. The more inner work we do, the more sensitive we become to the subtle vibrations around us, the atmosphere of places and spaces, the frequency of people, the unspoken and unseen energy constantly moving through us and the situations we find ourselves in. Our energetic system doesn’t always recognise that it is not us, it can mistake what belongs to the outside world as our own, and we end up carrying the weight of energies that were never ours to begin with.

Picking up on other people’s energy

As I’ve shared before, places hold specific frequencies and energy – read Moments of magic are all around us. Rooms, landscapes, and environments have their own vibration, and when we pass through them, we can feel a shift. Sometimes it’s uplifting, even magical, giving us just the nudge we need for our next thought or insight. This goes a little to explain why sometimes we have a gut instinct, we need to visit a certain place at a certain time, our body directing us towards something we need.

In my experience, people work in much the same way. Every individual resonates at their own unique frequency. People enter our lives at particular times and not always by accident, but because their resonance carries something our system needs to evolve. They may not arrive as traditional ‘teachers’ in the formal sense, but just their presence acts as a catalyst.

It could be a conversation, a word, a look, a gentle touch, or simply the energy of sitting quietly in their company. Something falls into place. Something aligns within our system and a realisation emerges. These encounters are often overlooked until after the fact, but they serve a very important purpose. Trust within ourselves, listening to our body, intuition and energetic system, an invitation to flow freely, follow your heart and bring what is needed in the moment, without resistance. A loving appreciation for the value of people and Mother Earth.

How to develop intuition and awareness: The challenge of energy exchange

Be mindful with your energy and focus. As naturally giving beings, we want to help. When someone we care about is struggling, our instinct is only to help, this usually involves giving your time, focus and importantly your energy. Alternatively we want to take away their pain and heal it for them, keep our loved ones safe and protected. If we are not aware of our energy, our kindness and love for giving can blur boundaries. We begin to hold and carry what is not ours, we want to process and heal for them.

Our love and kindness can rob people of their own healing experience and create a co-dependency. It sounds harsh but simply put, if I give you my energy and you are successful, who is successful? It me, because you used my energy. If you are sick and I give you my energy to heal, I have essentially taken away the opportunity for you to heal yourself and build confidence in your own healing ability. I have created a co-dependency and reliance on my energy.

The first step in working with this awareness is learning to update our system. To pause and ask the question, does this feeling or energy belong to me? By doing this, we teach the subconscious and energetic body to recognise our authentic frequency and to distinguish it from the frequencies which are not ours but have been intertwined within us.

My thought on this is simply, we cannot process what doesn’t belong to us. When we try, we simply feed the energy. Healing and processing happens more efficiently and authentically within our own system. We learn and we evolve through experience, feeling it for ourselves, sometimes it’s impossibly hard, but always worthwhile.

Coming back to yourself

The practice is simple, though not always easy, come back to yourself. Reconnect with the part of you that is constant, the quiet awareness that has been with you since the moment you entered this reality. That part of you is unshakable, even when the world feels overwhelming.

Sometimes it takes silence. Sometimes it takes breath. Sometimes it takes grounding yourself in the natural world or stepping back from environments that overwhelm. But in all cases, return to what feels authentic within you.

1:1 Sessions – a space to return to your authenticity

In my work with clients over the years, the first step is to help them recognise what is theirs and what is not theirs. So many of us are unknowingly carrying other people’s energy, trying to process it and wondering why we feel stuck, heavy or overwhelmed.

In a 1:1 session, we create a safe, focused space to reconnect with your authentic frequency. I hold space and through the medium of art we explore the physical, emotional, mental and spiritual layers of your being and gently separate what is truly yours from what has become entangled. This is not about cutting things away, it is about bringing your awareness back to what feels right for you and allowing everything else to find its own space.

If you are feeling the weight of energies that don’t belong to you, or if you sense that you are more sensitive than ever before and need guidance in navigating that sensitivity, I invite you into this work. These sessions are an opportunity to reset, realign and rediscover the authentic strength of your own frequency.

1:1 Sessions – Work with Richard

Self-healing awareness

Hold a space of love for yourself, during this week try to pay attention to the moments when you feel a shift in mood or energy, or when the thought of someone or somewhere arrives in your mind unexpectedly. Pause and ask: How do I feel, is this mine? Or am I picking up on something or someone around me? Notice what happens when you gently step back into your authentic self and hand back what isn’t yours.

Listen to the ‘Active Relaxation’ full playlist

Creating community. In groups sessions, workshops and on retreats, bonds of friendships are created and energetic spaces become defined. Richard is continuing to develop an aftercare and integration space to help you navigate the next steps following these experiences. Monthly updates and ‘Active Relaxation’ tracks will be shared to help you better recognise yourself and feel comfortable within your natural journey. Subscribe to the ‘Aftercare and Integration’ space.

Written by Richard Stuttle

October 9, 2025
Your Body is Talking, Are You Listening?

Somatic Healing for mental health: Our body gives us the feedback of our experience

The body gives us the feedback of our experience. It’s the tool we have for navigating our life here on earth, it’s our vehicle. Long before our mind can form the right words or our emotions rise to the surface with a feeling, our body has already responded. It’s always listening, always recording and carefully translating, delivering subtle signals to our consciousness about our existence, a tightening in the chest, a softening in the belly or a lump in the throat. These sensations are not random. They are our somatic language of experience.

What is Somatic healing for mental health? We tend to think of life as happening all around us as a stream of external events we must navigate. But the truth is, life happens through us and our body is giving us the feedback. Every conversation, every moment of stillness and every gesture of love, our nervous system takes it in, filters it and responds subconsciously.

The wisdom comes through us

We often override what our body is telling us. We dismiss the feeling of tiredness when our body screams for rest, we push through our aches and pains, putting the cause down to something abstract. We’ve been told that our mind is in control, it’s all-powerful, and we use it to analyse, justify and explain every experience. But the body doesn’t operate in logic, it offers deeper knowing through sensation and feeling.

Somatic healing reminds us that our body holds the traumas of our life, stored in the tissues, muscles and fascia. Our posture can reflect our past. Our breath can reflect our present. Tension in different areas often holds the words we were never allowed to say, the grief we never gave ourselves permission to feel.

To heal, we must learn to feel, recognise and release. Somatic work teaches us how to come back into relationship with our bodies, not as problems to fix, but as landscapes to explore through emotion and feeling.

The practice of listening

What if your body was your guide in this space? What if the tiredness you feel isn’t laziness but a signal to rest? When we begin to listen to our physical sensations with presence, we stop dismissing the feedback and start learning from it.

Somatic healing doesn’t require that we go back to childhood memories. Healing is completing a cycle, don’t get in the way. The gift is presence and honouring each part, bringing awareness to our bodies, our emotions and our spirit. Simply listening with our mind and nothing more, allows the mind to become the observer of our experience and not the director.

Daily embodiment

As with any practice, this isn’t about fixing or reaching a goal, it’s about becoming presence and observing.

A way to begin:

· Place a hand on your heart or belly and ask, “What am I feeling now?”

· Notice your breath, not to change it, just to witness it.

· Listen carefully and notice how your body wants to express itself.

These small acts of tuning in reconnect us to the natural feedback loop of the body. They remind us that healing is found in a subtle shift and a moment of stillness.

What are we doing to our bodies?

We have seen a huge leap in cosmetic surgery and tattoos, people hurting and deforming their bodies, changing to look a certain way or to visually tell a certain story. Anything we do to change or manipulate our body, including exercise and eating, can if we are not careful be driven by the conscious mind showing its dominance. The result is our mind dictating to our body what to do, what to feel and how to perform.

“When I thought about this more deeply, I realised by tattooing, undergoing surgery we are removing or limiting our body’s capability to talk to us clearly.”

Rather than forcing our body to be a certain way, listen, move and hear deeply what your body is telling you. Don’t let your mind tell your body what it thinks your body needs.

Listen to your experience and get out of the way

To listen to our body is to connect to Mother Earth and to live truthfully in alliance with nature. It’s to acknowledge that we are in a relationship with our bodies, and our bodies are having a relationship with our experiences. They are the storytellers and the witnesses of every step we take in life.

Your body does two things really well, so let it get on with them!

Firstly, it is your main tool in giving you feedback about this experience, the experience of this reality in both the seen and the unseen world.

Secondly, and most importantly, it heals and processes. It is constantly processing your experience, your emotion and your thoughts. It is constantly healing. Allow your body to do its job! Listen to the feeling of the world around you and get your mind out of the way so your body can heal.

The invitation is to begin listening more deeply. Let your body become a compass, guiding you through healing and into a more authentic life, one where presence is the priority and feedback isn’t turned away from, but honoured and embraced.

In the end, our bodies reveal more than we could ever know. If we’re willing to listen, it will always speak to us in truth and honestly.

Written by Richard Stuttle

August 26, 2025
Do We Understand How to Heal?
Do we really understand what trauma is and how healing works?

How do we heal from trauma? We are sensitive multilayered and multifaceted beings; one of the significant factors within personal healing involves identifying parts of us which no longer resonate and allowing them to leave. Through different healing techniques, we can feel and sense more fully the presence of ourselves and access deeper healing. Listening carefully to our body, connecting with our spirituality and drawing our awareness to what we feel through art and colour. This process allows us to recognise blockages or things which don’t belong to us within our energy system and release them to find their own space, enabling a deeper connection to our innate self-healing ability.

Identifying what’s happening with people

We live in a fast-paced world and lead incredibly busy lives, interacting with many different people, groups and communities each day. When you finally get time to relax and reflect on the day’s events, have you ever looked back and noticed how certain words or phrases in some conversations landed differently? How some interactions carry a charge that seems disproportionately intense compared to the words used and their meaning?

Some people have a very strong reaction to certain situations and conversations. After careful thought on this topic, an insight arrived in my mind; The words are meant for us, but the energy attached is often connected to something deeper, trauma that is unresolved.

The words are for us, the energy is connected to historic trauma

To look at this clearly, the superficial meaning within the conversation is meant for you. On the surface, you’ve annoyed me, and this is me telling you. “Can you please do this?” or “Can you please stop doing this!” Why do some people have a far stronger reaction than just “OK, no problem”? I believe it’s down to the energy attached, the loaded charge that can sometimes accompany the words, which is not for you. Don’t take it personally. This energy comes from a deep-rooted memory or pain that needed to be shared and needed power and energy, but now, we have the opportunity to resolve it.

This energy often becomes more present when people are irritated, or something trivial is made into a big deal. Again, it is not for you. Don’t take it personally.

How do we heal from trauma?

What is the trauma or pain looking for? Simply, it is looking for energy.

When something surfaces within us, a trauma or old belief system, it simply wants to make itself known to our conscious mind. We feel a frustration; it is not us, but something within us that is seeking power. The frustration manifests and we lash out, looking for energy in the form of a reaction from others which becomes the fuel. Someone bites back with anger, giving their energy. Someone shows compassion, giving their energy. By doing this, we have fed the old trauma.

When we unpick many of these old belief systems, there is often nothing there. They are ideas planted in our mind, usually many years before, ideas we have attached emotion to. When something triggers the belief system again, we don’t recognise the original idea, we just have an emotional reaction and mistake it as part of who we are. The emotion gives power and energy to the trauma.

When we remove the emotional charge and simply see the idea, we realise it doesn’t have a self, it has been a paradigm of belief, it is nothing but a thought that no longer feels right or belongs to us. It’s not us, more than likely it was never us. This realisation allows the idea to dissolve and be processed. It no longer holds significance.

Finding these outdated systems

Trauma lives in our bodies and only reveals itself to our conscious mind when the time is right. Emotion is not just stored in memory or our energetic field, but in the nervous system, manifesting through pleasure, pain, actions, and breath. A comment or situation in the present might trigger a full-body reaction and bring forth past trauma. Why? Because the energy of what’s said is tangled in the emotional resonance of past experiences.

When we hold space for someone’s healing (or our own) we are not just listening to words. We are witnessing energy in motion, shown through the body. This is the foundation of somatic healing. Listening to and observing the body with the understanding that to process trauma, we must go beyond mental narrative and back into the body. Words may trigger, but it is the energetic space where the deeper trauma resides, and that’s what we feel attached to the words.

How can we work with this?

Somatic healing is widely practised today. Holding space with this awareness allows someone to go deeper into their own feelings without our reaction fuelling the trauma. Our role is to engage fully and hold space without projection or judgement, simply offering space, healing and not offence.
- Physically, we stay grounded.
- Emotionally, we stay in our own space.
- Mentally, we take responsibility for the words directed towards us, but nothing more.
- Spiritually, we honour the energy of the unseen world.
The less we do, and the less we engage, the more we allow the other person to feel themselves, process their emotion and observe their own experience.

Spiritual or energy healing is another form of healing based on holding space and allowing the flow of energy through the energy system. The practitioner becomes aware of this flow and helps the client connect to their own purity. This helps the client discern more clearly what belongs to them and what no longer serves. Their awareness may come more on a mental or spiritual level primarily, rather than a physical one.

What can art do?

Creating an authentic methodology, my work with “creative healing”. In my work as an artist, medium, healer and facilitator, I’ve studied spiritual healing at the Harry Edwards Foundation and somatic healing to deepen my understanding of the body. I am a tutor at the Arthur Findlay College working with energy and mediumship. With these insights and modalities, I have developed my own methodology, adding the dimension of art and creative healing.

Healing doesn’t come from reacting to the superficial. It comes from feeling deeply what arises, with self-awareness.

Working 1:1 with clients, I combine somatic and energetic healing while integrating art and colour to highlight visually on paper blockages and sensations which can be felt in a person’s energy field. This makes them more tangible to the conscious mind. Seeing something visually while feeling the sensation adds a powerful dimension to the experience.

It’s been a profound evolution of my work. Understanding energy and somatic healing and finding my own path by bringing art, spirituality and intuition together to offer what’s needed in the moment. The artwork is then given to the client to support their ongoing creative healing journey.

For more information about healing and transformation, please visit: https://www.richardstuttle.com/healing/

The opportunity for healing and release

So, when something feels disproportionate in conversation, when words or phrases hit harder than expected, pause. The words are for you, but the energy behind them is trauma coming to the surface, looking for fuel or release. Look at this from both sides, what’s coming up within your system and what’s coming up for the person speaking.

Consider this moment an opportunity. Your job is not to fuel the trauma, but to hold space for its release. It is their inner world speaking, their body projecting and processing, asking to be heard by their conscious mind.

For the practitioner, it is an opportunity to help and be of service. For a partner or loved one, it can open space for deep healing on both sides. Hold space, nothing more. Allow them to meet their own feelings and discomfort from years past.

For the individual, welcome what arises with curiosity and compassion. Honour the intelligence of your body as it seeks to resolve what became entangled years ago. By holding space for yourself, you become a witness to your own transformation.

This is the work of healing and self-healing. In stillness, we become aware of paradigms shifting. Allow them to dissolve and be fully processed by your emotions, your body and find the release within Mother Earth.

Written by Richard Stuttle
July 31, 2025
What Is Your Daily Practice?
What is your daily routine for mental and physical health? Our breath, a consistent pulse that echoes in everything within our rhythm in this space. This breath is reflected by Mother Earth in the tides, the seasons, wind within the trees and the beating of the heart of every animal.

We are born into the rhythm of our parents’ life; we live within it without even realising. The breath itself is our most natural practice, our daily routine and cycle of daily life, work, rest and play. We don’t think about most rhythms, but they simply become who we are and define our belief system.

Like the breath, the most meaningful rituals are simple and absorbed effortlessly into our energetic system. They are quiet, consistent and deeply personal. They’re not to impress, but to sustain, to grow and to bring us back to ourselves.

Where Does Growth Begin?

Most of the time we are not consciously aware of our breath, but occasionally we find ourselves taking a deep breath or letting out a sigh. We become aware of a space or pause we hadn’t previously noticed, so too do we reach moments in life where we feel the desire to expand. To go deeper. To explore the parts of ourselves that lie just beneath the surface of our many daily practices.

Where does the improvement come, where do we find that space to breathe a little deeper into ourselves? For me it’s found in becoming more aligned with our natural curiosity and what we find interesting, what the energetic world around us is trying to point out to us. We take a deep breath and remember we have a far bigger capacity than we thought.

When we begin to listen and become aware of what we are drawn to, we begin to see the breadcrumbs of deeper practices. The external world mirrors the internal; we see before us manifested what’s happening within. That passing interest, a new movement or a walk in nature is your body, emotional self and spirit whispering to your conscious mind to take a closer look.

Daily practice doesn’t need to be rigid or fixed. In fact, the most aligned practices shift and evolve as we do. What nourishes you now may not serve you in six months. The real discipline is not in the practice itself, but in listening, regularly checking in with where your energy wants to go.

Daily practices, meditations and routines change over time as they become integrated within our system. Just like learning new skills, at first it takes time to master, then we can do it with efficiency, elegance and grace.

It reaches a point where we know how to do it; we’ve integrated everything we need. Sometimes it’s about creating space, looking at our daily practices and viewing them as the observer of the experience of ourselves. It offers an overview, where to step into a new insight, we can find out something about our true nature, our potential or something that has become outdated or no longer resonates.

I certainly know that there are things I can change, do better and improve, but the way I approach these areas of my life has changed. Within daily practice I would offer the thought that we can approach it in two distinct areas.

Two Questions to Anchor You

I often find that creating space to sit in stillness reveals a lot. From this space and yourself, two simple questions can help to shape your daily rhythms:
1. What can I stop doing that is taking up my time in a non-beneficial way and no longer resonates within my system?Our lives are filled with daily practices (habits, some inherited, some self-constructed). Bringing this thought into your awareness and letting go of just one can create space for something far more aligned to step in.
2. What makes sense today, and where is my curiosity leading me?This question roots you in the presence of now and invites your intuition to be heard. It brings online and raises awareness to every aspect of self within the present moment.
We often think of personal development as a staircase, slogging away and moving upwards. But perhaps it’s more like a scribble on a piece of paper, freehand circles overlapping in multiple directions. Like your pencil is taking a line for a walk. We are circling back to familiar places, only each time with more awareness of the experience of ourselves. Our practices are never perfect or have a known destination. They only ever need to be present.

A Way of Being

Don’t consider your daily practices as tasks on a checklist. They are not skills to master or jobs to complete. You are creating relationships with other parts of yourself and listening to how they interact with your environment and the people around you. This realisation is as simple and as powerful as the practice of your breath.

You already know how to do this and are born with this wisdom. What’s required is not more striving towards a goal or reaching a higher level but just remembering. You are not going anywhere, and your job is simply to create the space for the other parts of you to come forward and give you the feedback of the experience of yourself.

Daily routine for mental and physical health: Your Daily Practice

To live your life as a practice is to step into the presence of now and limitless possibility. It is to make peace with the rhythm of your own being and enjoy the experience. When you approach life this way, daily communion with your curiosity, your patterns and your purpose. You begin to live with more authenticity and greater presence.

For many people who have been working on personal development and creating a life full of best practice, it only becomes more apparent the patterns we are in and time spent doing things that no longer resonate. It is hard to break these routines, but it is possible, small changes and becoming present in the moments where the pattern comes into play.

Ask yourself, what’s coming up? Let your breath guide you, your curiosity lead you and have the conviction to put down the things that have served their purpose and integrated within your energetic system.

Your daily practice is not a destination but a relationship, an ongoing dialogue with your body, your environment, your curiosity and your truth. It’s simply about being present. When we embrace this way of living, we create space for self-discovery, healing and growth that is rooted in authenticity rather than expectation. Whatever your practices may be, allow them to evolve, to soften and to reflect who you are becoming.

Written by Richard Stuttle
June 26, 2025
What is Aftercare and Integration, and Why Is It So Important?

How to integrate a retreat experience – We need to look after ourselves in every way. Our physical and mental health are known to be deeply important and closely interlinked to the thought of us living a productive and healthy life. If we eat well and get enough rest, we have the mental capacity to deal with whatever life throws at us. I would suggest it goes deeper than that, we are looking to develop our thoughts about the nature of existence and our own philosophy and wisdom.

At a certain stage in life many people choose to focus on personal development, setting goals and targets to reach. These can be measured quite easily when it comes to physical health. We can measure weight loss, muscle gain, and overall improvement in our health. Mentally, we might learn new skills—like a language or how to write and deliver a business plan. Both areas require downtime and digestion. If you lift weights, your body needs recovery time. If you learn a language, you need time to build confidence and process before using it in daily life.

When people attend a personal development or creative workshop, the benefits aren’t always as easy to identify. Maybe we can think about it in a different way.

When we attend a creative, healing, or personal development workshop, we are not only learning the mechanics of something—we are updating our entire being, our philosophy, and our understanding. This takes time to integrate and cannot be measured by a certificate at the end of a workshop. Many people aren’t fully aware of this process or how it works. When we learn something new, it often means something within us is no longer resonating. We need to hold space for the new truth to enter our being, and for the old belief or paradigm to leave. This is where it’s important to give time and space for your own aftercare and integration.

When we take in knowledge, we need time for digestion and to find where it sits within us, identifying any conflicts within our belief system, and hold space when turning new information and knowledge into our own wisdom.

How to integrate a retreat experience

We bring knowledge into our conscious mind, attending a workshop, demonstration or retreat. The practitioner shares their knowledge and wisdom. Something resonates within our mind or body. Our energetic system thinks, “Yes, that feels right and makes sense!”

Step One: We need time to think about it—allowing our conscious mind to understand. It’s their wisdom, not ours (yet), but we can find a truth within it. This is the first step of integration.

Step Two: We feel the truth within the knowledge that resonates with us. Our emotional self-engages in the process. We consciously understand the information, and our emotions confirm that it resonates and feels authentic.

Step Three: We listen to the feedback from our body. The new feelings give us physical confirmations when we verbalise our thoughts around the new information. This reinforces what we are thinking and feeling.

Step Four: We hold space and connect with our spiritual self—our spirit and belief system. We ask: How does this integrate? How does it fit with what I believe, who I believe I am, and what I stand for? We wait for an answer and allow the integration in to our being, turning knowledge into our wisdom.

By following these steps and allowing time for aftercare and integration, we can find the spark within someone else’s shared knowledge that resonates as truth and turn it into our wisdom.

How many times have we suddenly thought, “Ahh, now it makes sense!”? Or when one person tells us something and we finally listen and make a change? Why does that happen?

Firstly, we held space for aftercare and integration—it always makes sense once it has processed through our system. Secondly, we listened to that particular person because they spoke authentically from their wisdom, not just from the knowledge of others.

How do we recognise the difference? We feel it. We know it. It resonates deeply— we feel the truth within our system.

What Is the Aftercare and Integration Space?

Aftercare and Integration, a space by Richard Stuttle

Take time each day to resonate on the frequency of you and those you harmonise with. The idea of the Aftercare and Integration space was born from people attending workshops, demonstrations, and retreats—and afterwards finding themselves back in their daily lives, having to integrate their learning alone.

During many workshops and retreats, we hold space for each other. I begin each day with an energetic alignment. Many people have asked to record the alignments—but they are created in the moment, with the highest intention for the group.

Make 10-20 minutes each day for yourself in this space, I create alignment tracks specifically designed to listen to each day for aftercare and integration, under the title Active Relaxation. The tracks evolve as the space evolves with what’s happening within the energy of the space and as more people come together.

This space and newsletter are different from ‘Richard’s Monthly Update’ newsletter. Everything in the Aftercare and Integration space is offered freely—there are no advertisements for workshops or demonstrations or items for sale. This space is entirely for people to hold space for themselves.

Each month, there will also be a different healing focus. Simply hold space and offer a thought for others. We can go so much further in group energy!

What Is Active Relaxation?

Active Relaxation is a state of relaxation and personal alignment to rediscover the feeling of you. It brings awareness to your knowledge, your wisdom, and to what no longer resonates as a truth with in you. It’s a space where you feel both relaxed and actively aware of the world around you and the energies of the unseen world.

A core part of the Aftercare and Integration space is the ‘Active Relaxation’ track. A 10–20-minute guided alignment track created within the energy of the space. It’s a track to listen to daily to connect more deeply with the authenticity of you. It’s not a meditation, but a space of active relaxation—where people can come together, each in their own time, to align with themselves and connect to a frequency others can join. This happens very simply by stepping into your own alignment and authenticity.

Listen to the first ‘Active Relaxation’ track

Join the Aftercare and Integrtion space

April 16, 2025
Alignment is only the starting point

What is personal alignment? There are many groups, practices and practitioners working today, all teaching different modalities of wellness and wellbeing. Everything from Body Somatic, Energy Healing, Shamanic Healing to Qigong and many different forms of Yoga and breath work practices which revolve around bringing different aspects of your being into alignment, activating greater parts of yourself and working on personal attunement. All practices and modalities have a truth within them, when you find a practice or teaching you resonate with the most important aspect is to feel into the authenticity in which the teacher and group operates. Find what is right for you.

For many teachings and practices finding a state of alignment is the goal. This can sometimes be confusing to students. The goal of the practice is to find alignment, but a common misunderstanding by students is that they think the practice is to invoke a state of serenity in everything they do, approaching life with an outlook of zen and calm. Alignment to me is something different and doesn’t necessarily mean serenity or calmness. For me it is simply a state where we have access to greater aspects of who we really are and a deeper understanding of our true nature, capability and importantly capacity.

The part of development which is not often realised

I would suggest that alignment this is just the starting point for accessing our own authenticity and self-healing to recognise these emotional reactions within our energy field that we may have previously thought of as us. It is not what’s happening externally, it is what the external world triggers internally within us. With alignment or any self-development or spiritual advancement work we start to become aware of paradigms of thought that no longer serves us or old trauma that comes back into our consciousness. This work is difficult, challenging and can often open dark spaces where we don’t want to go. This is the work; these are the places we need to explore when finding our own purity and authenticity.

We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience. Do not become confused by our human reaction to life’s challenges.

What is personal alignment? Finding your own space

The majority of these healing and balancing practices revolve around bringing together the physical, mental, emotional and spiritual aspects of our humanness. During the sessions a state of alignment, inner calm and serenity is entirely possible and if working with an authentic teacher and group then easily reached. Where it falls is when students return to their daily lives and struggles and feel they need to live in a state of inner calm, they then become frustrated when they are not able to maintain the awareness and alignment without the support of the teacher and group.

A slightly different mindset is needed, the point of the teachings and sessions are not to produce a state of calm to walk through the rest of our lives. They are to produce a state of authenticity we can recognise as us. This is the reference point for living daily life, the practice and alignment allows us to feel what is us, so we are then aware what isn’t us. We are able to recognise paradigms we live in which we previously maybe thought was us.

When we work on alignment and healing it is also important to learn how to hold space for ourselves and others, experience what comes up and hold space for the point of authenticity within us. Holding space for others and allowing them to find that point within them.

After alignment – working with a practitioner or group

Students returning to the world following a course, retreat or workshop will be resonating on a different frequency, they have expanded their bandwidth. I hear,“Nothing has changed but everything is different.” They have become aware of other energies that are operating in our world. They are also more aware of how people are plugging into their energy fields through certain emotions. In some cases, students have set up supportive unconscious boundaries within their energy field so people can’t plug in as they used to, this can cause frustration and may manifest in emotional behaviour from people around the students. This is why holding space is so important.

Another point that is important to note is that certain people will now be attracted to the new frequency within their energy field, this can be both positive and negative. A lot of people who resonate on similar frequencies will come together to work together and for greater healing and development, but also people who want to take energy or plug into their energy field in an unhealthy way (Be aware that many people who you feel might be negative or have drain energy are not aware of what they are doing).

It is important to know how to take the teachings and practices you learn from others and find how they work for you as an individual. There is an element of truth in all practices and if you feel drawn to a certain teacher or practice then there is something that connects at that specific time on your journey. The next step is to find the authenticity within the teachings for yourself and allow the rest to leave. This simple point will allow you as an individual to be able to fully understand what you are doing and how it works for you, giving you deeper understanding and greater capacity. This also removes any reliance on a teacher or specific modality that has been developed by others.

Our greater responsibility

Alignment with our physical, emotional, mental and spiritual aspects of our being is just the beginning. You stand in your own space with greater awareness of yourself which allows for a deeper experience and ultimately deeper healing. We have a greater responsibility in today’s world, it is our role to take personal responsibility not just for our actions but also for our energy and every part of our being. We are conduits to process energy, hold space for ourselves and others in a way that they can raise to match our vibration. Become the lighthouse and signpost for others.

Holding firm within your own authenticity to allow others to find a key within your energy field to gain deeper access to their own.

Written by Richard Stuttle

January 11, 2025
Simple Mindfulness Practices to Enhance Your Daily Routine

Simple mindfulness practices for daily life – Life can be extremely hectic, everything around us is designed to distract and keep us busy. Take some time for yourself whenever you have the opportunity, time spent relaxing or looking at your own personal development is never wasted.

The more you can feel comfortable with yourself and in your own skin, the better you will be able to interact and appreciate the world around you. Here are a few ideas of mindful techniques and beneficial ways to spend your time.

Simple mindfulness practices for daily life

Focus on your breath: Sit for a few minutes each day to focus solely on your breath, become aware of your natural rhythm. Any thoughts that come into your mind, let them pass through and refocus to your breath.

Offer gratitude: At the end of each day or first thing in the morning, write down what you’re grateful for. Focus on the positive aspects of within your life and how you help others.

Mindful munching: Become aware of the foods you are putting into your body, make sure you have a balanced diet. Follow your cravings within reason. Sometimes it’s your body telling you what it needs. Take time to enjoy each mouthful, notice the flavours, textures, and colours.

Meditation: Sometimes meditation can be daunting, if you become mindful of your breath meditation is just sitting within yourself. Raise your awareness of the different aspects of yourself, acknowledge your thoughts and allow them to pass through your mind.

Yoga or stretching: If you can find 10 minutes each day to stretch or attend a yoga class, moving your body and stretching your muscles can help to help reduce stress, improve flexibility, and increase awareness of your body.

Likeminded people: Find your tribe, spend time each week with likeminded people. When in discussion allow the conversation to flow, listen carefully and speak freely. Know that you are in a safe space with no judgement.

Walk in nature: Enjoy your local environment, parks, forests, fields, or beach. Whatever you have locally. Take time to breath the fresh air, feel the freshness on your face, listen, look, smell, and absorb your surroundings.

 Unplug from the matrix: Switch off technology whenever you can. It plays a huge roll in our lives. Try to start the first hour of the day without social media, put down your device an hour before bed. You will have more time to process your own thoughts.

Self-awareness: Take the time to look in the mirror and reflect on yourself. Really look, smile, and appreciate all that you are. Treat yourself like someone you love.

Spiritual development: Attend courses and workshops with spiritual practitioners and teachers. Look at advancing your knowledge and skills in a safe and secure environment.

Art and Creativity: Step into the artist within you, working with your natural creativity can help you to take a different perspective on what you feel and whats coming up within your system

“The present moment is filled with joy and happiness. If you are attentive, you will see it.” Thich Nhat Hanh, Peace Is Every Step: The Path of Mindfulness in Everyday Life

Simple mindfulness practices for daily life. I hope you find some of these ideas useful. The more we can relax and explore our true nature, the more we will get from every aspect of life.

Be present as much as possible.

Written by Richard Stuttle

January 11, 2025
Road to recovery from Bacterial Meningitis
A slow recovery from Bacterial Meningitis. I shuffled around my home everything looked the same but slightly different. It felt surreal, the space was the same, but my viewpoint and understanding had shifted. It was me that was different, almost like looking at a well-known painting upside down, I knew what it was, it was familiar, but I could see new shapes. A perspective that I had not realised before.

Posted to Facebook and Instagram on the 19^th February 2022

“Back at home and I have been administering my own intravenous antibiotics for the last couple of weeks. A visit to the hospital and CT scan revealed that the mass on my brain is now 6mm which is down from 1.3cm. I am covid free and the infection level in my system is down to single digits. The doctor is pleased with my progress. I’ve had my midline removed and feel far more human again.

Physically, my strength is returning. Although I still get headaches, they are manageable and I’m starting to work on my mind, focus and memory. Keeping positive and striving for a full recovery!

A big thank you to Ruth for looking after me every day. Thank you to everyone who has sent me love and healing over the last 6 weeks, it’s definitely made a difference. I am forever in your debt”

The healing process, what had happened to me?

Six weeks since I was admitted to hospital with no immune system, bacterial meningitis and a 1.3cm abscess on the right side of my brain. My body had been physically destroyed. Since then, it worked incredibly hard. Identified the inflection and abscess and unleashed its defence mechanisms targeting the foreign bodies reinforced by antibiotics, steroids and painkillers. It also started to rebuild my immune system.

“To the NHS I offer my eternal thanks for their brilliant service and keeping me alive. If it wasn’t for the paramedics and doctor’s diagnosis and the nurses care and treatment, I am pretty sure I would no longer be here.”

Another important role I believe was played by my friends and loved ones. Their thoughts, energy and love. Many friends and colleagues are spiritual practitioners working with healing, energy, and mediumship. They had been sending love and healing on a regular basis. I had time to think about how this had helped, the energy of positive thought and the spirit world, working alongside my medical treatment. I truly believe it helped to put me at ease, reduce the pain and made a difference.

When I look at what could have happened, my chances of survival and the sequence of events, I surely believe that I am blessed. I am incredibly lucky to still be here and to be recovering.

I believe there are a few considerations to my recovery
1. Always listen to the doctors and follow their advice and course of treatment.
2. To receive openly the love, support, compassion, and healing from others.
3. Letting go of all stress and any bad will towards others.
4. Understanding what’s happening with your energy, wellbeing, and emotional state.
Recovery from Bacterial Meningitis: Continuing to heal after hospital

The doctor was pleased, I was making good progress. The antibiotics had done their job, physically I was getting stronger. I could walk around the block without getting out of breath.

Mentally, I was not myself. I didn’t feel as quick as before or on the ball. Still healing but my mind felt different, my body was different too. It all felt a little unreal. I had symptoms that the doctor said would disappear over time and I was expected to make a full recovery.
- I still got headaches and sharp pains in and around my head.
- My focus was not the same as before, my mind would wander off thinking about nothing.
- My memory was not great, things would leave my mind right after a conversation.
- I searched for words and struggled to find a decent vocabulary.
- My balance was not quote right, especially with change of light or elevation.
- I was creativity drained. I had very little enthusiasm for anything.
I just didn’t feel myself anymore, of course it was completely understandable as I had been seriously ill. The doctors had fixed me so I would live, they had done their job. My family, friends and colleagues showed me how much they cared, for which I felt incredibly humble. Now it was my turn to heal myself the rest of the way, it was my responsibility.

Firstly, I knew from experience that I wasn’t aiming to become the person I used to be. That person had gone. I had an opportunity to become a new and (hopefully) improved version. This whole experience had many valuable lessons to teach me but right now I had no idea what any of them were.

I truly believed that understanding personal and other people’s energy, knowledge of chakras and the importance of meditation comes to the forefront. These were areas I had studied, and I knew I needed to use for the next stage of my recovery.

Reflection & Insight

I was never the best meditator, I always had too much to do, or my mind wanted to create something new. Though art and short daily practices I found my quiet space. I had not created any art in nearly two months, I found it scary to sit in front of my easel again. A blank canvas scared me, which never had before.

I had just finished reading a book by Caroline Myss, it inspired and seem to come at the right time. I recorded my own guided daily meditation, only fourteen minutes but would start to move my mind into the right space each morning.

I was unable to work and had to turn down jobs, I couldn’t worry about it now. For the first time in a long time, I had a clear schedule, my only focus was on healing. Maybe this focus of healing and self-care should have happened a while ago.

With time to think, even if I’m not always thinking clearly. I still had time to consider some important questions.
- Why has this happened to me?
- What can I learn from this?
Why has this happened? Possibly to remove the “should haves” A coincidence of events that points to serendipity, something significant to stand up and take note. Is there are grand plan? This is not at all relevant and some questions are for another time, but the “should haves” that I have been dealing with for a while. After passing 40 years old, my body doesn’t repair at the same rate or react as quickly. If I want it to do another 40 years, I need to make time to look after it, look after me like someone I love and respect.

I have certainly had time to look back at what I have been doing, how I spent my time. I have the opportunity to remove the things that no longer matter and reducing the amount of “should haves”.

Written by Richard Stuttle
January 11, 2025
Mental Health & Wellbeing
Mental Health and Wellbeing – The road to recovery can sometimes be longer than you think. It can be frustrating, especially when an injury cannot be seen, but only felt or experienced. It is down to the individual to interpret what’s happening physically, psychologically, and spiritually. Issues with mental health and personal happiness can often be overlooked by others and health care professionals.

Contemplation of death or more importantly contemplation of life. Following an extremely close call with Bacterial Meningitis I am incredibly lucky to be alive.

At the age of forty-four I now understand three things that I really wish I had understood at the beginning. If I was told that it was my choice to be born and my responsibly extended far beyond my behaviour and my family, I might have been able to fully grasp the consequences of my actions and life choices. Not that I regret anything in my life, but I may have chosen to do things with more focus, love, and precision.
1. You get one body – respect it and look after it
2. You are here to learn – embrace every experience in front of you
3. Humanity needs you – work for the good of society and our planet
For others, they consider the physical condition. I look well, I’m moving about and can hold a conversation. I must be back to the person I was before my illness. Friends and family speak to me as if I was the same person as before my experience. Unfortunately, this is not the case. I have certainly changed, and I truly believe these experiences in life happen for a reason. In time I will become a stronger with greater understanding than I had before.

People don’t see the effort it takes to smile, hold a conversation and everything that goes on behind the facade. My head becomes overloaded, I am unable to focus, I struggle to find the right words and can forget things that happened a moment ago or some of the great memories from my past. Simple pleasures are now more difficult and not so enjoyable. I feel emotion in an extremely heightened way. I become overwhelmed easily which makes me want to avoid large groups, noisy environments and anywhere I feel a build-up of unstable or frantic energy.

Time is relative, I will recover and go through things in my own time. Each aspect of life whether it be material or philosophical I now see through different eyes. In my core I am the same, holding the same beliefs and moral compass but the world around me is more intense, more beautiful, and unique.

Issues surrounding mental health and Wellbeing
- Confidence and belief in oneself.
- Mood swings and controlling emotion.
- Little things become big things.
- Frustration with people around me but especially myself.
Each experience we have in life changes us ever so slightly. Normally we are robust enough that we do not register the change, or it takes a long time to process through our system and realisations cascade through our body and conscious mind over months or years. A life-threatening illness takes you back to square one and overloads an already fragile mind and body all at once. This can be difficult to handle.

Mental Health & Art

There are so many benefits to allowing space for creativity. It has been proven to make a huge difference to mental health and wellbeing. Although not everyone is creative, allowing freedom of mind is incredibly important. I have painted for many years and know that approaching a blank canvas without a clear direction can be a very scary prospect.

In essence this is what we are doing in life. Without goal and vision, we will never have purpose and feel a sense of achievement working towards a goal. The ironic part is that for creativity to thrive and our mind to process we must approach a blank canvas with complete freedom of mind. Without purpose and expectation, but most importantly without judgement.

Even for the most accomplished and creative artist this can be an incredible challenge. Everyone has created a toolkit of beliefs and skills they use to create their image. This can be difficult to break. That is why many artists paintings are instantly recognisable, they have used their tool kits which is comfortable and does not challenge their expectation or ego.

Allow yourself the freedom of expression and complete honesty to yourself without judgment or ego. You may find it an incredibly rewarding experience.

Written by Richard Stuttle
January 11, 2025