About Laura

“Courage is the power to let go of the familiar” Raymond Lindquist

When I was a little girl…

…and I was asked what I wanted to be, I’d say “To work with lions—and I will have my own business when I am 40.”

Fast-forward the years to now. I never have worked with lions but I did set up my own business when I was 40. So what became of the lions? My lions are my life lessons. Not always the easiest to work with, for sure, but I’ve learnt that it’s not about taming or resisting the experience but about how I relate to these lions or life experiences.

Let me introduce my pride of lions and show you how they padded through my life and the lessons they taught me…

The lion of dyslexia

In my early years of learning, dyslexia was not recognised. Words were not my friends but my tormentors — even down to the spelling of my surname, Wier (truly, this is the correct spelling)!

Fear of making mistakes and suffering ridicule fed into my low self-esteem and anger at the world. Then, when I was 13, the tamer of the lion of dyslexia padded into my life. She announced in front of the class “Laura, you are not stupid. You have dyslexia and I am going to teach how to spell.” My teacher brought sunshine into my world as she taught me how to make friends with words so they became a delight and an adventure of discovery. Which brings me to…

The lion of stress

Well, just when you think you have got all bases covered! In 2003 I had completed my stress management course and thought I understood stress. How mistaken was I?

Towards the end of that year I developed chronic fatigue plus fibromyalgia, which resulted in my being completely exhausted and virtually immobilised. I knew I had to get help and these beautiful teachers walked into my life.

Let me introduce my tamers of the lion of stress—drum roll—ta dah!

• They taught me the how of movement, nutrition and thoughts—how one or all of these can decrease or increase stress levels.
• They helped awaken my understanding that it’s not what you do but how you do it that has the greatest impact.

One of the lessons came when I was moaning to one of my friends about how frustrated I was that I could no longer get things done or even walk at the speed I like to be at. She smiled and wisely said “What if you went at the pace you can?”

At the time, this wasn’t what I wanted to hear and I admit I inwardly growled at these insightful words. But I gave it a go and suddenly I could move and get things done without collapsing in a heap of exhaustion and frustration.

Is the lion of stress complacent and tamed? I would love to say “yes of course it is,” but that would not be entirely truthful. Through the support of my daily mindfulness practice, I notice the whisper of change in my thoughts or muscles and I know that I have gone back to old habits. At that moment of insight, I can choose to change or continue until the whisper is a roar.

The lion of learning

I’ve met some amazing teachers from all over the world. I love learning and invest time and energy in improving my skills and in understanding the art of inner balance and harmony.

To date, each course I’ve invested in has given me a magical backpack of tools, skills and understanding. Here are a few of those courses:

• British Confederation of Stress Managers diploma
• Life Coaching diploma
• NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming)
• EFT (Emotional Freedom Techniques)
• Mindfulness Association Teaching Certificate
• Theta-healing
• Reiki
• Breath work
• And various complementary therapies!

The story behind the 2Bcalm logo

Why a bee? Our minds have a tendency to flit about from one thought to the next and back to the last one and so on, like a bee flitting from one flower to the next without really settling.

Usually, we don’t notice our minds wandering like this. As we bring mindfulness into our lives, though, we begin to wake up to this tendency of our thoughts to flit about.

If you watch a bee at work, you’ll notice it will eventually settle onto a flower and take up nectar. Before it leaves the flower, it often rests before moving onto the next flower or back to the hive. Mindfulness meditation has a similar set of steps:

• We set our intention to meditate, and settle into our meditation. We focus our attention, perhaps on our breathing or on the sounds around us, just as the bee focuses on gathering nectar.
• We then let go of this focus and rest, like the bee, simply being.
• In the next moment we move on just as the bee does.

When I started to think about a logo for my business I decided I wanted something that was short, would reflect my slightly quirky humour and would make people pause for a moment. The bee in 2Bcalm ticked all the boxes!

What else would you like to know?

Explore the website to find out about:

Or get in touch with your questions! I look forward to hearing from you.

Laura

“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” Maya Angelou