Bloom Yoga

"People are profoundly lonely. Technology has digitally connected everyone but emotionally disconnected us from each other…… People fundamentally need tribes, rituals, familiarity & belonging. The more digital life becomes, the more valuable physical human connection becomes." Jeff Klein.

Quote from a podcast that I listened to over the weekend; from a business man who has set up a chain of members only clubs in the US. It resonated. I know this feeling intimately.

This picture is of me & my mother, 24 hours after the birth of my first child. A snapshot of time when I felt overwhelmed, but supported. Just 2 weeks before my mother left to go back to England.

I was 38. A new mother. Far from my family, far from my London life, in a city I was still learning to call home. I had a baby in my arms, I hadn’t got a clue what I was doing & there was almost nobody nearby.

That was before smartphones. Before social media. Before I began to listen to women as they navigated the huge transition that is motherhood. The loneliness of a mother in 2026 is an entirely different beast even to what I experienced; surrounded by digital noise, the extremes of the algorithm & starved of real human warmth.

That loneliness, the particular, peculiar loneliness of new motherhood, is something I have been curious about ever since. You are never more in need of a village than in those first weeks & months. And never more likely to find yourself without one.

That feeling is the reason Blossom & Bloom exists.

Every class I teach. Every WhatsApp group I run. Every event I hold. Every circle I host. All of it grew from those feelings in Cape Town in 2008.

Seventeen years later I have built those villages for hundreds of women. Pregnant women, new mothers, mothers of toddlers, mothers of teenagers, women navigating peri-menopause & menopause. Women who began as strangers & became sisters; a vital contributor to a community of other women.

If you are a woman in Cape Town & you are lonely, please know there is a place for you here. In my classes. In my WhatsApp communities. At my events. Around my table.

We were not designed to do this alone.

love Hx

Last Saturday I sat with two indigenous women (& mothers) from a rural South African community. They told me how they birth with relative ease, sometimes with no pain, accompanied by the elder women of the community. They eat a plant-based diet. They walk everywhere. They stay away from gluten.

"It's the glue," one of them told me. "It keeps the pelvis tight. It stops the baby from moving down & out freely." I haven't stopped thinking about it.

These women walk everywhere, every day. That constant movement helps the baby find the optimal position for birth; head down, well engaged, ready. It keeps the entire musculoskeletal system alive & responsive. Bones moving with ease. Muscles supple & yielding. Fascia releasing its grip. A body that moves daily knows how to open when the time comes.

Modern women sit a lot. At desks, in cars, on sofas; and yes, even on the toilet. Our bodies were designed to move & consequently our babies sometimes get stuck & don't know which was is out.

This is exactly what Dr Gowri M***a (obstetrician & childbirth pioneer behind the Gentle Birth Method) has been saying for decades. Move wisely, she says. Walking, swimming & yoga are the holy trinity of pregnancy movement. On nutrition, she is equally clear; gluten clogs the tissues. Sugar the same. A wheat, gluten & sugar free diet, she believes, makes for a more gentle birth experience.

Modern research agrees. High sugar & gluten both drive systemic inflammation; affecting tissue flexibility & how freely your body can open and release.

Ancient wisdom. A pioneering obstetrician. Modern science. The same message.

Move your body. Nourish your body. Small, consistent choices matter. A body that is fed & moved well knows how to open when the time comes.

I've supported over 300 births as a doula. I notice the difference.

Come to my weekly pregnancy yoga classes. We talk about this. We prepare for birth together & feel much better in pregnancy along the way.

Details to book a class are in the link in my bio.

love Hx

Mothers as far as you can see, waiting patiently for our Bloom Mama monthly distribution day.

Over 300 showed up last week. Over 300. The line began just after 6am.

As life gets more expensive & winter beckons, the need just keeps growing. So does our determination to show up for these families.

We are desperately in need of donations, both financial & pre-loved items. Swipe left for payment links, drop-off points & donation guidelines.

We are a registered PBO and can issue Section 18A certificates for tax purposes.

Every single rand & every single blanket matters more than you know.

Thank you.

Hx

This month, in line with the predictable Cape Town Gen Z trend, I've become addicted to the sauna/cold plunge thing. I've even got one of the silly hats.

I know. Following the trend like a proverbial sheep. But I promise, just this one post and then I'll shut up about it.

Two important things to say. Firstly, I have been drinking matcha for 20 years so I am definitely ahead of the game on that one & not a complete crowd pleaser. And secondly, don't worry, I'm not about to get a tattoo.

But here's what three minutes in cold water has reminded me of. Something I teach every single day. RESISTANCE MAKES IT MUCH WORSE.

When I tense against the cold; when I clench my jaw & brace my whole body, it's unbearable. When I breathe, soften & surrender to what's happening, it becomes manageable. Almost peaceful.

Birth works the same way. Peri-menopause & menopause work the same. Grief, change, ageing. The bits of life we didn't choose & didn't want. They all work the same way.

We can't always control what's coming, but we can choose how we meet it. Resistance or surrender. Clench or breathe. Fight or flow.

I know which one serves me better, but it's still a practice on a daily basis.

If you'd like to practice too (no silly hat required) my pregnancy yoga, post partum yoga, couples birth preparation, peri-menopause classes are open & waiting for you. Schedule & Link in bio to book.

Hx

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This one is for the mothers.

The ones running on empty. The ones holding everyone else together while quietly wondering when someone is going to hold them.

On Sunday 19th April, 11.30am–1pm, Nena Wright & I are creating exactly that space.

Bloom Together is a morning for mothers to breathe, move & be held. Nena will guide you through Restorative Yoga & Yoga Nidra; the kind of practice that asks nothing of you except to receive. And I'll be holding a Mothers Circle; a space to land, connect & remember you're not doing this alone.

There will be tea. There will be light snacks. There will be other women who completely, utterly get it.

R450. The Shala Yoga, 15a Wandel Street, Gardens.

Spaces are limited & they will go so if something in you just said yes, book here or follow the link in my bio.

👉 Bloom-Yoga.Punchpass.Com

Come as you are. Leave feeling held. 🌿

Tag a mother who needs this. 💗