A mixed media paint we me session, using oil pastel. We explore depth, scale, and composition. Thank you Emma Carpendale, Georgina Dean, Angela Limb, Abigail Thomas, and others for tuning into my live video!

I’d like to make this a weekly rendez-vous, let me know if that’s something you’d be interested in. Feel free to ask me to cover any topic you’d like. I’ll do my best to address it. Let me know in the comments!

As I announced at the end other the video, a have a few offerings coming soon:

* The Fiercely Human membership is coming up soon, I think you’re going to love it. I’m building a space to practice being in the world in a creative, embodied, and grounded way. Expect a mix of creative talk, art workshops and mindfulness practice along with my signature seasonal workshops. (see below about that). Everything I make and teach, all in one place.

* on Friday 19 June at 2pm (uk time), we have the Creative Presence Workshop with my signature blend of philosophical reframing, mindfulness reset and self reflection to make it fit your life.

* Help me graduate by joining my first ever introductory mindfulness course. Hope In Practice is the course I’ve been building because I needed it. A practical approach to mindfulness that builds on the reality of our daily life to navigate difficult times and bridge the gap between our experience of difficulty and our aspiration for positive transformation.

* At the end of June, I’ll host a very special Workshopping A Collection live class with Emma Carpendale where we’ll explore how the envision and plan a collection of artwork - dates and details coming soon, stay tuned!

* Over the summer, I’ll offer several creative workshops, including teaching you about my beloved vignettes studies. Make sure you sign up to be notified when they’re out and register!

I’m looking forward to chatting with you in the comment section, happy creating!

This is the guided meditation from the Agency over Urgency workshop, offered here as a standalone practice for those who want to keep returning to it.

If you haven’t joined the workshop yet, this is a small window into what we do there: philosophical reframing so that we know what we're talking about, space for self-inquiry and journaling, and contemplative work.

Join Presence & Pace to access this workshop and the next one! Enjoy 3 months free and join the next workshop on Friday 19 June: Feel Alive!Click here to redeem your free access

If this resonates, Presence & Pace is a monthly community for people who believe that presence is the ground from which creativity grows. Guided meditation, live sessions, and the kind of company that makes a practice sustainable.

See you there!

This impromptu live was me working through that in real time—talking about what happens when we get triggered and dissociated, how to come back to the present moment, and most importantly, what to do when even the practices that usually help feel impossible to access. Because that’s the thing no one tells you: sometimes the very thing you need most is the thing you can’t reach.

What we explore:

* Why external support matters more than our own resources when processing trauma

* The vicious cycle of dissociation: the more triggered we are, the less present we are, the more easily we’re triggered

* Why coming back to the body helps (and when it doesn’t)

* The irony of teaching about urgency while rushing everywhere

* An important caveat: mindfulness isn’t for everyone, always

* Why creativity is also a practice of presence

Thank you for being here, whether you joined live or you’re watching the replay.

If you liked this episode, you might consider becoming a subscriber of Fiercely Human. I cherish your support! I’ll post a proper, more articulated essay on this topic next week. In the meantime, you’ll find links below to the practices I mentioned in the chat.

Related Practices:

15min Body Scan To Ground Yourself BackGuided Meditation To Nourish Happiness

Upcoming Live Online workshopUrgency No More - Patterns, Presence, And PaceFriday, March 20 | 15:00 CET - 2pm GMT - 9am ET

In this practice, we journey through the body, paying attention to different areas one by one. The body scan is considered a foundational mindfulness practice for good reason.

It's a nice entry point if you're new to meditation, but also if you've tried meditating before and found it challenging - especially if you experience neurodivergence or ADHD. Because the focus of attention changes frequently, it's likely to hold our attention more easily than a single, continuous object. When our body becomes the centre of our attention, we get to witness how our mental and emotional states are felt physically - something we often overlook in daily life.

The more disconnected or dissociated we are, the harder it is to detect these sensations.

Today we'll pace ourselves, noticing not only what's happening in the body but also how we respond to sensations. By staying present whether sensations are pleasant or unpleasant, we practice a form of open acceptance.

Fiercely Human is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Not the greeting card version or the Hollywood ending, but love as the fundamental nature of awareness itself. Love as the capacity to meet life with an open heart, even when it's difficult. Especially then. Letting our heart break and mend and break again. That's love. Not the idea of it, but the lived experience.

Today, we explore something deeper: the loving awareness that is our essence. We’re not trying to manufacture or achieve anything, to reach a specific “state”. We’re simply remembering what we already are beneath all the conditioning, all the stories, all the struggle. This is a practice of recognition and rest.

If these practices are supporting you, please share with someone who might need them. We could all use a little more presence right now.

https://marielouisecee.substack.com

Gratitude isn't about denial - it's about recognition. The warmth of tea. The fact that you're breathing. Someone who showed up when you needed them. These aren't small things, actually. They're everything.

Find your seat, press play, and let yourself notice what's here that you might usually overlook, really feel it.

As medieval mystic Meister Eckhart said: “If the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is thank you, it will be enough.”

If these practices are supporting you, please share with someone who might need them. We could all use a little more presence right now.

https://marielouisecee.substack.com

Whatever form your grief takes, it’s welcome here. Before we begin, a few words about taking care of yourself: This practice can bring up strong emotions. If you have someone you trust - a friend, a meditation partner - it can be helpful to do this practice together, or to let them know you’re doing it.

If at any point this feels too overwhelming, please step back. Take a break. Return to it another time. And if you’re experiencing complicated grief that’s affecting your daily life, reaching out to a therapist or counsellor is an act of wisdom and self-care.

This asks something tender of us - the courage to turn toward grief rather than away from it. But when we meet it with presence and compassion, we honour both what we’ve lost and our capacity to love.

Let’s begin very gently.

If these practices are supporting you, please share with someone who might need them. We could all use a little more presence right now.

https://marielouisecee.substack.com

We’re all just trying to be happy and avoid suffering. We’re all muddling through.

This practice of compassion for others isn’t about being a pushover or accepting poor behaviour - it’s about recognising our shared humanity.

When we truly open to someone’s suffering, it touches us. That’s actually the point - compassion isn’t a distant blessing we send from afar. It’s the willingness to be moved, to let our hearts respond. We’re not trying to take on everyone’s pain or fix anything. Just staying present with care.

If these practices are supporting you, please share with someone who might need them. We could all use a little more presence right now.

https://marielouisecee.substack.com

Fiercely Human is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Imagine a world where we would all be ok with who we are, what we do, how we look and how we relate to each other.

It starts inward.

If these practices are supporting you, please share with someone who might need them. We could all use a little more presence right now.

https://marielouisecee.substack.com

We’re going to explore happiness and joy. Not as spiritual bypassing, but as genuine nourishment. Here’s what matters: our brains have what’s called a negativity bias. Psychologist Dr. Rick Hanson describes it as Velcro for difficult experiences and Teflon for pleasant ones. The challenging stuff sticks immediately. The good stuff slides right off. This made evolutionary sense, but today it means we can have a day where ninety percent was fine and we’ll fixate on the one thing that went wrong.

What we’re practising today is deliberately rebalancing this lopsided system - learning to let the good things actually land, to notice what’s nourishing when it’s here.

If these practices are supporting you, please share with someone who might need them. We could all use a little more presence right now.

https://marielouisecee.substack.com

The practice isn’t about never wandering - it’s about the moment you notice you’ve wandered and choose to come back. That moment of beginning again is actually the entire practice. You could begin again a hundred times in ten minutes, and that would be a profound meditation.

Today we bring together everything from the past five days - breath, body, emotions, thoughts - in a practice that’s more spacious, with less guidance. You’re ready to explore the movements of your awareness with more independence now. Find your seat. Let’s begin again, together.

If these practices are supporting you, please share with someone who might need them. We could all use a little more presence right now

If these practices are supporting you, please share with someone who might need them. We could all use a little more presence right now.

https://marielouisecee.substack.com

We weren’t taught that emotions are just weather passing through. We learned to judge them: good ones, bad ones, ones we should have, ones we shouldn’t. But what if we could meet our feelings with simple recognition instead?

Today’s practice includes more guidance than the previous days - working with emotions requires a bit more support. We’ll explore the practice of naming what we feel without judgment.

Find your seat, press play, and let’s practice welcoming what’s here.

If these practices are supporting you, please share with someone who might need them. We could all use a little more presence right now.

https://marielouisecee.substack.com

Today we’re practising inhabiting the whole territory - sensing into your body and the space around us. Not to fix anything or achieve some Instagram-worthy lotus position, but to simply feel what it’s like to be here, taking up space, breathing.

Find your seat, press play, and come home to your body. It’s been waiting.

If these practices are supporting you, please share with someone who might need them. We could all use a little more presence right now.

✨Subscribe to receive The 12 Days Of Coming Home meditation series as they are released, directly in your inbox✨

https://marielouisecee.substack.com

The breath is always here, quietly doing its work whether we pay attention or not. Today’s practice invites you to meet your breath - not to fix it or perfect it, but simply to know it’s happening. This one anchor can steady you through whatever the day brings.

Find your seat, press play, and let your breath remind you: you’re alive, and that’s enough.

If these practices are supporting you, please share with someone who might need them. We could all use a little more presence right now.

If these practices are supporting you, please share with someone who might need them. We could all use a little more presence right now.

The holiday season doesn’t wait for us to be ready. It arrives with its shopping lists, social obligations, and that aunt who still asks when you’re having children. Before we know it, we’re swept up in the current.

Today’s practice is deceptively simple: arriving. Not arriving at somewhere better or more peaceful, but arriving here - in this body, this breath, this slightly messy moment. We can’t be present for the chaos if we haven’t first shown up for ourselves.

Find a comfortable seat, press play, and give yourself these 10 minutes. Everything else can wait.

✨Subscribe to receive The 12 Days Of Coming Home meditation series as they are released, directly in your inbox✨

Before we begin, here’s a little context.

You might know that our brains have a bias for the negative — we cling to painful memories and let the beautiful ones slip away. But research shows we can gently train the mind to do the opposite: to linger a little longer with what feels good.

Psychologists have found that when we take a moment to notice and fully feel gratitude, tenderness, or joy, when we actually let those emotions live in the body, our overall happiness grows.

It’s not about pretending everything’s fine. It’s about remembering that moments of goodness, however small, are real and they can steady us.

That’s what this meditation is about: nourishing happiness from within, one breath and one quiet recognition at a time.

All right.

Let’s begin.

Read more on Substack https://marielouisecee.substack.comLearn how to meditate, or find out about my art and writings https://www.marielouisecee.com

Photo by Marion Lucius — @marionlucius_photographe