This week, my breastmilk will dry up. After almost seven consecutive years of being pregnant, birthing and breastfeeding, I am no longer sharing life force directly with my children.
I have decided not to have any more children. That is a simple enough sentence to write, but I assure you that it took a lot of back and forth for me to land there. At one point last year, I was certain I would have another. I pictured a girl, and her name was already chosen. Madiwe.
And then I did a powerful energy-clearing session and gained incredible clarity on many decisions I’d been sitting on. After that session, I pronounced to Dreamboat that I didn’t want another baby and that we would be going to Zimbabwe – despite all evidence (cough, finances!) pointing to the contrary.
I still don’t know how I pulled this off. Zimbabwe 2025.
As I began weaning William in November just gone, a few days shy of my forty-fifth birthday, I finally allowed myself to grieve. I grieved the end of this stage of motherhood. I grieved for the next baby that I’ll never have. And I grieved for the version of Lauren who is content to be a mother and to live a simple, peaceful life.
Traditionally, I have not lived a simple, peaceful life. Instead, I’ve been driven, motivated and risk-taking.
I have always been someone who unapologetically chases what feels good. I have an appetite for life. Even when I was a chef, the career that I joke I “escaped” from, I was a passionate and creative chef.
When I discovered photography, I pursued it wholeheartedly and achieved a level of success so quickly that it was unprecedented. (Thanks in part to Instagram, of course.)
I move my body in delicious ways. I eat with gusto. I delight in growth and creativity. I’ve always been this way.
I’ve also always carried trauma, pain from the past and unconscious behaviours that have seen me take my interests into unhealthy territory.
I wasn’t just a chef, I dedicated my LIFE to chef’ing. My office was filled with cookbooks, and I gave away untold hours of free labour to my employees. I would come home after a 12-hour shift and pore over recipes for the next day.
I wasn’t just a photographer. I quit my job to chase my dreams of travel photography – taking over a hundred flights a year, switching time zones constantly and spending every waking moment shooting, editing or working on the admin side of my business.
I WAS (traditionally) an all-or-nothing exerciser. And when I was on, I was obsessed. I was a calorie tracking, heart rate monitoring, one-upping exercise junky.
I have been a glutton – eating what I want until my body ballooned out. I have been on the border of eating disorders – limiting my food to minuscule amounts. Both sides of that spectrum required spectacular disconnection from my body.
Spectacular body disconnection. And a penis! 😉
Becoming a mother for the first time did little to curb my extremes. I simply appointed Dreamboat the stay-at-home parent and continued to pursue my (then) current obsession, The Travel Bootcamp. (Which of course became Phhnix – our coaching and events business.)
But falling pregnant with William in early 2022 marked the beginning of a huge awakening that is only now fully integrating and making sense.
For a start, I knew back then that my lifestyle was unsustainable and that, somewhere along the way, I had veered off my path. That knowledge landed, fully formed, in my gut. It was undeniable.
I made many big decisions in 2022 that disrupted my life. Some of those decisions hurt people. All of the success I’d worked so hard for felt like it was suffocating me, and so began a time of dismantling and simplifying my life. (With a handful of relapses – truth be told.)
I had William, moved back home to my mum’s and resolved to take as much time off work as I could afford (3 1/2 years and counting).
But it wasn’t until 2023 that I started to get curious about how I ended up where I did and WHY I still felt the same way. Has anyone here ever noticed that? That external circumstances can change significantly, but the way you FEEL inside rarely varies? I was curious about that.
I started to spend more time outdoors, and my Awareness Experiment began. (That’s going to be the title of my book, “The Awareness Experiment”) My life got simpler and simpler. I started remembering who I am – all the great stuff about me. I started to recognise where all the unhealthy stuff stemmed from.
I learned how to regulate my nervous system with breathwork. I learned how to recognise and feel my emotions with body awareness. I leaned into the passing of seasons, the lunar cycle. I intimately learned my menstrual cycle. I became an intuitive eater. I moved my body in new and even more delicious ways- and all without obsessively tracking it.
A new way.
And through it all, I was a mother. Not just in the sense of having children, but in the sense that I was physically sharing my life force energy with Will. Breastfeeding is a physical exchange of energy. It binds mother to child.
As you all know, I’ve started showing signs of wanting to get back into business over the last year. But I haven’t been able to get much off the ground.
I made a commitment to myself to launch The Awareness Journal, but my attention was divided when the time came. I simultaneously had too much invested in its success and very little interest in marketing it.
I was thinking about it all. Too much. Trying to rationalise it. What I “should” be doing. What makes sense for my family. How can I feel purposeful again, earn money and maintain the exact lifestyle I’ve worked so hard to attain?
The answer is – I can’t. The idea that we can have everything is prevalent in pop culture, but it’s a lie. All choices require some sacrifice – so how do we know which choices are right?
That’s the conundrum I’ve finally solved. And I haven’t solved it through a logical, conscious realisation. No. This has LANDED. I will now take action, fully knowing what I have to do, with the tools to keep me connected to my body and to bigger dreams than ever before.
As William and I have gone through this weaning journey, I have remained open and curious through the discomfort of transition. And the universe has started opening doors purely based on this subtle energy shift in me.
In less than two weeks, I will take my first solo international job since becoming pregnant with Makia. I am going to Vietnam to take part in a mindfulness retreat as an invited influencer and creative.
I am also deep into the planning of my own retreats for October next year. Think intimate workshops, yoga, breathwork and awareness.
If my history in business has taught me anything, it’s that purposeful, aligned action creates momentum. So here I go.
The last two years have taught me so much, but self-trust has to be the biggest lesson. We all want to know what we should do, which choices are the right ones, and how to spend our time. But to get to that level of clarity, we need to do a few things…
- We need to slow down. At some stage in our lives, if we haven’t already, we need to create the time and space to get to know ourselves. There is nothing we can watch, listen to, consume, or buy that can give us as much as true inner knowing. Time in nature, time offline, meditation, mindfulness, boredom, screen detoxing, yoga and immersive travel all help.
- We need to build a strong foundation of self. How? By having solutions to our own human experiences. Knowing our nervous system – and how to regulate it. Knowing how to feel and process our emotions – never avoiding them. Understanding how the cycles affect our energy. Getting okay with surrendering to what’s there – rather than fighting and resisting all the time! Understanding our self-talk and ego – intimately!! Where does that voice in our head come from? Does it ever speak the truth?
- We need to come back home to our bodies. Many of us mistakenly believe that our mind is “us”, when in fact our body contains untold intelligence and a direct link to our soul. Yoga, when practised mindfully and with breath, is designed to lower the mind’s energy and increase the body’s. It “unites” us – mind, body and spirit. Intuitive eating overrides our mind’s desires and fuels the vessel that sustains us. Somatic and intuitive movement creates space in the body to process and move emotion – old and new.
- Finally, when all these important foundations are laid, it is our job on earth, our ONLY job, to follow our heart. I recalled a quote this week. It states, “The desires of your heart were not put there by accident. Follow them.”
We humans complicate our lives so much. We pile layer after layer after layer of meaning onto things. We self-sacrifice. We martyr ourselves – especially mothers. We let obligation or fear of change keep us stuck and trapped. We let fear in general rule us.
But let me ask you this – if you had nothing to lose, what would you do with your life? If you were given a year to live, what would you do with your life? If you were a billionaire, what would you do with your life?
Now, why aren’t you doing that?
Motherhood hasn’t come easily to me. In the six and a half years that I’ve been pregnant, birthing babies and breastfeeding, I have had to come to terms with ancestral trauma and stories of the burden of motherhood. It has broken me.
I’ve felt like a victim of motherhood. I’ve felt trapped and stifled by it. The self-work I do and my daily practices? They are the bare minimum I need to stay sane, conscious, and regulated through the triggering experience of motherhood.
I love my children. I will always do my best by them. I will be their teacher and guide. I will fight to be the best version of myself for THEM. AND – now it’s time for me to do what’s best for ME, too.
If I had nothing to lose, what would I do with my life?
I would travel and take photos, and tell stories. I would create things and sell them.
If I were given a year to live, what would I do with my life?
I would write a book and leave my legacy here, for my children and for humanity. I would travel and take photos, and tell stories.
If I were a billionaire, what would I do with my life?
Write. Shoot. Share. Work with my hands. Try new things. Constantly grow and evolve. Write a book. Speak.
So why aren’t I doing that?
I’m just about to do it all. Again! And the best part? I can pursue these dreams with balance, awareness, and kindness toward myself. I can pursue them from abundance and my heart, not from lack, or to fill a part of myself or avoid myself. I can be the mother to my children who models exactly who I want them to be – fearless, authentic and wholehearted.
The desires of my heart weren’t put there by accident. And I intend to follow them.
How about you?
The end of an era.
**Originally published to my email database on the 13th of January, 2026**
Subscribe here.
