February newsletter - Love Your Gut
Feb 16, 2026 1:01 pm
Hi !
February often brings the word love into focus.
We tend to think about it in terms of relationships, romance, or the people around us. But this month, I’d love to gently widen that lens.
What if loving well also includes loving your gut?
Your microbiome is not just about digestion. It communicates constantly with your brain. It influences mood, resilience, energy, and even the way you connect with others. When your gut is supported, your nervous system softens. When your digestion is steady, your mood often follows.
This month, we’re exploring the connection between the microbiome and mental health, and how tending to your gut can ripple outward into your relationships and daily life.
🌿 Blog Post of the Month
The Magnesium–Gut Connection: Why Dysbiosis Could Be Making You Tired
It often starts quietly.
You wake up already tired. Not exhausted in a dramatic way, just a deep, bone-level weariness that doesn’t quite lift, no matter how much you sleep. Coffee helps for a while. Sugar gives a short boost. But underneath it all, your energy never really comes back.
Many people are told they’re stressed, overworked, or “just getting older”. Some are advised to take magnesium, and while it might help a little, the fatigue often returns.
What’s rarely explored is this question:
What if the problem isn’t how much magnesium you’re consuming, but how well your gut is able to absorb and regulate it?
This month’s article explores the powerful relationship between magnesium, gut balance, and energy, and why addressing dysbiosis might be the missing piece.
🎧 Podcast of the Month
Coaching | Janelle Clayton Wilks
In this conversation, Janelle and I explored coaching through the lens of women’s lives.
We spoke about motherhood, partnership, careers, caring for elderly parents, and the quiet question many women ask themselves at some point: What comes next?
It became a deep and honest conversation about seasons of life, identity, and the emotional load women often carry, especially when they’re used to being the steady one for everyone else.
🍓 Recipe of the Month
Warm Roasted Carrot & Lentil Salad with Feta and Pomegranate
A February dish that’s colourful, grounding, and deeply gut-loving. It combines fibre-rich lentils, prebiotic vegetables, healthy fats, and a touch of brightness, simple to make, yet full of flavour.
Ingredients (serves 4):
- 4 large carrots, sliced lengthwise
- 1 red onion, cut into wedges
- 1 tin (400 g / 14 oz) green or brown lentils, drained
- 1 tsp ground cumin
- 1 tsp ground coriander
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- Sea salt & black pepper
- 50 g (2 oz) feta cheese, crumbled
- 2 tbsp pomegranate seeds
- Handful fresh parsley
For the dressing:
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- 1 tbsp lemon juice
- 1 tsp raw honey
- Pinch sea salt
Method:
- Toss carrots and onion with olive oil, cumin, coriander, salt and pepper.
- Roast at 200°C (180°C fan / 400°F) for 25–30 minutes until tender and lightly caramelised.
- Gently warm the lentils and combine with the roasted vegetables.
- Whisk together the dressing and drizzle over.
- Top with feta, parsley, and pomegranate seeds.
This dish supports microbial diversity while feeling vibrant and nourishing, a little love letter to your gut.
📖 Book of the Month
The Bordeaux Kitchen — Tania Teschke
This cookbook beautifully blends French culinary tradition with a whole-food approach. Tania Teschke brings warmth and simplicity to classic dishes while honouring quality ingredients and seasonal cooking.
It’s a book that reminds you that nourishing food doesn’t need to be complicated. The recipes feel both elegant and approachable, perfect for home cooks who want depth of flavour without overwhelm.
A lovely addition to your kitchen if you enjoy rustic European cooking with a nourishing twist.
🧘 Meditation of the Month
Fatigue Is Not a Failure
Fatigue is often treated as something to overcome or fix.
But what if it isn’t a failure at all?
This meditation offers a gentle space to meet exhaustion with understanding rather than judgement. Whether your tiredness comes from long winters, emotional load, hormonal shifts, or simply carrying too much for too long, you are invited to rest here without needing to improve anything.
✨ Reflection for February
If the gut and brain are constantly in conversation, what messages are being exchanged in your body?
Stress, criticism, pressure, they all travel through that connection. But so do safety, kindness, and nourishment.
Loving your gut isn’t only about food.
It’s also about the tone you use with yourself.
The pace you allow.
The rest you grant without apology.
Sometimes self-love begins in the most practical places, a proper meal, a slower evening, a deep breath before reacting.
🌙 Question of the Month
If my gut could speak to me about how I treat myself, what would it say?
Let that question land gently.
🌸 Curious about working with me?
If you’re longing for steadiness, deeper self-connection, or support in navigating your inner world, I’d love to meet you. Coaching offers a gentle, grounded, nourishing space where you can explore what’s going on beneath the surface.
You’re warmly invited to book a gifted conversation, a chance for us to talk, explore, and see what support would feel good for you.
🌱 Something New Is Coming…
Things are shifting behind the scenes.
One offering, created with deep care for women who have walked through experiences that changed them, is now fully written. It feels steady, grounded, and readying itself quietly for the world. There’s a sense of completion there… and also tenderness.
Another is growing at a slower rhythm. It’s being shaped carefully, layer by layer. Words are being refined. Structures are forming. There are recordings to be made, spaces to build, details to tend to, the kind of work that asks for patience and presence.
For now, it remains mostly behind the curtain.
But if you’ve been feeling that something is building, you’re right.
More soon.
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