Nicky Cooper - Wellness & Parenting Practitioner RN MSc

25/09/2025

It feels like we're drowning in noise, with every scroll there's yet another opinion, another “truth,” another call to action. Too many “fixes,” not enough realness, rawness. We’re peaking at loneliness, aching for true connections, yet terrified of the cost.

We have to stop outsourcing for our governments, our 'systems', or viral gurus to try and fix things. Look to the person next to you, and start thinking about how you show up. Villages don’t fall from the sky, they’re grown in the ordinary showing up for the ordinary.

When we say we want a village, what most of us mean is, we want to be held. But true villages aren't one-sided, they're messy, they ask for check-ins when you’re already running on empty, meal prep when you really can't be arsed, and active listening when you’re already at full capacity.

Remember, the village you’re craving for is already here, inside all of us, the 'Extraordinary'!!

23/09/2025

The mind cries for justice, the soul yearns for peace.
The mind seeks explanation, the soul already knows.
The mind calls for change, the soul smiles "you are the change".
The mind notices what is missing, the soul bows to what is.
The mind believes in limits, the soul knows there are none.

The suffering comes from the gap, between the noise of the mind and the knowing of the soul.

When it finally surrenders, when it learns to speak the language of the soul, that is the moment of true freedom.

The moment you stop searching and start becoming.

20/09/2025

I've been using this with all adults not just parents for 8 years now.

Circle of Security Parenting isn’t just for parents.

In a 2022 study in Norway, adults in mental health treatment used the Circle not for their children, but for themselves. The results were powerful — more self-compassion, greater awareness of needs, and new capacity to stay present with their own distress.

This is attachment work, too.

19/09/2025

You can feel it, its not working anymore. That constant running, endless notifications, pretending "I'm ok", all whilst quietly wondering how much longer you can keep this up. You feel it every morning when you wake up just as tired, and every night when you collapse into bed off the charts wired.

Sorry, not sorry my bs meter doesn't buy it.

This isn’t just “a hard season.” It’s a turning point, your body knows it. That knot in your chest, the heaviness in your bones, that embarrassingly short fuse, they’re totally not random. Its a signal that something in you (and in all of us) says you're done being stretched past the point of no return.

Those old coping strategies aren’t holding up anymore.

Stop waiting for permission.

You probably don’t need to redesign your entire life, you probably just need to stop lying to yourself about what’s actually breaking you. This is the part where you set one boundary that saves your sanity, and let's the truth catch up with you.

Right now, before you scroll away, put your hand on your chest, and feel your heartbeat. This is your reminder, that you are still here, you're not going anywhere. And that in itself is enough.

When you finally stop, you will find the next step.

16/09/2025

We spiral in our heads because we don’t feel safe enough to sit in our bodies. Our brains switched into “Aarrgh” mode, running worse case scenarios, replaying conversations.

Most of what we call overthinking is actually under-feeling. Overthinking feels like control, but it’s just a cage we build to avoid what's uncomfortable.

Overthinking keeps us paralyzed. You can’t think your way out, you have to feel your way through it.

So stop
Uncross your legs
Drop your shoulders
Put one hand on your chest, one on your belly
Breathe in slowly until your hand rises
Exhale twice as slow

Stay until your breath feels fuller and your mind gets quieter. And breathe your way back to yourself!

Ps. And yes my inspiration for this post today, was a horrible night's sleep, and nightmares filled with fear and regrets. These energies are awful right now.

12/09/2025

Our world has become addicted to short form reactions. Everyone’s rushing to post, respond, condemn, or try to fix. We need the courage to be still. Not as passivity, but as a radical act of not adding any more noise. Sitting in the silence just long enough to feel what’s actually true instead of what’s trending.

We've mastered blame already, our governments, systems, partners, parents, “the other side of the aisle.” But we can’t outsource this collective pain or healing forever. We need to own and face our parts. To stop letting our unhealed trauma leak out into our kids, our work, our politics even.

Now it is time to feel, not just thinking, but to really feel into them. Grief, rage, fear, joy. Most of us are emotionally constipated, masking, numbing out or overreacting. Our nervous systems need to hold the weight without collapsing or lashing out.

What's needed most is real radical raw honesty, the kind that holds the line. We cannot heal what we refuse to name. We don’t need anymore opinions, influencers, leaders, or outrage. We need the guts to feel what hurts, to name what’s true, and stop passing our pain onto the next generation.

Because right now, there are innocent eyes upon us, our little people are watching us, learning how we respond. I know you're tired, but they really need us to be the grown ups, in these uncomfortable, messy, uncertain times.

09/09/2025

I spoke at a conference today, even though I really don’t enjoy public speaking. I did it because our mothers keep saying “I’m in survival mode,” “I feel invisible,” “There is no village.” And our pēpi (babies) live inside that reality.

We are not separate. A baby’s nervous system grows inside the parent’s body, inside the parent’s stress, inside the climate of the whānau (family). What we ignore in adults doesn’t vanish, it’s inherited.

Mothers are not an infinite resource. The myth of the “selfless mother” has cost us generations of depletion. If parents are unheld, children inevitably absorb that unholding.

The relationship is the client. It has to be. Healing doesn’t happen in silos, in single interventions, or in tick-box services. It happens in the space between people, where someone feels seen, safe, and held.

The first 2000 days matter most. What happens before birth and in the early years sets the blueprint for how we relate to ourselves, to each other, to the world. Yet our systems act like those years are optional. They are not.

Hope is real. When one parent is supported, even a little, the circle repairs. Infants who were once “difficult” become curious. Safety grows where fear lived. That is our most renewable resource.

Hei Pā Harakeke was created to hold parents so they can hold their babies. Because when whānau (families) are held, even just a little, you can see the circle repair. You can see hope. And because our pēpi (babies) really can’t wait.

05/09/2025

We don't need another system, another savior, or any more distractions. What we need now is simply the courage to come back home.

Stop waiting for the world to see you. See yourself as is. The rest, as they say...will follow.

02/09/2025

Stop outsourcing your worth, your happiness, your choices, your future. You don’t need anyone’s permission to heal, forgive, walk away, or begin again. The only authority you ever truly have is over your own life, your responses, your perspective, your boundaries, your stillness.

The world is unraveling because we keep outsourcing responsibility. We project our wounds instead of tending to them. We repeat the same patterns, then blame everyone else for the fallout.

We’re drowning in projection, blame, distraction, and noise. The way out is simple, but not easy. Clean up your own backyard. Trust your gut. Stop forcing fruit from this barren soil.

We are the cycle-breakers. Every truth we avoid, every hurt we leave unhealed, doesn’t just sit quietly. It leaks. Into our children. Into our relationships. Into the fabric of society itself.

So face yourself. Own your parts with compassion and honesty. Stop handing your unhealed wounds to our next generation. Because that’s how wars end. That’s how families stop fracturing. And that’s how humanity remembers itself.

29/08/2025

Not everything calls for a life lesson. Sometimes the most helpful thing to do is simply by holding someone until they come up for air again.

27/08/2025

Proud to be part of this important mahi 👏