Bloom Yoga

Something I've been quietly excited about for a while.

On Saturday 12th September I'm sitting down with Dr Jessica Stanbridge; women's health psychiatrist & one of the most thoughtful, knowledgeable people I know, for an honest conversation about Mental Health & Motherhood.

I've been curious around this subject ever since becoming a mother 18 years ago & even more so since walking alongside so many mothers going through this profound transition. And simply put, the emotional landscape of pregnancy, birth and the postpartum period is vast. And largely underestimated.

This is the conversation women rarely get to have with a specialist psychiatrist in a warm, supported, held space. With tea. And cushions. And other women who get it.

Saturday 12th September · 12.30 — 2.30pm
The Lighthouse, The Barracks, Bree Street, Cape Town
R500 · Interview & Q&A · Tea & light snacks

Spaces are limited. Book via the link in bio or WhatsApp me on 078 107 5070. 🌿

An updated schedule from the Bloom Yoga camp.

Two things I'm particularly excited about:

Monday mornings in Hout Bay. 9am at Valley Shala, 79a Valley Road. Brand new and already filling up. If you're a pregnant or postpartum mama in or near the Republic of Hout Bay, please come along.

Thursday evenings & The Midlife Method, 6pm at The Yoga Sanctuary, Sea Point. A structured hour of breathwork, resistance, moving meditation & Yoga Nidra. Designed specifically for perimenopause, menopause and postpartum recovery. Something genuinely new & different.

Plus all my regular weekly classes across Cape Town; Noordhoek, Gardens, Sea Point & Newlands.

All classes are pre & postnatal unless specified. Newborns welcome. Booking essential via Punchpass.

bloom-yoga.punchpass.com

Guidance, support & professional referrals, for every season of womanhood.

Something I've been building towards & been so proud of for a long time.

DM or email me to find out more.

love H

Guidance, support & professional referrals; for every season of womanhood.

Something I've been building towards for a long time & am really proud of.

Whatsapp of email me to find out more. 🌿

Something new is coming to The Yoga Sanctuary in Sea Point.

The Midlife Method is a one hour weekly class I've designed specifically for women navigating peri-menopause, menopause & postpartum recovery (after 4th trimester). Simply, because your body at these stages of life deserves more than a standard yoga class.

Every Thursday at 6pm we will move through:

🌿 10 minutes of breathwork to regulate your nervous system
🌿 20 minutes of resistance using body weight to build strength & bone density
🌿 20 minutes of moving meditation yoga
🌿 10 minutes of Yoga Nidra for deep restoration

First class Thursday 13th August. The Yoga Sanctuary, 8 Solomons Road, Sea Point.

Drop in R250 · 5 classes R1250 · 10 classes R2000

Booking essential via the link in the first comment of this post.

Hashtags:

Same oil. Three names. Simply because it's so damn delicious & of course, one size doesn't always fit all.

Meet our bestselling "good for the hormones" blend, available as:

🌿 Mama Body Oil. For the pregnant or postpartum mama who needs daily nourishment & calm

🌿 Hormone Balancing Roller. A smaller amount for on-the-go moments when you need to take the edge off. Roll onto pulse points and BREATHE to get you through.

🌿 Grumpy Bitch Body Oil. For when you know exactly what's going on & you're not pretending otherwise.

All three contain the same expertly blended essential oils, formulated by Muneera Haeri, an wise woman with 40 years of essential oil expertise and six children, all born naturally. She knows a thing or two.

🌿 Rose Geranium. Supports hormonal regularity, lifts mood, assists with depression & mood swings.

🌿 Lavender. Calms the nervous system, helps with anxiety, insomnia & hot flushes.

🌿 Frankincense. Balances cortisol & estrogen & has the most extraordinary euphoric quality (Harriet's favourite essential oil).

Blended in a Jojoba base, chosen for its rapid absorption and sensitivity to even the most delicate skin. So whether you're pregnant, postpartum, peri-menopausal or just having One Of Those (Grumpy Bitch) Days, there's a version for you.

Large bottle 100ml · R495
Roller 10ml · R250

blossomandbloom.life

Something exciting is coming to Knysna!

My famous Teaching Partners to be Doulas" birth preparation class for couples is heading to the Garden Route.

Saturday 11th July, 2.30pm
The Lotus Studio, 53 Main Road, Knysna

Together you'll learn how labour works, how to move through it, how to support & how to connect in the weeks leading up to this most important & intimate moment of your lives. It's practical, tender, informative & actually really good fun.

I've been teaching this class for thirteen years & it remains my favourite class to teach. Partners often walk in looking mildly terrified & walk out feeling something they didn't expect. Useful. Included. Excited.

Not to be missed if you're planning for a vaginal birth.

DM me for details or simply book in the link in my bio, or the first comment.

🩷

My most favourite class to teach. Bringing couples together to prepare for birth in a 4 hour workshop.

Dates for June, July & August 2026 are confirmed. Sign up on Punchpass via the link in my bio or in the first comment on this post.

A must for any soon-to-be birthing couple 🩷

"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