Community Spotlight: Dr Jo Phillips, Nurture Now

How often do we wait until something significant happens before we pay attention to the way we are living?

A bereavement. Burnout. Redundancy. Children leaving home. Some other event that shakes the structure of everyday life enough to make us stop and ask whether we actually want to carry on in the same way.

In this Community Spotlight, I talk with clinical psychologist Dr Jo Phillips about Nurture Now, the personal growth work she has been developing alongside her clinical practice.

Jo’s interest in this work has grown over many years. Early in her career, working with children and families, she noticed how often mothers became overwhelmed and gradually slipped to the bottom of their own priority lists. Later, as a mother herself, she recognised that experience from the inside. The sudden loss of her own mother seven years ago brought another dimension to it, sharpening her awareness that our time is finite and that we do not have to wait for life to force a reckoning before we begin paying attention to what matters.

That idea sits at the heart of Nurture Now.

In our conversation, Jo talks about the subtle way people can lose touch with themselves through busyness, competing roles and long periods of living on autopilot. Often there is no dramatic crisis. There is simply a growing sense that something does not quite fit, that life no longer feels entirely true to who they are, or that they have spent so long attending to everyone else that they are no longer sure what they need themselves.

We also talk about how Jo is bringing together different strands of her psychology. Her work draws on EMDR and Internal Family Systems, particularly in helping people understand the fearful or protective parts of themselves that can make change difficult.

She describes this as helping people reconnect with themselves and move towards a life that feels more congruent, rather than simply pushing through fear or overriding it.

Nature is another important part of Nurture Now. Jo talks about the way her relationship with nature changed after bereavement and how much she has come to value its capacity to create presence, grounding, wonder and perspective. One of the ideas she returns to is that we can learn from natural rhythms: we do not have to bloom, flourish or thrive in every season.

What I particularly enjoy about Jo’s work is the way all of these strands are beginning to come together: clinical psychology, personal experience, creativity, nature, EMDR, IFS and her interest in helping people live more intentionally. Nurture Now has already grown into a journal, free resources and a more intensive one-to-one pathway, but there is still a sense of exploration and development around the work.

Towards the end of our conversation, Jo talks about the ripple effects she hopes this work can have. Sometimes that may be as small as helping somebody pause for a moment, notice something beautiful, reconnect with joy or move slightly closer to the life they want. Her hope is that those small changes then travel outwards into other relationships and lives.

Watch the full conversation below.

About Community Spotlight

Community Spotlight is a series of conversations with members of our Leading Practitioners Community about the work they are developing and the people and communities they hope it will serve.

Find out more about the Leading Practitioners Community

You can find out more about Jo and Nurture Now at nurture-now.co.uk