Lauren McCourt, founder of Wild Hart Rituals and author of The Wild Hart Year, did not set out to create a product. She set out to survive. Her journey began not with a business plan, but with a quiet, fracturing moment that many women will recognise: the attempt to hold everything together, even as the pieces are falling apart.
The birth of her son should have been a moment of uncomplicated joy. Instead, it was layered with physical trauma, followed by an emotional reckoning she could no longer postpone. “I remember thinking, just hold it together for now,” she reflects. “You can fall apart later.”
Later came. And with it, a darkness that demanded to be seen.
Like so many, Lauren found herself trying to maintain an image of capability and composure while quietly unravelling. In a corporate, logic-driven world, she had learned to solve problems, to perform, to push through. But this was different. This was not a problem to be fixed; it was a deep, internal crisis that led her to a crossroads: leave her life behind entirely, or finally seek help. She chose therapy, a decision that would become the foundation for everything that followed.
When the Body Speaks Louder Than the Mind
Through therapy, Lauren began to unpack the patterns formed long before motherhood: how she coped, how she suppressed, how she carried the weight of expectation. It was her therapist who first suggested journaling, a practice Lauren had never connected with. Around the same time, her healing journey expanded beyond conversation and into the body itself. Yoga, particularly trauma-informed sessions, became a profound turning point.
For years, Lauren had lived with chronic pain. She had dutifully followed professional advice, trying physiotherapy, chiropractic care and various medical interventions, all with limited relief. It was only through these gentle, embodied practices that something finally began to shift.
“That was the biggest surprise for me,” she says. “Realising my body wasn’t broken, it was communicating.” This insight was quietly radical. Raised to believe that problems were meant to be fixed, preferably quickly, she was discovering something new: healing is not an equation. It is relational, cyclical and deeply personal. Her body wasn’t failing her. It was asking for something her mind had never known how to give: safety. It was asking her to feel safe enough to finally let go.
“It also shaped The Wild Hart Year. I knew that for a product to truly support healing, it needed to be relational, cyclical, and deeply personal, instead of prescriptive.”
Creating What Didn’t Exist
As Lauren explored sound therapy, breathwork, essential oils and the quiet wisdom of seasonal rituals, she noticed something striking: there was no single place that held all of this together with gentleness and understanding. Her therapist’s suggestion to journal had sent her on a search, but it had ended in frustration.
“I went looking for a journal and felt completely disconnected,” she says. “Everything felt repetitive, prescriptive, or subtly shaming if you couldn’t keep up.” For someone already carrying trauma and overwhelm, the pressure to perform healing felt like another burden. “When I couldn’t find anything that met me where I was, I almost threw in the towel right there, thinking, ‘If I can’t even find a tool to help me, what’s the point?’ But that frustration actually became the spark.”
The Wild Hart Year emerged from this gap, not as a solution, but as a companion.
Designed as a twelve-month guided journal, it weaves therapy-informed prompts with seasonal and lunar rhythms, nervous-system practices and reflective rituals. It is a soft-focus map for inner exploration. Crucially, it is undated.
“I hated feeling behind,” Lauren admits. “Missing a day would spiral into self-criticism. So this journal meets you where you are.” Readers can move intuitively through the pages, responding to what feels most relevant at any given time, whether that’s a prompt on boundaries, grief, motherhood or the radical act of rest. Some chapters are drawn from Lauren’s own deeply personal work; others are shaped by the stories she encountered along the way, the quiet struggles of women holding loss, overwhelm and unanswered questions.
“This isn’t about finishing the year ‘healed’,” she says. “It’s about understanding yourself enough to go deeper.” The journal is an invitation, not an instruction manual.
Illustrating Belonging
The journal’s visual identity mirrors its ethos. The soft, heartfelt illustrations, created by Lauren’s sister-in-law, depict women of different ages, body types and identities with a warmth and realism that feels deeply welcoming. These are not idealised figures; they are relatable, gentle and grounded.
“There’s something in them that feels honest,” Lauren says. “Everyone is welcome.”
This sense of inclusivity extends to the journal’s use. While written from a female perspective, its core themes of emotional regulation, self-connection, grief and rest are universal. “I can only speak from my own journey,” Lauren acknowledges. “But I hope it opens doors rather than closes them.” Her intention is not to define experience for others, but to create a space where they feel safe enough to explore their own.
From Personal Practice to Collective Space
Since its release, The Wild Hart Year has found its way onto the shelves of major book retailers and into the hands of readers through independent bookshops, often through personal connection rather than a grand marketing strategy. It has resonated because it speaks to a need that is rarely addressed so gently.
In response to requests from her community, Lauren has also developed a facilitator kit for yoga teachers, retreat leaders and wellbeing studios. It addresses a familiar frustration she felt herself: journaling offered as a hurried afterthought, without the time, guidance or safety needed to make it a meaningful practice.
“Writing is one of the most accessible healing tools we have,” she says. “But we’re rarely taught how to stay with it.”
Alongside ritual kits, a private newsletter and a growing community circle, Lauren is quietly laying the foundations for what comes next. A second book is in the works, focused on the ongoing work of integration and maintenance. “My long-term vision is for Wild Hart Rituals to truly embody its name, to be a wild, untamed space where people rediscover their own innate wisdom,” she explains. “It’s about building a sustainable practice that truly resonates, rather than just ticking boxes.” This commitment to authenticity runs deep. “There’s always more to learn,” she reflects. “But only if it resonates. I won’t create from anywhere else.”
A Voice Returning
For years, Lauren’s focus was on survival. Now, she finds herself learning how to live in a new way, guided by the very principles her work espouses. This means honouring her own capacity, building in rest, and listening to her body’s messages. “Ultimately, I can’t ask others to create a gentler way back to themselves if I’m not doing it too,” she says.
Perhaps the most poignant thread running through her journey is the slow, steady reclaiming of her own voice, something she hadn’t even realised she had lost until it started to come back.
“I’m still working on that,” she says with a gentle smile. “At my first festival, my voice disappeared within ten minutes.”
It is a fitting metaphor for a woman who has built a brand around holding space for others, and is now learning how to take up space herself, slowly and intentionally, without force. In a culture obsessed with quick fixes and performative wellness, Lauren McCourt’s work offers something quieter and far more profound: permission to move at the pace of the nervous system, to listen to the body’s whispers, and to trust that healing, like nature, unfolds in its own time.
Discover: Wildhartrituals.com
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