About HTR

My Journey & The Foundation of HTR

HTR emerged gradually.

Through experience, observation, and a gradual shift in how I understood life, wellbeing, and people.

Looking back, much of what shaped HTR came through experience.

Through working with people, having conversations, trying things, noticing patterns, and seeing how different parts of life affect one another.

Where HTR Began to Take Shape

HTR began to take shape during my time working as an Occupational Therapy Assistant on a psychiatric ward, supporting people experiencing severe mental health challenges.

Much of my role involved the ordinary things that make up a life.

Cooking. Exercise. Creativity. Gardening. Conversation. Spending time with other people.

During this period, I also qualified as a personal trainer, initially as another way of supporting physical wellbeing within that environment.

But something else had started to interest me.

Through conversations with patients, colleagues, and multidisciplinary teams, I began noticing the same areas of life appearing again and again.

Different people. Different circumstances. Different difficulties.

Yet underneath those differences were recurring parts of being human — our relationships, our bodies, what we eat, how we rest, what gives us direction, what we are learning, how we play, and our relationship with the world around us.

These observations would eventually become the nine roots of HTR.

A Way of Seeing

I later moved into the NHS as a Mental Health and Wellbeing Coach, working across GP surgeries.

The work was broad. People came with different circumstances, different priorities, and different ideas about what wellbeing meant to them.

The nine roots gave me somewhere to begin — a way of opening conversation and understanding the wider life surrounding whatever had brought someone through the door.

Over time, something became increasingly clear.

The roots might be shared.

Their expression was personal.

Beyond the Clinical Setting

After leaving the NHS, I moved into gardening.

In many ways, it felt like a natural continuation of what had already begun.

I was outside. I was working with my hands. I was meeting people in the places where they actually lived their lives.

And the same conversations continued.

Direction. Food. Movement. Rest. Relationships. Nature. Curiosity. Looking after ourselves. Finding time for things simply because we enjoy them.

The nine roots were already there.

In ordinary conversations.

In routines and habits.

In gardens, kitchens, workplaces, and homes.

In the small decisions through which a life gradually takes shape.

HTR began to become less of a framework I used and more of a way of noticing what was already happening.

A Personal Shift

Alongside this professional journey, my own life was changing too.

My habits changed. My outlook changed. What mattered to me changed.

There wasn’t one defining moment.

It happened gradually — through experience, mistakes, conversations, curiosity, and paying attention.

A Philosophy of Cultivation

Today, the nine roots are the foundation of HTR.

Direction. Learning. Self-Care. Rest. Movement. Food. Connection. Play. Nature.

They are interconnected parts of everyday life.

Sometimes one asks for more attention than another. Sometimes changing one affects several others. Sometimes nothing needs changing at all — noticing is enough.

You do not complete them.

You cultivate them.

Where HTR Is Now

Alongside these experiences, completing my life coaching qualification has brought further structure and understanding to the way I work with people.

Coaching is one expression of HTR.

But HTR itself has become something broader.

A way of understanding and shaping everyday life.

A philosophy built around nine interconnected roots, and an invitation to pay a little more attention to how they are already appearing in your own life.

There is no single place you have to begin.

And there is no finished version to arrive at.

The roots are shared.

The expression is personal.