Beauty & Bone Podcast

with Layla O'Mara
  • 0.0 (0)
  • ALTERNATIVE HEALTH
  • UPDATED BIMONTHLY

Exploring a radically new way of mothering both ourselves and others, and the impact of that on how we manifest in the world. I have conversations with women doing this radical work - women who have ✺ opened my mind ⁠ ✺ blown wide my heart ⁠ ✺ pivoted how I see and navigate the world ⁠ Pull up a chair and join us. ⁠ laylaomara.substack.com

  1. water sounds

    JAN 23

    water sounds

    𓇸 This is a beauty & bone long read article. If you’d like to subscribe to access, plus join us for our early morning writing sessions, and upcoming MULCH meeting in which we’ll start to feel into what the landscape of 2026 might look like for each of us, you can upgrade to paid here: Ok, let’s begin ! Hello friends, Welcome back to the ELEMENT SESSIONS. For those of you new here, the Element Sessions are series of slow, seasonal check-ins throughout the year, using as a framework the Five Elements as described in Taoist practices and Chinese Medicine. The Five Elements (Water, Fire, Metal, Wood & Earth) are all energetic expressions of pure life force. We have all of these five elements within us, and they also vibrate throughout the natural world, they are what makes up life. Each element is at its strongest at a particular time of the year - Earth in Late Summer, Metal in Autumn, Water in Winter, Wood in Spring and Fire in the Summer. When I’m not writing or mothering I work as a Five Element acupuncturist, and so it felt like a simple natural step to create a series of slow, seasonal explorations of each of these elements, weaving in some creative writing prompts. There is, I feel, great power in exploring each of these aspects of ourselves in the time of year it is at its height. Last year we explored each of the Elements through a series of podcast conversations, live calls and journalling prompts (links to our WATER session are below, including a wonderful conversation with Easkey Britton). This year, as we continue our exploration, I felt drawn to using sound and the body to tap into the elements a little more. In this short video on the WATER element and WINTER we: 𖥸 Explore what the qualities of this time of year are 𖥸 Use a simple sound and movement to wake up the Water meridians. In Taoist practice each of the organ pairings for each element have a particular sound associated with them, designed to vibrate at a particular frequency to stimulate them, get them moving, wake them up. 𖥸 Finally, I’d highly recommend also taking a listen to the conversation I had with writer, social ecologist and big wave surfer Easkey Britton about the power of water in our lives. Our fascinating initial conversation can be listened to here: And you can also listen to this wonderful practice that Easkey shared with us around grief and loss and the holding and healing potential of water: These are conversations that have stayed with me since I had them over a year ago now, I’d love to hear how they land for you? Layla x This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit laylaomara.substack.com

    13 min

  2. 09/12/2025

    Conversation with Caro Giles

    Earlier this week myself and Caro Giles sat down to have a conversation about her wonderful new memoir Unschooled: The story of a family that doesn’t fit in. We could have spoken for another hour on all she touches on in it, we had so much to say, but I think we managed to cover some really fascinating topics in the hour we did have together ! Unschooled is a book about trying to advocate for your children’s needs in an education system that does not serve them and describes the often Kafkaesque bureaucracy Caro is forced to navigate to access basic supports for her children, two of whom have a diagnosis of autism and can’t access the traditional school system. It is a book about not being heard - as a woman, a mother, a carer - and how sometimes it is hard to work out how these roles can fit together. It is also a love story - written to her children and to her partner who she met after seven years single parenting and feeling very alone. And it is a book advocating for thinking outside the box, for being a little bit wild, for dreaming big and, above all listening and being kind. We spoke about so much during this conversation - 𓇸 what it means to fit in and whether that is always the right thing𓇸 how education does not always have to equals the classroom𓇸 the impact of being forced to conform to a rigid educational system has had on Caro’s girls, including masking𓇸 what it means to often feel ‘too much’ and be asked by society, health care professionals and more to stay small, to play a very specific role𓇸 the split we often feel as women between the mother and the woman𓇸 how the educational system needs to be taken apart and re built to support the needs and lives of modern day children, and the carers and parents who support them𓇸 the importance of creative practice for Caro - a way of saying this happened, I was here. Of being seen and expressing her anger and drive𓇸 what it means to be kind𓇸 the need for us all to find a little bit more wild and so much more. I loved this conversation and I’m sure it will lead to more - we were stamping out tangents left and right! Here’s a little more on Unschooled and on Caro Unschooled, written by a trained teacher with years of experience, exposes the governmental and societal faults which paint all children into one corner and fails to cater for those who cannot fit in, but have much to give. Unschooled has much to say about an education system on its knees but it has hope at its heart – that it’s possible to live and even, with much effort, thrive outside the system. Finally, Caro realises that to be Unschooled can mean also to be spontaneous, natural and unrestrained, a way to reclaim her identity as a woman.As Dr Sharon Blackie recently wrote of the book: Unschooled is highly recommended, whether you’re a mother or whether, like me, you’re just obsessed with the many shades of women’s experience and all the ways in which we struggle to understand who we are Caro Giles lives in Northumberland. In 2021 she won the inaugural BBC Countryfile New Writer Award. She is the author of Twelve Moons (HarperNorth) and writes a monthly column for Psychologies Magazine and her Substack Open in the Middle. She writes of the everyday act of mothering - of caring & advocating for her children with unassuming, humble, raw grace. The book is available to buy or order from all good booksellers now. Thanks for listening to our conversation - This post is public so feel free to share it. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit laylaomara.substack.com

    52 min

  3. 05/23/2025

    Beauty & Bone | The Element Sessions | Episode 6

    “Fire calls us to reveal our true nature, to open to the unbearable beauty of creation, to riskthe heartbreak of loss in order to love the world more deeply.”- Lorie Eve Dechar Hello friends, I’m really looking forward to sharing this episode of the Element Sessions with you. As we step across into the summer season we are exploring the FIRE element in Chinese medicine. Last week I shared a Deep Dive into the FIRE element which you can catch up on using the link at the end of this post, plus as a paid subscriber you are very welcome to join us for our live journalling and embodiment call next Monday 26 May between 10 & 11am BST. For more info, check out the membership hub on my homepage. When I was considering who to have a conversation with for this episode, The Harmony Principle’s Claire Dabreo came straight to mind - she speaks so eloquently and in such a grounded, practical way about how all of the elements show up in our lives, but in particular she has spoken a lot about what she calls Love Activism, which struck me as a particularly FIRE kind of activity … ! Here’s a little about Claire: Claire Dabreo is a Five Element acupuncturist with practices in both London and the Isle of Arran. In 2020, she founded The Harmony Principle —a platform designed to help individuals align with the energy of the seasons, harness the wisdom of nature’s Creative Cycle, and support practitioners across all healing modalities in deepening their connection to nature, health, and the healing journey. You can follow Claire @theharmonyprinciple and @thelondonacupuncturist on instagram and Facebook and sign up to her newsletter via her website www.theharmonyprinciple.com, as well as finding out more about her Autumn / Metal immersion retreat she is running this October. During our conversation I wanted to hear how Claire approached this season of the year both herself and with her clients, as well as digging deep and exploring how, when there is so much darkness in the world, can we keep our own inner fires burning? I also wanted to ask her what role does JOY play in activism? I found so much food for thought in this episode, most particularly for me I think around how the FIRE element relates to maturity and to this midlife phase of life I am in right now, as well as the simple yet eye-opening idea that this is the season of BEING rather than DOING ! Below is a summary of our chat, plus some of the tips Claire shared with us for aligning us to this time of year, and a link to an earlier conversation with our mentor Gerad Kite which I mention during the call. Highlights include: 𓇸 Being v’s Doing: How the summer energy should be about BEING rather than DOING and the need to give ourselves permission to tend to our social batteries𓇸 Pleasure & Joy: The differences between pleasure (fleeting, often distraction-based, dopamine related) and joy (spontaneous, heart-centred, collective)𓇸 Navigating heartbreak: How we can learn to allow heartbreak and difficult emotions as normal, transformative experiences that connect us more deeply to ourselves and others𓇸 Joy as a propulsive force: Its importance as a transformative energy in dark times 𓇸 Inner and Outer Connection: Cultivating local, in-person community as an antidote to digital overload—nourishing micro-connections and supporting one another in tangible ways. 𓇸 Fire, Maturity & Midlife: The parallels between the fire element’s maturity and the empowerment of midlife women, how authenticity, boundaries, and “full bloom” can come with age. 𓇸 Practical Tools for Summer Alignment: Sunlight, essential oils on heart-centred acupuncture points (see tips below), honest assessment of social needs and even writing yourself a heartfelt love letter! Tips and links mentioned in the call : 1. Here is our Deep Dive into the FIRE element: 2. I also mentioned this conversation with Master acupuncturist and mentor of both Claire’s and mine, Gerad Kite: 3. Here are Claire’s tips for using acupressure and essential oils to help us align with this FIRE season : * Use essential oils like rose, ylang ylang, geranium or frankincense on a point called REN 17, also called ‘Sea of Qi,’ ‘Chest Centre’ or ‘Revealing the Heart’. A wonderful point to help clear anxiety or fear, settle any rising panic and gently send it back into the earth with love. Can help to ‘unbind the chest’, and open us to more easily access love and connection. To locate Ren 17: On the midline of the sternum, in a depression level with the junction of the 4th intercostal space and the sternum – start under the clavicle and count down the spaces between each rib, then move to the centre of the chest. On a man, it is parallel with the nipple line. With all essential oils Claire recommends diluting them with a carrier oil before using on acupoints, with these oils a max of 10% dilution is good. * On two points known as the Inner and Outer Frontier Gates you can use Jasmine oil, again at same dilution as above. Our Gates are two points that both enable us to allow enough love and warmth and connection in, and also to know when it is appropriate to protect our hearts and keep our selves protected and safe. When our Gates are well oiled and functioning well there can be a warm flow of connection, communication and warmth between ourselves and others. To locate: These points are located on the outside and inside of the lower arm, in the centre. To find them, place your ring finger on the wrist crease of the opposite arm, and lay your middle and index finger down beside them. The point will be located underneath your index finger, right in the centre of the arm, both inside and outside, opposite each other. * Rose oil can also be used on Heart 7 ‘Great Mound’ to help ease anxiety and open the heart to maturity and give us a sovereign perspective. To locate: This point is found on the baby finger side of the inside of the wrist, just below the bone that sticks out at that point (the pisiform bone). If you run your finger down the palm from the baby finger to your wrist your finger should fall over the wrist bone and into the hollow of the point. * And this is the beautiful quote that Claire mentioned on the call: “Fire calls us to reveal our truenature, to open to the unbearable beauty of creation, to riskthe heartbreak of loss in order to love the world more deeply.”- Lorie Eve Dechar Would you like to join a growing community of heart-led, creative women writing and making in the gaps of our busy lives? find me at www.laylaomara.substack.com or on Instagram @laylaomarawrites This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit laylaomara.substack.com

    1h 9m

  4. 02/28/2025

    Beauty & Bone | The Element Sessions | Episode 5

    This episode of the Element Sessions podcast uses the WOOD Element as a jumping off point for a conversation around ANGER. In Chinese Medicine each of the Five Elements has an emotion connected to it, and for the WOOD element (which is also connected to the season of Spring that we are stepping into right now on this side of the globe) the emotion is ANGER. There is no emotion that does not have its place, and there are times when appropriate anger is a really important catalysing force. There is also, from a Chinese Medicine perspective, times when anger and frustration surface because we are out of balance or feeling blocked or prevented from moving forward in the way we need to. My good friend coach, doula and writer Jessie Harrold recently wrote a newsletter all about her own feelings of anger and how she was trying to deal with them and after reading it, I really wanted to dive even deeper and unpack a lot of what she touched on more. Jessie is a coach and doula who has been supporting women through radical life transformations and other rites of passage for over fifteen years. She works one-on-one with women and mothers, facilitates mentorship programs, women’s circles and rituals, and hosts retreats and nature-based experiences. Jessie is the author of Mothershift: Reclaiming Motherhood as a Rite of Passage (Shambhala 2024) and Project Body Love: my quest to love my body and the surprising truth I found instead. She is also the host of The Becoming Podcast. Jessie lives on the east coast of Canada where she mothers her two children, writes, and stewards the land. I wanted to chat with Jessie about why we might be feeling anger in our lives, where did she see it showing up for the clients she worked with, where might it be coming from, what might lie underneath the anger so many of us feel, how much of that anger should rightly be directed outwards at the over culture we live in, how much of that anger is masking other emotions such as grief, sadness, loss? Why is it taboo for women to be seen to be angry? How does shame fit into it all? How can we take the anger we feel and harness it for positive change, rather than destructive attack? What role might surrender play? We talk about all this and more in the hour we had together! I love the considered and grounded way Jessie approaches the topic and I came away from the conversation with so much food for thought. I’m really hoping this chat with open up a continued dialogue around the anger we feel as women - where it comes from, and where it should go - so please do join in the conversation with a comment in the box below. 𖥸 Further reading :: I mention three books on the call. 1. Seven Necessary Sins for Women and Girls by Mona Eltahawy, 2. The Myth of Normal by Daniel Maté and Dr Gabor MatéMaté writes about how suppression of emotion very often has a somatic impact. 3. Jessie’s latest book MotherShift, Reclaiming Motherhood as a Rite of Passage, which is a wonderful guide for new mothers navigating the cascade of identity change and transformation that is motherhood and in which Jessie explores how anger might manifest in these early years. If you’d like to listen back and read back over previous Element Sessions content, head HERE for all we’ve covered so far. Ok friends, I really hope you enjoy this conversation, and as I said I’d love to hear what it sparks up in you ! Share in the comments below. Layla xx beauty & bone is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit laylaomara.substack.com

    58 min
  5. A map to our true selves

    01/17/2025

    A map to our true selves

    Hello friends and welcome to week 2 of our REST series. This week, I’m delighted to share with you a conversation I had recently with coach, mentor and writer Lauren Barber about Human Design. I wanted to share with you my experiences of discovering and integrating this powerful way of understanding our energy into my life, and have Lauren explain to us what Human Design is, how it works and how it can be useful for us in terms of being more easeful in our lives. It felt really appropriate to have this conversation during the REST series, because for me, understanding how to best use and align with my unique energy has been a gamechanger in terms of how rested I feel in my day to day life. I’m working with myself, rather than battling myself day to day. I don’t run myself into the ground any more doing what I feel I ‘should’. I am better at knowing what suits me, how to find flow. The relief in this has been enormous and has impacted my creativity, my relationships, my working life. Human Design was reminding me who I was before I had become so consumed by what I thought the world wanted me to be.- Lauren Barber - Here’s how Lauren describes Human Design:Human Design, to me, is a map of our true selves, I use it very much as a tool of remembrance, mirroring to us our innate qualities and gifts to enable us to operate in the world in our most magnetic and magical way.[…] On a more intellectual level, Human Design is known as the science of differentiation. It emphasises our uniqueness and how each of us are designed to show up and operate in the world in our own way. The system itself is a combination of Quantum Physics, Eastern and Western Astrology, the Chinese, I’Ching, The Kabbalah and the Hindu Chakra System. I really hope you enjoy this conversation. Let me know in the comments what has been sparked for you? Have you used Human Design in your life? Or what other systems and frameworks have helpful you feel more easeful in your creative life, your work, your day to day life? Do share, I’d love to know. To keep up to date with what I have coming up for January and February here at beauty & bone head to my Membership Hub. Layla x This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit laylaomara.substack.com

    43 min

  6. 12/08/2024

    Water & Grief | A healing practice

    Hello friends, The morning after the conversation I had with Easkey Britton about the power of WATER for the Element Sessions she emailed me to say that she had woken with a sense she wanted to share a little more with us all around the healing and holding power of water when it comes to grief and loss. She offered to share with us a practical embodiment practice, a water ritual, as a way to honour our loss and express our grief, a way to be with our heartbreak, which has been immense for us as a species this last year and personally for each of us in many different ways. And so a few days later we met again and recorded this beautiful offering. Easkey explores how our relationship with grief is closely associated with ebb, a sense of withdrawing inward, a feeling of emptiness, a sense of murkiness. How neither ebb nor grief are valued or allowed space in our society. How the process of grieving is one of making space for what wants to emerge. She speaks about water as a holding element. As a memory keeper. How so many world myths around loss and death and grief involve water, how today this continues in rituals such as the paddle out ceremonies of surfers and other ocean going people. She shares here a simple yet powerful way of creating one’s own water ritual, which can be supportive as a way of honouring a loved one, a loss within ourselves, a loss in our world and is also a way to enhance your connection with the water. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit laylaomara.substack.com

    13 min

  7. 12/06/2024

    Beauty & Bone | The Element Sessions | Episode 4

    The Element Sessions Podcast | WATER with Dr Easkey Britton I recorded this conversation with writer, big wave surfer & social ecologist Dr.Easkey Britton a number of weeks ago. I can honestly say that the time since I spoke with her has been different. I’ve engaged with the water around me in a different way, I’ve placed myself in and beside bodies of water more often, I’ve thought about my relationship to water, within myself and, rippling out, within the planet we call home, in a deeper, more present way. I am so excited to share this chat with you, and look forward to hearing what impact what we speak about has for you, too. I was speaking to Easkey for the fourth episode of the Element Sessions and we were exploring the Element of Water, which is connected in Chinese Medicine with the season of Winter, into which we are stepping across the threshold into here in Ireland right now. Next Friday I’ll be sharing our Deep Dive into the Water Element, but I can’t think of a better place to begin feeling into this Element than with an hour spent listening to Easkey speak about it’s profound impact and the powers it holds. Easkey Britton is a pioneering marine social scientist, surfer, writer, and ocean advocate with a PhD in Environment and Society. Her research explores the intricate relationships between humans and nature, focusing on the health and wellbeing benefits of engaging with water environments. Britton combines science, art, and activism to address social and environmental challenges. Through her books, such as Ebb and Flow and Saltwater in the Blood, she uses storytelling to make scientific concepts more accessible. Her work empowers women, fosters cross-cultural connections, and advocates for environmental and social change, drawing on her deep connection to the ocean. On this call Easkey shares : 𓇸 Her own remarkable, life long connection with bodies of water, from stepping onto a surfboard at age 4, to being named after a wave, to how her own life course has been profoundly influenced by her naming and connection to the water. 𓇸 We talked about what it feels like to surf a 20 foot + wave, particularly as a woman, how she has learnt that there must be a dance between the masculine and feminine energies, of the lessons in surrender, letting go and opening that the waves have taught her. I loved how Easkey spoke about a ‘water mind’, or ‘blue mind’, that she has developed over a life time in the water. 𓇸 We spoke about thresholds, intertidal zones, ecotones and about our relationship with fear when it comes to water, as well as the importance, so often overlooked in our lives, as well as in what we see of surfing, of the ebb before the flow state arrives. 𓇸 Easkey spoke so powerfully about the connection between our own amniotic fluid and that of salt water, and of the sense of belonging and homecoming that water imbues in us. She spoke about the ways that water holds us, as well as the ways that our having a relationship with bodies of water help us to engage in a far more felt-sense way with the climate crises and other often hard to grapple with crises and issues. And, oh my, we spoke about so much more. I’ll stop typing now and let you go and listen to this conversation, I feel so delighted I’m getting to share it with you all! Below you’ll find links to Easkey’s two beautiful books, her website and an upcoming event she has next year. Next week I’ll also be sharing a really profound gift that Easkey has offered to us all - a practical embodiment, a water ritual, as a way to honour our loss and express our grief, a way to be with our heartbreak, which, as she writes ‘… has been immense for us as a species this last year and personally for each of us different ways.’ Please do subscribe to receive this gift next week. You can find out more about Easkey’s work On her website https://easkeybritton.comOn Instagram @easkeysurf You can find out more about her books hereAnd she is hosting a new retreat in March 2025! - find out more here. For more on the Element Sessions, head to my page www.laylaomara.substack.com Layla x This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit laylaomara.substack.com

    1h 4m

  8. 11/16/2024

    Mid-life Chat | Part 2

    Hi friends, { words below are mostly penned by the wondrous wordsmith Lindsay Johnstone ! }We wanted to get this out to you ASAP so you can dig in over the weekend. This is the second part of our chat inspired by All Fours by Miranda July, which far more famous women than us implore you to read : We talk about leaning in to the messiness of midlife; fear of what’s going on inside our bodies; our relationship to our sexual bodies and how midlife offers us an opportunity to (re)discover who we are and what we like. This post from Celeste Davis was mentioned more than once in the chat: We dig into what it feels like to emerge from the oestrogen fug - what Dr. Susan Hardwick Smith calls the veil of oestrogen - and recognise that the mothering / caring part of us is evolving. What can we / do we expect from grandmothers, too? The chat was on fire over maternal burnout and whether it breeds future generations of grandmothers who will be less available when there are (more) small people to take care of. We talk about the conflicting information we’ve been told about testing for perimenopause and HRT and the complex landscape of women’s health generally, which can make it so hard to know what treatments to try to manage symptoms… Do we need to become our own doctor, too, as well as Jill-of-all-other-trades? One recommendation if you’re interested in going down a specific medical peri rabbit hole is The Menopause Brain by Dr. Louise Mosconi. And if you’re looking for a Substack to follow, Dr. Jen Gunter writes The Vagenda. Over on Instagram, check out The Menopause Sisters,Dr. Mary Clare Havers and Dr. Stacy Sims. Lindsay’s hugely popular most about losing her orgasm has a wealth of advice in the comments: And I share some thought about taking HRT in this post : as well as some thought on returning to my body after my hysterectomy here: Oh, also. We’re all moving to the Vale of Oestrogen which we have decided is a bucolic resort somewhere on the beautiful south-east coast of Wales. If you’d like to continue the conversation, jump in to the comments, or head to this thread: This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit laylaomara.substack.com

    1h 2m
See All (18)

About

Exploring a radically new way of mothering both ourselves and others, and the impact of that on how we manifest in the world. I have conversations with women doing this radical work - women who have ✺ opened my mind ⁠ ✺ blown wide my heart ⁠ ✺ pivoted how I see and navigate the world ⁠ Pull up a chair and join us. ⁠ laylaomara.substack.com

Information

  • Creator
    with Layla O'Mara
  • Years Active
    2024 - 2026
  • Episodes
    18
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Layla O'Mara
  • Show Website
    Beauty & Bone Podcast