Helena Clayton Newsletter - View this email in your browser

Leadership Developer • Coach & Facilitator • Writer

Welcome to the September 2026 Newsletter

So no, I never did get to see The Odyssey and I'm fine with that.  I did get to spend huge tracts of time in the sea and floating around the house in the one heatwave dress I own. And I'm very much enjoying wearing jumpers again as it all cools down - though discovering all the new moth holes is less lovely.

Quite the month.  There was a night of wild camping with the obligatory ticks, several days walking on the South Downs while nursing an injured knee.  Frida Kalhlo and some stunning pasta at Bancone. 30 mins a day learning Spanish with Pimsleur (and as Mr Gomez and I are buying things in pesos, I realise I'm learning south American Spanish) ahead of a long holiday.  A poetry course with Tom Hirons.  A wonderful few days camping at Into The Wild festival. And a trip to York to hang out with a much-loved friend. 

September has a three week holiday in but otherwise will be much calmer.  Probably not true for the state of the world though - so find what grounds you, or some coat tails to hold onto, and I'll see you in October. 

With love
Helena x

(pic: Natalia Shaloshvili)

I'm experimenting.  Somewhat late to the party, I've started a Substack - a new medium for me. Ending Well, I'm calling it.  As a way to practice writing, and to think aloud about endings in all their forms in organisations and beyond - including death and dying. 

Take a look - just two posts up at the moment.  I still have to get the look and feel of it a bit jazzier, but I think I have the basics in place for now.  I'll include new posts here, but you might like to subscribe to it, if you want the posts as I write them. 
 

...and if anyone good with Substack can spot things I could do to make this be better formatted in any way, please don't hesitate to give me feedback - all comments welcome... 

(pic: Barry Wilson)

Who do we choose to be?

That's the question Meg Wheatley asked some time ago.  And she was asking it as we consider walking:

The undulating road downwards. 

That's a phrase from Australian journalist Sarah Wilson's excellent new book, I Eat The Stars - How to Live Fully and Beautifully in a Collapsing World.  The book's title is from a poem that includes the lines:

Sometimes as an antidote
To fear of death, 
I eat the stars. 

For me, it's a return to reading about collapse, building on other stuff by Meg Wheatley, Jem Bendell and Stephen Jenkinson. In fact, Meg Wheatley mentored Sarah Wilson in writing this book.  I think you likely already know how my own views incline - that we're past the point of being able to prevent global warming and a climate crisis, that we're in a mega-crisis - 'a set of interacting crises severe in impact, complex in nature and global in fallout, with no distinct start and end point' - and likely in the early stages of global system / societal collapse. 

I know. Please do move speedily on to another section if that's too much.  Also, other views are available. 

And, as ever, I find reading about this - and facing into the full consequences of this view - more galvanising than depressing.  And it's not just me. For example, pretty much all the literature on death and dying suggests that when we can connect fully with our own mortality, then we're able to connect more fully with life and living. And those authors mentioned above are similar.  They accept that our global and social systems have received a terminal diagnosis and now can only receive palliative care.  And they also focus on how we can live really well through all of this - we can choose who we want to be in these very difficult times ahead.  By which they mean drawing on the best of our humanity in ways that involve community, connection, collaboration and include joy and love - and eating lots of stars. They have hope that we can walk a good path together on this undulating road downward. 

Reading this book coincided with watching a showing of The People's Emergency Briefing.  Released in April 2026, the documentary is fronted by naturalist Chris Packham and features scientific experts talking about the risks of climate change and nature loss to health, food security, infrastructure, and national security. It adapts evidence first presented at the live National Emergency Briefing held in Westminster in November 2025, which briefed UK politicians and decision-makers.  See if you can find somewhere that's showing it near you - highly recommended and IMO essential viewing for us all. And in fact, on that website you'll see there's a petition to show the film on prime time UK TV.

Then listening to Caroline Lucas talk with Rory Stewart about this film (among other things) on The Rest Is Politics was also a good use of 45 mins.

And yes this is deeply worrying, upsetting and unsettling.  But as James Baldwin says. 'not everything that is faced can be changed - but nothing can be changed until it is faced'. 

(pic: Gloria Loughmani)

I finally started listening to the latest On Being podcast series. I began with Michael Pollan.  I like him, always have, and in this conversation he and Krista are exploring consciousness. And plants of course - which is also his thing.  It's a good listen.  But it's one phrase he used that really leapt out at me.  

A reducing valve.  The idea that we live with a reducing valve turned on tightly, that limits therefore what we can see and perceive. Plant medicines that have mind-altering qualities allow this valve to open (he's talking about coffee, as well as psilocybin and other psychedelics) and so with them we see things we ordinarily wouldn't.  The phrase comes from William Blake, I think. 

Which also reminds me of the the general question we might ask ourselves when we come to a situation or experience we want to come to a judgement about.  What am I not seeing here?  I'm trying to use that more - helps me stay open. 

And it also reminded me of a supervisor I worked with a decade ago who urged me with considerable passion to never let your life get small. 

I have no idea what this might mean for me, but it does feel important. 


(pic: Ayako Miyawaki)

My friend just started a journal she saw on Instagram.  It comes as a beautiful book - of course it does. Flicking through it I found myself envying her the exploration. 

But it did remind me that in my field there are heaps of great frameworks for thinking, reviewing, building reflexivity and awareness. 

I have two favourites. One is the Experience Cube from Gervais Bushe, a deceptively simple 4-part frame that helps us break down and separate out what's going on when we experience something.

First (although take these in any order - it can help to mix them up a bit) what we Observe, by finding as close to what we might agree on as an objective truth as is possible. 

Then, the stories we tell ourselves, the stuff we make up about, the assumptions we hold about and the evaluations and judgments we make about those things - that the model calls Thoughts. 

No surprise that we we then bring in Emotions - what we feel about the things we observe and about the stories we're telling ourselves.  Remembering that emotions are as much about sensations in the body as anything. 

Then our Wants - in this particular experience, what do we want?   As outcomes, yup.  But also deeper than than - our longings or needs are often deep down and sometimes hard to know about and to admit even to ourselves. This one is a surprisingly tricky one to answer for many people. 

Often for us, an experience is like concrete - an amalgam of various substances stuck together into one lump.  Using the Cube to identify the various elements and lay them out before us is almost always a deeply helpful thing to do.  And to see which aspect you found hardest/easiest to access.  Or whether it was tricky to differentiate between thoughts and feelings.  

There's short piece on using the Cube here.  There’s a very good longer article on the Clear Leadership website.  I can’t seem to get a link to work but if you look at Research and Writing / Experience Cube on the site you’ll find it easily enough.

The second frame I love is What, So What, Now What. Shorty explanation here.  I like it for its almost preposterous simplicity but also for the fact that you can go absolutely anywhere under So What.  Including looking at three quarters of the Experience Cube. 

And of course, those gorgeous journals are always an option. 

(pic: Ganesh Pyne)

NEW - BOOK GROUP - FRANCIS WELLER'S THE WILD EDGE OF SORROW

The session I ran on William Bridges' Managing Transitions went well so I thought I'd do another.  I'm playing with taking a book that's not about organisations to see what it can offer those of us working in organisations.  The Wild Edge of Sorrow is about grief - because where there is change there is also loss and where there is loss, usually grief.  But in organisational life, that doesn't really get named or given room. 

It's an excellent book.  And you don't have to have read it to come along - I'll be introducing some of the core material as part of the session. 

Details and booking here. 

 

ACTS OF LOVE FOR TOUGH TIMES online, free

The next Acts of Love for Tough Times workshop explores how a loving response is the only sane response to these challenging times we're in.  The next one is Sept 15 0800-1000 BST and we'll be looking at how appreciation and acknowledgement can help us through these discombobulating times.



ENDINGS AND BEGINNINGS 18 Sept, in London

Fully booked - please contact me to join a wait list. 

How we can make endings good ones by drawing on what palliative care and the role of an end of life doula can teach us, how we might work with ritual to create movement and release stuckness, recognise the complexity of emotions during endings, and remind ourselves that most of the lessons we need to learn to do endings well in organisations come from nature. Info here. 

 

(pic: Strangford)

Tomatoes
I waited so long for love
and suddenly, here it is
standing in the garden, hands full
of heirlooms hot from the sun.

Soon we’ll make a supper of them.
Salted slabs between slices of bread.
Your beard silvers. My hips ripen.
The mail piles up.

Phone calls go unanswered. Forgive us.
Our mouths are full of tomatoes.
We are so busy
being small and hungry and alive

Joy Sullivan

(pic: Ruth Evans) 

Paul Auster's New Yolk Trilogy came to me as a birthday gift via Books for Good.  I always assumed I'd get around to reading it at some point in my life.  It wasn't what I was expecting at all - and not sure I understood what it was about - but his writing is so good. And The Kindness of Strangers from Emma Garmon was recommended by a friend, so I dusted off my Library card to get it. An enjoyable and clever whodunnit.

I Eat The Stars I've already mentioned - a punchy, lively and accessible read on what we're facing. And A Field Guide to Getting Lost is still sort-of on the go - our book group is finding it easy to feel confused and lost as we read it.  Which sounds about right. 
 

So I did, in fact, go for that big bid.  It's a long and slow process, part of a long and slow RFQ, and it's helping me see super clearly that this will most definitely be the last RFQ I will write.  I'm really done with them.  Proposal and pitches, for sure, of course.  But not these mighty and mostly hypothetical beasts that then have to contort themselves through a procurement process. 

Also prepping for an interview for another piece of work. And while that also took up a lot of time, it was a pleasure and a delight to make a pitch for 'please pick me'. I learned a lot in the process and so whether or not they do pick me, some lovely gifts have already arrived. 
 

(pic: MJ Scandin)
 

 If you enjoy this Newsletter, please do consider spreading the word and sharing it with others who might appreciate it.

Helena x

helena@helenaclayton.co.uk
07771 358 881

And do let me have any feedback or reactions -  I love hearing from you.  You know where I am on LinkedIn, or connect via Email. Or call me of course. 

Join me on social media

Copyright © 2026 *|LIST:COMPANY|*, All rights reserved.
*|LIST:DESCRIPTION|*

Our mailing address is:
*|HTML:LIST_ADDRESS_HTML|*

Want to change how you receive these emails?
You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list.