Stress, burnout, and emotional overwhelm aren’t rare, they’re everywhere. UK stats show that 74% of adults have felt so stressed in the past year they couldn’t cope, and nearly 90% of workers report signs of burnout. These aren’t just numbers, they’re nervous systems under pressure. And too often, our response is to push through, fix it fast, or make sense of it before it’s ready to be understood.
But healing doesn’t happen in haste, and insight doesn’t always arrive logically.
In coaching, especially when working with trauma or complex emotion, we need more than frameworks. We need places of safety, somewhere that gives us the space to slow down and feel, before we analyse or act. And we need language gentle enough to hold what hasn’t yet been said.
That’s what 1871 was designed for. Not as a toolkit, but as a story-woven space where reflection can stretch its legs, where metaphors do the heavy lifting, and where both coaches and clients can catch their breath.
I’ve seen it again and again: someone arrives overwhelmed, unable to name what’s going on, and in that moment, they don’t need a solution, they need space. And they need someone who can sit with them in that space without trying to rush them through it.
As a trauma-informed coach, I work with people navigating grief, burnout, and emotional shutdown. I draw on Polyvagal Theory, which reminds us that the nervous system needs to feel safe before it can process, reflect, or reframe.
That’s why I so often invite people to pause, not to think harder, but to feel softer.
Sometimes I’ll say:
- “If this feeling were a landscape, what would it look like?”
- “If the weight you're carrying had a place to rest… where would it go?”
These are more than metaphors, they’re invitations into truth, the truth our body already knows but may not yet be ready to name. And this isn’t just something I use in my coaching. It’s something I created for myself because I built 1871 as a safe place because I never had one.
As a survivor of childhood abuse, I grew up without the kind of space where feelings could be felt fully. But I could write. I could imagine. I could create characters and landscapes where emotions had somewhere to go. And now, that place,1871, isn’t just mine. It’s here for anyone who needs somewhere quiet, symbolic, and safe to rest, reset, and begin again.
For professionals
If you’re a coach, facilitator, therapist, or someone who simply cares deeply for others, 1871 can become part of your practice too.
It supports:
- Personal and team wellbeing conversations
- Reflective coaching sessions
- Trauma-aware dialogue without pressure or overexposure
- A slower, more human rhythm to transformation.
Here’s one simple prompt from 1871 you can try today:
“If the sky above you could speak, what would it whisper?”
Use it in a session or in your own journal. Let the metaphor hold the weight for a while.
Your Invitation to Explore 1871
1871: A Time Before is a slow mirror. It's a story-drenched town filled with characters, questions, and quiet spaces built for reflection. It’s a place to pause, to listen differently, to begin to feel what you haven’t had the words for yet.
If that’s the kind of space you’re craving, or the kind you long to offer others, you’re warmly invited in.
Let the story begin. Let the story reveal.