17284 SH

Nature Whispers

For more than thirty years, Dr Siobhan Harpur was a recognised leader in health services and education in Australia, Europe and the UK. Nature Whispers emerged after a period of severe workplace bullying and the devastating loss of her career. Siobhan found healing through listening to nature. What began as a search for recovery became a journey of renewal, cultivating inner strength and revealing unexpected gifts, creative talents and fresh perspectives she could never have imagined.

Nature Whispers

This book will resonate with anyone recovering from major loss and adversity. You may have been bullied or left a toxic workplace; you may be experiencing burnout or redundancy; or perhaps you have faced serious illness or the end of a significant relationship. Each of us navigates life's challenges, weathering the storms and seeking safe harbours, and, if you are reading this, you will be yearning to find a way forward, for meaning, growth and resurgence.

Each chapter of Nature Whispers begins with an encounter with animal, plant or weather, combining delicate watercolour images with powerful insightful messages. Every page offers an invitation to pause, reflect and explore your personal experience of belonging and hope. This is not a book to rush into; it is a companion to your discovery and a call to connect with all living beings, including humans. A landscape to sink into and slowly surrender to.

Siobhan has found the courage, strength and wonder of nature has woven together her inner and outer voices, surfacing and making sense of what has guided her through life and work. Through this book, she shares insights from this path.

Curious about the intersections of nature, contemplation, creativity and positive change, Siobhan now works as an embodiment coach, facilitator and artist, helping people uncover new ways of seeing, learning and transforming. She sincerely hopes you will discover the power and tenderness of nature’s wisdom within these pages.

ISBN: 978-1-0667230-0-3

RRP £18.99 9

781066 723003

Dr Siobhan Harpur

When life becomes difficult, nature waits to whisper. This book invites you to listen.

Dr Siobhan Harpur

Nature Whispers

Written by Siobhan Harpur Published in the UK by sharpurthink.com in 2026 Copyright © Siobhan Harpur 2026 All rights to the content of the book belong to Siobhan Harpur and cannot be reproduced or copied without permission of the Publisher.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, mechanical, electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the written consent of the author, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

All images by Siobhan Harpur Formatted, printed and bound by www.beamreachuk.co.uk

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Nature Whispers

Dr Siobhan Harpur

A Quiet Voice Emerging

In early 2020, my life shattered. I was catastrophically bullied at work, and the weight of that trauma nearly crushed me. I was a highly regarded health services executive with decades of experience when suddenly my core sense of identity was replaced by a deep and unsettling depression. My capacity to work, to be around people, and even to recognise myself dissolved over a few short months. I experienced a rupture to the whole of my existence with physiological as well as psychological consequences.

Trauma is, at its core, an experience of being torn apart from reality and the loss of control can become chronic if recovery does not occur naturally in a few days or weeks. When stress reactions persist, they affect our physical health and relationships, as well as our emotional and spiritual well-being.

If trauma becomes imprinted, it literally reshapes our brains and bodies over time. Stress permeates our nervous system, and we over-react to otherwise modest events because of the unresolved sensations that continue to circulate.

I was aware of being bullied and that the heightened levels of stress in my body were causing me harm. I was working long hours and increasingly feeling restless, replaying difficult scenarios, losing track in meetings, lacking focus on the task at hand. I was sleeping and eating badly, and I developed a lack of confidence and tearfulness. I could not control the feelings of overwhelm and rapidly declined. After just a few months I collapsed and was unable to return to work.

Over the first weeks and months I felt bleak and my world view narrowed. I became nervous and anxious without apparent reason, suddenly wrenching

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out of sleep from a nightmare, or feeling suffocated in the confusion of a panic attack during the day. I felt listless and numb, and yet I would suddenly sense my heart racing and my breath tightening in my chest when I was too exhausted to stand up or unable to get out of bed. I regularly felt lonely with the people I loved because I knew I was safe, but I just could not believe it.

Regardless of the nature of the adversity we face, the timing of its occurrence or the extent of our response, the journey to healing is the same. It takes time and effort to regain control of our reactions, we need to be tender and compassionate with ourselves, to listen to the hurts, to face the sorrow and loss, and to establish new stories of futures that cannot yet be imagined.

Within that time of loss and darkness, there were threads of clarity that started to give me forward momentum. I remembered that Parker Palmer, the American Quaker teacher referred to his experiences of periodic depression in several of his books. Considering depression as a gift that brings us closer to our deeper self, he imagined being pressed into the dark void by the hand of a friend. This change of perspective enabled the experience depression as more of a liminal, in-between space than the desolate one we otherwise inhabit.

From this wilderness of nothingness, Palmer describes the necessity to be patient. This, he says, is a time for quiet and stillness, waiting and listening for the shy soul that has been crushed. If, he encourages, we can get outside, no matter how pointless that may seem, we can literally stand on the ground we have been crushed into. When we know its certainty beneath our feet, we can acknowledge the hopelessness, knowing there is no place lower we can fall. Willing to allow whatever will emerge next.

I listened to these concepts and identified with them, and so I ventured outside in trust. In the depths of hopeless darkness, feeling so paralysed by the pain, I started to feel the earth beneath my feet. Tentatively, I could believe there was a spark of life that may eventually reveal itself. I was taking the first steps of my journey to healing.

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The natural world began to call me. At first, it arrived quietly. My perseverance, with the trusting support of my beloved husband, to get dressed to walk outside, to breathe, and to listen, really listen, as if for the very first time. I listened with all my body, and I heard the whispers of the trees, the waves, the birds and the wind reaching out and offering solace when I felt nothing. Slowly I realised that the whispers had form and shape and I wrote down what I heard.

There were distinct messages that would arrive in my mind as gentle impressions or envelop me in vivid images as I sat outside. I was discovering that nature is as much inside as outside of me if I open to its many voices.

The process of letting go into nature was the beginning of my integration with life, and the start of a new relationship with myself. Blackthorn railed with my despair, panther ran with me in the dark, daisy asked me to lighten up and smile, and one day, I dropped deep into the sea to look into the eye of a whale.

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What to expect in the pages ahead

Each chapter begins with an encounter. Sometimes it emerged as I was walking, sometimes in a lucid daydream, and sometimes as I sat quietly, watching and contemplating. Whether it was an animal, plant, landscape or weather, each part of nature became a messenger that I needed at that particular time.

Nature has become my teacher and my healer. The authority and wisdom of barn owl and the determination of wind. These are not fantasies, they are metaphorical truths that have shaped themselves into my being through imagination, presence and attunement.

I did not recognise the power of the messages as I heard and experienced them, but I was driven to record them, and I read them out loud. I read and reviewed the words, letting them live in me. I continued to seek healing, and I discovered new creative expression in painting. Watercolour became a lifeline to expand the whispers I had recorded, and I discovered painting could express more than the words alone could hold. I delight in the fluidity of pigment reacting with water and spreading on paper. Watching colours merge, reform and dissolve in ways that cannot be completely controlled.

Research increasingly confirms that art has the power to stimulate emotional processing as well as creativity. Water based media allows for softness and surrender, countering the rigidity and stiffness that the trauma response embeds in the body. My work with the colour and nature imagery became a form of connecting with myself and a remembering of my inner world and its hope and possibility. Combining the words from nature whispers with watercolour painting became a whole discovery of joy.

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In these pages, I share my stories, my paintings, and nature’s wisdom as she spoke to me. Each of these voices from nature, real and imagined, resonates with a lesson and a message that offers purpose, future and forward movement. Watching the flow of the seasons and the diversity of life and expression helps me to recognise the balance between action and reflection, and to remember that everything is connected. Nature reminds me that meaningful human relationships – with ourselves, one another and with all living beings - requires presence, humility, deep listening and the courage to step into our own wilderness.

The messages reflect on the symbolism of each aspect of nature, and the strategies and insights they offer that are grounded in lived experience and myth or history. Let your imagination take you into the being of each voice and hear what they say to you. Each section of this playbook includes prompts for you to reflect on, consider and practice. Be curious and playful with your responses.

I invite you to walk with me through these stories and practices. Whether you are seeking comfort, healing from trauma, ill health, searching for purpose, or curious about the messages nature has to offer, I know you will find something here that resonates. We all face challenges at different times in our lives and respond to them in different ways. I have written this book to share my story to healing and I sincerely hope it will spark your creativity and forward movement too. Let nature speak to you, as it has to me, and may you discover the quiet, enduring strength as I have.

This is not a book to rush into; it is a companion to your own journey of healing and discovery and a call to the connect with all living beings, including humans. A landscape to sink into and slowly surrender to.

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Frog

Frog Speaks ‘I am waiting for the right time.

And when the rains come, you will hear me sing.’

Frog Reflection: Walking in Two Worlds Frog is a creature of transition, starting as a tiny, delicate tadpole, fully at home in the water, before sprouting legs and moving onto land. Frog teaches me about transformation not as a moment, but as a process of becoming.

Frogs are represented across cultures, and they symbolise adaptability, healing, and renewal. In Australian Indigenous stories1, Tiddalik the frog drinks all the water in the land until an eel, through sheer frustration, makes him laugh and in his laughter, the water flows out, bringing life back to the rivers. This story stayed with me. Sometimes, it is not gentle persuasion that brings about change but something unexpected, something raw. Frog reminded me that I had been holding on so tightly to my responsibilities in public service that I was blocking my own life force. Even though I knew I was being targeted and it was damaging, there was a metaphorical armour that I could put on each day and believe that I was able to wear the pain.

We become stuck if we hold onto grief, suffering or unspoken words until we can no longer hold them inside. We may experience an explosion of anger, or a flood of tearful anguish.

In my case, I experienced a total collapse into despair, unable to sleep, eat or function for several months.

Imagine if I had listened earlier to the calling from frog? I held on fiercely to

1 The story of Tiddalik is found in many places around Australia but is often attributed to the Gunaikurnai people in Gippsland, Victoria.

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my suffering, thinking myself as courageous, but getting increasingly stuck.

Frog changes completely from life as a tadpole, growing legs and shedding their tail until one day they leap from the water.

With a single shift, leap, a croak of release, we can move.

With change there is transformation. Who could imagine moving out of the water to breathe the air?

Strategies for Navigating Transformation 1. Recognizing the Moment to Leap The shift from tadpole to frog is gradual, but the moment of stepping onto land is a leap.

• What is calling you forward?

• Where in your life do you sense a readiness, even if fear accompanies it?

Sometimes, we hesitate because we want certainty. But frogs do not wait for every detail to be perfect; they leap when the moment is right.

Try this: Identify one area where you are hesitating. What small, courageous leap could you take?

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2. Letting the Tears Flow Frogs are reservoirs of water, and they remind us that tears, too, are a cleansing force. Suppressing emotions only leads to stagnation, just as Tiddalik dried up the rivers by holding onto the water.

• What emotions have you been holding back?

• How might releasing them create space for renewal?

Try this: Find a quiet space and feel the reservoir of unspoken emotion. Let yourself cry or rage. If the feelings do not come, write or paint something that expresses more than the words. Imagine yourself as frog, croaking out your truth.

3. Embracing Change as Whole, not Pieces In leadership and systems practice, Alastair Mant contrasted mechanistic thinking to the metaphor of a bicycle where change is managed in separate, controlled parts. In contrast he invites us to ‘frog’ thinking and to understanding organisations as interconnected, living systems. The mistake we often make is to look at all the different issues in detail but completely fail to see the connections between them. When we work more holistically deeper and more sustainable change can occur. In our lives, healing, like frog transformation, will unfold when we let go to the flow of life itself.

• Where in your life are you trying to control change rather than allowing it to unfold naturally?

• What can you say out loud that you are holding onto?

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Try this: Spend time in nature and notice the organic changes water erodes rock, trees shed leaves, ants come and go.

Closing Thought Frog looks at us with wide, blinking eyes and reminds us: ‘I have been tadpole and now I know land and water. Listen and be ready to leap. Your own transformation is already in motion.’

Frog themes are waiting, renewal, and transformation

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