The making of Frondescence
Welcome to Frondescence and my first blog post and journal entry marking the start of this new season in my life and career. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for being here, it means the world to me you are finding this space and are taking the time to read this and explore my website.
Frondescence means to ‘gain foliage’ and ‘the condition of unfolding new leaves’.
I want to tell you my journey of ‘unfurling’ and how I came to create the Frondescence ecosystem, and it starts with you…
As I write this, I think about who might be reading this. I firstly think of my family and closest friends who will read it (because they are likely to be the first I will tell when I’ve pressed publish on this site). You may be here as you have been following me for sometime through my personal blog at lucyellenhill.com. Perhaps we went to school, college or university together, or perhaps I have worked with you in my 19 year HR and People team career in a media company and at a BCorp tea company. Maybe you are one of my lovely coaching clients I have had the pleasure of working with over the years.
Perhaps you are one of the many people who inspire me from the world of social media, we’ve connected on Instagram and follow each other's lives through the squares and stories. Maybe we’ve connected on a course, a retreat, during my travels, or at an event in the past, those special connections that form having had a shared experience, even if just for a weekend or a moment in time.
I feel so lucky to have had such a range of experiences in life where I’ve met and connected with so many people. I think through these chapters in life and all your faces appear. I love meeting people and hearing about their unique lives.
When we meet new people we ask ‘what do you do?’ It’s been interesting how I’ve answered this question depending on where I am. In the past at work related events I’ve shared my job title and perhaps a current project I’m working on. At creative retreats or creative events I’ve said I blog about cultivating and living a creative and wholesome life through the seasons and I have a day job in HR.
For such a long time I’ve noticed how those different answers feel as I say them. I realised over the years I’ve been trying to shape an answer to that question I get asked and make it feel more comfortable. I found myself regularly putting on a mask and ‘enthusiastically’ saying my job title and what I did, whereas in reality in the pit of my stomach I felt sick with the knowledge I didn’t enjoy all of the aspects of my job. I wanted to but some parts of my job description and roles were not quite for me. I found myself justifying with a comment and sharing what I was most passionate about in my job. I knew deep down that there will likely always be aspects of any job which we don't feel quite as enthused about doing but it gradually started to take its toll on me.
For most of my career I pushed down that feeling, just got on with it, and made the most of the elements I did love and the knowledge and skills I had, or was growing. I focused on the good parts, the areas I had started to sculpt and grow in my own way and the people I had the opportunity to work with in companies which inspired me. I immersed myself in projects I felt enthused by which gave me so much joy. I was very lucky to have a brilliant Director in my final role in corporate HR who gave me space to thrive in areas of my role I was most interested in. I had a wonderful team of lovely colleagues who each had their unique strengths too and I loved working alongside them. I will be forever grateful to have had that opportunity, it feels like a rare moment which I’m not sure I will ever have the chance to recreate again.
When the time came to think about my next steps as the company I was in was being integrated into its parent company, with a distinctly different culture and leadership style at the top, I took the opportunity to give my life a reset. When you are in HR you can start spotting the signs of change and what they might look and feel like reasonably early, and I did. I spent a number of months coaching myself to think about the next phase of my career, exploring and researching the options, where my strengths mapped into different roles, finding the threads of my life and seeing if I could shape something with them. I was thinking about how I wanted life to look and feel and fit with my daughter who was heading off to school.
When the meeting finally arrived where the restructure of the team and integration plans were announced I knew what needed to be there to align with my aspirations, my skill set and what would bring me most joy. I feel lucky that there were no roles which matched my current role and matched what I wanted to do. I didn’t want to take a step back and drop a grade and I didn’t want to specialise too much in one area I didn’t get energy from and have to travel as part of my job. I wanted to do a part time role, and I could see there was nothing really factored in work-load wise for it in reality. The decision was easy for me and I felt empowered to take a new route.
In that moment I felt deep self-trust, self-belief and self-love. A wave of relief fell over me and there was a glint on the horizon. I wanted to feel excited about sharing my answer to ‘what do you do’ and now I had a chance to shape something which would enable me to.
A year and a half on I am there at that glint on the horizon.
During the past year I’ve added a brand new skill to my skillset, perhaps one I could've done earlier if I’d given myself space to think about things. I trained for a year as a garden designer and the creative part of me was at last able to come to the surface, together with love of nature, a love of maps and understanding how people navigate and use spaces. It made me think very fondly of the decision-making case studies during my academic life studying geography and the way humans create environments and spaces they shape. In July 2024 I graduated with a professional garden design diploma with a distinction, the top student award, a portfolio of garden designs, creative sketchbook work, moodboards, technical research, planting plans and client presentations for real life gardens.
I took the summer to look after my daughter during the summer holidays and in a few evenings and holiday club days I reconnected to my business plans and made a start evolving my offerings. When I set out on this next phase I knew I wanted to mainly work term-time and having the summer with my daughter this year was priceless.
After years of learning, widening my skill set and experience in areas I am passionate about, and gathering my knowledge and ideas I created Frondescence.
Frondescence is the culmination of those joyful elements of my career, my academic interests, my passions and my greatest strengths. It’s a blend of all the elements which I cultivated in my career, my extensive training and passion for learning, my experience and my knowledge. For me it is the dream job I’ve been creating behind the scenes.
I created Frondescence, to be a unique nature-led intentional living consultancy for heart-led, ambitious, soul-seekers. A place to unfurl the potential of the spaces in your life and elevate your everyday life. Perhaps it was the support I felt I wanted and the spaces I wanted to see whilst I was working. A focus on appreciating ourselves more, just as we are right now, keeping things simple, but also gaining back our control to shape our own careers, making space to make our own development plans and what we most want to do in life and the spaces we find ourselves living and working in.
The aim is to get more intentional in our lives, and to get out of auto-pilot. Being closer to the wisdom of nature we will appreciate it even more. This eco centric focus will help us connect to our wild selves and we can regain a sense of appreciation and desire to conserve and protect nature and our planet, at a time when we most need to.
So when I now speak to someone and they ask me what do I do, I say this “I run a nature-led intentional living consultancy to help people unfurl the potential of the spaces in their lives. I’m a coach, a personal development specialist and a garden designer. I have a daughter at school and I choose to work part-time and term time”. It feels like the freedom I’ve longed for, the chance to be the most me in my career to date, and it’s the feeling I’ve wanted in my body for such a long time.
I have many plans, ideas and thoughts I want to share with you to help you create a life which feels more intentional, more joyful and more nourishing for your wellbeing and wellness. I’m excited to see where Frondescence will go and I look forward to this next chapter of life running a business and this new season in my work.
Deep down I want to live gently and live joyfully, unfurl my potential and the potential of the people and spaces I work with. I want to elevate the everyday with simple moments and the magic of glimmers.
Right now that glint on the horizon is closer, it is twinkling.
The sun is starting to rise up, bringing with it a new day.
A new leaf has started to unfurl on a bare branch, it’s reaching out to capture the light and gain the energy it needs to grow and to take up its own space in this new season.
I hope you will join me.