If Lost Start Here is a guide for the anxious, curious, lonely and lost. Featuring everyday places and at-home prompts designed to help you live a life that feels good.
Your Guides
Claire Fitzsimmons x Amanda Sheeren
We launched our company If Lost, Start Here in 2019 to help people get to a better place with their mental and emotional well-being.
Neither of us recognized ourselves entirely in a wellness world that sold one version of how to be and didn’t reflect how we were just trying to get through life. And though we loved the science of well-being, we wondered how we could apply all that we were learning to our everyday lives when the laundry was toppling and the yoga mats were serving as forts.
We couldn’t find what we were looking for. We needed something more realistic, more attainable, and even kinder: a place where we could find what we needed, and help others find their way too.
This is that place.
Because the self in help isn’t working and no one should struggle alone.
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Claire Fitzsimmons is a wellbeing coach, certified emotions practitioner, and writer who helps women in midlife feel better in their everyday lives — emotionally, mentally, and practically.
She works with individuals navigating change, burnout, perimenopause, emotional overwhelm or simply a sense of feeling stuck. Her coaching helps people untangle what they’re feeling, find clarity, and build a sustainable wellbeing practice that fits who they are now.
Claire is a certified Emotions Coaching Practitioner (In Good Company), an ICF Associate Certified Coach (ACC), and holds a Certificate in Counselling and Psychotherapy from CCPE London. She combines evidence-based tools from positive psychology, neuroscience, somatics, Transactional Analysis and the science of wellbeing, always rooted in compassion and curiosity.
At If Lost Start Here, Claire creates coaching programmes, courses and content that support emotional wellbeing in real life. Whether you’re looking to build emotional resilience, better understand your moods, or create calm amid the chaos, her work is designed to meet you exactly where you are.
A former contemporary arts curator, Claire also brings a unique creative perspective to wellbeing. She’s designed exhibitions and learning programmes at world-leading institutions including Tate Modern, ICA, Serpentine Gallery and San Francisco’s CCA Wattis Institute. She has also co-founded several community-focused spaces, including the Storefront Institute and The Indie Alley.
Her writing on mental health, emotions and midlife wellbeing has appeared in Happiful, Breathe, The Simple Things, and others. She’s also been featured in Stylist, Red, and The Slow Living Guide.
Claire is the host of A Thought I Kept, a podcast about the best ideas for life, where she speaks with guests from across creative, therapeutic and wellbeing fields about the ideas that linger and shape our lives.
If you're searching for thoughtful, inclusive support around emotional health or midlife wellbeing — either for yourself or your organisation — Claire’s work offers a thoughtful, curiosity-driven place to begin. You can find details about Claire’s practice and working directly with her here.
Claire was a Regional Finalist for Best Wellbeing Specialist in Dorset, Somerset & Bristol for The Muddy Stilettos Awards 2025
Subscribe to Claire’s Substack More Good Days for more ways to well.
LinkedIn Profile | Press | Life Coach Directory Profile
Listen to Claire on the podcasts: Space to Think, Another Door Stories, How To Be A Healer and What do people do?
While formally educated in Psychology, Amanda Sheeren went on to build upon her academic career, developing an interest in human-machine interaction and eventually going on to publish research in the field of Biomedical Informatics.
Having her first child shortly after college (whoops!) Amanda’s career shifted from intensive research to projects that could be done from home, or in odd hours, projects that could co-exist with constant nursing and near-constant crying (from all parties). From her vegan crochet company (My Hooker Friend) to her position as a birth doula and Lactation Specialist to freelance writing and graphic design gigs, Amanda has consistently found a way to keep generating creative and purposeful projects.
It wasn’t until running her own company that she realized business and philanthropy could (and should) exist hand-in-hand. Amanda is one of those rare people that aligns her life, her values and her creative endeavors. She currently works with major and indie record labels designing lyric-based merch with messaging around suicide prevention and sobriety.
With Claire, she is a co-founder of Northern California co-working space The Indie Alley, and collaboration-focused creative agency, The Collective Together. If Lost brings together Amanda’s searching approach to her own life and her shifting relationship with her own mental health.
Also Amanda designed this website and all the graphic touches.
Learn more about Amanda in this interview at All Together Co.
What we stand for:
1. Messy Selfhood
At If Lost we get positively messy in all that is real life. We believe in a version of everyday wellness that can fit within the shape of our daily lives.
2. Collective Care:
The self in help is broken. We bring people together, so you never feel like you’re alone in life.
3. Acceptance over Transformation:
What if instead of always striving to improve you started by accepting more who you are and what you need? That means designing a life that supports you as you are.
4. Personalized to you:
We make you the expert of you. There is no one-size-fits-all way to better emotional and mental well-being. We’ll help you build your sense of Self and a life that matters to you, on your terms.
5. Curiosity-fueled:
We will follow curiosity anywhere. We’re always looking for how we can bring learning to life.
6. Creativity-led:
We create the space for play and are always seeking to get creative with how we approach wellbeing.
7. Compassion:
We’re figuring out life in uncertain times. We make sure we don’t put the pieces of the world that are broken onto you.
8. Community:
If Lost is created by us, but made by you. You can help by submitting places for our guide or helping us support the work of mental health initiatives.
9. Contribution:
We know we can’t do everything so where we can we give back to those who are working to improve our individual and collective mental health. 1% across all our programs goes to initiatives so that we can help more people feel better in their everyday lives.
10. Ethical:
We’ve found ourselves in an industry that likes to hustle and that can be unregulated. We abide by professional standards, work with people who are certified and offer reduced pricing for those who need it.
So where to next for you?
Have some questions? Check out our FAQs here or reach out to us by email.
If you’re feeling a little stuck or overwhelmed (or maybe something else), we’ve created a quick survey to learn how we can support you better. Share your thoughts—it only takes a couple of minutes, and your input makes all the difference.
Take the Survey Here