Origin
Found.NotLost isn’t just a phrase — it’s a feeling. A moment of clarity when recovery turns from pain into purpose.
Pouch Heals was created in response to my feelings of helplessness, guilt, and needing to make a change and to be counted.
It started after my daughter was diagnosed with ulcerative colitis at the start of the summer. I suffered with ulcerative colitis when I was younger and had major surgery to treat it in my late 20’s. Now, through my genetics, it seems I have passed on this disease to my daughter.
Pouch Heals was my way of responding to that. To try and turn this negative experience upside down and bring positivity from it.
Taking Action
Being honest, I didn’t really know what I was doing. I started off making Youtube videos. Then I wrote a small book. I then made a website and blog, and then I wrote a longer, bigger book. I had found an outlet to try and raise awareness and help people going through similar experiences by sharing my experiences.
As several weeks went by, the nerves settled, I felt like I had stumbled into a calling.
I found myself pouring hours and hours of work into Pouch Heals. Daily. It never felt onerous or like hard word, it felt like owning, seizing, taking control. Through interacting with people via comments on YouTube I found myself filled with purpose.
The feeling of helplessness, guilt, and that sense I needed to stand for something was replaced by a sense of direction, clarity and empowerment.
From the comments I was reading, I could see my impact was landing with real people. I was being part of a solution. I was connecting with people and could help others.
Something Clicked
Once I started helping other people something clicked.
- I felt passion.
- I felt energised.
- I felt in control.
I felt like I had faced a storm and came through the other side.
That feeling bubbling up inside of me didn’t go away. As I worked on Pouch Heals I realised that what I was feeling, transcended ulcerative colitis, it went beyond J-Pouches, it was a feeling that I thought other people must know too.
I started to put down into words how I felt and how others might feel. Feelings of overcoming, having battled through, and found themselves on the winning side of life. It didn’t matter how someone ended up feeling like this, I just knew others must have felt it too, and I wanted to celebrate that feeling with them.
I stared at my laptop. Writing words on screen, cycling through phrases and tag lines trying to reflect back at me what I felt.
I tapped on my keys, stopped, and saw:
Found.NotLost
Purpose
These 3 words hit what I was feeling exactly. I let go of guilt and helplessness, and I stopped feeling lost. The work I was doing found me, and brought me to this place.
I was Found.NotLost
In that moment, I turned this movement and emotion into something tangible. It is that sentiment, that sense of standing tall, that self confidence that I share with you today.
“You ARE Found.NotLost“
Finding the “OR”
You can be searching.
Or you can be Found.NotLost.
That single word — OR — is where everything changes.
Most brands live on one side of the story — the illness or the recovery, the loss or the hope.
But life doesn’t fit neatly into one lane. The strength of Found.NotLost is in the middle — in the OR.
It’s the bridge between being lost and being found.
Between breaking down and rebuilding.
Between what we’ve lived through and what we choose to become.
That’s where rediscovery happens — when you realise you can carry your past and your future at the same time.
The OR is our space.
It’s where healing becomes rediscovery — and where stories like ours turn into something new.