Author, Psychologist
Browsing Category
Anna (not her real name) came to see me because she felt ‘stuck’ and she’d been intrigued by a talk I gave on creating soulful relationships. Anna was in her 60s and mother to a ‘forty-something’ daughter, Lily (again, not her real name). Lily was a successful small business owner, a wife and mother of …
Do you think that anticipating some big change or shift is actually scarier than the change itself? I do. I think anticipation and fantasising about potential outcomes is far scarier than being in the moment of a big change, or settling into new circumstances once the change has come. Our imagination is a beautiful thing, …
What would need to have happened if you woke up one morning and your life was all you dreamed – every duck in a row – you’re living your best life? To help people find direction and make changes in therapy, I sometimes ask this “possibility question”. It can help us to work out what …
“Avoid the temptation to squeeze your mind into submission (in meditation), to confine it and restrict it – that will just make it wilder! Use light concentration, gently correct it when it wanders, and patiently give it time and space”. Ian Gawler and Paul Bedson This guidance comes from two very experienced teachers of meditation and …
Mindfulness is the awareness that emerges through paying attention on purpose, in the present moment, and non-judgmentally, to things as they are. Jon Kabat-Zinn Mindfulness develops your emotional intelligence, which helps you to take charge of your life and deal directly with your thinking, emotions and actions. Mindfulness is not something you have to get …
Being the hero of your life – to me that means getting absolutely real with yourself about your strengths, your vulnerabilities and your values and walking that self-talk. It’s an issue that influences life, sex and relationships – that we live in a culture that often celebrates the false and shuns real humanity. Are we becoming …
If love is going wrong everything else seems wrong for a while too, doesn’t it? Before you answer – I’m not just talking about romantic love here like it’s the be-all-and-end-all. It’s possible to have a fulfilled, rich life without couple love. But life generally sucks if you’re out of touch with the three big …
Therapist Aaron Beck was the grandfather of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) – a system of therapy which in a nutshell, teaches people to recognise the patterns of thinking that aren’t serving them well and to question unhelpful thoughts and feelings rather than just going with them willy-nilly and spiralling into down moods. Many therapists, like myself, combine ideas …
For much of my life I had the classic pleasing disease. Pleasers want everything to be beautiful and harmonious and we’re willing to do what it takes. Pleasers often come across easy-going, generous, agreeable and flexible, because we want to be loved and we’re convinced pleasing = being loved We move mountains to make others happy, lacking …
Mindfulness in managing emotions is a key theme of Eckhart Tolle’s book ‘Practicing the Power of Now”. In the book, Tolle characterises, that is actually gives a character to, unhelpful thoughts and feelings that habitually arise in us. He calls the personal accumulation of pain in us – our sad thoughts, stories and feelings – “the …