Confession: I put myself through the wringer a couple of times last month. I reacted to some stuff with a whole BUNCH of insecure thinking about them, to the point where I didn’t know which way was up any more.
Tag: compassion
Like everyone else, Covid 19’s interruption of life as normal has given me pause to stop and reflect. I’ve been thinking about what I value, the kind of life I want to live, and the kind of contribution I want to make to others.
And I’ve found a really interesting question to ask myself.
Continue reading “What problem are you really trying to solve?”
I’ve been walking through treacle recently.
Not literally, of course; that would be insane. But metaphorically speaking, it’s felt much the same; like walking, moving, thinking, through treacle.
It’s one of the joys of chronic illness – and the impact it can have on my emotional and mental well-being. Continue reading “The kindness of the design”
I’ve been thinking about ambiguous loss and grief lately.
(Yes, FUN TIMES.)
My thoughts were sparked by two articles; the first, on how middle-age is impacting Gen X women (spoiler alert: badly. REALLY BADLY). The other, a letter writer wanted to feel like her single life is enough (spoiler alert: even the ‘agony aunt’ who responded struggles and fails to cultivate this feeling).
As someone who, Venn-diagram-speaking, is slap-bang where these two overlap, they made interesting reading.
And by interesting, I mean .. the other thing. Continue reading “An uncertain kind of loss”
When it comes to therapeutic modalities, I’ll admit: I’m a bit of a magpie.
I spent October attending a collective trauma online summit and another on the clinical application of compassion; I have various books on mindfulness, self-compassion and connection, and am becoming increasingly drawn to Compassion-Focused Therapy.
(Basically, if it helps folks to be kinder to themselves, I’ll wander over and give it a sniff.)
So I was pretty excited to attend Rich Bennett and Joe Oliver’s introduction to Acceptance and Commitment Therapy recently, complete with a copy of their book, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy: 100 Key Points and Techniques. Continue reading “Does it help?”
My inbox is out of control. I mean, WAAY out of control.
(Like everyone else’s, I know.)
I have emails about things I have no interest in, from things I signed up for but have long forgotten, from people who assume that I recognised them by their first name alone.
I occasionally have a cull, chop the number down, have an unsubscribe session. But it often resembles the grass verge on a motorway: full of debris from past travels, unidentified random plants, and weird stuff that wants to take over the general ecosphere.
But sometimes – just sometimes – my benign form of neglect pays dividends and I get an email about an opportunity that I just wouldn’t hear about otherwise.
I came across something by accident recently, and its succinctness has absolutely blown my mind.
It’s the acronym HALT – which stands for Hungry, Angry, Lonely or Tired.
Hungry: Do I need something physically or emotionally?
Angry: What’s causing me to feel this way?
Lonely: Am I having difficulty connecting with others?
Tired: When was the last time I took a break? Continue reading “HALT! Are you Hungry, Angry, Lonely or Tired?”
This month, I’m going to share something very different.
One of the first pieces I ever had published was a poem, and yet I rarely read them – and the last one I wrote was five years ago. But a friend who lives overseas was struggling recently, and I wanted to keep in touch through loving voice messages.
I didn’t want to add to his mental load by chit-chatting about my day, though. So what could I say that would be short, helpful and meaningful? Continue reading “For a friend who is struggling”
I experienced a lot of thinking at the beginning of this week.
Nothing major happened; my mum’s doing well after fracturing her shoulder through a fall a couple of weeks ago, and I’m doing well after going up to look after her. Continue reading “When less is more”
We humans tend to be strange, paradoxical, conflicted creatures.
We say that we want something in our life – be it more money, greater freedom, a wider pool of romantic prospects, a deeper connection, etc. Nothing wrong with any of those, of course; all entirely human and understandable desires.
And yet it’s rare to find someone whose life doesn’t contradict what they say they want. Money evaporates at a certain set-point, limitations are accrued unconsciously, opportunities to meet potential partners spurned, chances for vulnerability body-swerved. Continue reading “What’s your logic based on?”
Let The Love In 