Autumn is my favourite season, and I feel like the crisp air and crunchy leaves almost challenge me to get honest and reflective so that I can shed what no longer serves. This Autumn, I’m asking myself if I can shed my need to be right. You know those moments where you say something to someone important to you and afterwards wish you’d just kept your mouth shut? I started off today having a yucky experience with one of my daughters, the details of which I’m not going to share

If parenting feels like a struggle and joy a distant memory, I’ve been there too. Here’s something to play with… A powerful way to create a feeling of connection with children and young people (including teenagers) is by really listening to them. As the feeling of connection increases, the feeling of struggle decreases. If you want to give this a go, you could start by asking yourself these questions… When my child is talking to me, what am I listening to? A lot of the ti

A mentor of mine once said that there are no paradoxes in reality, and that they exist only in the human mind. I filed it away, thinking “nice idea but, really?”. It struck me recently while watching video footage from my daughter’s school trip to a village in Malawi. Local men and women were performing a traditional dance for the visitors. Men wore trousers, shirts and ties and they wore a traditional garment over these clothes to perform the dance. Women wore western style

I once thought that I was failing in life because I was too emotional and not resilient enough. There’s lot of talk about how to “build resilience” around. And then there are people who appear to be unphased by the ups and downs of life. They seem to deal with setbacks with ease, grace and even a sense of humour. Almost as though resilience is a personality trait and they lucked out in the personality department. It so doesn’t look like this to me these days, which is why I s

Do you ever find yourself wondering why… “Why am I like this?” “Why can’t I handle life as well as other people can?” “Why do I need more rest, sleep or downtime than other people?” “Why am I so affected by other people’s moods?” It looks to me like when we are wondering these sorts of things (as I definitely have), there are a few places it can be really helpful to look. 1. Our experience is thought-created You’ve probably heard that we don’t see the world as it is, we s

A few years ago, in a fun exercise, a friend of mine identified one of my qualities as “fizz”. Intuitively I knew what he meant, but it was hard to put into words and felt a little uncomfortable. Fizz was something positive and yet it was somehow anxiety’s cousin, which my mind had some negative judgements about. Around the same time, I came across a quote shared by Jeff Foster on his Facebook page. I cannot find the exact quote now, but I can share the meaning I heard in it,

How do we create resilient children? A question asked by many parents and educators. We discover our own resilience, our own true nature. Terrifying, right? Much easier to pretend we are not awesome and get busy trying to help others. But if we haven't discovered the true source of resilience within ourselves, we can never really help anyone else discover it. I'm seeing the power of this as both a parent and a teacher, as I recently took up a part time post as a primary teach

I don’t know about you, but there are a lot of ideas about how Christmas “should” be that have been learned by my mind, over the years. Which is fine, and exactly what a mind will do, but then that mind also goes and forgets that these are ideas and starts judging itself when not all of these things happen in reality. It’ll say things like: "Why have I not been more organised this year?" "I should have had all the presents wrapped by the end of November." "I wish I could ho

If you’re following Strictly Come Dancing this year, you likely watched the semi-final on Saturday and heard each professional dancer give their reasons why they thought their celebrity partners should make it through to the final. Something in what Vito said about his partner Sarah really struck me. I’m not quoting here, but this is what I heard: He thought she was one of the strongest people he’d ever met. He felt privileged to have been allowed to see some of her fra

Let’s take sitting exams at school as an example (it’s topical in our house right now and a great example). “Anxiety” is a label your brain has learned to put on sensations that arise within the body. These sensations are completely normal and it’s not surprising for them to come up when thinking about sitting an exam. The intensity of the sensations that your brain labels as “anxiety” is not an indication of how you will perform in the exam, nor of how you will feel in

Ever found yourself asking this sort of question? At work? In school? At home? With your children? (How many times before 8am on an average morning?!) I’ve seen time and time again that the number one thing we can do if we want others to listen to us more, is to get better at listening to them. If I’m getting triggered by people not listening to me, this is a great invitation to get curious about how I’m doing with listening to people. Not everyone is open to th

What would you do if you felt more confident? Go for that promotion? Speak up more in meetings? Try out a new activity, at which you’re a complete beginner? I relate. I think we all have stories like these. And the truth is that most people are pooping their pants when they do any of these sorts of things, especially for the first time. So here’s a different question: What even is confidence? Is it a guarantee that things will go the way we want them to? A promise t

Do you or someone you care about ever feel nervous, especially before performing in any way or trying out a new experience? Me too. Minds love to make up “what if” scenarios and get lost in them. Here’s a different sort of “what if” – something to get curious about. What if… “Nervous” is a label our mind might give to certain sensations in the body – things like butterflies in the tummy, a quicker heart rate, and so on. And as soon as that label is slapped on, off t

If you struggle with anxiety or have been diagnosed with an anxiety related disorder, do you ever have moments where you don’t feel anxious? Even for a few seconds? Maybe it’s that brief, fleeting moment when you first wake up in the morning and don’t even know who or where you are, or what day it is, yet. Maybe it’s when you cuddle a baby or watch your children at play. Maybe it’s when you see a beautiful sunrise. But what if the feeling of peace and wellbeing doesn’t come f

It's mid-December. There have definitely been times so far this month, when I have felt overwhelmed. AND... I’ve had a lot on and like many business owners who are also parents to excited kids, there are quite a few things I’d like to get done before Christmas. But did you notice I didn’t say I’ve been feeling overwhelmed BECAUSE I have a lot on? Sure, at times it really seems like my “to-do list” is the cause of feelings of overwhelm. But then there are other times when I’m