When there is so much to do and not enough time to do everything, naturally we prioritise those things that are more important to us. But do we really? Or do we prioritise things just to avoid stress in some other area of our life? This might mean they aren’t really our own priorities at all; perhaps they are more likely to be someone else’s that you just picked up along the way. So what’s stopping you from speaking up? It’s never as simple as just speaking your mind – th

I have recently embarked on some new learning – I have signed up to an online academy to deepen my knowledge of human behaviour through the topics of psychology and counselling. My objective is to achieve a diploma once I have completed the course content. So it’s back to studying textbooks and submitting assignments – something I haven’t done for well over 30 years! I can say that I am thoroughly enjoying the process – such a different experience from ‘way back when’. I a

Perhaps you have always considered yourself to be a competent and confident person. Life and life situations were mostly managed with ease and you had no difficulty in making decisions. But recently you’ve noticed that life has started to feel a little difficult. You find yourself second-guessing your decisions, no longer sure if you’re making good choices and you’re feeling pressured that keeping up with your contemporaries is requiring more and more effort. You’ve notic

This is a title of a book by psychotherapist and world renowned author, Dr Wayne Dyer, who sadly passed away in August 2015. The book is about personal transformation and how you can improve the quality of your life by tapping into the power that lies within you, using constructive thinking to direct the course of your own destiny. However, this blog isn’t about the book itself – rather I want to talk about the title. There are a number of reviews on-line and You-Tube summ

So many people say you need to find your passion in order to feel fulfilled or to work out your purpose in life. But what if you genuinely don’t know what it is or even where to start? Passion in this context is the feeling of being in the flow, where we are doing some that completely absorbs our interest, time flies, we feel light, we are creative and it is as though we have limitless energy. If you are lucky enough to have your passion become your career, your business or

I’ve heard many of my friends complain that once they reach a certain age, they start to feel invisible, and not in a good way... This is usually from about the age of 55 onwards – so what is going on? I want to propose that you’ve not become invisible, but rather you now have a much higher level of awareness than when you were younger, and now you appreciate that once you felt all eyes were on you – and you now you realise that no-one was ever looking in the first place… U

Are you feeling that life has become somewhat humdrum and you find yourself having nothing much to look forward to, and all you expect is more of the same…? Do you feel that life is perhaps passing you by, and you’re feeling more like a spectator than a participant? If you suspect you may be depressed, then a visit with your health professional would be a good place to start. However if your feelings more resemble a growing frustration with your situation, know that there a

Is there something; an event or a situation; that you keep carefully hidden? Hidden from your current relationships, or friends, or work colleagues? Are you finding the effort of keeping your secret, is becoming more and more difficult? So what can you do to finally put it behind you and move on? If you’re finding more and more that ‘should haves’ and ‘could haves’ are starting to play on your mind; know that often our own judgement of ourselves or of our actions are far m

How many times have you decided that enough is enough, that this time you are finally going to: lose weight, change jobs, move house, leave your partner… Or some other declaration of needing a change in your life, because what you have right now is simply not working for you? Perhaps you make the change and everything is rosy for a while, but then you notice that you’re starting to feel the same way again. That what you have is no longer satisfying; that what you thought wo

I’m so stupid! I’m ugly! I hate myself! I don’t want to be me anymore… Do any of these sound like the voice in your head? Somewhere along the line this habit of blaming yourself when bad things happen, has turned into self-hate or self-loathing. However with patience, kindness and compassion it is possible to turn it around… Firstly, know that it is not possible for everyone to like you, or me, or anyone else for that matter. Sometimes you love a person, but something

If there is so much going on in your life that you feel like you are losing control, and you aren’t making good decisions anymore – what can you do to become the master of your life instead of it being the master of you? The first step is to consider why there is so much activity - is it because you can’t say ‘no’ to requests for help; is it because you might be transitioning from one state to another; or maybe you have suffered a catastrophe not of your own making? If it is

For anyone who is considering taking time out of the workforce to raise a family, several questions might be playing on your mind... What impact will an absence have on my career path? Will I still be offered the same opportunities to advance my career? Can I be a parent and have a career too? These days it can be pretty difficult to make financial headway in life without the benefit of multiple income streams. So if you want to plan a family as well, that usually means t

There comes a time in our lives when many start to ask: “What is my life purpose?” “Is there a grand plan for me?” “How do I find out what my life purpose is?” These questions can often start us on a journey to learn more about ourselves, to learn more about why we do what we do; and to understand how our nature became to be what it is. To discover your own life’s purpose, it might be helpful to ask yourself these questions: What gives me joy? What am I doing, or when in my

Do you feel like you are destined to always pick the wrong partner, the wrong job, the wrong queue? You don’t understand why some people seem to be lucky in love, lucky in life and yes - they always seem to pick the right queue… A Buddhist Nun called Pema Chodron once said: “Nothing ever goes away until it has taught us what we need to know.” So when the same things keep happening; for example: maybe you keep attracting the wrong sort of partners into your life, and your rel

This is a simple question we can all ask ourselves to enable us to access our own internal wisdom. Asking creates a sense of stillness and awareness; even in the heat of a developing situation, where time feels like it slows down a little; you can hear your inner voice, your intuitive response; and it helps give you the clarity and wisdom to respond as needed. If it’s more relevant for you, substitute the word person with manager, teacher, pilot, parent, sibling, grandparent

Any transition in life; whether it is changing jobs, starting a business, a health crisis, or leaving a long term relationship; often requires a leap of faith that the new situation will be more satisfying and that it will take us closer to our life goals or passions. If our new desired state is one that excites us, but it is the practicalities of the transition that are causing the hesitation; then more work may be required to set the structures in place or to learn the skil

Do you remember that little train engine who kept telling himself: “I know I can, I know I can, I know I can…” That’s all very well when you’re feeling good about the world. But what happens when the inner voice is telling you that you’re wasting your time and will never amount to much… Whose voice is that? Is it your own or an echo of someone else in your life whose mantra you have taken on for yourself? Maybe it was a parent, a teacher, or someone else who had signific

Perhaps you’ve been in this situation… Where someone is telling you that you’ll never achieve x, y or z; that what you’re doing is a waste of time and even if it was going to be successful it’ll probably fail after a while anyway… You probably felt angry, unsupported and worthless – all at the same time. But what if instead you heard them talking about their own fears and worries? Maybe they are annoyed that you are spending your time away from them. Or they are scared that

How do you react to the sight of muddy paw-prints on your nice clean floors when your pet dogs and children race inside to tell you what they found in the garden? Is it to yell at them for making a mess? Or do you take a deep breath and pause from whatever it was you were doing and listen to their excited tales of finding a hedgehog, a birds-egg, or seeing a Monarch butterfly make its way out of its chrysalis? All too often we miss the wonder and beauty of the moment; because