From Surviving to Thriving: A No Tools, No Techniques Shift from Stress and Overwhelm to Fulfilment

What do you do to perform at your best? A morning routine, endless self-development or follow the gurus' tools and techniques. It seems there are lots we can do to perform at our best but here is something you may not have considered. Your perfection! I guess you probably don't look in that direction very much because we are not encouraged to do so are we? We are not encouraged to look inside and...

Have you created any goals for next year? Perhaps you are just contemplating them at the moment. Thinking about what you would like to create in 2022. But here is a little truth to throw into the mix. You cannot predict the future. It is fun and exciting to create goals but holding them too tightly closes us down and stops us seeing the possibilities. But if we start from the present moment with a...

Can you think of some of the rules you learnt as you were growing up? 'Don't touch flames, they will burn you!' and 'Don't walk in front of a car, it will hurt you.' The rules about the physical word we learnt when we were small, have stood us in good stead as we have gone through life. They have kept us safe. As those little sponges we were, that information went in and it stuck. The trouble is,...

Have you ever tried to remove a habit? Perhaps you are contemplating that as we near the start of a new year. I spent a lot of time on habit change. I read all the books. Tiny habits, Atomic habits and The Power of Habit to name but a few! I did lots of therapy - hypnotherapy in the main and I tried affirmations, subliminal tracks and meditations. But then I learnt what a habit really is. It's jus...

A crystal ball is place in which to gaze to see the future with the wise old woman sitting on the other side. You know the scene. If you haven't seen it in real life, you have seen it in films. We might be intrigued by the contents of the crystal ball but I think we would mostly take it with a pinch of salt. In that situation, we know the future cannot really be told. But we don't always see that...

Out of the blue is where all the best ideas come from. Not from racking your brains and puzzling things out. Have you noticed that? For me it's during a walk, in the shower or when I first wake up in the morning. When do you get your best ideas? I heard a survey of entrepreneurs once. They included the golf course and times when they were on holiday in their list of times when they had their best...

Do you like a good vent? Go on, fess up! Once upon a time, venting would have been my Olympic sport of choice. I used to get so riled up about other people's behaviour. I would vent at my nearest and dearest, my colleagues and anyone who would listen (I clearly didn't see their eyes rolling😂). It gave me a horrible feeling but I misunderstood where that was coming from. It felt like it was coming...

Human nature is defined as follows: the general psychological characteristics, feelings, and behavioural traits of humankind, regarded as shared by all humans. So what are those things which are shared by us all? Things which cannot be denied which are truths about humans. They may be tricky to see, but there are three things. As you hear them, I hope you will see that they are undeniably true. Th...

It was only a nightmare is what we say when we wake up from a bad dream. We might be sweaty, our hearts might be beating fast and our thoughts might be racing. But knowing it is a nightmare makes that all fall away. It happens really fast and there is relief and a return to peace of mind. But isn't it strange that we don't treat our daymares in the same way? We don't wake up quite so easily. There...

It could be was something I heard many times during my time in therapy. It could be this thing which happened in your childhood or that thing which happened when you were small or maybe this other thing you experienced a long time ago. I see now that it led to confusion. Literally poking around in the past in the hope that we would find something which sorted it all out. It was the 'could bes' whi...

Discernment is defined as the ability to judge well. I had an insight about this during a coaching conversation recently. You see, all day every day, we are in the process of discerning; working out the quality of what passes through our heads and sussing out which thoughts to follow and which to ignore. But there is often something in the way and that is the meaning we give our feelings. If we th...

My sleep is interesting right now. In fact it probably has been for a while. This morning I woke up at 3am which seems to be when the ideas emerge. I have no idea why and I care less and less. You see, I have realised something about sleep. Just like everything else in life, it is not sleep (or lack of it) which creates my experience, it is always my thinking about sleep. So when I wake up there i...

Resolutions will be on our minds in just 1 month's time. Have you started to consider yours or have you stopped making them because you have realised that they don't work? Have you ever wondered why? Behaviour change can be hard even with all that willpower and steely determination. But that's because they both run out very quickly. Willpower is a finite resource so it's a bit unreliable as a tool...

Containers come in all shapes and sizes and they are often made to for certain objects. Packaging is a great example. Pringles fit perfectly into their cylindrical container but if you tried to get square Jacob's cream crackers in there there will be broken crackers everywhere. This is a beautiful metaphor for life because much of life is outside our control. If you didn't get this before March 20...

Spinning plates and juggling balls is a great metaphor for life when you are stressed because that's what it feels like. It looks like stopping will mean it will all come crashing down, probably taking you with it. But what really are those balls and plates and o they all really need to be in the air right now? It might seem hard to put some of them down especially if it looks like keeping them al...

Have you ever had to navigate a crisis or a real life emergency. Did you notice how amazing you were? In the moment, step by step, solving the problem. As Michael Neill says, that's your 'real time responsive intelligence'. It has often has nothing to do with thought. Your body moves, things happen and it's as if you are unconscious. There is something guiding you when danger is really present. Mo...

Have you noticed how many patterns we have? Patterns of thoughts, feelings and behaviours. It can look like there is a lot to do to change them. Things like therapy, tools and techniques. Maybe it doesn't need to be that hard because have you noticed what happens when you notice a pattern without judgement, fear or a failure story? When we bring awareness to our patterns, they start to melt away l...

We are telling stories all day every day. Stories about ourselves, other people and the future. We often don't notice which is utterly human. But when we do notice the story falls away and we see it for what it is. Then there is space and lightness and freedom. Those stories were never really yours anyway. They are made of thought which isn't really yours. Imagine if you could see through more of...

Wrongification is a word I made up. It came to me as I commented on a post recently about whether or not we work on Sundays. I sometimes do but I sometimes take a nap on a Monday afternoon too. It's all okay because there's no right way to do life and by default there is no wrong way. But how often do we wrongify our lives and how much stress does that add?  We are doing life our way then we perce...

Anger is a much maligned emotion. When we are young we might be discouraged from expressing it because it seems to be one of those 'wrong' feelings. Like anxiety, sadness and jealousy. Everyone seems happier when we express the 'right' emotions like happiness, love and gratitude.  But anger is no different from any other emotion. It is an expression of the thinking which makes sense in the moment....

There are a lot of opinions about but have you noticed how you feel when someone expresses one different to yours? Angry, upset or superior? I notice this in myself often. It can look like the feeling we have is coming from that other person and their opinion but the words of another person cannot do that, E-V-E-R! When we feel that feeling, we are feeling our thinking about the opinion. That pers...

You are the canvas not the paint is a  beautiful metaphor which explains so much. The canvas is white, clean and pure. It almost seems to emit light just like the light that we are. Then the paint is applied and a picture is created. That can be full of joy and happiness or could be dark and horrifying. But no matter what is painted, the canvas remains in tact underneath.  If we don't like the pai...

There seems to be a lot of fear about right now. When we say, "I am afraid of ...", it looks so real and once that fear is in place it looks like there are things to do. Actions to take in the present moment to stop the fearful thing happening. But fear is a thief. It's a thief of the present moment, joy and gratitude. What there is right now is the only truth but when we we are stuck in our fearf...

There's a difference between revealing and adding wellbeing which is clear when you take a moment to think about it. Here's a helpful metaphor. Your car windscreen is clear and lets in light and when is gets dirty, you clean it then it lets in light again. The clarity of the glass and its ability to let in light never goes away. Imagine if we didn't remember that. We might try to bring the windscr...

The search for relief is always hiding the truth but that search is so persuasive isn't it? It's a human mission when we don't like how we feel seek relief. Some forms of relief are see as acceptable, like yoga, meditation and massage. Other forms of relief are not seen in such a positive light. Like alcohol, drugs and smoking. But they are all the same really. They are all an example of us trying...