I think of a patient, a composite drawn from several people I’ve seen with this presentation. The air seemed to tighten when she walked into the room; her breathing was faster than it should have been, not laboured but fast, and as she sat, I could see a fine tremor in her hands whilst her…
Letting go of stress is something we all need to do from time to time. Some people seem to be able to let go of stress effortlessly. It drops away from them like water off a duck’s back. For others, stress clings to them like tar, sticky and suffocating, impossible to shake. You’re probably in…
You made it here. That already tells me something about you. This isn’t a hub for people who are just starting out. It isn’t about motivation, habits, or the basics of goal-setting — you’ll find those covered elsewhere on this site if you need them. This hub is for people who are deep in it….
You’ve Done the Work Not everyone does. Most people find the Default Mode Network idea genuinely interesting and go straight back to lying awake at 3am, catastrophising. Most people understand that chronic stress is damaging their body and carry on regardless. Most people read about breathing techniques, gratitude practice, or self-compassion and find them compelling…
Life balance is all about achieving a harmonious relationship across all facets of your life. It matters because too many people neglect some part of their life to the point that things become unbalanced. Left unchecked, this causes stress, anxiety, and a variety of other health problems. Many people, including life coaches and therapists, use…
Three Things Difficulty Teaches There’s a pattern that shows up repeatedly in people who have been through genuinely hard things and come out the other side. Not unscathed. Not unchanged. But intact, and in some ways more than intact. They tend to notice things they didn’t notice before: the ordinary pleasures of a day that…
The Most Underused Tool If a pharmaceutical company developed a drug that reduced symptoms of depression as effectively as antidepressants for many people with mild to moderate depression, improved sleep quality, reduced allostatic load, strengthened the immune system, supported the growth and survival of new brain cells, improved cognitive function, enhanced emotional regulation, and produced…
What It Isn’t Before we can talk about self-compassion properly, we need to clear out what most people think it is, because the misconceptions are significant enough that they stop many people engaging with it at all, particularly the people who need it most. Self-compassion is not self-pity. Self-pity is a collapse into your own…
The Voice in Your Head You know the voice. The one that tells you that you’re not good enough. That you should have done better. That other people are managing things you can’t seem to handle. That your success is luck but your failures are character. That you’re falling behind, letting people down, not measuring…
Breath is the bridge which connects life to consciousness, which unites your body to your thoughts. Whenever your mind becomes scattered, you can use your breath as the means to take hold of your mind again. That’s Thich Nhat Hanh, and he understood something most people miss. Your breath is one of the most powerful…