Discover how to strengthen your resilience
Do you find you go through periods in your life when everything feels pretty good? It’s kind of like those times when there’s nothing really significant going wrong and life feels, dare I say it? Complete. Maybe you just had a great family vacation, maybe you’re starting a new relationship, maybe business is growing, maybe you just published your first book. Basically - you’ve got it going on!
And then, in what seems like a split second, everything changes.
I'm somewhat disconnected from the mad rush of Christmas, because my family and I have chosen to spend it this year focusing more on creating small but meaningful experiences throughout the month of December, rather than giving many gifts.
Christmas is of course one of the biggest holidays of the year for many of us.
A time of joy and celebration, and yet it can also be a time of emotional worry. The mad rush of last minute shopping, waiting in huge lines, feeling frustrated, having frayed nerves.........
Have you ever considered giving yourself a whack over the head?
Sometimes that's what it takes to put things in perspective. To see things differently. To change your life for the better.
Some people have an ability to see the writing on the wall. They are blessed with a built-in radar that helps them navigate potential disaster, to avoid hitting......
I think time is an illusion.
The more we fill our lives with time-saving devices the more rushed we are. While the possibilities of information technology are potentially endless, they also put us under more pressure than ever to get more done, in less time.
At some points we may feel there is never enough time to do what we need to do and time passes too quickly. At other times...
I didn't know what I was doing there, in that room full of strangers.
Not just strangers, but people who had experienced some of life's greatest challenges. I felt like an outsider, as if I was somehow misplaced among these suffering people. What on earth was I doing there with all of them?
What I was doing with them, was attending a 12-week Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction and Interpersonal Neurobiology course.
The truth is, I've led and participated in dozens of executive workshops, but never one in which...
Don't just do something. Sit there.
It sounds completely counterintuitive and jarring.
Yet it says a lot in just a few words.
We spend much of our time "doing" things in our day as opposed to "being" in our day.
Being in our day requires some silence and stillness, observing, listening, letting things be. Getting out of our own way. Holding our thoughts, emotions, fears and sensations in our awareness, as opposed to acting on them.
Let's be clear, I'm not suggesting that we abandon 'doing things'...
Breathe.
In our breath, lies a completely overlooked source of power that can transform life. Yet we take it for granted much of the time. There are a couple of reasons why.
It's automatic. Like the sun rising and setting every day. It just happens. We don't have to consciously make ourselves breathe. Our body does it for us.
It's instinctive. From the moment we are born to the moment we die, we breathe. We didn't have to take classes to teach us how to breathe. It's just part of...
Jon Kabat-Zinn wrote, "Make sure you weave your parachute every day, rather than leave it to the time you have to jump out of the plane."
Excellent advice for skydivers and pilots. Is it also good advice for those of us who remain earthbound?
I was sitting in a room with 12 strangers, taking part in a Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction course, when I first heard about...
It was an ordinary day. I was at work. My phone rang.
When I looked at the screen it said it was my doctor. I answered it and she asked, "Where are you?" I said I was at work. "Can you find somewhere private to go... right now?" I found a small room and shut the door. "I don't know how to tell you this... but you have a rare, aggressive and advanced cancer."
In so few words, everything changed...
I struggled to find work-life balance, both as a single person and a married mum with young kids. I worked hard, didn't look after myself particularly well, got too few hours sleep, didn't spend enough time with my family and spent a lot of money on things I didn't need. Oh and I also happened to eat 3-4 tubs of Haagen-Dazs every week.
I became vaguely aware over the years, of a slight nagging...
