Have you read or seen Pollyanna? Or heard of the Pollyanna Principle? And what has this to do with cultivating an attitude of gratitude? Gratitude is a Good Thing. We know this, and there is masses of evidence to show the psychological and physiological benefits of gratitude. For instance, gratitude reduces stress and anxiety, improves…
Don’t look back in regret
How are you living today to minimise your end-of-life regrets? What do you most want to NOT regret at the end of your life, and how is that affecting your choices today? To not look back in regret? These past few weeks have seen me musing on common death bed regrets, and the implications of…
What is the true cost of holding a grudge?
Your stomach is all chewed up. Tension across your shoulders. Headaches. Disturbed sleep, disjointed and disturbed dreams. Chronic irritability and an inability to concentrate. Not a pretty list is it? For me, these are just some of the physical symptoms that come with holding a grudge. Someone wounds you, there is an injustice. It hurts. You…
Wonky thinking patterns
How wonky have your thinking patterns been this past week? Have you found yourself disappearing down a rabbit hole of thinking in extreme all-or-nothing terms? Or careering off into the chasm of catastrophising? These are both forms of cognitive distortion. I started musing on what cognitive distortions are last time. As we consider what it…
What I can control and what I can’t
How much time do you spend worrying about that which is beyond your control? I was musing last time about this quote from Arthur Somers Roche (1883-1935): Worry is a thin stream of fear trickling through the mind. If encouraged, it cuts a channel into which all other thoughts are drained.” We all worry. It…
What direction are your thoughts taking you?
What direction are your thoughts taking you most often this week? Is what is going in to your cup good, kind, inspiring, positive? This is where we left off last time – the idea that what spills out of us is a mark of what is inside of us in the first place. This applies…
Creating habits that stick
How do you go about creating habits? As we continue into autumn, I have been musing here about taking time for a reset as the seasons change. Resetting intentions, creating habits, taking time to review what we want these next months to look and feel like. What might have worked over the summer or last…
A time to reflect
This has been an extraordinary week. A time to reflect if ever there was one as we consider the life, service and death of Queen Elizabeth II. For you reading this, for me and our household, for the majority of our country, none of us will have seen anything like this before. No doubt you…
Reset your intentions
I was talking with a client recently, and towards the end of our session she stated that she wanted to set a couple of intentions to which I would hold her accountable. For this client, this is less about specific action steps and more about a heart attitude towards the actions that she knows will…
Time for a reset
This is a big week in our house. Not because of school restarting in Scotland (more on that in a mo). But simply because we are having our kitchen refitted, after 17 years in this house with a kitchen we have never loved. This has involved having the entire contents of the kitchen redistributed throughout…