Trust

Trust, along with self-trust is difficult for many of us. We are looking for the reasons to doubt; to guard ourselves against previous let downs, disappointment and hurts.

On Self Compassion

Project Self

What’s the most significant relationship in your life? It’s the relationship you have with yourself. We have a continuous and inescapable relationship with our self. And it’s the most fundamental relationship in our adult life. But our relationship with our self can flux and suffer. It needs appreciation, attention and investment like any other. The self is our personal experience of our aliveness in the world. Our relationship with how we experience our living of life, our beingness. Our ‘simple self’ is our essential capacity to enjoy being our self as is. This is our inherent value and worth, contribution…

On Loss, Pain and Lostness

Project Self

Loss is the state of being deprived of, or of being without something that we once had. It’s a natural part of the cycle of change. Loss is integral to growth. Loss is also the sense of something we haven’t had in our life, where our needs haven’t been met. Where we are growing, but with the sense of absence. There is also a kind of natural loss where we lose interest, that which was so meaningful loses it’s value. We can’t maintain the keeping. We cannot keep a growing stack of treasures; collect more and more. That which is…

On Resilience and Emotional Drain

Project Self

What does it mean to be resilient? Resilience is commonly described as being able to withstand and bounce back from negative experiences. Resilience is not the capacity to not feel, like a teflon skinned human; unaffected. It’s not the capacity to carry on regardless in the face of adversity. It’s not endurance. It’s the capacity to experience; sometimes extreme emotional difficulties, and recover; with the emphasis on recover. To bow but not break. To stay calm even in the bow. To adapt and not hit out, or in. For me, resilience is that our value and attitude towards our self…

On Knowing You Can Do It

Project Self

Why do we need to hear the words ‘everything is going to be okay’ or ‘you’ll be fine’ from someone else? What difference can those fairly innocuous words really make? Several clients this week have voiced that they need reassurance. Clients who are making changes in their life and are standing at the point of commitment. In fact one had already taken the step they needed, but were feeling doubtful now they were standing in the new position about the unfolding challenges more tangibly ahead, whilst another needed reassurance to start taking the steps. The question behind the need for reassurance is “Can…

On Getting Out Of Your Own Way

Project Self

I had a conversation with someone recently who was anxious about an important forthcoming meeting. As we often do, he had expectations and hopes. He was very invested in the outcome and potential significance of the meeting. He was concerned things wouldn’t go as he wanted them to. He was afraid of disappointment. He worried about how he would be perceived by the other person. He felt the meeting could affect his future and not knowing which way the meeting would lead, he played out different scenarios in his head. The meeting was with someone he didn’t know. All he knew…

On Feeling Lost and Not Knowing

Project Self

What does it mean to feel lost? To feel lost is to be stalled, to feel a loss of onward motion. When the wind leaves our sails, often without warning, the trajectory we were on is no longer viable; we can’t proceed. We have lost power, momentum, and with it inclination. We have no driving force, we are no longer a driver. Lost one’s way? Lost a sense of purpose? To be lost is to not know. To feel we don’t know where we are heading, to not know where to look, what to look for or how to find our way…

On Finding Balance

Project Self

There’s a beautiful concept held in the mathematically designed Gomboc. It’s an object that self-rights itself whichever way it is pushed over. It has one point of stability and one of instability and will always return to the stable point. The shape was modelled on a tortoise which uses it’s shell to rock itself back onto its feet once it’s been turned over, and is dependent on doing so for survival. If the Gomboc was a conscious being, rather than an object, imagine what it would feel knowing that whatever forces conspired against it, it had the capacity to withstand…

Trust

On Self Compassion

On Loss, Pain and Lostness

On Resilience and Emotional Drain

On Knowing You Can Do It

On Getting Out Of Your Own Way

On Feeling Lost and Not Knowing

On Finding Balance

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