I Just Don’t Trust You Anymore!
It’s a given that things will not always be as rosy as they were in the early days of our committed relationships. It is quite common that trust is one of the elements hardest hit over time – and that is quite surprising for people. It seems like everything is falling apart when trust takes […]
Have I married the wrong person?
Twenty years ago I was invited to speak at a women’s retreat and on the first day someone began their question with, “You know how sometimes you wish your husband could die so you could just start again?” While I don’t believe she was actually considering homicide, it was a gutsy idea to express all […]
The Silent Scream (Sadness part 2)
Sometimes when you check in with your sadness you might notice it’s not about loss. Not in the most obvious sense anyway. No-one has died, you’ve not moved into a new stage of life (positive or negative), or passed a serious milestone. You don’t just feel lousy, down and flat. You feel small and… lost. […]
Good Grief! (Sadness part 1)
Have you noticed that there are different varieties of sadness? It can be quite helpful to interpret which sadness you’re experiencing so that you’ll know which needs are requiring attention. I’m sure there are many other variations but two of the most obvious types of sadness are in response to: – feeling loss, and – […]
Don’t treat me like that!
It can be difficult to know how far is too far when it comes to the way we speak to people. We seem to understand acceptable limits when talking with clients, customers, employers and employees but, even then, we can lose our ‘professional cool’ when our pesky emotional buttons are pushed too hard. It makes […]
Are your kids in shark infested waters?
Quite a few mums and dads have heard about ‘shark music’ these days. Shark music is a brilliant name for what happens inside a mum or dad’s brain that turns them from a ‘good parent’ to a ‘bad parent’, often in a split second. It plays in the background like a soundtrack for our most […]
Step parenting
It’s hard enough being a parent but being a step or foster parent dangles a whole new set of hoops for you to jump through…and it can all become just too confusing. Giving up can seem like the best option for a stepparent who has run out of solutions, but then… you discover a new […]
Protecting your shaky insides (How to protect your emotional self when you just want to scream or disappear)
I tend to feel overwhelmed when I become aware of bad stuff. To be fair, I initially feel a sense of alertness, like when I hear an unfamiliar noise at night and all my sinuses magically clear and I can smell, hear and even see everything clearly – until I can assure myself that all […]
Feeling deprived?
It’s an awful thing, feeling deprived. It effects our brains and our behaviours. We’ve been observing our (normally laid-back) society react to a perceived lack of grocery items. Even if it’s only perceived deprivation, the effects are real. I’ve been thinking it’s like the whole country has been told it has to go on a […]
What do I mean when I talk about wanting to disappear?
What if you just want to scream or disappear? Sometimes the screaming when stressed is easier to understand than the disappearing. You’re probably familiar with the desire to disappear when you feel ashamed or humiliated. Anxiety is one of those states that can lead to an instinctive Houdini-style manoeuvre. The need to escape stress, and […]