Loss and Bereavement One of the consequences of the pandemic is that many of us have experienced loss. The death of a loved one is usually the most profound of all sorrows. It throws every aspect of our lives out of balance. The grief that comes with such a loss is intense and multi-faceted, affecting […]
Thoughts on the affects of Covid-19 The Coronavirus disease is affecting us all in different ways. It confronts our survival instinct which triggers anxiety and panic. This is the most fundamental instinct we have which keeps us alive. Linked to our survival instinct is our need for support, contact with others, safety, affection and money. […]
The Power of Thinking What you think and how you think generally plays the biggest of all the factors that create and maintain depression. After all, the choices you make in life are derived from your perceptions, whether they are right or wrong. There are common and easily identified cognitive distortions or errors in thinking […]
What is it? Everyone falls into the doldrums at times, or luxuriates in a bit of self-pity or melancholy. But depression is different. Depression robs the person of vigour and hope, warps the mind, saps the energy and turns the inner world of a person into a prison of isolation and despair. Depression is not […]
New Year's Resolutions The New Year has always been a time for looking back on the past and more importantly contemplating the future and the coming year. It is a time to reflect on the changes we want, or often need to make, to move forward. The word “resolution” comes from “resolve” which means to […]
Happy Christmas Most of us are searching for happiness but are we any happier than our ancestors were? Have you ever been to third world countries, where poverty is rife and you are met with smiling faces everywhere and wondered “how can you be so happy when you have so little?” Almost everything about British […]
As parliament and the country continue to be in a stalemate and divided about how to resolve the question of Brexit, the views of most of the parliamentarians and us citizens around the country become more fixed and polarized. Polarization Polarization is the act of dividing, especially something that contains different people or opinions. The […]
LATE FRAGMENT And did you get what you wanted from this life, even so? I did. And what did you want? To call myself beloved, to feel myself beloved on the earth. “Late Fragment” is the last poem in the last book that Raymond Carver ever published, […]
Self-talk is usually so automatic that you don’t notice it or the effect it has on your moods and feelings. You react without noticing what you told yourself before your reaction. Self-talk often appears as a form of short-hand. One short word or brief image contains a whole series of thoughts, memories or associations. What […]
How We Think Affects How We Feel The way we think about a situation can literally either make it easy to handle or make it impossible to deal with. Our thoughts can calm us down or stir us up. It is even true that simply thinking about an experience from a different point of view […]