The world of self-development and positive thinking makes it easy to be disdainful of ‘negative’ emotions but lately I’ve come to think of them a little differently. Did you know that without emotions, you’d struggle to make any decisions? Even choosing a sandwich filling would be difficult! Emotions provide ‘towards’ or ‘away from’ signals to…
An Hour to Feel Better: How to create a 60-minute retreat (Podcast)
There came a time when the risk to remain tight in the bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom. Anais Nin I have always judged myself harshly. The voice in my head is mean spirited, sharp and vicious. I spent years working on myself in an effort to win the approval…
5 Lessons I’ve learned about adoptive parenting
They may not have my eyes. They may not have my smile, but they have all my heart. Unknown This morning, my daughter came bounding down the stairs just after 8am. She was smiling and we hugged each other good morning before she reached over and hugged her dad and they did this kind of…
Step back to move forwards (Podcast)
Listen to the podcast here Retreat (verb) To withdraw from enemy forces as a result of their superior power or after a defeat. Retreat (noun) The act of moving back or withdrawing Life holds challenges for all of us. Sometimes we feel able to cope and other times the challenges overwhelm and overpower us. In…
Focus to feel better
If you want to change your life, you must change your mind and change your brain. On purpose. Bill Crawford Malfunction or Dysfunction? When it comes to changing your brain, the distinction between these two things matters. Before reading Daniel Amen’s books, I had never thought about it. Dr Amen explains the difference this way:…
How many things are pulling on you?
**Updated from original post, October 2018** This is the story behind how Big Happy Life came to be. Simply put, the bigness of my life got in the way of the happiness of my life. I became depressed and, for a long time, lost sight of the strength I had within me. It was the…
Practical Steps to Better Feeling Thoughts (Podcast)
Trying to change or control thoughts is massively challenging. It is often unproductive and, more often than not, feels like an attempt to pick a fight with mist. Still, I regularly find myself trying to do it. I’m a great believer in the power of thought. I’m always trying to make my thoughts more productive…
Starter pistol thought
Do you have thoughts that repeatedly sabotage you? Those thoughts that whisper and whip through your mind so fast you can’t see them, twisting your behaviour so you betray yourself and end up right back where you started despite all your efforts to do better? Today I uncovered one such thought; a barbed, little devil-thorn…
Is it possible?
Could we be just like dragonflies? Probably not the question you were expecting but here’s what I’m really asking: is it possible that the ‘human body’ part of our lives is part of a larger life cycle and that we experience some sort of metamorphosis when we get to the end of this part? I…
