In my last post I shared a quote that described Christmas as a magnifying glass over our feelings. If things are going well it’s the most wonderful time of the year, but what if you’re grieving a loss? The pressure to feel the joy of the season can be an even greater challenge. 🔍🔍🔍🌲 Remember there is no timeline for …
Letting go
A couple of years ago I rescued a banana plant. It was sitting on a bench at the garden centre with some other bedraggled specimens ‘going cheap’. I was still mourning the loss of a beautiful tree fern that had succumbed to the frost earlier in the year (rather, I had neglectfully not covered it). It was early autumn so …
How to cope at Christmas
‘Christmas comes but once a year’. It’s a line from an 1851 poem by Thomas Miller. No doubt Christmas festivities were very different in the 19th century and probably only lasted a day or two. Now, the Christmas ‘season’ begins as soon as shops have taken down the display of pumpkins and replaced them with cards and tinsel. It’s …
Grounding techniques – what are they and how can they help when I’m anxious?
As a child I was a big fan of comics and one of the comic strips I always looked forward to was called the Numskulls. It was based on the idea that there was a team of little beings who lived in the brain of a person and from their headquarters, each department operated different parts of the body. Whilst …
Burnout.
‘You’re burnt out’. The doctor barely looked up from his computer as he updated his notes. Unspoken rage coursed through me. Burn out isn’t a diagnosis. Burnout feels like a weakness and I felt like it was my fault already. Rage at him was quickly followed by shame. How had I got here? I’d got my degree while working and …