Put simply, what if practicing a creative pursuit is worthy because creating-for-the-sake-of-creating helps us to explore our essential humanness? This puts a whole new spin on making stuff without caring what it’s worth to others, which is a revolutionary idea for anybody who has struggled with valuing creativity and self-worth, or suffering with perfectionism and shame.

Practicing curiosity matters because for many of us, there is a powerful cycle between trying to change, hitting a roadblock, falling back on old strategies of avoidance, and resuming stagnation. Getting curious helps break that cycle, because curiosity can be described as the stance of withholding judgment because we haven’t got enough information yet, which gives us a real alternative to falling straight into self-critical conclusions.

There is compelling evidence that actively creating a grateful state is great for our mood, hope, mental wellbeing and stress levels, but as anyone who’s tried it has probably noticed, it’s hard to keep doing it regularly.

I was thinking the other day how we rarely run into trouble when things are going great. Seems obvious, right? It’s usually when we are stressed, or rushed, or surprised, or tired or hungry or… otherwise off balance, that we say things we regret, do things that make it worse, and suffer the most difficult emotional upheavals. I often hear clients berate themselves for not using a new skill when it would have helped, and then describe the wildest, most… Action-movie-level of c

Attention activism is the radical idea that if we start to understand human attention as a precious resource, and become more aware of the ways it’s being mined and exploited, we begin the process of taking it back. We can connect with attention activism through the areas of education and awareness, organising with others around it, and creating 'attention sanctuaries' in our everyday lives.

Guilt, embarrassment, humiliation, and shame... We typically mix up these words as a catch-all, but the truth is they describe very different feelings.

Self-talk is a big deal when it comes to our mental health, and some concepts have more impact than others. In this piece, I’ll be introducing ‘parts language’, a self-talk technique that helps to create space within yourself to cope better with difficult experiences.