Category: Inner Peace

  • Striving for perfection

    Humans strive for perfection in so many ways; we want the perfect house, body, partner. A mental picture of how something should or could be gives us something to work towards. Yet we all know that perfection is impossible. The word ‘perfect’ comes from Latin roots, meaning ‘completed’ or ‘finished’ (like the perfect tense). Perfection […]

  • Compassion and challenge

    For years I cultivated compassion, not wanting to become desensitised to the suffering in the world. At times I felt overwhelmed by all the suffering around me and wanted to alleviate it wherever possible. A couple of years ago I attended a seminar with Caroline Myss, a spiritual leader whose books I had been reading. […]

  • Power and humility

    In our daily lives there are people who have a certain amount of power over us (our employer, landlady, teacher) and people over whom we hold positions of relative power (our children, employees, students). To maximise social happiness, power must be used wisely and with humility. I remember one work situation where my boss started […]

  • Whose story are you living out?

    As a narrative counsellor, I am very aware that we make sense of our experiences in terms of stories. A bad experience, such as giving a presentation that doesn’t go well, might be interpreted as a turning point in a story of failure – “That was the day my career fell to pieces” – or […]

  • Decisions, decisions!

    There are times in life when you know exactly where you are headed and what to put your energy into. And there are other times when there are so many decisions to be made that you don’t know which to make first, because each one could impact on another. This situation could be experienced as […]

  • Nelson Mandela, politics and spirituality

    Nelson Mandela is no longer with us. I find myself quite tearful, perhaps not from sadness, because he had made the most of his 95 years on this earth, but simply in recognition of the wonderful qualities he embodied. Nelson Mandela will always remain my hero, not because he was an extraordinary person, but because […]

  • Immunising yourself against other people’s venom

    Feelings and attitudes are like germs – highly infectious. To promote our own happiness and that of the people around us, we need to protect ourselves from toxic attitudes and emotions that might come into our circle from time to time. But how do I stop myself getting angry when someone is angry with me, […]

  • Other People Can Be So Annoying!

    You’ve probably noticed that other people can be a real pain at times. Interfering, making too much noise, demanding, whining, doing a sloppy job, messing things up, wanting their own way – other people can find a million ways to get under our skin. Yet before we react to them, we must look to ourselves […]

  • Happiness = Openness + Boundaries

    Happiness, confidence and other good feelings are generally associated with openness. When we are happy, we are more sociable, more compassionate and more likely to help others. On the other hand, when we are angry or depressed we close off from other people and are less likely to notice or care about what’s going on […]

  • The difference between advice and counselling

    When you look for advice, you tend to choose someone you consider wiser than you, or someone who looks as though they’ve got their life together. This is because ultimately the only advice another person can give you is, “Be more like me! This is what I would do in your situation. You should do […]