As a freelance writer, specialising in wellbeing and self-help, I write articles for magazines and this website. Some of my freelance writing can be found below:
WRITING MAGAZINE
(Writers' News and Writing Magazine, 5th Floor, 31-32 Park Row, Leeds LS1 5JD, UK)
Small Steps Get You There
Writing Magazine, February 2014, pg 36-37
So much of self-development and self-help involves the creation of grand plans, big dreams and a to-do list which makes your heart sink. It all seems impossible. Even when you break things down into small sections - the vital step to success you are told - the task demands too much of you. You have several strands to work on, not enough time, and you feel defeated before you start. You certainly don’t have enough time in the day to make a dent in your plans.
Dealing with the death of a child is something we all hope to never have to face. For those of us who must, it can be a battle between coping with our own devastating grief and the struggle to know how best to deal with our surviving children...
Award-winning film The Help introduces us to black maid Aibileen Clark, working for a rich white family in the time of America’s Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s. She is trying to positively influence her little charge, Mae Mobley, her employers’ rather unloved and uncared for child. Aibileen offers Mae the following saying which they repeat together: "You is kind, you is smart, you is important." The implication here is that by repeating this positive statement or ‘affirmation’, the small child will take the ideas on board, believe them, and be a better person.
Do you speak with your own voice? In a literal sense, those of us who are blessed with the power of speech all speak with our own voice. But at a deeper level, many of us struggle to find our own emotional voice, and we often find it impossible to actually vocalise our own inner beliefs, opinions, thoughts and feelings.
When you think of embarking on a relationship, whether or not your partner will enable you to flourish may not be the first thought on our mind. Attraction can often blind us to deeper issues.
Sometimes we feel as though things just aren’t right emotionally, but we can’t put our finger on the problem. We are left endlessly asking, “What is wrong with me?”
It’s that time again when New Year’s Resolutions are at the top of your agenda and you already feel dispirited. Your glance back to last year’s resolutions yields a painful story of projects left unfinished and goals not met. The gym membership card lies pristine in your wallet, the correspondence course didn’t get completed, and diet wise the scales point out that things are worse than this time last year.
Could You Be Co-Dependent? What Exactly is Co-Dependency?
What is codependency? We often hear the word ‘codependency’ in relation to partners, or family members, of alcoholics or addicts. In fact, codependency can occur in many different situations. The condition occurs when someone allows themselves to be manipulated and controlled by another person.
Are You A Good Listener? Learning from Rogers’ Person-Centred Counselling Theory
When we have problems or difficulties which we want to talk about or discuss we usually gravitate towards a family member or friend who is a good listener. We value and prize a person who truly listens to us, who is interested in what we are saying and who is supportive of us.
What is authenticity and why is it difficult to achieve? If you are currently undergoing some kind of counselling or therapy, or trying to improve your emotional life, then you may have come across the word ‘Authentic.’
How to De-stress: A Two-Minute Mindfulness Relaxation Break
Life is busy and hectic for many people and stress is an increasingly difficult problem. It’s not just about time-management or cancelling things out from our schedule. We hear wonderful advice about cutting back and dropping things from our busy lives but some days, many days, there are literally too many things to do and there is nothing we can cut out from our schedule.
Core Beliefs in CBT – Identifying And Analysing Your Personal Beliefs
Most of us will battle at some point in our lives with thoughts and feelings which threaten to derail our success and happiness. While we owe a great debt to cognitive behavioural theory, as it has shown us the important link between thoughts and feelings, another vital aspect of dealing with our emotional world is understanding how our personal core beliefs consistently affect the way we think, feel and act.
Help For Hoarders – Self-Help, CBT, Psychotherapy & Family Therapy
Are you or someone you know a hoarder? What help for hoarders actually works? TV has shown us many a hoarder of late. We watch in horror and fascination at uninhabitable rooms crammed full of stuff. At stairs overflowing, blocked passageways and unusable, dangerous, kitchens and bathrooms.
Most of us are coping within our daily lives. When the babysitter is late we are coping; when we are under pressure at work, we are coping; when we are managing an illness, we are coping. The question is how well are we coping? How good are our coping skills? Life shows us that we can cope in many different ways but some of these ways are constructive and others are damaging – called maladaptive coping. This article outlines some thoughts on both constructive and maladaptive coping and also offers us the chance to ponder how good our coping skills actually are.
Is Perfectionism Helping or Harming You? Some Questions to Ask Yourself
Many of us have high and exacting standards and, frankly, others are glad that we do. Would you want a surgeon who is careless? A book editor who isn’t focused on detail? An engineer who is casual when he checks over your holiday Boeing 747? Or would you prefer to have someone with exceptionally high standards, someone a little obsessed by detail? I can imagine whose hands you’d rather be in.
Seasonal Joy or Lonely in a Crowd? Planning for Sad Times
As the holiday season approaches not everyone feels filled with joy. Many people dread this time of year. There is a perception – sometimes true, sometimes not – that families everywhere are coming together in joyous union. We can imagine that people have more company, are less lonely and relish being part of an upcoming celebratory time. For many, though, this is not their experience of this season. Some people feel more alone.
Although counselling has become much more acceptable and valued in our time, there are still voices who consider that if you have good friends then you shouldn’t actually need a counsellor. Aren’t counsellors just people who listen to you? Can’t your friends do this for you?
Self-Help: Managing Obsessive Compulsive Disorder – Schwartz’ Four Step Method
All of us occasionally get obsessive thoughts and sometimes engage in compulsive behaviours. But when things reach unmanageable proportions whereby our lives are negatively controlled by obsessive thoughts and increasingly strange compulsive behaviours, then we know we have a problem.
Write Out Your Pain: The Value of Keeping a Journal
There is something special about writing words onto a page, something helpful about releasing our inner thoughts and committing them to paper, especially when we are in pain. It is as though by this very act alone our mind is freed. Our thoughts no longer swim and chase each other around. There is definition and order to the chaos within our mind and the words on the page become revelatory as we seek to understand our own pain and heal from it.
You may have heard it said that we all have the inner resources to cope with life and make ourselves happy. A movement which influenced and still influences counselling practice, called ‘The Person-Centred’ approach developed by Carl Rogers in the 1940s and 50s, carries this idea at its core.
