During the Winter months, the animal kingdom goes into hibernation. There is wisdom to take from this ancestral tradition. Here is how you can implement some of these principles in your life (without actually nesting under your duvet for a few months). Who has never thought “Lucky bear, I wish I could spend all winter under my duvet hibernating”? When animals go into hibernation their heart rate, breathing and other metabolic activities slow down significantly to conserve energy. While resources are scarce in Winter, hibernation allows animals to use their energy much more slowly. The energy ..read more

I was introduced to the concept of resilience recently and found it fascinating. It’s not a new concept and it’s something a lot of us practice without having a name for it. There is something empowering about putting a name on behaviour and dedicating time and energy to build a new strength: resilience. When you understand resilience you will be able to recognise it. Myriam Webster says that resilience is “an ability to recover or adjust easily to misfortune or change”. Remember the last time you had to accept a change you didn’t necessarily want? You were probably worried or anxious. You ev ..read more

The solution to most mental health problems could be solved if only you could “just love yourself”. Or at least this is what a lot of self-help gurus would like you to believe. But what does it mean to love yourself? Is self-love the key to happiness? How do you access a state of mind where you love yourself - or at least move closer to loving yourself? We oversimplify a concept that is worth exploring more in detail. In his article for the Brain & Behaviour Research Foundation, Jeffrey Borenstein, M.D. defines self-love as “a state of appreciation for oneself that grows from actions that ..read more

Our society values productivity more than health. We respect a colleague who exhausts themselves at work because they are committed to their job. The last one to leave the office is the one who shows the most dedication. If you leave before the boss, you’re lazy. The colleague who sent you an email at 10pm is really committed to their job. It’s best to say “yes” and take on the extra workload than admitting we are overwhelmed. I know, and you know, what comes next: burning out. And what effects does it have? Apart from being physically, mentally, and emotionally exhausted? We make mistakes. We ..read more

Asking for and accepting help is so difficult. And yet how quickly would you offer your help to someone in need? 19.4 million people volunteered in 2018/19, offering their time for free in exchange for nothing, just because they wanted to help. Not accepting help is rooted in the belief that we are not worth it, there are bigger problems than ours, we waste someone else's time, we are making things up or making a fuss over something insignificant. Or maybe we tell ourselves that we are alone or the only one feeling the way we do. This is why we need to share and open up to people about our ex ..read more

In my personal experience and in my coaching experience I have witnessed the power of a morning routine. Very often in a coaching session, a client will be talking about wanting to achieve something, they will be talking about improving their morning routine. Why is that? Because your mindset and the first thing(s) you do in the morning will give the tone for your day. We all have experienced days when we woke up feeling grumpy, already tired, and with the intuition that this was going to be a bad day. And you know what? It turned out to be a bad day. Because we started our day manifesting it ..read more

I have a love and hate relationship with everything crafty/arty. I am super attracted to it, doing stuff with my hands. But my brain always sends messages like "why bother, you're not good at it". It is as if it is not "perfect" it's not good. And even I have no clue what perfect to me would look like! What is the link between my internal dilemma and meditation or life coaching? Well, I am glad you asked. I am working hard at recognising thought patterns. And meditation helps. When you are meditating, you will be invited to notice when you lose your focus. And in mindfulness meditation, you wi ..read more

The concept of “Non-judgment” is one of the pilar of mindfulness. It is the idea that we do not judge ourselves and others. It is about not judging what has been done in the past and not worrying about what has happened before that we have no control over, inducing feelings of guilt. It is also about not judging the future, what has not happened yet, what our expectations and assumptions are, inducing feelings of stress and anxiety. When meditating, it is easy to fall into the trap of blaming ourselves for not “achieving” what we think should happen during meditation. We might think that we ar ..read more

I recently got an addition to my tattoos. I had my first tattoo 10 years ago and it is interesting to observe the difference between then and now, how I felt in the past about everything that involves tattoos compared to how I react now. My meditation practice is what had the biggest impact on my experience. Wait, I’ll explain.  The first obvious thing about tattoo is the pain. It hurts like hell. My relationship with physical pain changed in 10 years, regardless of my meditation practice. In the last 10 years, I experienced a wider variety of pain, which I guess has built my resistance ..read more

I do get asked often what's the difference between meditating with an app on your phone or attending a class, apart from the obvious fact that one is live and not the other one. I like both, and I think they complement each other very well. Here is how I would suggest how to use both an app and a class. An app is great if you have never done meditation before and want to check if you like it before engaging any finance in booking a class. We all like a good "first class is free" promotion because what if you don't like it? So the first time you try, you are at home, you do it in your own ti ..read more