What Will You Do with Your One Wild and Precious Life? What would your answer be to this question? Gardening, jam making, crown bowling, reading books? Or perhaps you’re like many women who, out of necessity or choice, will continue working into their 70s and beyond? While these may be valuable and rewarding ways to spend your time, have you ever thought there might be a more exhilarating and ambitious alternative? Have you always had a dream or goal that seemed just out of reach due to lack of time, opportunity, responsibilities, or finances? Is it too late to revisit those dreams now? When D ..read more

‘We see our world as we are conditioned to see it’ (Covey, 2013). Exploring Positive Psychology and Therapy over a long period makes you identify, analyse and reflect on your inner world with a greater awareness as you explore the depths of these domains.  When becoming a mum and knowing you are responsible for the physical, emotional, spiritual and mental health of your child, the impact of those early years is paramount to the development of your child across their lifespan.  We are as parents responsible for the conditioning, those inner patterns that are created and then become t ..read more

This week I left my job. Something most of us have done at some point, but this time it wasn’t just the job I was saying goodbye to. I left my role as a housing professional after 25 years, and it has taken time to get my head around that! I knew I was nervous to leave behind the world of employment with its safety net of a regular salary and associated benefits, but beyond those practical considerations, there was a deeper concern at play. One that was more enmeshed in my vision of who I was. Listen to the audio version of this article Identity Personal identity is how we see ourselves. We cr ..read more

For those who are not aware of what WOHASU is, I’ll start my writing with a link: https://worldhappinesssummit.com/ WOHASU  is The World Happiness Summit, and it was created to bring awareness about the benefits of happiness and wellbeing. Or as Karen Guggenheim the founder & CEO has said:  “instead of letting life happen to you, show up to your life”. Listen to the audio version of this article   At WOHASU 2024 in London, Karen had a brilliant conversation with Dr. Vivek Murthy, American Surgeon General who has a keen eye on loneliness and human connection. Dr. Vivek statis ..read more

A last-minute ticket to the 2024 WOHASU event in London turned into an unexpected experience for me, one which I will treasure and reflect upon for many years to come. It’s hard to name a favourite speaker of the day, but the one who profoundly struck me was Alla Klymenko, a psychologist and happiness educator. Here was a woman whose words of encouragement about ‘feeling lost’ I could take seriously since Alla, being a Ukranian woman, understands first-hand, what it is to have her whole world, home, and foundation, entirely changed overnight. And here was a woman whose happiness was not only g ..read more

Wednesday 20th March was definitely not any ordinary day. Firstly, I was in London on the Southbank for WOHASU 2024 (I will come back to explain this). Even though I once lived in London nowadays (I live between a caravan on the Kent coast and the forests of Brittany), I find London instantly and completely overwhelming. Everything in London seems to happen at breakneck speed, there are so many people rushing, making noise, it Is dirty, expensive and have I said there are so many people! After a 30min cross London tube journey, I was anxious and drained of energy by the bombardment of my sense ..read more

Heather White, the founder & CEO of OneGreenThing.org, addressed the World Happiness Summit (WOHASU) on how the climate crisis is impacting our mental health, leading to eco-anxiety, especially among young people. Many of us feel overwhelmed and unsure about how to contribute to meaningful change when systemic shifts seem out of reach. Heather, a mother of two teenagers, understands the stress that young people feel from the constant stream of unsettling news about the environment seen on the news and social media that can make it seem like we are powerless to make a positive difference.&n ..read more

Dr Amit Sood is a former professor of medicine at The Mayo Clinic and founder of the Global Center for Resiliency and Wellbeing. His Stress Management and Resiliency Training (SMART) model helps people understand the ways in which our brain functioning can be unhelpful for our wellbeing and teaches strategies to help combat this. This program has considerable empirical research supporting its effectiveness at promoting wellbeing outcomes in a range of populations. At The World Happiness Summit (WOHASU) in London on the 19th of March 2024 Dr Sood shared, through engaging personal anecdotes, som ..read more

Troy Armour accidentally turned a personal hobby into what is now known as Junk Kouture, the global competition where more than 100,000 young people have transformed recycled materials into high fashion. At the World Happiness Summit (WOHASU) 2024 in London, Troy revealed that he started the initiative because he was a creative child but all attention and popularity seemed to be focused only on the sporty kids, which he wasn’t. He describes Junk Kouture as “sport for creative kids” where everyone is encouraged to “find the diamond inside themselves and let it shine”. To enter the competition e ..read more

Pain, a part of your life How do we see pain? Physical, mental, spiritual… there are all sorts of pain. While we may go through seasons of suffering, most of the time if pain is not fatal, we will survive and go through it. A little depersonalization does no harm when one has failures and disappointments. A friend of mine went through a lot of surgery and pain, and I once asked him: how can you endure so much physical pain? And he said to that: You know, I depersonalized myself. In other words, I didn’t let myself to sink in trouble. I didn’t think, I didn’t take the disease to the extremes, I ..read more