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If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion. Dalai Lama You, yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection. Buddha Jay Rayner has been on TV and radio recently promoting The Claire Rayner Scholarship for the study of Compassion in Nursing and Midwifery Care at Huddersfield University.  In her role as Chief Executive of the Patients Association, Claire Rayner campaigned for care and compassion in all health matters.  She was disturbed by what she saw as routine neglect in some hospital geriatric units. It may …

Be Kind to yourself Read More »

“The greatest weapon against stress is our ability to choose one thought over another.” William James STRESSED? PHONE HOME! Stress is part of all our daily lives and it is estimated that six million days of sick leave in the UK are related to stress  each year.  Recently researchers from the University of Wisconsin-Madison looked at the effects that contact with mothers can have on the stress levels of their daughters.  The sample was fairly small and the age of the daughters between 7 and 12 but the study showed that in all cases contact with mum before and after …

Stress Relief Read More »

“Make the best of where you are and do your best to line up your Energy from where you are, because any bit of struggle or any bit of regret only holds your cork under the water and doesn’t allow you to connect with the Energy that would allow anything to improve”. Abraham Hicks “The Secret”, EFT, and Hypnosis The movie “The Secret” which came out in 2006 has probably done more to inform people all over the world about the Law of Attraction than any other single medium.  The film is a series of interviews with those in the …

The Law Of Attraction, EFT & Hypnosis Read More »

We have been thinking back to previous Christmas times and some of the common themes we hear from clients at this time or year.  Many are anxious about the holiday season because of family reunions and the potential for arguments and tension. There was a survey just before Christmas last year claiming that families argue for an average of 7 hours over Christmas and the first argument will be early on Christmas Day, 9.55am to be precise! We know that the media is full of advice about how to make the holiday season enjoyable each year and we’re adding our …

“I’m RIGHT: They’re WRONG” Read More »

Researchers have been trying for decades to measure what makes people happy and, thanks to David Cameron’s much criticised happiness survey, we now have a Happiness Map of the UK so that we can determine where the most happy people live. (For our Berkshire readers, Reading doesn’t come out at all well!) All these surveys agree that, surprise, surprise, money makes people happy to a degree however once the threshold from poverty to adequate standard of living has been reached, further increases in wealth have almost no effect on happiness. Ed Diener at the University of Illinois led a survey …

What Makes For a Happy Christmas? Read More »

“When you feel enthusiasm to do something, it means you’ve lined up the Energy, and you are being inspired to take action from that point of alignment. When you don’t feel like doing it, don’t push yourself, because your effort is not worth it. But, when you line up the Energy, the feeling of procrastination goes away”.     Abraham Hicks The P Word: Procrastination You have a Presentation to prepare but find yourself on Instagram or watching Netflix instead, does this sound familiar to you? Procrastination, as we are all very well aware, is the putting off of something we “have” …

Procrastination Read More »

“A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.” Winston Churchill . Our “Plastic” Brains Stressed? Anxious? Feeling down? Or do you just want to feel even more positive than you already do? Discoveries in neuroscience over the past 30 years have taught us that we don’t need to be stuck in a downward spiral of negative thoughts which dump stress chemicals in our brain often leading to stress, anxiety and depression.  We now know that our brains change and grow by creating neural networks and these neural networks are formed and developed …

Improve your day with one small step Read More »

“You must begin to think of yourself as becoming the person you want to be.”  David Viscott It’s a well-known secret – Diets don’t work; Well, not for 99% of people who try them and this can lead to feelings of frustration, hopelessness, guilt and in some cases, self-loathing. The diet industry is gargantuan, turning over billions of pounds every year, but it doesn’t deliver. Diets tell you what to eat, how much to eat and when to eat, but they don’t tell you how to handle the stress and anxiety you may have in your life that can trigger …

It’s a well-known secret – Diets don’t work Read More »

It is important to know that you have processes to help you cope on days when you feel that things are just not going your way and that you can’t get away from your worries and anxiety. We wrote an article some time ago entitled “Brain Dump” a name we took from Gillie Botton who has written widely about the process of writing down your fears, doubts and anxieties as a way of unloading them and achieving psychological distance from them. It is a powerful technique and neuroscientist Mark Walderman suggests a quick variation which goes under the name of …

The Power Of The Pen Read More »

How often are you aware that you are talking to yourself, in your head or even out loud?  Self-talk is the internal conversation, the voice in your mind, that comments, questions, evaluates and judges your behaviour and experience.  Experts consider it to be a subset of thinking and it can be positive – when we congratulate ourselves or use it to motivate, or negative – when we criticise, judge, catastrophise and ruminate. All self-talk influences our feelings and behaviour, but scientists are discovering that it is not only what we say to ourselves that is significant, but also how we address …

Talking about….. Read More »