Blogs About 'Change'

As One Chapter Ends And A New One Begins

I believe each year has its joys and its sorrows. Each year has both ease and difficulty, happiness and sadness, success and failure to varying degrees. What if, for this coming year we could be open to receive it as it comes? Not resist, not fear, not expect, but simply allow. Our task is to find a relationship to the way things are in each moment. Can we find the courage to surrender to what will be? Accept the joys. Accept the sorrows. Let go of the old and whatever is...

Rolling with Uncertainty: A Journey of Letting Go, Moving Forward, and Staying Present

A year ago my husband and I left South Africa, the only home we’d ever known, and set out for Europe. What started  as a visit to settle our daughter at university in 2022,  turned into a deep love for the Netherlands, where we envisioned building a new life. In a year we sold our cars, house and most of our possessions. Sentimental treasures — family heirlooms, a cherished Buddha statue, photographs and our favourite art were carefully stored away for the future. The rest we left behind, leaving...

The One Surprising Tool, To Help With Your Eating

Do you often find yourself judging your food choices or feeling guilty about your eating habits? Do you blame yourself for the diets and eating plans you’ve followed and stopped? I used to think I wasn’t judging myself, until I became aware of the running commentary in my mind.  Maybe you've also noticed a constant inner dialogue? "Why did I eat that?" “I can’t believe I’ve gained that weight back again!” "I should have resisted the urge to snack..." "I feel so ashamed” "Why...

Set Your Vision For 2024

I believe each year has its joys and its sorrows. Each year has both ease and difficulty, happiness and sadness, success and failure to varying degrees. What if, for this coming year we could be open to receive it as it comes? Not resist, not fear, not expect, but simply allow. Our task is to find a relationship to the way things are in each moment. Can we find the courage to surrender to what will be? Accept the joys. Accept the sorrows. Let go of the old and whatever is not...

Celebrate

I have some exciting news to share with you all! After two years of intense training, I am now a certified Mindfulness Meditation Teacher. I am expanding my practice of Mindful and Intuitive eating to include general mindfulness. It has been a transformative journey and I am grateful to have had the opportunity to study under Jack Kornfield and Tara Brach, two of the most esteemed teachers of mindfulness in the world. During the course of the training, I was deeply inspired by the teachings and...

How to Make Peace With Uncertainty and Navigate Anxious Times

“The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is the fear of the unknown.” — H.P. Lovecraft — Many people are struggling right now. Some countries are entirely locked down, others are partially in lockdown. We are in a state of huge uncertainty which triggers anxiety and fear. My inbox is flooded with COVID-19 emails. Everyone is sending out more and more stuff, some useful, some not.  It feels overwhelming. As Pema Chodron says in...

20 Questions As We Enter 2020

“There are years that ask questions and years that answer.” — Zora Neale Hurston — A new decade. A new year. A new chapter in life waiting to be lived. 365 mornings full of potential and possibilities. 365 nights to rest and restore. Fifty-two weeks of joys and challenges. Twelve months. Four seasons. Here are 20 questions to ask yourself as we enter 2020... Download a worksheet with these questions here. Reflecting on 2019, without judgement,...

Welcoming the New Year

“The New Year stands before us, like a chapter in a book waiting to be written.” — Melody Beattie — The New Year is upon us. I am sure you have experienced how short-lived New Year’s resolutions can be?  Instead of resolutions, I like to start each year by reflecting on the past year and looking ahead to the New Year, setting intentions as a guiding compass. As you enter 2019, take a moment to sit quietly and reflect on an intention for the year ahead. Endings...

Spring Is In The Air

Spring has officially arrived in the southern Hemisphere, the days are longer, the jasmine is blooming and everything is coming alive. Many years back, in my dieting days, when spring arrived I would scramble to find my new diet and exercise regime to get my body “right” for summer. The cycle of hating my body thinner would begin. By hating my body enough, I thought I could deprive myself into that ideal “summer bikini body”. There are many ways I did this and maybe you recognise some...

How to Tame the Diabolical Trio

“We cannot change anything unless we accept it. Condemnation does not liberate, it oppresses” ~ Carl Jung In last week’s blog I spoke about the Diabolical Trio - our inner critic*, inner perfectionist* and inner pusher*. If you missed out on that blog - you can read it here. In this blog, let’s look at how to tame these inner voices.  No - it’s not with a whip! First of all, acknowledge that our inner perfectionist, inner critic and inner pusher aren’t all that bad - they just...

The Diabolical Trio: Part I

Who are the diabolical trio? They are like the 3 ugly stepsisters in Cinderella or The Three Wicked Witches of the West... Sadly they are not fairy tale caricatures, but inner voices in our head that create misery and despair! I know them intimately - they lived in my head for many years and they still pop in to visit more often than I would like! The first of the trio is Perfectionista a.k.a The Inner Perfectionist*. She looks around and searches for her ideal vision of perfection... What...

Disappointment

Lately so many of my conversations with my clients have been around disappointment. Past and future disappointment. So, for the purposes of this blog let's define disappointment as the feeling of dissatisfaction that follows the failure of expectations or hopes to manifest. Reflecting on my own disappointments led me to think that we do more to avoid the discomfort of disappointment than we do to gain the pleasure of accomplishment. So often we don’t set out to achieve something we really...

How To Overcome Instant Gratification

One of my favourite blogs is Zenhabits by Leo Babuata. Today I would like to share with you his blog on A Brief Guide to Overcome Instant Gratification... It’s no secret that we live in the age of instant gratification. That’s not news. But Paul Roberts has written an excellent essay at The American Scholar looking at the breadth of this phenomena on our society — it’s a must read. A sample quote from Roberts’ essay: ‘The notion of future consequences, so essential to our development...