This week I had the pleasure of being a guest on the ‘Mind You’ podcast with the amazing Brian Barnes Wellbeing Brian is from the same ‘village’ as me in that he is a nurse too and now also works in the areas of mindfulness, self-care, resilience, mental health and coaching, so we could have chatted all day! I spoke about my journey in nursing, burning out twice, resilience coaching and the self-care I practise every day, having learned my lesson the hard way! #mentalhealth #

Image credit: Krzysztof Niewolny Unsplash.com Have you ever heard of the process a butterfly has to go through to get out of its cocoon? They struggle. A lot. People (particularly children) who might see this are tempted to help. However, the butterfly must go through the struggle alone because the physical effort needed to break the seal and wriggle free also pushes fluid from its body into its wings. If they don’t go through that exertion their body remains full of fluid

Is there anything more heart-sinking or gut-wrenching than being in a conflict situation or conversation? Most of us would do anything to avoid it. But it’s unavoidable at times. That’s life. People don’t always agree with us or what we have done. Sometimes we can sense an impending conflict before anyone has spoken a word because we know we have to say something that won’t be appreciated. Sometimes we ‘know’ the response we will get. Occasionally our worst fears come tr

Every time I deliver a resilience training session I encourage an exploration of what resilience means to attendees. I’m always amazed to hear new perspectives from every group. This week’s training session was no different. Participants broke it down to different kinds of resilience including frontline staff who come home from a tough day and have to quickly turn around a few hours later and go back in to face more. I was picturing an airplane being ‘turned around’ betwee

The season is turning, for sure. There has been a crispness in the air for the last few days. Some brown leaves fell in front of me this week. The swallows are preparing for their long journey ahead, stretching their muscles, swooping up and down and practising their chirping communications. They will be gone in a few days. For many people the summer of 2020 has been difficult to bear because travel is more or less forbidden. If you are feeling sad about this, the reason

“Just when you think you’re on a roll…” “Life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans…” “The Universe had different ideas…” Sometimes the obstacles we face seem insurmountable. The wall seems too high. We can’t see over it or through it and it’s causing a hard stop in our journey. Here are a few things to consider about those walls: Two stacked bricks will seem like a wall when we are tired. ‘What we pay attention to expands’ – John Maxwell. Staring at the wall ma

You may be still worried about your own health or the health of someone close to you.  You may be conscious that the virus is still out there, albeit in smaller numbers for now. I believe everyone has the right to make their own risk assessment.  I also believe you don’t have to go into great personal detail to persuade others to come around to your way of thinking.  They don’t have to agree with you.  They just need to know what your decision is and respect it. It can be dif

I saw this picture and thought, ‘What a beautiful place to live!’. Then I wondered if the people who live there appreciate how pretty it is. Would they look at where I live and wistfully think the same thing?! Familiarity sometimes becomes a fog that prevents us from seeing what’s right in front of us.  When is the last time you looked at your home and surroundings with fresh eyes?  Can you think back to a time, years ago, when you day-dreamed about what your future home woul

The vast majority of us don’t do it.  Most people judge those who do – silently or vocally, culturally and criminally. Yet, 1 in 3 of us operate our lives (and sometimes our cars) under the same conditions as a drunk driver, because that’s the number of people it’s estimated are sleep deprived. Scientific research tells us that after being awake for 18 hours or more, an individual’s performance equals that of someone with a blood-alcohol level of 0.1% (the benchmark for drunk

Each generation has endured major and catastrophic events that have changed lives and punctuated the decades.  Each one is ‘new’ and shocking at the time – airplane hijackings in the 1980s were new; flying passenger airplanes into buildings in 2001 was new; Foot and Mouth disease was new (ish).  H1N1, SARS and the spread of Ebola in recent years were new – or seemed new because we were experiencing them for the first time, maybe even first-hand.  Each of those events changed

Conversational small talk online or across a street now follows the same agenda; how scary it is for those who are ill, how tragic for those who have died and how desperately sad for families deprived of centuries old rituals around grief.  Chit-chat about the inconvenience for a generally well and productive workforce is always quickly validated by our common goal; to save lives on a global scale, immediately. The life or death options are easy to see.  What’s less visible i

It happens to people in caring professions because they are exposed to the sharp end of life every day at work.  They walk in the shoes of person who is suffering in order to understand what that person’s needs are.  As a result they endure what’s known as vicarious trauma. It happens to healthcare professionals, teachers, school principals and others.  It can happen to family carers too.  It’s very upsetting for them because they are naturally compassionate people.  Any diff

Everyone was working quietly (to reassure the woman and her husband) but fast. There was perfect teamwork; each had their own role in the emergency. My role was to prepare an IV solution of the drug that was our best hope for regaining control, Syntometrine. The seconds were flying by and I didn’t want to cause any delay. The atmosphere in the room was soaked in the urgency of the moment. My hands started to shake so I focused more on what I was doing; consciously, intent

Public speaking is often listed among the top causes of anxiety, but you can totally manage those nerves using your own physiology. You don’t need medication, liquid courage or your favourite lucky charm in your pocket. You already have what you need. Most of the anxiety during public speaking is caused or exacerbated by forgetting to breathe. Our brain then goes into panic mode about that, which we interpret as panic about speaking. The average adult has a lung volume of

Resilience is not a trait that people either have or don’t have. It involves behaviours, thoughts, and actions that can be learned and developed in everyone. Resilience is about being adaptable. It’s about being flexible. It’s about recognizing that we’ve got strengths that perhaps we never knew we had until we have to use them. And like many things in life – the more we practise, the more we learn. You already have EVERYTHING you need within you to be resilient, you just nee

Burnout is a state of emotional, physical, and mental exhaustion caused by excessive and prolonged stress. It has become so prevalent that the World Health Organization (WHO) added burnout to its International Classification of Diseases, IDC-11,  describing it as a syndrome “resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed…” There are many ways to avoid or manage burnout, one proven tactic is to have a hobby that’s purely for leisure.  Nowadays w

Listening is sometimes called an art and a science.  (In fact, I counted once – coaches are trained to listen in 11 different ways!). It is really important for our mental health to actively listen sometimes because it encourages our brain to work the way it’s supposed to.  Listening tunes our brain to the patterns of our environment faster than any other sense, and paying special attention to sounds, the non-visual parts of our world, feeds everything from our intellectual p