There are many definitions for love, but I want to talk about the non-romantic kind, as this platonic love is one we all experience whether we are in a relationship or not. As I see it, to show love to others I should seek to be understanding, caring and patient, not demanding, nor hold a […]

Over my years of attending church, I often experienced bullying, usually by those in authority. Let’s face it, an obese woman with a low self-esteem did not fit in a church which was trying to impress the outside world. It did not want to attract people like me, after all I looked like a loser. […]

Narcissism seems to be a hot topic with some. But if we display behaviours which appear to be narcissistic, does that make us narcissists? Narcissistic personality disorder is a diagnosable condition. The Mayo Clinic defines it this way: “Narcissistic personality disorder is a mental health condition in which people have an unreasonably high sense of […]

Gabor Mate is a Canadian-Hungarian physician with a focus on trauma and its impact on our physical and mental health. I find his work meaningful as it resonates with my personal experience. Lately I have been listening to one of his courses in which he speaks about the issues surrounding attachment and authenticity. This is […]

I am sure you have experienced times of great anxiety. Times when you are overwhelmed by fear. I know I have been frozen in fear and unable to make decisions. Fear is like that; it can be immobilising. With it comes other emotions such as guilt and shame, which are at the core of the […]

I grew up with toxic relationships. The demeaning, competitive, manipulative and dishonest way of relating eventually destroyed the connection between the members of our family. Until her stroke, mum had kept the family together in a fragmented sort of way. But after her stroke when she lost the ability to grasp what was going on […]

Body image is a combination of the thoughts and feelings we have about our body. Our body image is influenced by factors such as our personality or our social environment. There are four aspects of body image – the way we see our body, the way we feel about it, the way we think about […]

As the child in my family who was much younger than my siblings, I have lived with the feeling that I am less than others. Always too young, too immature, and too late, I was left out of family decisions. Sadly, it has taken me many years to work out that while it may have […]

When I was 22, I lost mother I had always known. She was nearly 58 years old at the time and suffered a stroke which was the result of complications related to diabetes. Overnight her personality changed, her memory was lost and her ability to be a mother gone. Although she recognised me, our relationship […]