Meditation ‘on’

Sometimes the penny drops and you think… I’ve been thinking that all along but had never really thought of it as clearly as that. Meditation is not an easy thing to get ‘right’. Whatever ‘right’ is. We are generally told that it’s about clearing your mind of everything, […]

To De-caf or Not to De-Caf 

One of the first things I do on a morning is make myself a cup of coffee. A well-known brand of instant coffee granules and splash of skimmed milk, then I settle in my armchair to debate the morning’s news. It helps me wake up and enables me […]

Education and Training

Stephen is available for conferences and training events to talk about self care, being organised, and productivity. Get in touch here. He has recently presented at the North East Social Work Alliance Conference – “Relationships and Lived Experience” on resilience in professional practice and CACHE’s 2020 Leeds and […]

The ‘Two Minute’ Rule

Being productive either at work or at home is a crucial part of being organised and being organised is essential to a happy and content life I feel ……All your ducks in a row so that you just get on with your day. I live by the ideas […]

Is just enough enough?

Earlier this week I was talking to a group of final year students at the University where I work about self care. They are currently entering their final stages of their undergraduate degree, on placement, writing dissertations, and balancing all of that with family and personal life. I […]

Time to set some real goals! 10 things!

Now that we’ve got January out of the way it’s time to set some real goals. We’ve moved past the New Year resolutions we’ve probably already forgotten about (!!), we’ve finished off the Christmas sweets, and now we have the rest of the year to go at! Come […]

Looking after your teeth…. and the controversy around Fluoride

Are you brushing your teeth twice a day? Are you changing your toothbrush every three or four months? This is what all of the guidance says we should be doing. I suspect most of us are brushing twice a day but wonder if we are all changing our […]

Take it with a pinch of salt?

‘A Proverb Is To Speech What Salt Is To Food’, (unknown author). When you think about it, what exactly is salt to food? Is it something we need to flavour our food or is it an essential mineral our body needs to function like the well-oiled machine it’s […]

Autonomy – one of the keys to success

I talk to people a lot about ‘flow’. This is a concept that I first came across in the landmark book ‘Flow’ by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. Flow is essentially the state that you can find yourself in when you are totally absorbed in something to exclusion of all other […]

Where’s your ‘self’?

I am, it seems, mildly obsessed with the idea of ‘self’. I just think who we are is so important. Often our public selves and private selves lack the connection that I feel is so important to well-being. When you are at odds with yourself, that is, you […]