Emotionally mature people are not the ones with the loudest opinions or the quickest advice. They are the ones who can stay quiet long enough to really hear you. Letting others speak first shows how comfortable you are with yourself, how much you value the person in front of you, and how willing you are to sit with what is true rather than rush to control it. When someone else’s story keeps disappearing There is a kind of conversation where you can feel yourself slowly vanish

There is a moment in every adult life when you look at your family and think, “So this is not normal.” Maybe it happens at a holiday meal when someone brings up politics, religion or that one cousin who “went weird”. Suddenly everyone is talking louder, cutting the roast more aggressively and pretending not to notice the emotional grenade rolling under the table. Or maybe it is quieter: you are washing dishes, watching your parents move around each other like planets in a sli

This is my room. This is your room. It is not our room. We have all been here before. This is my chapel. It is your treehouse, your orangery, your workshop. This is where we want to go; a place that calls us closer; a space that says we are home. This is where we know everyone, where people are few – where our demons and angels surround us, where we exist not by choice. The walls are the colours in our mind. The floor carries us around the space. There are no windows because

This is for all those who just need to know someone is listening and is on their side right now. XXX Monday finds you like a bomb It’s been left ticking there too long You’re bleeding When you try your best but you don’t succeed Some days there’s nothing left to learn From the point of no return You’re leaving When you get what you want but not what you need Hey hey I saved the world today Everybody’s happy now The bad things gone away And everybody’s happy now The good thing

In an attempt to break my Netflix series binge addiction I have been trying to find solace in the comfort of a good read. I was at the mall a week ago and there was only one book that could possibly get me to smell the biblichor in a heartbeat. That book is Arundathi Roy’s new gem “The Ministry of Utmost Happiness“. Given that her first novel “The God of Small Things” came out 20 years ago when I was still a fledgling dreaming of a life that was yet unknown; I can confidently

Read this before continuing! This article is me, exploring the concept of the end of the world, in general. It is not a criticism of whatever your beliefs are. I am a Roman Catholic. I am a Christian. This is not personal, please don’t try to make it so. Generally, I can be quite patient. I’ve learnt to be more patient as I’ve grown older. I would not be as patient if I followed the predictions of people in the 1st Century who said that the Second Coming would be happening ‘a

At my lowest in 2016 I believed that God himself was punishing me for 40-plus years of ill doings, flawed character and anything else suppressed by my over-active conscience that had been in denial. For most of the year I thought I had entered a deep pit mine with a one way ticket in hand. The euphoria of the Christmas holiday season quickly faded as I walked through the front door back to my reality. By the time the Easter holiday arrived I had convinced myself that I would

I wrote this post about there years ago. What followed was a hospital visit on arrival at the beach holiday destination because I had not been consistent with my medication which resulted in me collapsing off the airplane. I spent the first days of my holiday under observation in a non sea-facing room. As we begin the One Month of Gratitude for 2016, I want to acknowledge and give thanks for the gift of Life. There is no greater gift. There are 2 me’s. One on medication and o

I have been slightly scarce for a while (understatement). I make no apologies for this. It turns out that my privacy has been violated with the sole intention to gain access to every detail of my activities with malicious intent. Let’s get real here; I am not famous, nor wealthy, nor heir to something more desirable than a plastic sock. Hell – I’m not even officially young and up-and-coming by statistical measures. How is it possible that a person’s far-less-than-Wisteria-Lan

Yesterday I did a blog post lamenting my week as a single parent in Home Alone. At the end of the post I asked “how on earth do single parents cope?” Once again I reached out to some of my friends who have experienced this in their own lives. Most times my own idea of “going solo” is never grounded in the reality of what it would be like to actually go through the process to get to being single again. The first story I want to share with you is by my dear friend Barrie Bramle

People hurt. Whether you’re on the brink of attempting suicide or a suicide survivor. Everybody hurts. I’ve recently blogged stories from two friends who are suicide survivors in the build up to International Suicide Survivors Day which is on Saturday, 17 November this year. There is always another side of the story; in this case, the person who committed suicide. Both Craig (Losing Your First Love) and Michael (Losing a sibling) are no longer around to provide reasons – or a

Wow, this blog is getting very serious… I agree. But I feel I have to do my bit to support International Suicide Survivors Day this year in the best way I know how. I should almost add “regular programming will resume after the break” to some extent. This is another friends story as a suicide survivor which follows on from my post Losing Your First Love. A message of enablement came across quite strongly for me in that post. I’m glad that Carrina and her family have been able

Following on from my post about International Suicide Survivors Day I came across some tips online that I thought I’d share with you. I’m not advocating that all these will work for every individual but I always find checklists are good when your mind isn’t clear on what the next steps should be beyond waking up in the morning. “…no matter who the victim is, their loved ones may also feel like victims. Suicide survivors feel sad, angry, betrayed, confused, and shocked. The tr

Sometimes seemingly random information makes its way to me and I am left asking “now what?” but when I came across this ad for International Suicide Survivors Day I knew exactly what I had to do. I had just published 6 Degrees From Reality on this blog site and decided to have a meaningful conversation with my nanny about her experience on this matter. She’d mentioned her husbands’suicide to me a while back but I’ve never asked her how she felt, and how she is doing. Nobody i

How long has Movember been running as a campaign now? I ask because I didn’t know until this month (2012) that it was a male cancer awareness drive… I wonder if most of the people flaunting ‘taches know that they are representing a cause by growing out their facial hair. I hope so. I used to diss the Movember concept until i learnt the reason behind it. (It’s still not going to get me to nurture my own upper lip hair though) As many ‘blonde moments’ as I am prone to, I cannot