Showing posts with label mental resilience. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mental resilience. Show all posts

Monday 10 May 2021

How coaching turned things around

There comes a time in a woman's life when she doubts herself. Wonders if she's made the right choices. Inevitably, she looks around at her peers and find herself lacking. I guess we've all been there, in one shape or form. 

Emily Davidson, professional coach
Emily Davidson, coach and friend
In my case, it was this: why did I abandon my career as a journalist to stay at home with the kids? What's this addiction to writing novels (and blog posts 😜)? How do I head off empty-nest syndrome when my babies leave home?

Wednesday 30 September 2020

Euphoric Recall

Someone sent me a polite message via Twitter earlier in the summer. He introduced himself as Aidan Martin and said he wanted to flag up a book he had written - Euphoric Recall, a memoir of his childhood and journey through addiction. Because of my recent work on childhood trauma, he piqued my interest.

Book cover of Euphoric Recall by Aidan Martin
Aidan's book fulfils his dream of becoming a writer; a dream he nearly gave up on when he was an addict. It took two decades to conquer his addictions to hard pornography, alcohol and drugs. His book, which publishes tomorrow (1 October), refers to a higher power that helped him overcome his demons. "I am not an airy-fairy guy in the slightest nor am I religious," he tells me. "But I do believe I am on a journey and am being guided and protected on it." 

My own book about the toxic impact of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) was published in May by Public Health Wales and is freely available. The book consists of interviews with practitioners - who help others to overcome adverse experiences - as well as people with lived experiences of trauma, like Aidan.

Wednesday 27 May 2020

Kindness - the new superpower

Throughout the coronavirus lockdown, there will be children stuck at home who have suffered emotional or physical abuse; kids who've witnessed the painful breakdown of their parents' relationship, or watched a mother/father spiral downwards into depression. 

The front cover of a book about ACEs
The book: how we can help people 
who have suffered childhood trauma
These experiences are not uncommon and sadly it has become clear that they can have a long-term impact, affecting not only children's mental health into adulthood, but also their physical health. For example, people who have suffered trauma in their early lives are more vulnerable to strokes and heart disease.

Monday 5 February 2018

The little things

My 10-year old son and I are playing a game at the moment: the 30-day Happiness Challenge*. I bought it after he finished his entrance exams for secondary school. A bit of light relief. So each day he plucks a 'happiness challenge' from a little box covered in smiley faces. Two weeks in, he's been smiling at strangers, looking back on old photos and walking barefoot in some rather soggy grass.

List of 'happiness' challenges
My main objective is to keep him on a positive track after the stress of all the exams. Like many of us, he can get lost in the more negative aspects of his day. Apparently, this is a common human trait. "Our view of the world has a fundamental tendency to tilt to the negative," says social psychologist Alison Ledgerwood in a TEDx talk. 

Wednesday 3 January 2018

Dream on...

Dream, believe, achieve is emblazoned on my teenager's sweatshirt when she surfaces late morning. Not that there is any rule about squeezing achievements into the early part of the day - the placement of dirty cereal bowls in the dishwasher is generally good enough for me. "That's a nice thought for the new year," I tell her in my cheery voice (she can be a little temperamental before her first slice of toast so I have to tread gently). If only it was that easy, I think quietly to myself.

Sweatshirt with the words, Dream, Believe, Achieve
Maxims for the new year
Life is about striving in one way or another, no more so than at the start of a new year. The slate has been wiped clean, the days are growing longer and we are buoyed up by the belief that a few new numbers on the calendar will make all the difference. If Theresa May can feel chipper about making progress with her Brexit deal (assuming she believes her own rhetoric), then my own small-scale goals should be relatively achievable.

Thursday 21 September 2017

Lessons from Queen Victoria

Hermaphrodite Mum 
Three kids and a single mum

I read in The Times newspaper that a quarter of 14-year old girls are depressed. Good grief. The reasons cited for this dip in teenage mental health are familiar - a preoccupation with body image, as well as the pressures of social media and achieving academic success.

The lure of the mobile phone
© 
 | Dreamstime
Helpfully, the newspaper provides a little quiz to test your daughter's own mental resilience. So when Quiet One gets home from school, she's barely had time to reach for the biscuit tin before I start firing questions at her.

"In the past two weeks, can you tell me if this statement is true, untrue or sometimes true..."

"Untrue."

"But I haven't told you the statement yet!"

Tuesday 13 September 2016

Don't stop believing...

Self-belief is a powerful but fragile gift. One of my personal heroes has always been Amelia Earhart, a pioneering pilot and a woman of incredible courage and vision. This week I was reading about about how she may have ended her days as an injured castaway on a remote Pacific island. New research indicates that she made a series of distress calls from the island after her Lockheed Electra crashed in the summer of 1937 during the final stages of her attempt to fly around the globe. 

A woman pilot dressed in the style of Amelia Earhart
Amelia Earhart: an inspiration to modern women
© Yuri Yukhimchuk | Dreamstime.com 
A celebrity in depression-era America, Earhart earned her stripes after she became the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic in 1932. Five years later, on the cusp of turning 40, she sought one more challenge: to become the first woman to fly around the world. "I have this feeling that there is just about one more good flight left in my system," she declared rather ominously.