School for Wellbeing blog articles
You can select a category of articles in the menu below. Articles cover a range of wellbeing-related topics and include insights based on the bodymind connection, psychology, coaching, embodiment and breathwork.
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- Breathwork
- Coaching
- Leadership
- Resilience
- Self-sabotage
- Embodiment
Finding the gift in your ‘shadow selves’
Do you sometimes feel exhausted? As though you’re not ok in some way? Beating yourself up for being too much or too little? Feeling that if you show up as your ‘real’ self, you’ll be shamed or ridiculed for it? Feeling like this can lead us to suppress key parts of ourselves. It takes a lot of energy and can be exhausting to hold down parts of ourselves, to keep focused on being perfect, acceptable,...
My (mimic) octopus teacher – How to build authenticity at work
I’ve been thinking a lot about the importance of authenticity at work. It’s a key element of my whole-person approach to creating human-centred workplaces. I was rootling through some old pictures of the time I was doing reef conservation work in the Philippines and came across a video I took of an amazing mimic octopus. It seemed the perfect metaphor for the impact of being a shape shifter when we're at work, rather than showing...
Creating leaders at all levels of your organisation
The world is changing fast and old hierarchies are breaking down. As the world becomes more digital, AI is increasing its foothold and organisations are becoming flatter. The companies that thrive will be those that ignite the power of human-centred workplaces, encouraging all employees to take responsibility for driving the business forward, and creating leaders at every level of the organisation. So, what does it mean to have leaders at every level of the organisation?...
How to support a colleague going through grief
How your organisation handles grief or loss is one of the most important ways to signify your organisational culture. A significant loss may not happen to every employee, but it will definitely happen to some of them. Your approach to the situation can literally make or break the psychological contract between you and that employee. How you support a colleague going through grief shows how human-centred your business is. A good grief support programme is...
Procrastination – Overcoming the emotional block that stops you getting things done
People often think their procrastination is a time management issue. That they’re just not prioritising their tasks correctly or are wasting time fiddling about rather than focusing on the job in hand. In fact it's all about emotions, or more specifically, overcoming the emotional block that stops you getting things done. What makes it worse is that by procrastinating, not only does the unfinished task eat away at your energy all day, quietly nagging you...
Ten Ways to Disempower Your Inner Critics
Inner critic nagging you to do something? Does it often feel like the negative voices in your head are taking you over? When they are speaking loudly it can feel as though they have actually become us, all of us, rather than just being a part of us. It’s actually good to get to know our inner critics (sometimes also called our saboteurs), to be aware of which are the negative voices that come up...
An embodied approach to overcoming self-sabotage
Self-sabotage – the act of getting in our own way, stopping our own success. We all do it because we are all in the grip of our saboteurs. Those voices in our head that tell us we’re not good enough, we can’t do certain things, that others will laugh at us or that we will fail. Our saboteurs arise in childhood as a form of self- protection. They become our defence mechanism against a world...
Hacking your life is a form of self sabotage
Everywhere we look, we are being offered life hacks: biohacking to make the most of our body or immune system; short cuts to health, fitness, better eating; quick tips to bring us wellbeing, resilience, even spiritual enlightenment. In practically every area of life it seems there is someone offering a quick fix answer to whatever we want to achieve. It’s easy to get sucked in. Who doesn’t want to get things done more quickly, to...
Breath means business
If your business is falling victim to employee stress and burnout, join the most forward-looking companies who're exploring new ways to help employees reduce stress and anxiety levels. Breathwork is one of the cutting-edge techniques that's causing the most excitement, and its benefits are backed up by research. Perciavalle et al (2017) reported a 15% reduction in self-reported measures of stress for people practising deep breathing techniques*. Many companies have embraced the benefits of mindfulness,...
Your breath as a channel to calm and clarity
Our breathing is the only part of our autonomic nervous system (the part that controls and activates our internal organs) that we have conscious control. When we breathe deeply and slowly we activate the part of this system that helps us feel calmer and less stressed. When we get stressed the fight or flight mechanism kicks in. It’s an instinctual response and we can’t do anything to stop it happening. That’s actually important as it’s...
Getting into embodiment changed my life
What we do in our bodies influences how we live our lives. When I first got into the world of embodiment this became clear to me in so many ways that I had just never noticed before and it caused a dramatic shift in how I chose to live my life. In case you’ve not come across the term embodiment before, it is literally the way you are in your body, how you move, breathe,...
The state you are in
The state you are in - enhance your emotional intelligence and manage stress What is state management and why would you want to be able to do it? Put simply, being able to manage your state, your emotions, is a key indicator of your ability to survive and thrive in life. Early self-regulation ability as a child is a significant predictor of performance later in life, so learning new skills in this area is likely...
Breathing for stress management
When we are struggling to cope in a world that seems impossibly changed, it can be helpful to look at what we can take control of, rather than fixating on things that we can’t. One thing we can take control of is how we are in our bodies. Our posture, how we move, our breathing all have a significant influence on what we think, how we feel and what we achieve. By making a shift...
My body is the map of my life
It's National Storytelling Week. A celebration of the way humans have communicated for millennia and reflecting the way evolution has wired us to receive and process information. Storytelling is a wonderful way to interact with the world, both around us and within ourselves. Stories somehow resonate with us, often proving more memorable than facts alone, with their ability to touch us deeply and stay with us for a long time. Their impact has been proven...
Mindfulness in career change
Mindfulness – a simple yet effective form of meditation that enables you to gain control of unruly thoughts and behaviours. Is it really as straightforward as that? This type of description of mindfulness is very much in vogue at the moment, however I believe this is actually quite a limiting definition for a practice that can really open up and support your career change journey. It has become very popular to think of mindfulness as simply...
All
- All
- Blog
- Breathwork
- Coaching
- Embodiment
- Leadership
- Resilience
- Self-sabotage
- Uncategorized
- Voice Dialogue
Finding the gift in your ‘shadow selves’
Do you sometimes feel exhausted? As though you’re not ok in some way? Beating yourself up for being too much or too little? Feeling that if you show up as your ‘real’ self, you’ll be shamed or ridiculed for it? Feeling like this can lead us to suppress key parts of ourselves. It takes a lot of energy and can be exhausting to hold down parts of ourselves, to keep focused on being perfect, acceptable,...
My (mimic) octopus teacher – How to build authenticity at work
I’ve been thinking a lot about the importance of authenticity at work. It’s a key element of my whole-person approach to creating human-centred workplaces. I was rootling through some old pictures of the time I was doing reef conservation work in the Philippines and came across a video I took of an amazing mimic octopus. It seemed the perfect metaphor for the impact of being a shape shifter when we're at work, rather than showing...
Creating leaders at all levels of your organisation
The world is changing fast and old hierarchies are breaking down. As the world becomes more digital, AI is increasing its foothold and organisations are becoming flatter. The companies that thrive will be those that ignite the power of human-centred workplaces, encouraging all employees to take responsibility for driving the business forward, and creating leaders at every level of the organisation. So, what does it mean to have leaders at every level of the organisation?...
How to support a colleague going through grief
How your organisation handles grief or loss is one of the most important ways to signify your organisational culture. A significant loss may not happen to every employee, but it will definitely happen to some of them. Your approach to the situation can literally make or break the psychological contract between you and that employee. How you support a colleague going through grief shows how human-centred your business is. A good grief support programme is...
Procrastination – Overcoming the emotional block that stops you getting things done
People often think their procrastination is a time management issue. That they’re just not prioritising their tasks correctly or are wasting time fiddling about rather than focusing on the job in hand. In fact it's all about emotions, or more specifically, overcoming the emotional block that stops you getting things done. What makes it worse is that by procrastinating, not only does the unfinished task eat away at your energy all day, quietly nagging you...
Ten Ways to Disempower Your Inner Critics
Inner critic nagging you to do something? Does it often feel like the negative voices in your head are taking you over? When they are speaking loudly it can feel as though they have actually become us, all of us, rather than just being a part of us. It’s actually good to get to know our inner critics (sometimes also called our saboteurs), to be aware of which are the negative voices that come up...
An embodied approach to overcoming self-sabotage
Self-sabotage – the act of getting in our own way, stopping our own success. We all do it because we are all in the grip of our saboteurs. Those voices in our head that tell us we’re not good enough, we can’t do certain things, that others will laugh at us or that we will fail. Our saboteurs arise in childhood as a form of self- protection. They become our defence mechanism against a world...
Hacking your life is a form of self sabotage
Everywhere we look, we are being offered life hacks: biohacking to make the most of our body or immune system; short cuts to health, fitness, better eating; quick tips to bring us wellbeing, resilience, even spiritual enlightenment. In practically every area of life it seems there is someone offering a quick fix answer to whatever we want to achieve. It’s easy to get sucked in. Who doesn’t want to get things done more quickly, to...
Breath means business
If your business is falling victim to employee stress and burnout, join the most forward-looking companies who're exploring new ways to help employees reduce stress and anxiety levels. Breathwork is one of the cutting-edge techniques that's causing the most excitement, and its benefits are backed up by research. Perciavalle et al (2017) reported a 15% reduction in self-reported measures of stress for people practising deep breathing techniques*. Many companies have embraced the benefits of mindfulness,...
Your breath as a channel to calm and clarity
Our breathing is the only part of our autonomic nervous system (the part that controls and activates our internal organs) that we have conscious control. When we breathe deeply and slowly we activate the part of this system that helps us feel calmer and less stressed. When we get stressed the fight or flight mechanism kicks in. It’s an instinctual response and we can’t do anything to stop it happening. That’s actually important as it’s...
Getting into embodiment changed my life
What we do in our bodies influences how we live our lives. When I first got into the world of embodiment this became clear to me in so many ways that I had just never noticed before and it caused a dramatic shift in how I chose to live my life. In case you’ve not come across the term embodiment before, it is literally the way you are in your body, how you move, breathe,...
The state you are in
The state you are in - enhance your emotional intelligence and manage stress What is state management and why would you want to be able to do it? Put simply, being able to manage your state, your emotions, is a key indicator of your ability to survive and thrive in life. Early self-regulation ability as a child is a significant predictor of performance later in life, so learning new skills in this area is likely...
Breathing for stress management
When we are struggling to cope in a world that seems impossibly changed, it can be helpful to look at what we can take control of, rather than fixating on things that we can’t. One thing we can take control of is how we are in our bodies. Our posture, how we move, our breathing all have a significant influence on what we think, how we feel and what we achieve. By making a shift...
My body is the map of my life
It's National Storytelling Week. A celebration of the way humans have communicated for millennia and reflecting the way evolution has wired us to receive and process information. Storytelling is a wonderful way to interact with the world, both around us and within ourselves. Stories somehow resonate with us, often proving more memorable than facts alone, with their ability to touch us deeply and stay with us for a long time. Their impact has been proven...
Mindfulness in career change
Mindfulness – a simple yet effective form of meditation that enables you to gain control of unruly thoughts and behaviours. Is it really as straightforward as that? This type of description of mindfulness is very much in vogue at the moment, however I believe this is actually quite a limiting definition for a practice that can really open up and support your career change journey. It has become very popular to think of mindfulness as simply...
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