Standing on the side lines when our partner is battling depression can seem like a helpless, even hopeless, experience. We can feel confused, frustrated, and overwhelmed. We may feel like every attempt we make to support our partner is either rejected or ignored. It’s common to even feel somehow responsible for our partner’s depression. If this is you, you are not alone. Depression is an isolating illness that will probably negatively impact on our relationships leaving us f

Most of us would go to great lengths to avoid pain or any activities/experiences associated with pain. It makes total sense. If pain is associated with harm and potential death, our instinct is to avoid it. Surely this is vital to the survival of our species? So, why do many of us engage in behavior like self harm, that causes physical pain, in order to escape emotional pain? However, despite the physical pain that comes from self harming, many people report that it makes the

Whether or not you’ve noticed, you, like me and every other human being, move through each day leading on a constant inner conversation. We talk to ourselves about what’s happening and what it means. We judge ourselves in how we to react to others. We notice that today’s events link to yesterday’s struggles and tomorrow’s possibilities. Some of these thoughts are favorable but many are highly self-critical. We give meaning to emotional suffering, dreams, yearnings and discomf

Are you fed up of suffering with emotional pain? Do you wonder why you still hurt so much and can’t control it? Part of being human is to suffer emotional pain. After all, everyone encounters it and no one gets away with it. Here we talk about how to transmute that pain and turn it into joy. It is possible, without doing anything else, to see pain in a new light and lift that blanket of suffering. We Can't Control Our Pain The first thing we have to accept is that negative em

There are 3 rules and 5 roles that make up the results of an archetypal dysfunctional family. These rules and roles are the key drivers of any dysfunctional family. We look at the rules that are the engine of a dysfunctional family and how they negatively impact on the children. Then we look at the roles that children take up in order to survive the dysfunctional family. What Are The Dysfunctional Family Archetypal Rules? 1. Don’t feel 2. Don’t talk 3. Don’t trust These 3 rul

Symptoms of stress are, literally, killing us. Anxiety, headaches, insomnia and even cardiovascular disease, the problem is getting bigger. According to a survey published in 2018, from the Mental Health Foundation, 75% of UK adults have felt so stressed at some point over the last year they felt overwhelmed or unable to cope. What’s more, a 33% of people said they’d experienced suicidal feelings as a result of stress with 16% stating they’d self-harmed because of it. So, for

Is It Normal To Suffer From Anxiety During Pregnancy? Completely! Being pregnant is a life changer. It’s possibly the biggest journey we’ll ever embark upon. It’s only natural that we feel scared or anxious sometimes. The hormone changes through pregnancy can also play havoc with our emotions, making us more vulnerable to anxiety. Being pregnant brings on new worries like: Are my pregnancy symptoms normal? What do they mean? How is my baby developing? Is my relationship with

Many of us have family members whose values and/or behavior are questionable. They maybe heavy drinkers, religious fanatics, sexual predators or simply highly critical of us. If these family members are our parents, we may even think that their behavior is our fault. Children raised by dysfunctional parents often do. We may have tried to change them, bargain or plead with them but nothing’s ever worked. Growing up in a dysfunctional family had a profound impact on us. It’s o

Suffering from a general anxiety disorder can crank up your stress levels, hold back your career and create problems in social settings so it makes sense that when it come to your libido, it can also make a huge dent between the sheets. How Does Anxiety Affect Sex? Anxiety affects sex in different ways. In many cases, the exact connection is complex. The key issue to understand is that the mental and physical changes that come from dealing with regular anxiety make it difficu

Have you ever had that split second moment when you wake up in the morning, full of zest for life, only to realize how temporary that feeling really is? Your memory quickly kicks in as you make your way to the bathroom and by the time you get in the shower, anxiety and fear have, once again, taken over. The confusion, panic and defeat all simultaneously pitch in as you look at the day ahead. Your defences go up, you can’t remember your plan for the day ahead and everything st

Identifying Mood & Emotions Days 12 – 13 So Far.... In lessons 1 to 4 we have looked at: Why it vital to understand our anxiety How to calm down the panic Getting a handle on catastrophizing Understanding the impact that ‘Fight-or-Flight ‘ has on us Challenging anxious thoughts Digging deep and finding the real source of our anxiety So far these tools will have calmed us down. They are based on CBT techniques, which have been proven to work. Note: if you don’t feel the differ

Correcting Mistaken Beliefs About Anxiety Symptoms Days 9, 10, 11. Anxiety Is One Big Mistaken Belief Thinking about anxiety creates anxiety. If we're one of those people who copes with life by trying to think our way out of a situation but ends up anxious, we can easily get caught up in a loop. This loop starts with a negative thought an it can be anything: "She doesn't want to see me anymore" "I can't face going out to that party" "I'm going to die when I do my presentation

Understanding The Fight-or-Flight Response Days 6,7 & 8 In the previous lesson we looked at how catastrophizing affects our mind, thoughts, emotions and body. Using the CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy) worksheet: A 3-Day Task you will now have 3 days’ research and evidence of how you might catastrophize things that have no basis in reality. Don’t worry if you haven’t, you can always return to that worksheet when you're ready. However, this is a step-by-step approach to beat

How Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) Techniques Can Help You To Conquer Anxiety Lesson 2: Days 3-4-5 One of the things that we tend to do when we’re highly anxious is to catastrophize. I notice a dark brown spot on my nose. I lean in to the mirror and examine it closely. It is dark in color, and flaky. I’m thinking it’s melanoma. I climb into bed imagining my final days. My friends visit, bring me gifts and sit by my bed, holding my hand and whispering. My children flounce

ANXIETY: INTRODUCTION AND UNDERSTANDING Days 1-2 Anxiety is a perfectly normal and necessary part of life. Most people will experience anxious feelings at some stage in their life if put under stress – when afraid or in danger or upon hearing bad news. Anxiety is the body’s response to situations that are interpreted as threatening. Although anxiety is an emotion we generally prefer not to experience, a certain amount of anxiety is actually very helpful to us. Without any anx

Are Anxiety Attack And Panic Attack The Same? You may have heard the term anxiety attack used freely when someone is talking about an attack that’s associated with the difficulty in catching the breath, rapid heartbeat and feeling faint. In fact according to the "Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders” [i] , which is what doctors use to diagnose mental health illness, anxiety attacks are not even listed. Although anxiety attacks may seem on paper to be like pan

Trying to help someone who suffers from anxiety can be a challenge. It's not clear what we can do to properly support them and our words often miss the mark completely. It can even feel alarming because no matter how hard we try to help, nothing we do helps. If you feel overwhelmed, please be assured you are not alone. Anyone who suffers from severe anxiety, particularly anxiety attacks, also feels overwhelmed and at the mercy of their anxious thoughts. Whether the anxiety is

Anxiety is rocketing and more of us want to know how to help ourselves without relying on medication. In other blogs I explore lifestyle, eating habits, exercise and specifically other types of changes that can help reduce anxiety. Here I discuss how anxiety manifests and look at two techniques that directly talk to the anxiety that can help reduce its power. How Does Anxiety Start? It all starts with a negative thought. That negative thought kick-starts an emotion; usually f

Over-breathing, or hyperventilating, is a common symptom of an anxiety attack. Here Vicky, 37, shares what it’s like to experience severe hyperventilation: “ I didn’t realise I was having an anxiety attack when I got to the ER. It started in the shower when other anxiety attack symptoms. Heart thumping and darkness coming over my eyes. I couldn’t stand and had to crawl out. My daughter found me and called for an ambulance when I started going into the anxiety attack. I was

Jude, 24 describes a typical anxiety attack. “I live alone in a tiny studio apartments in East London. I was working on my laptop sitting at my desk on a day that was no different to any other day. Suddenly my heart started thumping: bang-bang-bang. I could hear the blood passing through my ears whoosh - whoosh - whoosh. I could see my chest banging up and down under my clothes. My hands were shaking and I couldn’t see my laptop screen because my eyes were blurry. I started