One day, my therapist asked, "Where does your self-esteem come from?" I looked out through the window into his lush green garden and at the woodlands beyond, wishing myself in amongst the trees. I didn't know where my self-esteem came from, I just knew that I wasn't generating much of it … [Read more...] about Why Comparison Is Largely Unhelpful
Recovery
Comfort Food
Some years ago, in the midst of an argument, my wife said to me, "There's more to running a house than making dinner." She was right, there's no denying it. I felt shame being perceived as such a domestic "one-trick pony", but it also resonated in a different way, as something I rely on to … [Read more...] about Comfort Food
Word Games & Boundaries
I'm playing "Bananagrams" with my daughter and, in what now feels like a rash move fuelled by early game bravado I have "dumped" too many of my opening letters and find myself with a swathe of tiles in front of me and unable to make anything of them. Serenely fashioning "Paradoxical" on the … [Read more...] about Word Games & Boundaries
An Alternative To Burnout
I had a question from a client this week variations of which I receive regularly. "I feel I've hit burnout and I don't know what to do about it." I opened with something like, "I spent a while wondering how to answer you and thought about it while I walked my dogs and looked at the trees … [Read more...] about An Alternative To Burnout
Imagining The Worst
One morning last weekend, we couldn't find the dog's collar which made me irrationally angry. The two things I really can't deal with, apart from goat's cheese, are being late, according to my exacting routine, and losing things. So not being able to locate the collar made me late for walking the … [Read more...] about Imagining The Worst