I recently wrote about how our emotions can become tangled up with possessions and artifacts that represent past experiences and relationships; how our homes gradually fill up with ‘stuff’ — literal and metaphorical — that blocks us from moving on. But how do we actually go about clearing the clutter?

Certain dates and the events that took place on them have resonance and meaning for us; they shape our sense of who we are, individually and collectively. TV schedulers like to run documentaries on the anniversary of important events, reflecting on the experiences of those involved with the benefit of hindsight, and usually ending by asking how far we’ve come and what we’ve learned. Could this be a useful exercise for us as individuals too?

Letting go of objects associated with people we’ve lost or relationships that haven’t worked out can feel like an act of betrayal, or a compounding of the loss that has already happened. By unraveling the emotions associated with those objects, and the memories (good and bad) wrapped up in them, we can find ways of moving on through the grieving process towards the next phase of our lives.

If I’ve been absent from this blog recently, it’s because I’ve had a relapse of an old affliction that used to give me sleepless nights and the feeling that words are battering the inside walls of my brain without finding a way out. Here are my two secret words for overcoming writer’s block.

Watch some children out for a walk and you’ll see a lot of meandering to and fro as they make fascinating discoveries on all sides. So why do adults seem to prefer to walk in straight lines instead? What do our kids know that we’ve forgotten?

Life certainly isn’t as predictable as we’d sometimes like it to be. Sudden or unexpected changes of plan — even small ones — can have unforeseen knock-on effects.

Philip Davies, a British Member of Parliament, caused a stir recently when he suggested that in order to improve their chances of finding a job, disabled people should be entitled to offer to work for less than the statutory minimum wage — theoretically making them more attractive as potential employees. An interesting idea or shockingly ill-advised?