It is of no surprise to anyone that women in their thirties or forties coping with work, young children and ‘running a home’ are exhausted to an extent which is dangerous to their health. What can we do about this dramatic state of affairs?

Writing is a great way to get yourself unstuck. The first thing that comes into your head will do. Just write whatever comes into your head and however it does so. The therapeutic thing in this is freedom from the internal censor, or critic, just bypassing him or her completely, because all you have to do is keep writing, not be good or be bad, just keep going.

As the counselling room is a safe place for all those fears and emotions, including the not so pretty ones, to be, so eventually we learn that we ourselves are a safe place for them to be. We eventually, slowly, gain some experience in being separate from uncomfortable feelings, in being, in fact, bigger than they are.

So much of the pain we go through with loved ones is down to communication failure — to each person assuming that the other speaks and thinks in the same way that they do. I thought of that today as I had a rerun of one of the top ten conflicts I have with my husband…

It’s as if you live in an extremely cluttered room or in your own handbag. You can look at each object and work out where it comes from, who is associated with it, what it means to you and if it is of any use to you now — as in therapy. You can just throw it all away, but you are going to regret that! Or — you can make some kind of temporary space in there in which to work.

Meditation is not about going blank, being emptied of thoughts and desires, and going round with a vacant smile. Meditation is about being aware, awake, being present with your mind.

September Blues — it’s the end of the holidays. Fear of change sets in, fear of losing ourselves once more in the everyday routine. What can we do about it?