Mind & Spirit
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How our fantasies create more of our suffering
During my Vipassana meditation, I heard a distinction that I hadn’t come across before. Well, at least, not in this way. When we start doing the process of internal healing, we are often called to action by the overpowering feeling of our fears and anxieties.…
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What I learnt from 10 days of silent meditation
This month, I packed my bags, turned off my phone and took a train to the Flemish countryside for a 10 day Vipassana course. The idea of the course is to learn the technique to observe the subtler realities of our existence as a means…
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How to prepare for the unprepareable
I will be off the grid for the next ten days. I am attending a 10 day Vipassanna meditation. That means no phones or outside contact. It’s not a retreat – the meditation takes place in silence, with entertainment, including reading or journalling not allowed.…
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How much desire should we have in our lives?
Everyday we are constantly prompted by things we should desire. During our weekly shop, the supermarket shelves are stacked with new, tasty products with shiny offers to tempt us. When we go to social events, our friends demonstrate a cool new trendy item of clothing.…
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The allure of escaping our responsibilities
I went home for a few days this week. It was nice to be at home, with no real responsibilities. I had clean clothes, clean sheets and home cooked meals readily available from my mum. It was a chance for me to basically just disappear…
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Re-learning to enjoy the little things
When we get so caught up in what we need to do, we can lose the joy in the day-to-day activities. The focus often turns to efficiency, rather than pleasure. The relaxing morning coffee turns into a rushed caffiene consumption. The calming walk outside in…
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Conviction and walking our ‘right’ path
Photo by Sebastian Unrau on Unsplash How do we know we’re on the right path? We decide it. I’ve recently realised how much I question myself. I regularly wonder whether what I am doing is correct, and whether I should re-evaluate or choose a different…
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Grounding ourselves in a whirlwind of emotion
For the first time in quite a while, I’ve been waking up feeling lighter and sprightly. This was in sharp contrast to the last few months: I would often wake up with such a heaviness and anxiety that it was hard to get out of…
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Creating 2025 as the Year of Delusion
I’ve already started hearing stuff around vision boards and resolutions. I’m personally not a super fan of either. Not because neither of them can work, but because a lot of it comes out of societal pressure. And societal pressure rarely is conducive to meaningful change.…
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Creating my life’s impossible dream
As the year comes to a close, I’ve found myself returning to the bigger picture – my big ‘why’. The point of dreams are to aim big, to stretch our thinking beyond what we currently think is possible. By going into the rational, we are…
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Insights for finding meaning in the modern world [new book]
Next week, I’m releasing my second book, Become Your Best Self: Insights for finding meaning in the modern world. The book is a compilation of my writing here. If you’ve been reading my articles over the last four years, I would love for you to…
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The way you do anything is the way you do everything
Who knows someone who is so focused on their own goals that they totally forget how they’re showing up in the other parts of their life? For example, the friend who no longer turns up now that they’re in a relationship. Or the colleague who…
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Maybe we don’t actually need a purpose
On Monday, I facilitated a session for a local Toastmasters. The aim of it was to be motivational, and help people strive for their purpose. Or at least so I thought. My instinct was that people could do with a bit of a pep-talk. A…
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Daring to dream of a crazy, beautiful life
The more I talk to people, the more I’m struck at how every one of us have beautiful dreams for our lives. Unfortunately, many of us get resigned to the idea that such ideas are simply the tale of fiction. After all, we could never…
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Getting clear on what you really want
I don’t doubt you do a lot of different things in your life. But have you ever stopped to ask why you’re doing them? Whilst it may sound obvious, if we’re not clear about what we want, the chances of us getting it are nigh…
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Foregoing the guilt of not always ‘giving’
Photo by Jornada Produtora on Unsplash I’ve known for a long time that I have a hard time receiving things. I’m not talking about literal presents, but receiving help, support or even words of encouragement. It’s only until recently that I really learnt to appreciate…
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Following the breadcrumbs to understand my brain
Yesterday I went to Liege to do an IQ test with a psychologist. The idea was actually to check whether I had an attention deficit disorder, but part of it was also seeing the overlap between that and whether I am a ‘High Potential Individual’…
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The tale of the spider in the bathtub
I was back in the UK this week, staying in my parent’s house. When I went to take a shower, I saw that a spider had taken over the bathtub. There was an impressive amount of webs that had covered the whole area. I needed…
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Resetting the calibration of our internal motivation
Motivation is like gold dust. When we have it, complex tasks can feel so simple. But when our motivation runs dry, even the most simple of tasks can feel extraordinarily difficult. ‘Refinding’ motivation is a search many of us go on. There’s an abundance of…
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Learning to express our internal anger
Anger is often seen as a negative emotion. Anger is often synonymous to being petulant or violent. We get angry because we are not accepting something that we ‘should’. In many social settings, it’s seen as better to refrain from displaying anger. Anger is seen…