first attended the Claddagh Toastmaster’s club in early 2022. Fast forward to three years later, I’ve now been elected as the club President for the 2025-2026 term.
I had never heard of Toastmasters until I came across it in a personal development book. It highly recommended as a space to improve yourself, particularly around public speaking. Having spent many years doing Model United Nations during my youth, public speaking was already rather up my street.
Over the last few years, my Toastmaster club has been a refuge in a sea of political chaos and radical personal shifts. It is one of the few in-person meetings with a regular schedule in my life.
Tag: #personaldevelopment
Feeling the pain of a world in conflict
I’ve been feeling low rather regularly in the last week. It’s really been at odds with what’s happening in my life. Broadly speaking, I’m actually on the up.
Yet as I regain my connection with the world, I also regain my connection with its pains. And right now, the world is in a lot of pain.
Seeing what is happening right now in Gaza is devastating. My soul has been longing for some space for sadness. After a period of time, perhaps I’m finally giving it.
Riding the emotional downs without guilt
For the last few weeks, I’ve been waking up feeling pretty ‘ugh’.
The film Inside Out 2 introduced a new character to personify this. The character was called ‘ennui’, with a stereotypical French manner of ‘bof’.
Ennui is essentially a feeling of disinterest and melancholy. It’s a good description of how I’ve been often feeling in the mornings and late in the evenings. (Although I preferred the first film better)
If I spend too much time thinking about it, I can end up getting super frustrated. After all, how can we have so many emotional shifts within the space of a single day?
What the human body teach us about healing
A few days ago I went to the Osteopath for a pain in my left shoulder.
The pain is nothing new. I’ve had this pain whenever I do a few sessions of yoga. It’s come back ever since I’ve restarted classes a few weeks ago.
Perhaps now was probably the time to actually fix it, rather than just constantly managing the situation.
Why we need to stop ‘grinding’ for success
Competitive culture is getting us obsessed with grinding. The answer to any setback in life just seems to be to try harder. But grinding is not healthy. And often, it’s actually very counterproductive.
It is true that many valuable things require hard work. Healthy relationships, successful careers and good fitness take work. But hard work is different to grinding.
This is something I’ve had to learn the hard way.
How to stop feeling tired all the time
Work. Eat. Sleep. Repeat. When did life become such a grind?
The amount of people who are constantly tired and overwhelmed is staggering. And it feels like it’s only getting worse. We seemingly cannot manage the amount of things that are pulling us left, right and centre.
The paradox here is that we have more modern day conveniences than ever. Washing machines for our clothes. Takeaway apps for our dinner. ChatGPT for our work reports.
A lot of us also work less hours than our parents or grandparents did too. So why is it then that we so many of us end up using our evenings and weekends to simply crash into our beds?
It’s time for you to change the world
The stage is set. The audience is waiting. It’s time for you to step up. No person was simply destined for greatness. It is honed, cultivated and created. ‘But who am I to make a change?’ You have a deeper reservoir of power than you ever even realised. This I know, I see it time […]
Being in the happy, natural flow of life
Since April, I feel like I’m making progress. I’m putting in effort, and I’m seeing results.
This is in stark contrast to the last twelve months. Things have felt a struggle. There was a constant sense of ‘two steps forward, one step back’. I wasn’t in control of my body. My energy levels felt like a daily roll of the dice. I wasn’t clear with where I was going.
Right now, I feel like being in flow with life. Before, I felt like I was a boat paddling against the currents of the river. Now, I feel like I’m paddling with it.
So what changed?
Why I do not need to be the arbiter of justice
How many times have you felt wronged by someone? Feeling the anger seeth through you, you feel the need to argue what the other person did was wrong. And if they don’t understand, you think about how they should pay for their actions.
I’ve felt conflicted for a long time on how we deal with people who are doing bad things. On the one hand, I want to practice the art of forgiveness, demonstrating that I am not holding a grudge. This is particularly the case when the slight is small – forgetting to thank me for something, or being a bit rude in the morning.
But on the other hand, I wonder whether I am being complicit in their actions. Should I not make it known that what they have done is wrong?
On the challenges of creating a community
One thing I’ve noticed recently is how people seem to be crawling out the woodwork. After a long period of post-COVID isolation, I’m noticing more efforts to unite together. Perhaps this is just my view in Brussels. Perhaps it’s because people are feeling driven to be more active due to the politics. Or perhaps it’s […]