Happiness & Wellbeing

For much of my life, I’ve felt adrift, caught in moments when I wasn’t okay, yet unable to admit it. For years, it was easier to pretend everything was fine rather than face the truth. I often felt alone, struggling to stay afloat on a sea that seemed intent on …

People say to embrace your thirties, as your thirties are when life truly begins. It’s a more empowered age than your twenties, being older, wiser and more experienced. You should feel at ease, you should feel comfortable. By now, you should know yourself, and know what you are doing and …

For six years I've lived alone. Now, I'm moving in with someone. And I'm finding it hard to let go of the life I’ve lived for so long as it teeters on the edge of becoming ours instead of just mine. I find myself reminiscing about all the things I’ve …

My definition of love used to be this:  Love meant giving everything. Losing yourself completely and willingly. Love was sacrifice.  If you die, we die together.  Love was a fairy-tale where nothing else mattered as long as we kept the flame alive.  Love meant compromise of self—  letting go of all other connections, …

I've come to learn that being alone is powerfully compelling, once you’ve reframed alone time as not something that has happened to you, but as a time to make things happen for you. And there is an unexpected beauty in being alone, especially in public. I used to see alone …

It’s that time of year again, where people get reflective and look back over the past twelve months, social media feeds go crazy with people posting their best bits (queue dramatic music backdrop to a carefully curated reel) and it seems everyone is on the 'New Year, New You' bandwagon. …

Happiness Doesn't Start with Someone Else—It Begins When You Truly Meet Yourself. Or does it? It's certainly not the story I've been told. Meet someone, settle down, get married, have kids. Happiness and joy is found through others. When I reached my mid-thirties as a singleton, the pressure of these societal …

Six years ago, my job was predominantly social. I'd natter with total strangers, host presentations in front of hundreds of people and whilst never totally comfortable, I was pretty good at speaking in front of an audience. But for the past few years I've been working from home, and something has …

People need connection. People want to be included, to be liked, to feel part of a community. Connected with others, validated in their actions, life choices and who they are. But in this day and age of social media and the internet, are we really able to achieve connection in …

You might be reaching out for forgiveness.You might be testing the waters,wondering if I could forgive enoughto let you back in.But I am empowered by the act of no action,the choice to let you pass bywithout any need to understandwhat you want this time. No part of me feels compelledto …

I know that I should love my body for all that it is, and not over-ride how I look now with how I hope to look one day. But body acceptance is hard. A few years ago, I became very aware that this vessel has got to get me through …

Is journaling good for wellbeing? I had not anticipated how valuable journaling would become to me. How this place for me to write my deepest thoughts and feelings, to explore my emotions and figure out a bit better, who I am. Would improve my mental health, increase my self-awareness, help …

Are you putting your partner and your relationship, ahead of you? I used to be that person who put my partner on a pedestal and prioritised my relationship above all other things. Their interests, their hobbies, their wants and needs consistently came before my own. Basically, I regularly backbenched myself. …

Pre pandemic, if someone had suggested a 100% stay at home role I would have firmly declined. I loved that four of my five days a week were spent traveling across the country meeting customers within a highly sociable role. I loved being out and about. And as a singleton living …

Every aspect of life is impacted by mental health. Which makes it a bit silly when I think back on how uncomfortable I’ve felt admitting that mentally, I’ve experienced peaks and troughs, when pretty much every element of everyday life impacts my emotions, feelings and state of mind. So here’s …

I don’t know about you, but for the last few years I’ve found too much going on in my social calendar to feel really heavy. Stressful, even. I didn’t practise healthy social organisation skills, said Yes to pretty much anything and started to feel quite overwhelmed. Sure, there are worse …

More often than not nowadays I see jobs advertised with no salary definition. But why? 98% of employees want to know salary details before applying for a job. That figure is no surprise to me. (Well actually, who the heck are the 2% that isn’t bothered with knowing what they’re …

Dr Miriam Kirmayer has spent the past decade researching the science of friendships. On her website she states, “Our friendships are one of the most important predictors of our health and happiness, but it turns out we don’t actually know or talk much about how we can make new friendships, …

After a two year hiatus from overseas travel – cheers Covid – last March I went to the iconic city of Paris. A place known for its great wine, even better cheese, bohemian ambience, historic monuments. And also, the home of the Mona Lisa.  It’s top of the list for …

I used to see myself as all my shortcomings. The inadequacies were all I focused on. I held my many flaws against myself and saw imperfection when I turned within. We’re taught that we should be perfect. Our minds, bodies, lifestyle, everything about us should be top notch or as …

When I entered my early thirties newly divorced and freshly single, being on my own seemed to carry this automatic notion that I was failing at life. I felt I should be miserable with my single situation because there seemed this instant pity the moment I told anyone that I …

'The swerve' is a term coined by New York writer Rachel Syme, when on the morning of her 36th birthday she took to Twitter to share her thoughts. "It's a time of lurches and swerves", she said, as the mid-30s 'must do' list loomed not as distantly as it had …

Are you deciding whether to have children or opt for a childfree lifestyle? Society often presumes that eventually you'll make the choice to have children, that you will get there in the end. As if there really wasn't a need to consider or a choice to be had at all. …

My 30s hit me hard. So many expectations that hadn't existed in my 20s when I just did things for fun, made mistakes, had zero level of shit worked out and didn’t have to think about the looming ‘future’ ahead or the consequences. But when that big 3-0 arrived it …

. Ever struggled to find the right balance between wanting to do a good job and knowing when to say you can’t take on anymore because you don’t want your commitment to doing a good job leading to 50+ hour weeks? Yep, I feel you. Pre-Pandemic my career dominated my …

Here’s a big truth about single life. On some days, I feel lonely. I’ve often written about how wonderful single life is and for the most part it really is, for so many reasons. But feeling lonely sometimes utterly sucks. I hate to admit that I feel lonely sometimes, because …

Social Media. An endless stream of happy smiling faces portraying wealth, success and picture perfect moments. Awe inspiring and envy inducing lifestyles. The social media world looks pretty darn fabulous when taken at face value, but this is a reminder to myself, to you reading, and for anyone who needs …

Rest and relaxation. Sounds lovely doesn’t it? That idea of just chilling out, no plans, nothing to do. Long dreamy moments to align and reflect. However I've always struggled to put rest and relaxation into practise. This is the era of busyness culture after all; where a busy life equates …

I turned 37 this week and I am growing more concerned every day with this mid-30s awkward aging process. There are lines on my forehead that don’t go away anymore. Aches in my joints that didn’t niggle a year ago. Those faint smile wrinkles seem now permanently engrained even when I'm …

Last year my boss (who is also a woman) ended a virtual meeting by saying, “This comment is for the ladies on this call. Stop. Apologising.” She said it because I’d apologised numerous times for the basic look of my PowerPoint slides. Another female colleague had apologised for explaining what …

This is a guest blog by Lisa Holmes: Chances are, if you are reading this you could be in your 30’s and thinking, “No, I've never thought about the menopause.” I hadn’t either. Before all of this I had never even heard of the term peri-menopause. Until I was in …

Being a single woman in her 30s is a weird place to be. There’s like a pariah status that comes with the territory. Other people have made my being single feel like a curse at times. Because a single woman, especially an older single woman, is apparently all kinds of …

I feel overwhelmed constantly with, well, just life really. I didn’t used to feel this way, I had better coping mechanisms. But things that didn’t used to feel like a lot feel like so much now. Like days when there are multiple what’s app threads to respond too and my …

Recently I was driving to the South West of England alone, when two men in a van began honking and waving, trying to distract me along the motorway. They were smiling and laughing as they mirrored my speed. Maybe to them it was a joke. Possibly a desire to compliment …

This is a guest blog by Lisa Holmes: I don't believe in stages of grief, like a run of a ladder. For me grief has been every feeling and emotion weaving its way in and out, like a squiggly drawing or a knotty piece of string. When I think one …

For the last ten months I’ve been working on some serious (-ly lacking) boundaries, prioritizing self-care and pushing myself out of my comfort zone. Part of that journey has involved getting really comfortable spending some alone with myself. So far I’ve tackled solo cinema outings, unaccompanied gigs, coffee and dinners …

University is the place to make lifelong friends, live your best life and create memories that will last a lifetime. When I got my place at Nottingham Trent University 18 years ago, that was the dream. Well it was definitely the image I had in my head anyway. The real …

Periods. Yep, I said it. I’m slightly uneasy writing it, you’re probably a little uncomfortable reading it. But it is a totally natural process. Although one that somehow elicits these feelings of being wrong, shameful, or like you’re speaking out of turn for just mentioning the 'P' word out loud. …

I wasted a lot of time believing a lot of things in my 20s. Like that everything in my 20s was forever and that decisions were permanent and unchangeable. That how a boy treated me or how much he liked me, should represent my own levels of self-worth and confidence. …

I keep coming across articles that say things like, ‘What not to wear after 30,’ ‘How to dress your age’, ‘The new ‘rules’ of getting dressed in your 30s,’ ‘Things to stop wearing after…’ But seriously, who makes these rules? This is not the 1950s and I’m not dead yet, …