I was in the supermarket the other day, standing in front of the yoghurt fridge for far too long, trying to remember which one everyone in the house will actually eat, phone in one hand, cold air spilling out every time someone opened the door beside me, while a news headline flashed up that made my stomach drop a bit. And there I was, holding a yoghurt, thinking how strange it is that you can be worrying about something as small as what to buy for the week while also carrying something much bigger that you can’t do anything about. [...]

The other day, in the kitchen at that end-of-day hour where everything feels a bit louder than it should, I told my son to stop shouting. By shouting, “STOP SHOUTING.” So, you know, a real masterclass in calm, regulated parenting there. But hey, I think this is just one of those deeply, reliably human things. We try to create one thing while bringing the exact opposite energy. We want calm, so we arrive with urgency. We want connection, so we come in sharp. We want to be heard, so we just get louder and louder until no one’s actually listening [...]

One of the things I often hear from people who come to work with me is not "My life is a disaster". Or "Everything has fallen apart." It's something much harder to get a grip on than that: Things are fine. So why don't they feel fine? These are not people in crisis. They are people who have, by most reasonable measures, got it together. They've made the sensible choices. They've shown up. They've kept going when keeping going was hard, and they'd be the first to tell you they have a lot to be grateful for, and they mean [...]

A client said to me this week, “I know this is ridiculous, but I can’t seem to stop.” She was talking about saying yes when she meant no. About volunteering for things she didn’t have the capacity for. About picking up the emotional slack for everyone else and then lying awake at 2am feeling mildly furious with the entire world. “I understand where it comes from,” she said. "But why am I still doing it?” Ah yes. That familiar, slightly maddening gap between knowing and doing, where you can analyse yourself beautifully and still send the email you swore you [...]

Choosing a life coach in the UK can feel surprisingly confusing. Coaching isn’t tightly regulated, approaches vary widely, and online you’re met with bold promises and polished confidence. But most people aren’t looking for a dramatic reinvention. They’re looking for steadiness. A client once said to me at the start of a coaching session, “I shouldn’t really need this. Nothing’s that bad.” She laughed when she said it, but her shoulders were up around her ears. From the outside, her life was fine. Work was stable. Relationship ticking along. No dramatic crisis. But she felt permanently braced. Like she was [...]

I’ve been ill this week: Proper under-the-duvet, sore throat, head-pounding kind of ill. And for the first time in a long time, I had to cancel a lot of clients. Even typing this makes me squirm a bit. I care so much about my work. I don’t like letting people down. There’s always a little voice that says, "you could probably push through. It’s only a cold. Just get on with it." But I’ve learned the hard way that “just get on with it” isn’t always wise. I once did an open water swim race with a cold because I [...]

Someone sent me a message the other day: “How do we stay aware and angry enough to create change, while still protecting our minds as we get on with our small everyday lives? We do matter, of course, but you know what I mean.” Yes. I do. The world has felt especially shite recently. Has it for you too? The Epstein files have been released, finally. And yet nothing is happening. Some of the most powerful men in the world have been named, and still there are no arrests. No visible consequences. It leaves this heavy question hanging in the [...]

Can't stick to exercise? It's motivation, apparently. Can't get off your phone? Motivation. Can't meditate, journal, drink two litres of water and become an entirely different person by Tuesday? Motivation, always motivation. I keep noticing this - with clients, with friends, even in my own kitchen at seven in the morning when I'm too tired to think straight. We've made it the answer to everything. And I'm just... so bored of it. Motivation is unreliable. It comes and goes like the weather. Some days it's there, some days it isn't. You can't build a life around it any more than [...]

Is it me, or does the world feel ever-so completely unhinged right now? People are suffering in ways that are hard to comprehend. Whole populations caught in violence, families buried under decisions they didn’t make, a planet heating up while those with power argue, posture, and dodge responsibility. Watching it all unfold, and seeing the same men (and it is mostly men) still taken seriously as real harm escalates, is deeply unsettling. And yet. Here we are. Still trying to live our lives. Still feeding the cat. Still replying to emails. Still wondering what to cook for dinner when [...]

Episode 3 of our new podcast is out now. And ever since we finished recording, I've been having those classic 4am wake-ups, the kind where your brain goes, "Why did I say that? Should I have cut that bit?" You probably know the feeling, right? When you bolt awake in the middle of the night with your heart thudding, replaying something you said or did - convinced it was too much, too messy, too honest. That "oh god, should I go back in and fix it?" kind of feeling. The thing is, when I'm recording the podcast, I'm not really [...]