Loss can be a seismic shock that cleaves us open to release a torrent of pain or anger. There’s an art to grieving, I believe. An art to embracing the conflicted feelings: shock,  denial, bargaining, anger, and the bleak finality of acceptance. To grieve well requires patience and enormous courage, in a culture which has few rituals to swaddle the weeping heart, to embalm the wound till we grow scar tissue to venture into our lives once again. We are not taught how to grieve. We are taught how to name, categorise, label, mostly,  not how to ...Read More »

So often we talk about what we don’t want in our lives. “I don’t want a partner who lies to me.” “I don’t like my job.” The insidious, “I can’t sing, I can't resign from my job, sell my house, live alone ... ” The ubiquitous “I’ll try to” that reflects our ambivalence and disempowerment. Or the threadbare, "I'll see what I can do", or the terminal, " we'll see"... Thickets of thorny don’ts barricade our path to change and new growth. The slippery, non-committal words that signify nothing. The "buts" ...Read More »

  The first month of this much heralded calendar year, is named in honour of Janus, two-headed god of thresholds. “This year will be better...” I hear people say hopefully, perhaps as a talisman to ward off the disappointments and hardships of the year gone by.  “2012 will be exactly what we make of it,” from a pragmatic, more self-actualised perspective. As the effervescent bubbles of New Year’s Eve flatten into the sober days of January and we minister to the minutiae of our daily lives Fate may enter softly ...Read More »