• Accessible Enjoyment: How to Create Joy Everyday (Bad Days Included)

    Disability and fun can seem incompatible. How can you have fun when you are stuck in bed all day (and not in a good way)? What ways are there to laugh and smile when you are preoccupied with pacing, worrying about benefits, dealing with all the well-intended recommendations to drink more water/eat healthily/try chia seeds and oh yes, the actual chronic illness you are living with every single day? It’s hard, I know. I really do know as I’ve lived with chronic illness for the last thirteen years. But I’ve also danced in firelight on the beach at sunset, shared my heart on stage with hundreds of people, groomed the horses in milky December light,…

  • Let’s Talk About Self-Worth

    Maybe you aren’t a size 6. Maybe you can’t do downward dog. Maybe you aren’t exactly setting the world alight. Maybe you don’t know who you are, or what your passion is. Maybe brushing your teeth feels like a huge task. Maybe you aren’t earning 6 or 7 or 8 figures like a #boss Maybe your blog isn’t the talk of the town. I don’t care. You, my dearest, are worth everything, everything. Let’s talk about self-worth… Self worth is respecting my right to be a human being not a human doing. It means, I get space on this planet simply by being here, and I don’t need to rush/prove/busy myself…

  • Non-Hippy Happy: Building the Happiness Habit

    Firstly, full disclosure, I am pretty hippy. Not in a tie-dyed, groovy maaaan, recreational drugs, ‘drop in any time it’s an open house’ way. Not at all. I can’t stand tie-dye. I certainly don’t speak like that. I’m as square about drugs as its possible to be without actually being law enforcement personnel and if you try and come to my house without an invitation I won’t answer the door. I like block colours, received pronunciation, virgin drinks, appointments, and actually being dressed when you arrive. But in terms of happiness, wellness and emotional health – I’m a meditating, affirmation reciting, mantra chanting, mandala wearing, yoga class attending, flower-crown loving and therapy advocating hippy. But I was…

  • Space to Grow…into JOY

    A few weeks ago a repairman stood in our drawing room, looked around and asked, “So, my love, when are you moving in?” I was shocked. We’ve lived here nearly 7 years. Looking back, I can see why he was confused. The floor was covered in cardboard boxes full of things to donate, sell or recycle. All our paintings were down from the walls, and we’d removed nearly all the furniture. All that remained was a table, two chairs, and an earthenware jug of sunflowers on the chimney piece. I loved it. A blank slate, a clear space to grow into. The story behind all this, of course, is much…

  • Diagnosis: A New View

    It is the moment which changes your life. Sometimes it feels like it is the moment which ends it. The life you knew is gone, you are AD – After Diagnosis, your own new millennium. Diagnosis can feel like your carefully planned and treasured life burning up around you. That you can see things changing, feel them shifting, but are helpless to stop it. Diagnosis feels like a fire moving through our lives, consuming all we hold dear, burning our very selves, our image, who we are, and leaving us with little but pain and ash – where there used to be hopes, plans and a maybe not perfect, but…