It is almost Christmas and many of us are still scrambling around trying to choose the perfect gift for a friend or relative. What do they want? What do they need? What can we buy? We can spend hours in shops asking ourselves these questions. There is another way to select the perfect gift but it involves changing our perception of what gift giving is all about. The problem is that we think about giving gifts as the exchange of physical objects. A useful alternative is to think of a gift as... More »

37 Shares Relationship Bombs. We hit them all of the time – or rather they hit us. They are tensions ready to snap, anger ready to boil over or cold, calculated vengeance waiting for opportunity. A relationship bomb is on the brink of exploding in most confrontations because people simply don’t understand each other.

154 Shares You drink to much coffee and you know it. You have to cut back but you have tried and it is just too hard. You succeed for a day or two, but something always happens and you are back to where you started. The problem may be that you are trying to give up all of your habit, not just the negative parts. There are good parts to bad habits. You don’t have to give all of a habit away.

214 Shares Email is a constant struggle for most of us these days. It comes in thick and fast and threatens to overwhelm us if we take even a few days away from our inbox. Is it just me, or does anyone else think that email is becoming the New Boss? Most of us can remember life before email, back when we only had the phone or paper mail. When email came into popularity, we had a choice of how we used it. We could either treat it like the telephone and answer it... More »

5.4K Shares Your mind is racing, your heart is like a time bomb. You can’t think straight and you feel like you will explode if you don’t relax. Then you remember the standard advice: “Take all of your senses to a grassy meadow. Smell the flowers, listen to the insects, feel the grass, watch the birds flying above you.” What a load of rubbish.

46 Shares It is well into November and the world is ramping up its Christmas hype. We are bombarded with Christmas food, Christmas gifts, Christmas expectations and Christmas pressure. This can be one of the best times of year, but many people end up overcome by stress, guilt, molten credit cards and broken relationships. It doesn’t have to be like this. With a little forethought and planning, you can push aside the trouble and look forward to Christmas again.

65 Shares If you have ever been in trouble swimming in heavy surf you will know the sensation. You get dumped by one wave and get the air knocked out of you. You struggle to the surface and take another gasp, only to be hit by the next wave. Wave after wave pushes you under and you just can’t get free. You know that you could swim out or ride one in to save yourself, but the waves won’t give you give you a chance. All you really need is a break – to... More »