It’s day one of the school holidays. I’m already feeling at a loss for what to do to fill the time. I am feeling a lethargy and a listlessness that has stopped me from making fun plans […]

The intense sense of dread and grief we felt in 2020 has been replaced by a more subtle but chronic feeling. A feeling that has caught many of us off-guard…

I am often called in as a mediator because of ‘ineffective and unproductive behaviour’ (to put it mildly).

Organisations often address problems at a behaviour level, perhaps because it feels more comfortable to do this. We often have policies and procedures to deal with ‘problem behaviour’. But these behaviours are symptoms. They can only be meaningfully and sustainably addressed through uncovering the root causes. Problem behaviours stem from difficult feelings that have not been acknowledged…

There is a little-known term, coined by psychotherapist Andrea Nair, to describe what happens when children get home from school after a day of trying to maintain a certain level of energy, mental motivation, emotional containment and physical restraint… They experience ‘after school restraint collapse’. At home, they are able to release their pent up emotions and express themselves without fear of judgement or consequences.

I think we need an equivalent term for adults…

There is a lot of tension in the air at the moment. One week into lockdown #2 and there are signs of pent up anger, anxiety, loss, loneliness all around. Aggressive driving, argumentative social media exchanges, impatient interactions in shops, family blow-ups.

If you are lucky enough not to be experiencing overt conflict at work, it is likely that there are conflicts brewing under the surface…

My son turned 7 last week. When I picked him up from school he described his day… Isaac: ‘Everyone sang happy birthday to me. It was nice but a bit embarrassing.’ Me: ‘So you felt embarrassed but still liked it?’ Isaac: ‘No - I mean I mostly liked it but was a little bit embarrassed too.’

It may seem a minor thing to celebrate, but I'd just spent time with a senior team, teaching them to notice and name their emotions. Their inability to do this has kept them stuck in a perpetual, unconscious cycle of mistrust, reacting to each other without really understanding why. So to be corrected by my son for emphasising the wrong emotion felt reassuring…

Just before lockdown, Dr Rachel Morris interviewed me for her brilliant 'You are not a frog' podcast about how to manage difficult conversations that arise during change, crisis and conflict. The recording is now live and our conversation is even more relevant today, as leaders navigate perpetual uncertainty and as teams figure out how to work together in our changed world…

My 3 year old loves flowers. Yesterday I gave her some that I had found on the ground. She was so delighted - repeatedly and lovingly arranging them, smelling them, gazing at them. And then I inadvertently said something that provoked an outburst of anger and she started hysterically ripping them to shreds in protest. It was a tragi-comic moment, seeing her do something so pointless and destructive that hurt no one but herself…

I was reminded recently of the power of deep listening and empathy to enable us to process our feelings. I have felt very ‘full’. Full of emotion, thoughts, ideas, hopes, worries, preoccupations, stresses, pressures, doubts, judgements (of self and others). It had been a volatile week in terms of my moods and my children’s. My six year old had started back at school . It was only after dropping him off (and my daughter at nursery) that the exhaustion caught up on me. I realised how much I have been carrying around over the last three months...

A few weeks into lockdown, I started to realise that one of the things I was finding hard was that I had no team to help through the Covid-19 crisis. […] This longing to help people was painful at first as I felt powerless. Stuck at home, self employed, team-less. It was as if my wings had been clipped. And on top of that, my planned team facilitation and mediation projects were put on hold due to Covid-19…

Last Saturday I sat outside for an hour while the wind gusted around me. This was a rare (if chilly) treat. No kids, no book, no radio, no journal, no coffee. I just sat there and observed what was happening around me and within me. […] I love the sunshine. But the changeable, dramatic weather we have had in the last week has better matched the volatile moods I have experienced since lockdown…