Am I being abused? Conscientious, agreeable people sometimes don’t recognise another person’s patterns of behaviour as abusive. How to tell if you are in an abusive relationship.

Unintentional gaslighting can slowly corrode the fabric of a workplace, causing lasting damage to both individuals and the organisation as a whole.

The dance of one step forward and two steps back in trauma recovery encapsulates the essence of resilience and growth. Survivors move through this intricate dance with courage, embracing progress and setbacks as integral parts of the journey.

Narcissists will shame us as an act of overt cruelty, gaining gratification from the sense of personal power that gives them.

Training in Mindful Self Compassion gives us powerful new tools - short daily mindfulness practices – that can change the mental habits of a life time with persistence and repetition. We can heal our shame.

What are we up against when we decide to embark on a journey to heal our shame with self-compassion?

In a word: DOUBT.

(One of the Five Hindrances in Buddhist Psychology. The others are aversion, attachment, restlessness and sloth)

Our minds are reason-making machines. We only have to witness how they bully us into worrying, ruminating or obsessing to understand that. In accepting paradox - we learn to live with, “I don’t know” as well as, “I don’t understand”, rather than, “there has to be a reason for this”.

Burnout is an occupational hazard. Prolonged stress, overwork, uncertainty, survival pressures and pushing through crisis fatigue (a population-wide condition after a global pandemic) can be a recipe for psychological exhaustion.

Bullying and psychological abuse is all about the absence of things, rather than the presence of things.

People know when they are the victim of covert bullying and abuse.

Written over the entrance to the Ancient Temple at Delphi were words which could easily form the basis of modern trauma-recovery therapeutic interventions. Know Thyself. They are an exhortation to look first within our own character in order to understand our world.

In her 1996 book, psychologist, Elaine Aron first identified a type of person who it is estimated makes up about 15-20% of the population. They are not necessarily shy or introverted, and are not necessarily neurotic. But they are normally and naturally sensitive, deep thinkers, who essentially feel things more deeply than others.

Some of us have harsh, sarcastic or critical voices that are part of our own internal dialogue. These harsh inner voices are the result of conditioning. We learned this cruel internal discourse as we were growing up, from our parents, caregivers, teachers, peers or siblings.

Triggers can be directly addressed when our nervous system is in a relaxed and safe enough environment to do so. The traditional Tibetan practice of Chod is the perfect visualisation method for us to take the sting out of things we fear.