Find Your More: Connection, Peace, Fulfilment

There are two approaches to stopping the arguments: the First Aid approach which is what you do when you know you're about to launch into one; and the long-term healing approach which deals with the underlying cause of the arguments. Ultimately when you get free of the arguments you and your partner will be much closer to each other and you'll be on a path to healing.

So let me ask you a different question: “What would your life be like if you chose not to argue with your partner?”

Instead of just getting rid of the arguments, think about how your life and your relationship would transform if you initiated that change.

I should be clear about this. My parents argued: my mother shouted and my father stood by in quiet resistance. He only shouted back occasionally. But although Dad wasn’t shouting, he was still standing his ground. He was just more subtle about it. And it was still an argument.

Life in my parents' household was stressful and ultimately unsustainable. My mother developed rheumatoid arthritis and died shortly after her 58th birthday. That was enough to make me realise that all that arguing was a bad thing, but it took me a lot longer to discover that I didn't have to do it!

Choosing not to argue does not mean giving in. It means finding an alternative way of resolving your differences. There are dozens of ways to do this. It’s just a question of recognising that you and your partner are about to launch into an argument and choosing a different path.

Arguments generally start for two reasons:

1. we get triggered

2. we’re only seeing the part of our partner which we find most challenging – their ‘Core Negative Image’ (CNI)

How to stop an argument in its tracks

The fact that you’re feeling ready for a fight is a sign that one or both of these is in play. So you can use that argumentative urge as a sign that something isn’t right. It might be tiredness, hunger or general irritability. Or it might be that you feel hurt or slighted. But if you're feeling argumentative you're probably seeing your partner's CNI rather than the whole person.

Here are a few things you can do when you feel the argumentative urge coming on (and if it’s your partner who is getting argumentative):

1. Practice your ABC – acknowledge your state (fighty); take a breath; choose to behave differently.

2. Zip it! You’ve already chosen not to argue so until you can say something compassionate keep quiet.

3. Make a cup of tea and invite your partner to join you. This is a very British approach, and it’s probably an improvement on the glass of whisky preferred by Hollywood.

4. Suggest a walk outside to clear both your heads.

5. Offer to listen. Being listened to is both empowering and disarming. Your other half will feel seen and heard and will be less inclined to lash out.

6. Ask your partner to listen to you without interrupting (this will work better if your partner isn’t in fight mode).

7. If all else fails you can withdraw gracefully. That means telling your other half that you need time alone and will either return or check back in (with a phone call or text message) in 20 minutes.

These suggestions are a sort of first aid for arguments. They are not a long-term solution.

Stopping the arguments in the longer term

If you really want to bring the arguments to an end you have to look at the underlying issues. The arguments in a relationship are rarely about the content. They are about what that content means to the two partners.

I know that most of the arguments I had with my ex were not about what I thought they were about. They were about me trying to wrest control from him. We didn’t disagree about very much, but we made a lot of the disagreements we did have!

And all I saw was my Core Negative Image (CNI) of him. Remember that? The CNI is the bits of our partner we really dislike, and in the end that can become all we see.

To bring the arguments to an end and to bring peace into your home, you have to deal with the stuff which is generating those arguments. Remember, they’re just a symptom, they’re not the disease. But they can become very self-reinforcing and contribute to the disease.

Your ‘Wise Adult’ can stop the arguing

Perhaps the most important thing to recognise is that when we launch into a shouting match or a bout of vicious name-calling, we’re acting not from our inner ‘Wise Adult’ or out of our innate wisdom, but from our ‘Adaptive Child’. That’s the bit of you which you created to keep you safe when you were a child living among scary adults.

When people say “I can’t change; that’s just who I am,” it’s their Adaptive Child speaking. Because their Wise Adult would know that they’re capable of change!

So what was it in your childhood that made you create that argumentative part? If you reflect you’ll realise that it made sense at the time – whether you were seven years old, or 11 or 14. Something was going on that felt unsafe and being argumentative seemed like your best option. You probably weren’t aware of this. It happens unconsciously which is why it remains so powerful.

But once you recognise it you can start to transform it. Remember there is also a Wise Adult inside you. We all have one. It may be that it’s hardly ever seen the light of day. But once you’ve recognised that it exists, it will start to show its face!

To put this in slightly different terms, there are times when you act wisely, responsibly, compassionately and relationally. When you do this you’ve got ready access to your neocortex, the front part of the brain which is both rational and relational.

When you’re in the fight/flight mode of your Adaptive Child, your neocortex has gone offline temporarily and the limbic system, the more ancient part of your brain has taken control. This is what my friend, Thor A. Rain calls ‘crocodiling’. It’s what we do when we feel threatened.

The walk in the park and the cup of tea – or just some slow, steady breathing – are designed to calm the limbic system so that the neocortex can come back online. Your neocortex knows full well that shouting at your partner never solved anything and that you would prefer to be in connection.

Every time you take the less argumentative route you change your neurology. The old neural pathways led from trigger to argument – or fear to argument. Now you’re building a new pathway which leads from trigger or fear to self-soothing, compassion, calm and the desire to soothe and calm your partner as well.

As you do this your Adaptive Child will feel the calm. Or to put it the other way, your limbic system will become calmer and less inclined to get triggered. It’s a bit like changing the thermostat so that your heating comes on at a higher temperature.

Making changes to the way you behave can be quite challenging, so it's good to start with some self-care. Check out my complimentary guide, Three Steps to a Magical Relationship, which will walk you through some things you can do to make it easier.

It may seem a bit strange but sometimes being right can be counter-productive.

In western culture we put a lot of value on being right. Getting the answer right at school right through to being sure that you’ve got the right idea or the right view in everything from nutrition to politics.

And yet being right isn’t always the best place to be – or rather insisting on being right isn't always so clever.

It helps to have the right information when you’re sitting an exam. But it’s not always so helpful in a relationship.

I still remember the day that I realised that my mother wasn’t infallible and sometimes got things wrong. I think I was about 13 (which is probably a bit late!). But strangely I held onto the notion that I know when I'm right about something until I was in my 60s.

Being right and the British public school system

I blame it on boarding school. It was at boarding school that I had to recognise that Mum wasn’t right about everything. And that was just one of many insults to my adolescent psyche.

But of course in such a competitive environment it was important to get things right and get the As. And it was also important to have an opinion and stick to it. I remember the insecurity I experienced when I realised I didn’t know what to think about an issue. And then it was so important to put an opinion together at top speed!

This worked well at school. I got the As I wanted, and with all those opinions I started to have some standing among the other girls. And that was super-important because in the beginning I had no standing whatsoever.

But of course women who hold their opinions inflexibly don’t get a good rap in our society. People don’t like ‘opinionated’ women. So then I had to tone it all down.

So here we all are, these ‘survivors’ of the public school system (for my American cousins that means private, not state school) who have this overwhelming need to be right, all… the… time. And our need to be liked, admired and respected. So not to appear opinionated.

What happens when you’re always trying to be right in a relationship?

Being right – or trying to prove that you’re right – all the time is actually very anti-relational. It does not promote trust, connection or intimacy, and it’s not very likeable!

This wouldn’t be such a problem if being seen to be right hadn’t been so essential to my sense of self. And I know it’s the same for other women who went to boarding school.

The trouble is that I didn’t realise until a few years ago that my insistence on being right had been alienating my now ex-husband. It was my current partner who spotted it, identified it as a trait characteristic of ex-boarders (being one himself) and very gently and kindly encouraged me to let it go.

It’s been a revelation! I’ve realised that by needing to be right all the time I had shut down to my partner’s experience and I wasn’t learning or growing.

What does it look like, this need to be right?

Sometimes it’s as simple as pointing out that your other half has got something wrong. As in “you’re wrong when you say that the dishwasher uses less water than washing up by hand.”

In this case the question is not which method uses more water, but what will it do to our relationship if I keep banging on about it?

However needing to be right can be way more subtle than this. For instance a compulsion to add extra information to something your partner tells you so that you look intelligent (yep, I’ve done that). Or insisting that the deity has no gender, when he tells me she must be female (yep, done that too).

In this case it’s more a question of recognising that you can hold different views and everything will be okay.

The worst kind of needing to be right is holding the moral high ground. Coming over all self-righteous because your partner did something you deem to be morally indefensible. Like using the dishwasher when it was only half-full. Or more seriously when they accuse you of something you didn’t do or give you a really hard time over a minor infraction.

Judging your partner for this kind of behaviour doesn’t help. Because nobody likes to be shown up. If you want to stay connected with your partner you have to replace judgement with curiosity and compassion. That will allow both of you to move back towards connection and intimacy.

How do I do this thing of not needing to be right?

It’s one of those things which is simple but not always easy.

The first step is to notice what you’re about to say. Then you pause and take a breath. Then you choose: do I want to prove I’m right here? Or do I want to find a way forward which will allow me to stay in connection with my other half.

It takes practice and you may find that you don’t notice what you’re doing until you’ve already launched into proving you’re right. But it’s never too late to stop and apologise, and then back off and move into compassion & curiosity.

Needing to be right is one of the Five Losing Strategies in relationships. If you’d like to get to grips with more of these Losing Strategies you can come to my workshop, Stop Arguing, Get Closer, on January 29th, where I’ll be talking about them and introducing new ways of communicating which promote connection and intimacy.

You can register here...

Did you know that yesterday, January 7th, is the peak day for post-Christmas break-ups?

I can’t tell you why that is. Maybe it’s that people wait to find out whether things will get better when they go back to work, and then realise that they didn’t.

Or perhaps it’s the time they spent trying to put things right and failing. And then gave up.

But think about it – when something fails to work, we know that it wasn’t the best way to solve the problem. That’s feedback.

I hope you’re not one of those who spent yesterday thinking about breaking up with their partner, but if you are I’d like to offer you something that should help.

The biggest trap we fall into is thinking that it’s not my fault, it’s his (or hers or theirs). And wishing they would change.

If only they would listen…

If only they would understand…

If only they would stop doing…

If only they would remember to…

Sound familiar?

That was me with my ex. I thought if only he would change. I still remember the day my friend said to me “You can’t change him Sorrel; you can only change yourself.” It wasn’t enough, but it was a start.

We can all change and the most obvious place to start is with communication, and learning to do it better.

Terry Real, the founder of the Relational Life Institute, talks about the Five Losing Strategies in relationships.

They are:

• needing to prove that you’re right all the time

• trying to control your partner

• unbridled self-expression

• retaliation

• withdrawal

When we recognise what we're contributing to the conflict or the lack of trust, we can make a change and improve the communication between us.

If you want to find out more about the five losing strategies, you can download my one-page guide.

The antidote to the five losing strategies is relational mindfulness. This simply means that before you launch into an argument, an attempt at control or the urge to punish, you pause and ask yourself “is this going to be good for our relationship?”

It’s simple, but not always easy. There are two things which make it a little easier though.

First, understanding that the five losing strategies come from the part of you which evolved in childhood to keep you safe – your ‘adaptive child’. They don’t come from the wise adult part of you.

And secondly, that you can move from adaptive child to wise adult in three steps, ABC:

1. Acknowledge that you were about to do or say something from your adaptive child, which is likely to be injurious to your relationship

2. Breathe – just take a breath to help you calm yourself

3. Choose – this is the point where you decide you want to act from your wise adult and do or say something loving

It takes practice, persistence and commitment, and it helps if you’re taking care of yourself as well. This means making sure you're taking care of your own needs - for sleep, good food, quiet time alone. When you're rested and replenished it's much easier to do the difficult things like admitting you might have been wrong or simply listening to what your other half has to say.

Remember the oxygen mask? You put it on you first.

So I wish you a happy, peaceful and relationally mindful 2024!

Today is the Winter Solstice (in case you didn't know) and that means the days will start to get longer, here in the northern hemisphere.

This year I want to do something different for the Solstice; shake things up a bit.

Every year, around New Year, I write about how I don’t agree with New Year's resolutions. Because it seems that we set ourselves up to fail.

So this year I want to suggest thinking about a Solstice resolution or a Christmas resolution – or a holiday resolution?

Did you know that every January there are many couples who come out of the holidays having decided that it’s time to separate or divorce?

But how do we go into the holidays? Expecting that we’ll fall out with our mate and even that it’ll end up in divorce? Isn’t that just setting ourselves up for a self-fulfilling prophecy?

Forget the New Year's resolutions - the diets, the gym and phoning your parents once a week. What about simply starting the holiday with an intention? Maybe the intention to keep your relationship with your other half front and centre in your consciousness?

This is simply the practice of relational mindfulness. Like any practice, it gets better the more we do it.

So you can ask yourself questions like:

• Is it more important to prove that I’m right in this situation or to protect and nurture my relationship?

• What would serve my relationship best now? An angry outburst or loving forgiveness (even if there is no apology)?

• What’s the best I can do for my relationship at this moment – to withdraw gracefully (ie without slamming the door) or to stay and speak calmly about what I need?

Sometimes it may seem like you’re putting yourself last, but that is not the intention. The point of this practice is that you are protecting something which is important to you (just as you would care for the fabric of your house or flat).

Yes sometimes it does mean putting your relationship ahead of your petty self-interest. And that’s good because you’ve recognised that this particular sticking point is just that – petty self-interest. And sometimes it means giving up something you really want because you know that you simply can’t stay in relationship if you don’t.

But what's more important? That thing - whatever sort of thing it is - or a loving connection with your partner?

So remember the intention here is to nurture the relationship, and that means considering what you need, what your partner needs and what the relationship needs. And searching for the sweet spot where all of them overlap.

What do you need, what does your partner need, and most important of all, what does your relationship need from you this holiday?

And what can you do now to help make all of this possible?

It might be that you need to start by focusing on your own self-care so that you find it easier to be relationally mindful - you can read more about that in my e-book, Three Steps to a Magical Relationship.

And if you are truly concerned about your partner's commitment, as I said to a client the other day, plant and nurture the seed of connection in your partner so that the idea of divorce seems absurd.

Of course there's nothing special about people with boarding school syndrome.

Someone I know recently suggested that it’s not fair that people who went to boarding school should be given their own syndrome. After all it’s mostly privileged people who came from wealthy families and have done pretty well for themselves, thank you very much. And such people can afford privately-funded therapy.

Yes it’s true that many of us came from wealthy families (I didn’t), but no it’s not true that it’s a privilege.

Where’s the privilege in being deprived of the love and care of your parents for 40+ weeks of the year? And the feeling that you have been abandoned in this place where no-one knows what love and care even mean?

Where’s the privilege in being held captive in a space where you can’t escape the bullies? Or worse still the abuse.

Where’s the privilege in being separated from your siblings, pets, favourite clothes and toys? Just one cuddly toy allowed and a pair of jeans or casual ‘trews’ for weekend wear only.

But still why boarding school syndrome?

Because what I have just described – abandonment, bereavement, captivity – are special circumstances. And they give rise to specific symptoms, for instance:

• Dissociation (inability to feel our feelings)

• Addiction

• Relationship breakdown

• Codependency

Many of those symptoms will be familiar to people who did not go to boarding school. Nonetheless they had their origin in very specific circumstances of the boarding school experience.

Some people see boarding school syndrome as a particular form of PTSD. Or complex PTSD.

The childhood trauma expert, Bessel Van der Kolk has pointed out that many of his patients who had experienced childhood trauma were given diagnoses such as depression, bipolar disorder, borderline personality disorder and schizophrenia. But these diagnoses did not refer in any way to the origins of the patient’s disorder. So he created a new diagnosis: developmental trauma disorder.

When we identify the cause of the problem we go some way towards resolving it.

My colleague, John Britton, and I are both boarding school survivors. I’m not sure either of us would have self-diagnosed with boarding school syndrome. But we can both see that some of our more dysfunctional behaviour patterns have their origins in boarding school.

When you notice that your partner or spouse is emotionally walled-off and finds it almost impossible to put feelings into words, it helps to know that this is a direct response to their boarding school experience. So even though at times they may be unable to listen kindly when you want to share something difficult, you can still feel compassion for them, because you know this started when they were a frightened child held captive in an institution without love or care.

It would be just the same if your spouse blamed you for everything that is wrong in their life and you knew that this was because they had been abused as a child.

It’s not always easy living with someone who experienced abuse as a child, and it’s not always easy living with a boarding school survivor either. It just helps to know when they behave really badly that it might be because they have boarding school syndrome. Similarly if you can see how your partner’s behaviour may be linked back to an experience of abandonment as a child, that can be helpful too.

And it’s also immensely helpful to know that they can change!

John and I are hosting a webinar on Wednesday at 7pm GMT. We’ll be talking about some of the difficulties people face when they have been abandoned as a child (whether or not that was into a boarding school). And we’ll explore some of the ways we have found to let go of those old behaviour patterns and update them with something more healthy and relationship-friendly.

Register here and you can join us on Zoom for our presentation and the Q&A which will follow. If you can’t make it to the webinar, register anyway and you’ll get access to the recording.

https://www.sorrelpindar.co.uk/embrace-and-belong

For many of us who went to boarding school, we lived for the end of term and then for the very last day. And the day we left, we put it all behind us.

Or so we thought.

But the impact of a difficult time at boarding school can last for decades. It left me with anxiety, depression, an overwhelming fear of abandonment, a need to prove that I’m right and to be in control almost all the time, and a series of broken relationships.

For other people, particularly men, the impact is often a profound emotional shutdown, an inability to express their feelings and real difficulties with intimacy.

This is what has come to be known as boarding school syndrome.

It was psychotherapist, Joy Schaverien, who first identified and named this cluster of emotional states and behaviours that she observed in clients who were ex-boarders.

She also noticed that there were four characteristics of the boarding school experience which made survivors of these schools prone to developing boarding school syndrome:

• Abandonment

• Bereavement

• Captivity

• Disassociation

The disassociation is the child’s response to the pain and hurt which arise from the experience, but it becomes so embedded in the child’s character that by the time we leave school, we don’t even notice it.

How we heal boarding school syndrome

But after many years of living from my own version of boarding school syndrome, I’ve been able to recognise and change these patterns in myself, and I know that other boarding school survivors can too.

There is a place where we can heal more easily from childhood trauma and change those dysfunctional patterns. And that place is a close, loving relationship. Intimacy enables us to heal and change. The only problem is that for many of us intimacy is really frightening.

Ex-boarders have difficulties with relationships because of this fear of intimacy. But that may not be immediately obvious. Recognising that you might be part of the problem is the first step.

This was my first step. Even though I couldn’t see what I was doing wrong, I was prepared to admit the possibility that I might be doing something that was hurting my partner or contributing to the rift in our relationship.

Perhaps it was brave of me. I don’t know. But what I do know is that I wanted to make sure that if I had been contributing to our mutual unhappiness, I wouldn’t do it again in a future relationship.

The first thing I did notice was my dysfunctional independence, which made it very difficult to discuss things with him if I expected to receive a “No.” And I could see how that had arisen at boarding school!

The safety and security I have experienced with my new partner has made it possible to really dig into what else I was doing ‘wrong’. I know now that it wasn’t that there was anything wrong with me; the problem was in my survival personality. And I also knew that I am not my personality! That’s just the shell I grew to keep me safe at school (and in my family).

If you think that your boarding school experience may have led you to develop a survival personality or indeed you notice some aspects of boarding school syndrome, I want you to know that you can change! The fact that you created that survival personality means that you can adapt, declutter and reconfigure it.

If you are in a committed relationship, you can do this as you move towards greater intimacy with your partner. And if you’re single you can still do it with the loving support of friends and family.

My free e-book, coming home: Beyond Boarding School Survival, offers insights and strategies to move beyond the label of 'boarding school survivor.' Whether you've felt the weight of separation or the struggle to belong, this free download provides a roadmap to healing and empowerment.

Unpack your emotions, explore the impact of 'boarding school syndrome,' and discover pathways to reclaim your narrative.

Download your copy now and start your journey toward personal growth and greater intimacy.

Download Beyond Boarding School

If there's anything which winds me up it’s people talking about being broken (or worse still telling other people that they’re broken).

We humans talk like this all the time. I remember many years ago when I was a rookie osteopath, a patient told me that after her treatment she felt like she had been run over by a bus. Of course she hadn’t. Nor was she broken, because after treatment no. 2 she felt considerably better!

The point is if she had been broken she wouldn’t even have made it into my treatment room for the second treatment.

But I’m talking about trauma of the psychological kind now. There is this notion we have that we can be broken by trauma. But really it’s not true. The body may be broken, but the true self cannot be.

If you’re reading this, you’re not broken. Even if you’re hurting.

I prefer the metaphor of kintsugi, the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery by joining the pieces with lacquer mixed with powdered gold. The philosophy of kintsugi treats breakage and repair as part of the history of the object, rather than something to disguise.

As Christy Bartlett says in Flickwerk: The Aesthetics of Mended Japanese Ceramics,

“Not only is there no attempt to hide the damage, but the repair is literally illuminated... a kind of physical expression of the spirit of mushin....Mushin is often literally translated as "no mind," but carries connotations of fully existing within the moment, of non-attachment, of equanimity amid changing conditions... The vicissitudes of existence over time, to which all humans are susceptible, could not be clearer than in the breaks, the knocks, and the shattering to which ceramic ware too is subject.”

So where is the gold in trauma? As in the practice of kintsugi, the gold is found in the repair process.

After trauma, we go through a series of phases – a bit like those we find in the grieving process. They will not be the same for everyone, so this is a rough guide to the healing journey.

1. Denial. Initially here may be disbelief, or an inability to talk about what has happened. In her book Boarding School Syndrome, Joy Schaverien talks about the 8 year old Theo’s inability to articulate the brutality of the school his parents had sent him to. At such a young age we simply do not have the cognitive ability to to manage our emotions or vertbalise what we have experienced.

2. Shut-down. When our emotions are simply too much to bear, we shut ourselves off from them. This makes sense when we have no access to a sense of safety. But it makes it difficult to engage in intimate relationships. Psychotherapist, Chris Gore, talks about the fact that many of his male clients who went to boarding school are so shut down they cannot engage meaningfully with their wives and partners.

3. Depression or disease. For some the outcome at this point is depression or some kind of chronic illness, as the body-mind simply gives up the fight. I myself suffered with depression for decades and I have worked with many people whose journey from trauma led eventually to burnout and chronic fatigue.

4. Anger and blame. In the end, the pain is going to resurface. The energy cost of keeping those dreadful memories and the emotional pain under wraps is simply too great. The child who blamed himself for being abandoned or hurt, now blames others for their hurt. Very often we don’t understand why we have been triggered and that the cause of the anger is not what happened just now, but the trauma we experienced long ago.

5. The turning point, when it happens, may be the result of a major life event such as divorce. Or the breakdown of a relationship. It’s the realisation that it so difficult to say what you mean and be truthful in the relationship. Noticing that you have a fear of being vulnerable, of being seen, about getting your needs met. And wondering if you are OK as you are. Sometimes we find ourselves fearing what what will happen if they really see the shitty parts. And sometimes when things have got really bad we start to believe the awful things they say about us. And that is really hard.

6. Awareness. This is the point at which we start to notice the behaviour that arose out of the trauma: the ingrained patterns, the conditioning, the tired, worn-out old beliefs. And the bonus is when you realise that those old programmes have been sabotaging your relationship.

7. Acknowledgement. Once you have identified these old programmes, you can also recognise that they were something you created to keep you safe. It may be that they literally kept you safe from physical violence or it may be that they kept you safe psychologically. A young child will feel safer believing that she was abandoned because she was was bad than that it was because her parents were rubbish parents. Because while you can change yourself to be less bad, you can’t make your parents any less rubbish. The gold is in this recognition that you created these patterns. Because it means you can create something new.

8. Repair. The rest is simple, but it is not easy. You simply have to be present to what you’re doing, saying, believing, feeling… You just have to be mindful of how all this is impacting on your partner and therefore on your relationship. It’s not easy because it requires honesty, a degree of presence that most of us are not familiar with and a willingness to step into something new and possibly a little scary.

9. Accommodation & sovereignty. This is probably the hardest part, but it’s the place where you translate that gold into action. When you acknowledge your part in the breakdown of your relationship, when you own your shit, you move out of the role of victim (which you’ve probably been occupying for many years) into sovereignty. This means letting go of attachment to the outcome. It leaves us free to accept what has to be, knowing that this is for the greater good of the relationship and of both you and your partner.

This might look very daunting. But if you’re reading this, you’re probably already looking at stage 5, at the very least.

If you’re contemplating making this journey to those phases of repair, accommodation and sovereignty, and you’d like some support, please get in touch. You can book a free one-hour call where you can tell me your story, and we can figure out what support you need as you make the journey.

A loving, healthy relationship is the best place to heal from our trauma. When we feel loved, safe and cherished, we can do the work of facing our biggest fears, and our feelings of anger, guilt and shame. And we can start to change the patterns of behaviour that may have been causing difficulties in our relationships in the past.

The deepest emotional healing work is done within relationships, where two heart-connected people see emotional triggers as clues, rather than judgments or feelings towards each other. A big part of this is the willingness to move from 'you make me so angry when you...' to 'I feel really angry when you...' This is about owning your emotions, rather than blaming them on your other half (or other people).

It is also much easier to be vulnerable, when we feel safe with that our partner. That safety and a willingness to be vulnerable creates an opportunity to explore thoughts and feelings we might have buried in the past.

As you start to explore your triggers and the original circumstances which created those triggers, you may find yourself examining patterns of thought and behaviour which might have seemed unacceptable before. This is part of the work of owning your shit.

I know that in the past when I got triggered, I would either rage and shout or collapse into helpless sobbing and a real sense of hopelessness. But now with my partner, I know that nothing I think or feel is unacceptable. He doesn't mind if I cry.

The anger is interesting. I rarely get angry with my partner, but I get angry about other things. And he is a safe place where I can explore why I get angry. It's easier to be angry and to accept that, without the raging and shouting. And I should say, he's not a coach, he's not a therapist, he's just a human being who has figured some stuff out about love and relationships.

In the safety of our relationship, I have been able to discover things about myself that I would not have had the courage to explore before I met him. For instance the anger I felt about being sent to boarding school and my role in the breakdown of my former marriage. But I've also become much more present to what's right in my life and what I have got going for me.

With my partner's support I have been able to own my shit and to be present in the here and now, instead of dwelling destructively on the past.

The power of presence and owning our shit is something I will be discussing with transformational coach, Sharon Baker, on Monday November 27th. We'll be taking a deep dive into the process of healing trauma within relationships and you can join us on Zoom to participate in the Q&A.

If you want to be there, use this button to register:

...and you will be able to watch the recording if you miss the live call.

Here's the url for registration, just in case the button doesn't work: https://www.sorrelpindar.co.uk/conversation-with-sharon-baker

This week, November 13th-19th is National Self-Care Week in the UK, and the theme this year is mind and body.

It kind of made me laugh when I saw that, because here we are in 2023 and we are still separating the mind from the body. We can think of them as separate for convenience. But let’s starting behaving as if they’re not separate.

But what does this mean in practice? Well let’s take yoga as an example. I do a 15-25 minute yoga practice most mornings. I know that when I do my yoga, my joints loosen up, my back feels better and my mental health benefits.

For me yoga is an investment in my mental wealth. Those daily yogic squats keep my lymphatics moving, as well as keeping my joints loose. I feel great because by taking the time on the mat I’ve shown myself some love. I’ve put myself ahead of my work and any other commitments I have.

Yoga might not be right for you, but whatever you do to move, stretch and nurture your body, when you do it out of self-love, then you are adding an extra dimension to the experience.

Similarly if you practise meditation or mindfulness, if you choose to eat healthily, or if you spend time in creative activities, do it because you love yourself, not just because you want to be a little bit healthier!

Self-care is also about taking responsibility for yourself. It’s not just that your GP is over-worked and you want more from healthcare than yet another prescription. When we assume responsibility – response-ability – for ourselves, we inevitably take a more holistic approach to the care of our body-mind.

The doctor will probably not have time to go through your daily habits with a fine tooth comb, trying to get to the bottom or why you keep falling ill. But you can!

You can start with the obvious self-care practices such as meditation, yoga, a daily walk, good, healthy food and 8-9 hours sleep at night. And then you can start to listen to your self-talk.

How do you speak to yourself? If you notice that you’re speaking harshly to yourself, ask yourself what’s the likely impact of that on your mental & physical health. Would you expect a child or a dog to thrive if you constantly threw insults at them, or put them down with harsh words? And yet so many of us speak this way to ourselves.

What’s your response-ability here? You can change the way you speak to yourself. You can show yourself compassion and kindness. You can be curious about why you do and say the things you you do and say. You have the ability to respond to yourself with kindness.

As you learn to show yourself more love and care, you will also find that you have more fulfilling relationships with others in your life. It's easier to be kind and compassionate to others when we are kind and compassionate to ourselves - perhaps simply because as we practise it on ourselves, we get better at showing it to other people. And maybe when we are harsh to ourselves, we attract harshness from others; when we are kind to ourselves, we attract kindness from others.

So you see self-love and self-care are the ultimate holistic practice, with benefits spilling over into our relationships, our families and our communities.

Self-care week is just one week. But self-care is for the whole of the year. So perhaps this is an opportunity to make one lasting change to the way you live your life. And then once that change hs become a habit, you can create another and then another...

What habit would you like to change this week, that will mean you are taking better care of yourself and showing yourself more love for the next 12 months?

I was on my customary lunchtime walk today, watching the autumn leaves blow down from the trees, with the occasional helicoptering seed wings amongst them.

It reminded me of a book we had when my girls were small, all about a girl who catches a falling leaf which turns out to have magical properties. The story follows her as she goes first to Mum, then to Dad, then her brothers and sisters, trying to get them to listen as she tells them about the magic that the leaf has brought into her day (things like turning mud pies into delicious cakes, and old curtains into velvet robes).

But they are all too busy with their own affairs to listen, and besides none of them is able to believe in what she tells them – after all she is the youngest child and therefore the least credible. And they all know that magic is not a thing.

But in the end, she finds her grandma, who is sitting by the fire knitting. Gran listens to the girl’s tale and then responds, “I had one of those once, dear.” Gran has time to listen and is open-hearted enough to consider that our heroine has something of value to tell her. And of course, most importantly perhaps, she already has experience of a magic golden leaf.

I came across a magic golden leaf back in 2017. It didn’t turn mud-pies into cakes or old curtains into velvet robes, but it totally transformed my life. What I’m talking about is the philosophy or model of the mind known as the 3 Principles.

It really is very simple: there are only two things I know to be true, and I can count on them.

1. That all our experience – thoughts, perceptions, feelings – are created from inside of us; they are never a direct result of anything outside.

2. That we are all part of something bigger – the divine, universal consciousness, the implicate order, call it what you will. As the late Zen master, Thich Nhat Hanh said, “enlightenment is when a wave realizes it is the ocean.”

I know many people who have also got a magic leaf of their own. And it’s always good to talk about the Principles with them. But of course it’s also good to share this understanding with people who have never come across it and are maybe a bit sceptical about it!

So here’s the rub. People don’t like to be told that their impression that their feelings are caused by stuff outside of them is a false impression. Of course they don’t! This is a truth many of us hold dear. It allows us to blame someone else when we feel crap.

And it’s no good me saying “but don’t you realise? You create your feelings of anger / guilt / despair from the inside-out.” All that does is alienate people.

So I am happy to talk about my own experience. This particular magic golden leaf has given me leverage to change so much of my own experience:

• I stopped seeing myself as a victim of my circumstances and got into the driver’s seat of my life

• I began to view the trauma of my adolescence as the source of many of my strengths

• I realised that the anxiety I so often experience is not only a response to things going on ‘out there’ but also a neurological pattern which I created in the past and which I can at least modulate if not eradicate

• I have understood that I have innate healing power and innate well-being, and I have learned to trust it when I am either unwell or having a bad day with my mental health

• I am able to be in a happy and fulfilling relationship because I’ve understood that the only person I can change is myself, and that even if there are things I’m not so keen on in my partner, those things are never the cause of my unhappiness or irritation.

• If I notice that I am feeling unhappy about something, I stop to ask myself why it seems to important to me

• If I get irritated by anyone, I first ask myself “am I in an irritable mood?” The answer is usually yes, which explains why I am finding people irritating!

This is a pretty random list, but the summary is that the Principles have transformed my mental & physical health, my relationships, and my work-life balance.

If you’d like to find out more about how the Principles could form the basis for your peace and happiness download the e-book. There are 10 chapters and each one ends with a question for reflection, which will help you to move your own life forward.