Read our posts about Soul

10Oct

5 Adventurous Wellbeing Retreats

Caroline Sylger

health, retreats, spas, wellbeing

Soul

Want some adventure with your wellbeing? On these wonderful healthy holidays you can see the world but look after yourself at the same time, says retreat journalist Caroline Sylger
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25Sep

Culture Tip: Pride

Camilla Nicholls

Soul

When watching Pride, written by Stephen Beresford and directed by Matthew Warchus, a warm, witty and timely film based on true events during the miner's strike of 1984, I was reminded of one of my favourite protest posters of the late twentieth century: 'If Thatcher gets up your nose, picket'.  I was taken back to a period of my life when bucket-waving and badge-wearing were everyday occurrences. I recall a time of political certainty for myself and my peers. We knew we wanted 'Maggie, Maggie, Maggie, Out, Out, Out!' We didn't want to go to war. We didn't want...
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18Sep

How I Fell in Love with a Dog

Louise Chunn

love

Soul

I didn't see this coming, this puppy love. If truth be told, I agreed to my teenage daughter's pleas for a dog because (a) I thought it would provide company for her in the evenings so that my husband and I could go out more easily,  and (b) I realised that I was never going to extricate myself from my desk without being forced. I could blame welldoing.org for that - launching a website is beyond hard work, and as long as you're sentient you will be sitting at a desk, gazing at a screen. Having done some research on the internet, we drove to Norfolk where a...
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31Aug

Why Won't We Help Each Other Out?

Jane McGregor

empathy, psychology

Soul

What prompts us to ignore the distress of other people? We’ve all found ourselves in situations - the times we’ve seen someone taunted and didn’t intervene; when we’ve driven past a car that has broken down, assuming another driver would pull over to help. We’ve noticed a young man slumped on the pavement, and not gone over to check if he’s okay. We witness a problem; consider doing something, then respond by doing... nothing. Something holds us back. So why don’t we help in these situations? Apathy can immobilise us when we feel the impulse to flee and help at the...
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28Aug

Imagine A World Without Trees?

Jackee Holder

wellbeing

Soul

Can you imagine what your neighbourhood or this country would look like if there were no trees covering the countryside or dotted around our cities, towns or villages? In her novel The Twelve Tribes Of Hattie, author Ayana Mathis describes this scene perfectly when she writes, “ She smelled the absence of trees before she saw it…” There was a time in the past when the UK was covered in wild forests, where trees would live for up to 2000 years. Surely the ancient trees that have survived, who have worked so hard on our behalf, providing wood, habitat for animals and...
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11Aug

Millennials' Quarter-Life Crisis

Alice Stapleton

career, love, stress

Soul

Millennials, also known as Generation Y or Quarter-Lifers, (basically, those currently in their 20s and early 30s) are facing one of the toughest economic climates for many years, and the pressure is starting to show. Mental health amongst this generation is deteriorating (one in ten young people now experience mental health problems), staff retention is down, indicating a lack of satisfaction at work, and more and more Millennials are being priced out of the housing market, with one in four young adults returning to live with their parents between the ages of 25 and...
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04Aug

Top 5 Retreats in the English Countryside

Caroline Sylger

health, retreats, spas, wellbeing

Soul

You don't have to travel far for relaxation – here's our pick of 5 beautiful UK retreats
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23Jul

What We Don't Know About Death

Patricia Pearson

bereavement, death

Soul

I’ve heard ghost stories about death before, but, until the spring of 2008, I didn’t realise that in reality they were usually love stories. No one in my family realized that until, one March morning, my father unexpectedly died in his sleep. My beloved elder sister Katharine happened to be awake in her bedroom one hundred miles east, that night. All of a sudden, she sensed a presence with her, and felt hands gently cupping the back of her head. Tender, loving hands; an inexplicable swirl of energy. It was an utterly uncanny sensation that she’d never had...
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11Jul

I'm a Female TV Sports Addict

Anne Wilson

TV

Soul

Do you realise the pressure I’ve been under this summer? Not because of my job, or an unusual number of family celebrations. Instead, it’s the pressure of watching every World Cup game, the tennis, the Tour de France and keeping an eye on the Premiership transfer market, whilst still maintaining a semblance of normal family life. I love watching sport; I was brought up on it. It was a family thing - tennis and athletics for mum, footie for dad. I remember the delicious ritual of closing the curtains to keep out the summer sun while we watched the Olympics,...
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02Jul

Writing Fiction Airs My Demons

Joanna Briscoe

books, creativity, therapy

Soul

Writing is a form of therapy. The creative act seems as necessary for my mental health as a social life and exercise. And beyond that, I find that my deeper, darker soul emerges in my novels in ways I never expect… We all know that diary and letter writing can be cathartic  -  and certainly my own teenage diaries were where I worked out the passions and indignities of life – but writing longer fiction works as therapy on several different levels. I’m not proposing that we should all attempt to write full-length novels, because it’s horribly difficult and takes...
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