Read our posts about soul

23Jun

Top 5 Sea Retreats

Caroline Sylger

retreats, spas, wellbeing

Soul

Go with your lover to the Maldives Spa time at Constance Halaveli (above) If my husband and I ever won the lottery, it’s the Maldives we’d head to first, to have treatments, drink champagne and plan our new life together. There are all sorts of glamorous retreats out there, but we rather liked Constance Halaveli in the Ari Atoll, a civilised island with mahogany-lined over-water villas, exceptionally good Balinese therapists (ask for Ayu) in the over-water U Spa by Constance and delectable seafood (we got addicted to the reef fish balls). Hang out in the hot pools...
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11Jun

Beauty: What Lies Beneath the Makeup

Edyta Wanic

society, women

Soul

Inspired by the media coverage of the no-makeup selfie campaign by Cancer Research UK, I decided to research the influence of makeup on women’s lives by setting myself up as guinea pig for my student paper at the University of Warwick.   One day I went out barefaced and the next I wore noticeably more makeup than usual. How would I feel? And how would other people respond to me? I normally wear minimal makeup, but the idea of going out makeup-free even for a day made me feel uncomfortable.  I was concerned about looking unprofessional at work and...
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09Jun

How To Become A Better Listener

Jackee Holder

empathy, friendship, wellbeing

Soul

Our environments have become increasingly and worryingly noisier. We talk and text constantly on mobile phones.  It’s the norm to see couples and friends out eating and drinking, and everyone will have their heads down texting or tweeting, even whilst in conversation. So it’s not surprising that as our digital talk increases we’ve steadily become poorer listeners, not better ones. So how does one become a better listener and can you learn to listen well? We’ve become adept at a type of hearing which processes information through our own personal filters. Most...
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06Jun

Losing My Identity: Sally Brampton

Sally Brampton

depression, identity

Soul

Quite recently, I lost my identity, which sounds rather careless given that I hadn't, until some days had passed, realised it was missing. It started with a phone call, one sunny morning. Something I had loved, and had spent years involved with in happy occupation, was taken away. It took all of three minutes. I put down the phone and looked around the room. Nothing had changed. Everything was still in its place. But everything had changed. Once I had dusted myself down, I shrugged and thought, "Well, that's that. Time to move on." I didn't take it...
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05Jun

The Beautiful Game and Depression

Lorne St

anxiety, depression, men, society, suicide

Soul

Footballer Gary Speed, former captain-turned-manager of the Welsh national team, had movie star looks, a million pound mansion, a beautiful young wife and two sports-obsessed sons. He seemed to have the world at his feet. But three years ago he took his own life after an embittered battle with depression. With the World Cup in Brazil only days away it is easy to cloak our footballers with the super human strength of gladiators in Ancient Rome. However when the arena clears and the applause dies away, cases like Speed’s are sadly far from rare. A study carried out by...
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04Jun

Learning to Grieve

Maddy Paxman

bereavement

Soul

No-one wants to grieve. I remember a moment at the hospital with my husband, who had collapsed that morning with what turned out to be a brain haemorrhage. Things were going from bad to worse, and then worse again; it was becoming clear that he might not survive. My mind rebelled, in advance, against what I knew I might have to go through – the shock, the sadness, the painful work of rebuilding my life. It felt completely daunting and I simply did not want it to start. Grieving is about coming to terms with loss and change, and we humans are creatures of habit. We...
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28May

Intuition: Unlock the Power

Cate Howell

creativity, dreams

Soul

Philosophers and scientists have endeavored to understand intuition for thousands of years, and many of the great spiritual leaders have talked about intuition. Psychotherapist Carl Jung classified our experience into thinking, feeling, sensation and intuition, and he described intuition as being like a ‘compass’ in life. Intuition also involves the input of nerve networks around the heart and gut. Modern psychology and neuroscience has identified that the non-dominant part of the brain (your right brain if you are right handed) is the site of visual,...
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23May

Culture Tip: All in the Mind

Camilla Nicholls

culture, depression

Soul

I had to stop the car when I was driving home from the Tavistock clinic recently. There was nothing wrong with me, or the car, I just needed to focus on what was happening on the radio. A young woman, Sally, suffering from long-term depression and what she described as a ‘constant state of disassociation’ was telling presenter Claudia Hammond why she was nominating her friend, George, in the individual category for the BBC All in the Mind 25th Anniversary Awards. She read out part of the email she had sent to the programme in support of her nomination. Anyone who...
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22May

How to Stop Feeling Stuck

Tina Gilbertson

counselling, emotions, psychology, therapy

Soul

As a psychotherapist, I meet people all the time who are feeling stuck. Motivation and interest elude them and they’re unhappy. I wanted to help people get back on their feet, not just to survive, but to thrive. Life gives us an opportunity to become the person we’re meant to be by fulfilling our unique purpose. But many people feel out of touch with their purpose. Instead of moving forward with energy and joy, it’s as though they’re caught in an eddy. Even if they knew how to get moving again, they wouldn’t know which direction to go. Somewhere along the...
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16May

Culture Tip: To Rise Again at a Decent Hour

Camilla Nicholls

books, culture, psychology

Soul

This week's Culture Tip is the first, and may possibly be the last, to incite in me an urgent need to increase dental flossing. Joshua Ferris’s new novel To Rise Again at a Decent Hour follows anti-hero, Paul O’Rourke, who is a Red Sox fan, an avowed atheist and an acclaimed New York dentist with a thriving practice. He is a man who cares deeply about oral hygiene and his pain at his patients’ dental deterioration is palpable. He is impotent in the face of a prolific alter ego who, it seems, might just be a kinder, nicer and far from agnostic him. Paul...
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