Read our posts about Soul

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, mensmentalhealth, 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

Dr 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

Learn to embrace your feelings with this TRUTH exercise and stop feeling stuck, says psychotherapist Tina Gilbertson
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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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12May

Why I Left My Enchanted Cage

Charlotte Du

creativity, emotions, society

Soul

Charlotte Du Cann is a former fashion editor with green principles
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09May

How to Surrender to Uncertainty

Judith Orloff

creativity, emotions, empathy, wellbeing

Soul

Surrendering to the unknown is difficult. Learn how to let it be with these 7 pointers on going with the flow and embracing uncertainty, from author Judith Orloff
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