Relapse often tends to be talked about as the moment everything falls apart. "I messed up." That's usually where the story starts. But it's rarely where it ends. I've sat with clients in that exact moment - the one right after a relapse, before anyone else even knows. And what strikes me isn't the behaviour itself. It's what they start telling themselves about it. Someone returns to an addictive behaviour after a period of recovery, and suddenly the focus shifts to what

Does being private mean you're closed off? We often make surprisingly quick assumptions about people who don't share much. Quiet? Maybe they're shy. Private? Perhaps they're difficult to get close to. Reserved? They must have trust issues. But how much someone tells you isn't necessarily a measure of how much they feel. Some people process things internally before talking about them. Some take a long time to trust. Some simply don't believe every thought needs to be shared. A

Sometimes, the hardest part of a major decision isn't making it. It's living with everything that becomes true after you've made it. You can be certain that a decision is right for you and still feel sad about it. You can know that something needs to change and still miss what you're leaving behind. You can feel relieved and guilty at the same time. We often expect clarity to bring emotional certainty with it. But the two don't always arrive together. This can be especially t

It's interesting how something familiar can suddenly make you feel like a beginner. In my music class today, my teacher introduced a new song. What was different this time wasn't the song itself. It was the approach. Instead of focusing on learning the lyrics, he introduced the song through its musical notes. I thought, "This is going to be a completely different way of learning." It made me realise how easily we can mistake familiarity for mastery. Sometimes we think we know

We've all done it. You press the elevator button. The light comes on, confirming your request has been received...and then, almost without thinking, you press it again. And maybe once more. As if the third press will convince the elevator to arrive faster. Of course, it doesn't. The button was never the engine. Its job was simply to send the request. Once that was done, the rest of the journey happened somewhere you couldn't see. It struck me that we often treat life the same

Every job has a version of the mute button. For me, it's quite literally the mute button. Since a particularly bad bout of coughing last year, I've found myself reaching for it during online counselling sessions whenever I feel a coughing fit coming on. Most clients probably never notice. They continue sharing what's on their mind while, for a few seconds, I'm trying to get the coughing under control before unmuting and continuing the conversation. It's become one of those ti

"Can you send me that file?" "What?... Oh, yeah, I'll send it." If you've ever caught yourself doing this, you're not alone. The other person never got a chance to repeat the question. Yet somehow, you answered it anyway. So what's actually happening in your brain? Most people assume you didn't hear the question. But that's usually not the problem. Your ears heard it. Your brain was simply taking a fraction of a second longer to process what was said. Speaking is fast. Unders

I put the kettle on the other day, and it started whistling before the water had actually finished heating properly. Not because it was ready. Just because it hit the point where it could make noise. We do this too. We call a decision “final” the moment the “not-knowing” becomes too uncomfortable to sit with - not necessarily when we've actually thought it through. We say "I'm done with this person" the moment the hurt gets loud enough - not necessarily when we've actually pr

Imagine asking a child a question in class. Halfway through the sentence, they stop responding. They stare ahead for a few seconds. Then, just as suddenly, they continue as though nothing happened. Most people would probably assume they weren't paying attention. But sometimes, that's not what's happening at all. Some children experience absence seizures - brief episodes of altered awareness caused by abnormal electrical activity in the brain. They usually last only a few seco

A famous experiment often attributed to psychologist Curt Richter - known as the Forced Swim Test, involved rats placed in a container of water. In one instance, the animals eventually gave up and drowned after a relatively short period. In another, they were removed from the water just before exhaustion, allowed to recover, and then placed back in again. This time, they kept swimming for much longer. Whether every detail of this experiment has stood the test of time is debat

Try this. Send someone the message, "Can we talk later?" and say nothing else. Notice how many different stories that one sentence creates. Some people would assume everything is fine. Others would immediately wonder if they've done something wrong. The message hasn't changed, the story has. Our minds do something similar. Except instead of changing words, they fill in missing information. For example: • A friend replies with, "Can we talk later?" → "I've done something wrong

The weekend just went by, and I spent part of it doing what many of us do when we want to switch off for a while - watching a movie with a bowl of popcorn. Somewhere between the movie and reaching for another handful, a thought crossed my mind. Have you ever noticed that popcorn doesn't all pop at the same time? All the kernels go into the same pan. Same heat. Same environment. Same amount of time. Yet they don't pop together. Some pop within seconds. Others take longer. And

One of the most confusing parts of healing is that, sometimes, things feel harder after you've started working on them. People often expect recovery to feel like relief. Less anxiety. Less stress. More clarity. And sometimes it does. But just as often, recovery begins with awareness. The distraction that kept you busy starts to fade. The coping strategy that helped you get through difficult periods no longer works in the same way. The emotions you've been outrunning suddenly

Swipe right on this take for a second. Dating has always been a little terrifying and doing it through apps can be much worse. But somewhere between the profiles, the matches, and the conversations that just quietly fade out - something shifts. You start wondering if you're too much. Or not enough. Or just... tired. Experts have given this tiredness a name: Dating app burnout. And believe me - it's more common than most people admit. What I find most interesting is wh

There's a version of ambition that looks really good on the outside. Early mornings. Full calendars. A to-do list that never quite empties. The satisfaction of being busy, of always having something on, of never really switching off. It feels like drive. It feels like discipline. It feels, in a strange way, like proof. Proof of what, exactly? That's the question worth sitting with. For a lot of people, productivity stopped being a tool a long time ago. It became something clo

We often mistake the most self-contained person in the room for the most emotionally healthy one. They don't ask for much. They don't complain. They show up, they give, and they rarely seem to need anything back. In relationships, they're the ones who are always okay. Always steady. Always fine. And that can be a beautiful thing. But it isn't always what it looks like. There's a difference between someone who is emotionally independent and someone who is emotionally unavailab

"You did a really great job on that." "Oh it was nothing, anyone could have done it." Sound familiar? Most of us have done this. Someone offers a compliment and we immediately dismantle it - deflect, minimise, laugh it off. And we do it so automatically we don't even notice we're doing it. Here's what's interesting though. The inability to receive a compliment isn't really about the compliment. It's about what you've been taught to believe you deserve. It doesn't always sta

I've been thinking about childhood memories lately - or more accurately, the lack of them. Most people can't remember being three years old. Not because nothing significant happened, but because the brain that existed then wasn't yet built to hold onto it. This is called childhood amnesia, and it's one of the more quietly fascinating things about how memory works. The hippocampus - the part of the brain responsible for forming and storing long term memories - is still develop

There's a particular kind of exhaustion that has very little to do with physical effort. Some people fill every hour deliberately - not because their schedule demands it, but because stillness is uncomfortable. The moment things slow down, something else surfaces. Thoughts that are easier to outrun than to sit with, feelings that only get loud when there's nothing left to drown them out. So the body becomes a tool. Keep moving, stay busy, tire yourself out enough that sleep c

Most people think they're great listeners; the reality is often different. Not because they're selfish or uninterested. But because at some point, listening quietly became listening while mentally preparing a response. It's almost automatic. Someone starts talking and the brain, trying to be helpful, begins drafting. Relating, advising, reassuring - all before the other person has actually finished. And the strange thing is, people can feel it. Not always consciously, but the