Monday 9 May 2016

How Can You Come to Know Who You Are?



So today I have had two emails about how we can know who we are and how we can come to know who we are and I wanted to look at the connection between not knowing our true nature and depression, stress and anxiety. 

What is our true nature and why is it integral to our wellbeing? 

I think that we know at heart what the core of our nature is about. It is what we are drawn to most, what we are drawn towards even when we are far away from our true nature, what binds us together, what all pleasant feelings emanate from. I think and there is plenty of evidence to support this...that at the core of all of us is Love. It is what we seek in our connections, it is what we seek to have for ourselves, it is what we crave, it is what we feel most deeply when it is lost.

So if our true nature is love, how is this connected to feelings of stress, anxiety or depression? 

Because the flip side of the love coin is fear. Whenever we feel fear we are deciding to move away from our true nature and it doesn't feel good.

Examine any situation in which you have felt uncomfortable recently and look closely at what your actions were, what words you used to describe it, how you felt...somewhere in there, perhaps disguised as anger, or as hatred or as irritation there will be a fear at the core, a need that is not being met, a movement away from love.

It can be hard at first to see that fear may be at the heart of any uncomfortable feeling - we don't really like to acknowledge fear, far more agreeable to the ego is the idea that we are not afraid we are just really pissed off, we are not afraid we just really dislike someone...but the ego is just protecting us from the fact that actually - we feel fear.

Don't believe me? 

Have a go at this exercise below and see where it leads you:

1) Write down in brief a situation where you felt uncomfortable for any reason

2) Name the emotions that you connect to this situation and write them down

3) Take each of those emotions and look at what fear could be connected to it - some of our biggest underlying fears are fear of death, fear of failure, fear of change, fear that everything will stay the same, fear of loss of identity...however there are hundreds more! Which might have been the underlying fear for you, even if you did not experience the emotion of fear at the time?

Here is an example: 

I was deeply annoyed by a lady who cut me up in traffic the other day, she wasn't looking, she pulled straight out and didn't even acknowledge what she had done. I was pretty damn angry! When I look at this more deeply though I can see that my anger was born out of fear that I could have been harmed. I was afraid that I was not important enough for her to care about cutting me up and potentially hurting me, I was afraid that I would want to retaliate...there were actually lots of fears tied up in this one simple experience!!

So if everything we are comes down to choosing to either love or to fear in every situation how can we come to know more easily that love is the choice we really want to take deep down? How can we move out of fear without leaving ourselves more open to being hurt by our vulnerability? How can we learn to experience ourselves without fear? 

The following exercise can be very useful:

1) Remember a time when you felt incredibly loved, when you felt love for another with a purity that meant that there was no other emotion in your mind or body other than love.

2) When this feeling is really strong inside you stand up and hold that feeling throughout your whole body, give it a colour or an image and spread that colour or image throughout every part of you.

3) Imagine another version of yourself standing right in front of you. Imagine that this you is the most loving version of you could ever envisage. This is far from you being a walk over, this is you being so loving to yourself as well as others that you know that there is no other possible outcome for this version of you than to feel the power of being loved and so secure in that love that you know you can give it to every single person and situation without being harmed.

4) When this image is really strong, literally step forward into this version of yourself and see how great it feels.

There are a thousand ways to come to know who you are, meditation, mindfulness, gratitude....the idea behind all of them is that we choose love over fear...the only thing you really need to do is make a conscious choice every time as to which it is that you want to express in every moment.

Just a small snippet of how many great things can come from your life when you learn to heal the gap between love and fear...and begin to overcome depression, stress and anxiety. If you want to learn more have a look at my website or join my Facebook Group Positive Potential and get Coaching and Advice from some amazing people for free.

Love Nova xxx

Thursday 5 May 2016

How do you Bring on Depression?



Hang on a minute...did you say how do I, bring on depression?? I don't bring it on! It just arrives! I don't choose it! 

I can hear you...I know that some of you will be thinking this when you read the title...but yes, I really do want to talk about how YOU create your own depressive state - and this is a good thing because if it is true that you bring it about then it also means that YOU are in charge of your state and can therefore change it.

What I want you to do is to really notice, really consciously notice what happens when you feel depressed. I want you to note what thoughts come to you JUST BEFORE the state of feeling depressed arrives, I want you to notice how you hold your body, what your breath does, what your face does, where your thoughts go next. I want you to keep noticing this and to keep writing it down somewhere until you see clearly how you are able to 'go to' depression and also how you are able to 'go away from' depression by countering the actions that led you there in the first place.

I use this method with my clients and it is incredibly empowering (for want of a better word, I feel that one is a bit overused)...go through the steps below and write down everything for at least a week, preferably for a month. 

1) Notice when you are feeling depressed and rate your depth of feeling from 0-10 0 being not depressed at all and 10 being the most depressed you have ever felt.

2) Notice how you are holding your body in that moment, have you hunched your shoulders, started to look towards the floor, moved your body closer together so it is less open...what does your body language look like when you are feeling depressed? Write it down.

3) Notice what is happening to your breath when you are feeling depressed, has it got shallower, has it become harder to breath? Does your breathing seem different in any way to normal? Write what you observe down.

4) Notice what you thought right before you felt depressed - was it a small fleeting thought? Did you think of a person? Did you think of a worry you have about the future? Did you feel sorry for yourself? Write down the thought you had no matter how vague that was.

5) Notice the predominant feeling that you have when you are depressed - use a different word other than simply to state that you feel 'depressed', look on a deeper level at it, are you worried, afraid, do you feel loss, anger, emotionless...write down the words that come to mind and pick out the one that was the predominant one in that moment.

6) Notice where you are - are you alone? With people? At a social gathering? At home? In a cafe? Write down your location when the feeling was strong.

7) Notice the time of day - write down the time of day or night that it was when you felt that way.


  • Then I ask clients to keep a track of all these things for at least a week so that we can pick out patterns together and understand the picture that makes up their Depression Data. This data is then used to create the opposite effect. 
  • Look at your data after a week or more and see where you can immediately alter your body language when you start to feel depressed - fling your arms open wide if you are normally closed, deepen your breath, lift your head up.
  • Look at the thoughts you had to see where the real issue lay and get to work on that issue so that the root of the problem can be brought to light.
  • Look at which settings can be triggers for you and get into a positive state before you enter them again and use different body language when you are there.


This is just a very quick overview of a more complex procedure, but it is a window into the room where we know and understand that we can alter our state very quickly and purposefully if we know what happens when our state is depression - all we need to do is change from following one pattern to creating a new one. We have the power to do that.

For more support and to ask me questions and get answers for free, I would like to invite you to join the intimate Facebook Group called Positive Potential where you can share in confidence with people who understand and who are there to support one another in their path to a more positive way of life. I look forward to meeting you there.

Love Nova xxx

Wednesday 4 May 2016

Looking into the Mirror of Depression




Life is very clever...it sends us information all the time about what is going on for us and one of the quickest and clearest ways to understand that information is to look at what is going on externally in order to also understand our internal world.

This means that if you are struggling to understand why you are feeling depressed or what factors are keeping you in a state of depression you can look to your outside experiences for clues.

This is such a useful tool that I recommend it more than any other to my clients - if you want to understand yourself or your state of mind better, look to the outside world as a reflection of the inside and you will see the areas that are causing you pain. Once you know this you can choose to work on them or to change them - that is, to work on you and to change you.

Imagine your life as a huge mirror, imagine that every part of your life is a reflection of a part of you, that every interaction, every event, every person and everything you notice is in some way telling you something about yourself and examine it.

This is not as crazy as it sounds and it can be incredibly insightful for you if you are willing to use it as a tool.

Let me give you an example: 

You know that you are having the experience of depression and you are ready to move out of that and into another state of mind - perhaps this desire is reflected in your life by you wanting to move house, to change relationships, to explore another country or to take a weekend away. You are literally wanting to change state (i.e location) and your mind is telling you this through your desire to remove yourself from a situation you are in. It is, in reality yourself that you want to change but if you are unaware of this you can instead create the desire for change in another more recognisable way, by having the thoughts of 'I need to get away', 'I need space from this', 'I need a fresh start'.

Another example might be: 

You are experiencing a lot of conflict in your life with other people, it seems that wherever you go you are finding disagreement, separateness and isolation. This is more often than not an indication of an internal conflict in you, perhaps you are conflicted because you are feeling one thing and doing another or that you are not expressing yourself authentically - you are not being you.

Perhaps there is a sense of isolation because you are internally isolating a part of you that you do not like and ignoring it - that part of you that you don't like will also be reflected in the people you meet that you do not like - what you dislike in them is likely to be the same thing that you dislike about yourself and are ignoring or failing to deal with.

How are you experiencing those closest to you? 

Are those close to you acting distant or as though they don't care or that they are not listening to you anymore? Where are you not listening to yourself or others? Where are you not caring about yourself? What part of you have you become distant from?

What feels uncomfortable? 

When we are affected by the behaviour of another we are being shown a behaviour that we are uncomfortable with in ourselves. When we find someones behaviour unacceptable it is often because we are being shown where we need to step up - if someone is bullying you, where have you become the victim? Where are you the bully of your own life? When someone is confusing you with their 'now I love you, now I don't' behaviour where are you not being consistent in your own life and behaviours? When someone is not committed to you, where are you not committed to yourself?

Our lives are reflections of our thoughts and behaviours - what is being reflected to you? What does your mirror tell you about what might be going on on the inside? 

Try this Exercise and See what it can reveal to you!:

I like to get clients to pull a big sheet of paper and to draw a big mirror shape - then outside the mirror I ask them to write all the things that they have been annoyed by recently, all the things that have upset them, the people who they have not got on with, the events that have not gone to plan, the things they want to change etc. 

Then inside the mirror shape they take each of the statements on the outside and examine them again as though they were a reflection of themselves and ask that they consider what all the possibilities are for how this could be reflecting what is going on inside them. Even the things that at the moment they don't think are relevant. We then work together on building up a picture that shows them all that they needed to know...it is a very powerful process and results in a large number of 'lightbulb' moments! 

Worth a thought? 

For more support and insights into life, love and everything come and find your Positive Potential in the Facebook Group where you will find like minded people and where you can get lots of coaching and support for free by asking your questions to me! Come and join us now!

Love Nova xxx

Tuesday 3 May 2016

Can we Ever Really Forgive and Forget Trauma - and Should We?




Our past is no longer there, it doesn't exist...but it is remembered. If our past's have been filled with memories that we struggle to comprehend or forgive, it can have a huge impact on our present and our projected ideas about the future.

What can we do when we are carrying around a bag full of memories that feel heavy and weigh us down to the extent that we are trapped in the belief that our past is so painful that we cannot let it go and it still harms us even now? Is there a way out? 

Yes, there is. The simple answer is that we have to be prepared to put the bag down, rifle through the memories it contains and decide which ones we want to keep because they are helpful (maybe because they taught us something very valuable about who we are and what we want) and which we want to leave behind. We need to stop reliving those memories, stop giving them power over us and put them firmly in their place - which is literally and metaphorically, behind us.

So why doesn't it feel this easy? 

Because even when something is behind us, we can still turn and look at it and if what we see is compelling enough we stop and stare, we keep staring and keep thinking because it is STILL THERE.

Short of finding a technique where our past is erased completely - and our minds do have such a function which is why trauma is sometimes deeply buried and 'forgotten', the most successful way of working with your past is to look at it and deal with it in a different way.

Sometimes though we don't want to look at it in a different way - we can have thoughts around whether 'forgiving and forgetting' is somehow 'allowing' an experience and making it 'right' which feels uncomfortable.

The first thing to know is that if you are finding it hard to let go of past memories or trauma or don't even want to, that's ok. I read things all the time - little well meaning quotes that say 'hey, just let the past go' but this can only be achieved if you truly want to do this and there are many reasons why a person may not want to - that's ok until it is not ok with YOU - it doesn't matter how many other people cannot understand why you are still haunted by the trauma, it is irrelevant. When YOU are ready or willing to take steps towards forgiveness (and maybe you never will want to) that is the time when the work can start.

So why might we feel like we never want to forgive or 'forget' a past experience that affects our life today even though the experience itself was long ago? 

Perhaps this example might help to explain it: Would it be 'right' for us to forgive and forget the Holocaust?

The pain of this event as a global society had to move forward in some way otherwise the generations of those involved that followed would forever more be punished for the sins of the fathers and this is not right either. However could we ever really allow ourselves to 'forget' or to find a positive in this experience and still feel comfortable with our own moral compass?

On the other hand....

Would you stop someone who had actually been through a trauma from moving on? Should the holocaust survivors not be allowed to move on or to reframe their experience incase this was taken as a sign towards their captures that what they did was ok? Viktor Frankl who I mentioned in my last post managed to draw a very important conclusion from his time in a concentration camp that no one is able to take away your freedom of thought - would we want him to only acknowledge the bad and see his book as a terrible sign that captures and torturers should be forgiven?

Perhaps the question then is not 'can I forget' but 'can I find a way to help myself feel better so I can still thrive and enjoy my life whilst also knowing that what happened to me was not ok'. 

Looking at the same issue of the holocaust... as a society, we are holding onto this experience as a great learning tool of how deep humanity can sink into behaviour that we are later deeply ashamed of - it pays to hold onto this experience because we want humanity to know that this will never be allowed to happen again.

Does it pay to hold onto this experience as an individual though? 

To judge the morality of forgiving and forgetting look at it as you would look upon the situation of someone you love. If your child/partner/mother/father etc went through a traumatic experience would you want them to feel that pain forever? No, of course not. If they were able to find something within the experience that helped them to feel better would you want to take that away from them and say 'hang on a minute, if you are planning on finding the good in this situation, don't you think that makes what happened ok?' Unlikely...You would probably feel that they had actually managed to achieve something very important - they had felt ok again despite what happened and that is something to celebrate and be happy about.

We need to have the same kind of compassion for ourselves. It is ok to let it go, it is a sign to yourself and an example to society as a whole that we do not have to accept being continually punished by an event or by behaviour that is no longer present. Even if it was YOUR behaviour that was traumatic to another forgiveness is an important step in ensuring the behaviour ends.

I realise that this presents another moral dilemma - should we be allowing those who are the perpetrators of traumatic events to forgive themselves? Do we want rapists and murderers to forgive themselves their behaviour and go on to lead happy lives? You'll have to examine that for yourself and come up with your own answers but for me I have to say that on one level at least, it is probably the only way that their behaviour might change...if they never get to a point where they examine themselves fully enough to put their damaging behaviour into the past and move into a new more positive behaviour and actually forgive themselves fully enough to let go of the anger or fear or hatred that began their damaging behaviour then doesn't that mean they will carry on doing the same thing?

So why might we decide to hold onto a past trauma and stay in that possibly extremely painful place for any longer than was absolutely necessary?  because we are afraid that if we forgive and forget we become vulnerable and it will happened again...it is a protection mechanism, we stay alert, we daren't make it seem less than it was or to look at the positives incase that increases our risk of inviting the same thing to happen again. 

What we need to analyse in order to stop trauma continually hurting us is whether moving forward or staying where we are will be the most beneficial overall - really examine the possible outcomes.

To move on from trauma we ask ourselves these questions as a starting point:

  • If you forgive the event is it the same as forgiving the behaviour?
  • What would forgiving mean for you?
  • What would you have to DO in order to forgive?
  • Which harms you more, to hold onto the trauma or to move through it?
  • Which feels better - to stay where you are or to try another thought about what happened?
  • Has the trauma shown you anything about yourself that feels really good? Did you become stronger for example, more determined?
  • Have you closed down as  result of the trauma or has it allowed you to open up? What would you like it to have done?
  • What would you say to others who are experiencing a similar trauma or who have done? What hope could you give to them?
  • If you never experienced the trauma what would be different for you today do you think? The good and the bad.
  • If you had your time again what would you do differently that might have affected the outcome? 
  • What could you do right now that would be a step towards healing?
  • Would you want to forget what happened? Why?
  • What would forgiving give to you and what would it take away? Which is the better choice for you in terms of creating a happier life?

Can we ever really forgive and forget? Yes we can. Should we? That is up to you...which allows the best outcome for you? Will your life become 'better' or 'worse' if you forgive? Always move into the space which feels 'better', then keep moving into the next space that feels 'even better' than that...continual movement 'upwards' is the key. What does the best life for you look like? Move towards that.

  • For continued support please join my facebook group Positive Potential here
  • If you would like to have a free half an hour with me to talk more about anything that you are finding it hard to move on from please click here 
  • My programme Positive Potential is designed to move your life forwards when you have become stuck in feelings of stress, anxiety or depression and you can find out more about it here




Love Nova xxx

Thursday 28 April 2016

Powerful Exercise to Unleash the Secrets of your Subconscious Inner Circle



Isolation and Loneliness are two major players in the world of mental well being. They can lead to depression without you even noticing sometimes. How can you combat this in a world where we spend a huge amount of time online and in front of a computer? 

The first thing you can do is to bring to the surface your thoughts and feelings about your Inner Circle and then making changes that will support you in your connections and relationships.

Who is in your inner circle and are you nurturing those relationships? 

Here is a simple and peaceful exercise to do to discover who is in your inner circle and what you are feeling about those relationships:


  • Make a list of all the people who are in your life currently that you care about. This might be the best friend you only see twice a year but who is still on the end of the phone when you need them, it could be your family members, the person you have never met but who inspires you with their wisdom and their way of being...anyone who is a feature in your life..the good and the bad!


  • Go outside and choose a stone, a leaf, a twig....anything you like from nature that you feel in some way represents a person in your inner circle. Think carefully about your choices but don't analyse them at this stage.
  • Choose a representation of YOU - a stone that somehow calls to you, a shell, a seed, a flower...whatever  you like. 
  • Once you have collected all your representations bring them back inside. Place the representation of you in the centre of an imaginary circle.
  • Place all the other 'people' around you wherever you feel is right to put them without thinking too much about it.
Now take a really good look at what you see in front of you. Take each 'person' in turn and note down why you choose that stone/leaf etc to represent them. Is it a dark coloured sharp stone? What does that tell you about the person? Is it a soft, delicate leaf? Why might you have chosen that?

Write down all your observations under their name on a piece of paper.

Now take a look at 'you', examine your representation of yourself in the same way and note down your observations.

Lastly, examine where you have chosen to place each item in relation to you and in relation to each other. What do you notice? Have you placed some very close to you and others further away? Is one object blocking the path of another? What might that mean? Are there some who were placed further away than you consciously might have expected? Are some closer to one another than they are to you?

Really LOOK, really examine what you have represented here because it will tell you a lot about how you are feeling about your inner circle.

Did you discover that you have more people close to you than you thought?
Who would you like to bring closer to you?
Who is so close that they are suffocating?
Who is missing from the inner circle that you would like to be there?

Move things around and see how it feels...bring certain 'people' closer and move others further away. How does it feel now? Better? Less comfortable than you expected? Write down all your observations.

Move everyone into the places that feel the most comfortable to you, the inner circle that you really desire to have. Bring in more objects to represent people you haven't even met yet and place them where you would like them to be.

This is your Inner Circle Goal. Take a photo of it and make a note of the changes that you would like to bring about.

Once you have played with this idea for a while start to think of ways that you can achieve your ideal inner circle by writing down all the actions that would bring you closer to this...as many as you can...make a huge list of ideas!

Each day try to take an action that will bring your ideal inner circle to life.

This is a really powerful exercise and I use this and more in my Positive Potential 10 week programme. If you would like a FREE 30 min session with me to discover more about yourself and how to free yourself from stressful thoughts and feelings please book a time to have your session here

Love Nova xxx


Wednesday 27 April 2016

How Much Choice Do We Have Over How We Feel?



More than you might imagine! 

It is the greatest freedom we have as humans, to choose how to feel. It is the freedom that Viktor Frankl talks about in his book 'Man's Search for Meaning' an account of what he learned from his time in a Nazi Concentration Camp.

My favourite quote from the book is:

 'A thought transfixed me: for the first time in my life I saw the truth as it is set into song by so many poets, proclaimed as the final wisdom of so many thinkers. The truth - that love is the ultimate and the highest goal to which man can aspire. Then I grasped the meaning of the greatest secret that human poetry and human thought and belief have to impart: The salvation of man is through love and in love.' 

 The salvation of man is through love and in love - that's a bold statement to make isn't it? How do you feel about that? Is it true? Can love save us all from everything?

As a Psychotherapist I have a view that love, in the end, is actually all we should be concerned with - however it HAS to include the love of self - a cliche right? No one can love you until you love yourself is just one of those overused things that we all say 'yeah I know' to in a bored sort of a way.

So what has this got to do with choice over how we feel? 

We all have a choice over whether we will choose a loving thought or a damaging thought and we can start with ourselves here in a very practical way so that we can really examine whether it works or not to always employ love as our first thought.

As an aside 'love' can feel like a very loaded word to some people and you may find that it is uncomfortable to use it - in these cases I ask my clients to use the word 'life' or 'living' as a substitute. So you can ask (for example) 'am I bringing more life to my body/mind/soul?' instead.

So if we can save ourselves (as Frankl believes) through love, from depression, stress and anxiety we need to examine what that might actually look like.

Employing loving thoughts to see you through any difficult period of your life is unbelievably powerful and effective but it doesn't start and end with muttering 'I love myself' now and again in an attempt to fool your subconscious into feeling amazing all the time.

Employing loving thoughts to work for you covers EVERY area of your life:

Are you being loving (bringing more life) to your body? 


  • Do you give it food that helps it to perform at it's best? 
  • Do you ensure it has enough sleep (as often as you can)? 
  • Do you keep it moving and keep it challenged and keep it lean and strong?


 Are you being loving (bringing more life) to your mind? 


  • Do you treat it as you would treat another with respect and kindness? 
  • Do you forgive yourself when you have treated yourself badly and look to address it in the future? 
  • Do you look for the best of your thoughts and concentrate on those? 


Are you being loving (bringing more life) to your soul?


  • Do you give it time to rest? 
  • Do you give it space to rejuvenate? 
  • Do you give it time to enjoy the things that keep it nourished? 


Are you being loving (bringing more life) to your journey? 


  • Do you respect the past and know that it has got you here today?
  • Do you respect that your life is finite and that it must be lived whilst you have the chance?
  • Do you answer the call of your life to move forward and to express itself?


Are you being loving towards your relationships, your friends and family, your work, your hobbies and activities....EVERY single area of life can be looked at in terms of self love and how often and to what level you are choosing a loving thought. 

How often do you choose how you feel by opting for a loving thought about yourself or another instead of a damaging thought? Or are you living by default, not consciously choosing your thoughts about anything but letting them run riot and then having the fall out of the upsetting feelings that result? Most of us have done this for a large portion of our lives so don't feel bad about this or judged by it, just know that there IS a choice, no matter how little evidence of that you see currently.

Is it easy to choose how to feel? Yes and No. Yes, when you get the hang of it...but no it's not always that easy because it does take quite a lot of work and effort to continuously choose our thoughts in order to affect how we feel, the easy option is just to sink into feeling rubbish about ourselves or our lives or to let a train of thought take hold and drag us down until it feels like we have no control at all.

This is the subconscious way of living your life at the moment, it can change into a new subconscious way of being but it needs to become conscious first in order for that change to occur. Much like driving a car, you have to consciously learn the skill first and then you drive automatically without thinking about it much.

We are so used to that cycle of living life at a subconscious level where our thoughts are left unchecked that sometimes that we have forgotten that we have a choice...we can stop thinking that way and choose a more helpful thought, those thoughts will gather momentum in exactly the same way as a depressing or worried or stressed thought does and eventually we gather enough momentum to dramatically affect how we feel.

So in answer to the initial question of how much choice we have over how we feel, we have TOTAL choice. That is not to say that we shouldn't ever allow sadness, grief or worry into our lives, these are signs of love too...but what it does mean is that we never have to stay in sadness for longer than we are willing to, let the sadness live its purpose, let it indicate to you how deeply you feel and then, when you are ready, know that you can choose a new thought that helps you move forward towards happiness again.

To join my Facebook Group Positive Potential and get support and advice, time to share and celebrate and to generally meet some great people please click here.

To find out more about the 10 week Positive Potential programme to end Stress, Depression and Anxiety please go here.

To sign up to my newsletter and receive a FREE 30 PAGE WORKBOOK please go here

Love Nova xxx

Tuesday 26 April 2016

10 Tips that will Quickly Move you OUT of Stressful Thinking


What is Stressful Thinking? How do we know when we are engaging in it and how can we move out of it quickly so that things don't get worse?!

Stressful thinking is basically any train of thought that is creating a feeling of unhappiness in your mind or body. Not to be confused with uncomfortable thoughts...uncomfortable thoughts are (often) those that challenge us or ask us to look at something in a different way - these are productive, useful and informative - but they can give way to stressful thinking if we get stuck in an uncomfortable thought that we don't know how to deal with.

How do we know when we are engaging with stressful thinking? 

  • Do you feel worried about something that you currently cannot change?
  • Are you overthinking something to the point where you are no longer able to take action because you are too caught up in the thought itself?
  • Are you caught up in past thinking or predicted future thinking?
  • Are you feeling anxious or upset by a thought every time it comes into your mind?

These are examples of Stressful Thinking and they are never helpful. That saying 'don't worry it might never happen' is particularly apt here! Stressful thinking triggers the fight or flight response which leaves you in a place where you are unable to make creative decisions - the type of decisions that may change things around for you if only you can relax enough to access them.

So how can you quickly move out of Stressful Thinking and into Creative Thinking?  Here are my tips to do just that!

1) As soon as you start to feel stressed about a concern, a situation, a worry or a person remind yourself that this is just a thought....at the moment it has no power over you...the thought can be changed which will change the situation...it is just a thought.

2) Give yourself a time when you will address this area of concern and put it in your diary, until that time keep telling yourself that you have this under control and do not need to engage in thinking about it until that time.

3) When you have the time sit down with a piece of paper and a pen and write in the middle of the paper the thing that has resulted in you feeling stressed. Around this write down every thought that has come up for you, no matter how small, how huge, how ridiculous you may feel it is...write it down. Then go through every one of the thoughts and rate how likely it is to happen on a scale of 1-10. Take the thoughts that you have rated over a 6 and look at them in more detail - put an action next to them that you can take in the next day or so that will alleviate the stress that you associate with it. 

4) Imagine the best possible outcome for the stressful thought you have and imagine it happening in vivid detail - like a daydream, imagine how you will FEEL when this happens and hold onto this feeling so that it will eventually replace the stressful feeling when you imagine it.

5) Catch your stressful thought when it occurs and ask yourself (outloud if necessary...when you are alone!) 'What would be a slightly better thought than this?' Then think of how you can move your train of thought into a more productive and creative place. For example: if you were stressed about an upcoming house move and everytime you thought of the amount of work you have to do you came out in a sweat...catch the thought that you have prior to the feeling occurring. The thought might be something like 'oh no I've only got three days left and I have so much to do', consciously and deliberately tweak this thought to something that feels slightly better but also believable, it might change to 'three days left, I will start tonight by asking for some help', This changes it from a stressful thought to an uncomfortable thought...one is unhelpful, the other is productive and tells your mind that it can rest because you are taking action.

6) Tell someone - even the most stressful thoughts can be calmed by sharing them with someone. There is something about the act of getting thoughts out of your head and into the open that immediately changes them. You can do the same thing by journalling if you would prefer not to tell anyone (burn the paper afterwards if it is top secret - but still get the thought out of your head and into a different place). 

7) Laugh - not in a cruel or self berating way, but find something about the stressful thinking that is so over the top that you can laugh at it at relieve the stress and find a different way to look at it. 

8) Do a visualisation - when stressful thoughts come into my head I employ my imagination to create little happy people to locate the stressful thought and take it out...literally I imagine the happy people moving into my head and taking the thought (which I imagine as a slow moving, dark coloured lump of mush) and destroying it or transforming it into a lighter, less stressful colour, shape or image. As daft as it sounds it works! 

9) Be mindful - When stressful thinking starts just remind yourself that right here, right now you are fine. In this exact moment you are here and you are ok. Look at something in the room, study it, feel your feet on the floor, your body in the place that it is and notice that you are ok. Right here and right now is the only thing that actually exists...everything else has either already happened and cannot be changed or has not happened yet and therefore maybe never will or can still be changed.

10) Get physical - move your body, relax your shoulders, notice how the stressful thinking has affected your body and change it - we can change both the physical and the mental and because one affects the other you can start with either to effect a different feeling. Go for a walk, stretch, dance, get a massage, make a physical change that will enable your body and then your mind to relax. 

Love Nova xxx

Join my Facebook group Positive Potential for more free support and advice

To book a FREE 30 min Positivity Kickstarter Session with me click here

Monday 25 April 2016

What Causes Depression and is Knowing the Cause Important?



We all have basic needs as humans and if one of these is not being met it can collapse the foundations of who we are and leave us in disarray and feeling unsafe - a major cause of depression.


What are our basic human needs?

According to Maslow and the Hierarchy of Needs we all need the basics to be covered first - these are the needs of the body - to be clothed, fed, in reasonable health and functioning as we should at a Physiological level.

After this is covered we need to feel safe, then to feel loved and as though we belong, then to love ourselves and feel we are worthwhile and then to take this to the highest level of needs which is to feel that we are 'self actualised' that we are moral, creative beings who are happily creating our lives as we want them to be.


The problem comes when one of these areas is either not being fulfilled or that we are unable to view them as being fulfilled (even if others would think that we DO already possess these things).

Depression often originates at the safety level (although it can also stem from any of the levels at any time if we are not aware of our own triggers). This means that Depression is usually triggered by an event or thoughts that threatens our sense of safety - even if that is only recognised on a subconscious level and even if that sense of safety is not literally being threatened (there is no gun to your head but you still feel afraid for example).

When we have a lack of money, when our job has changed, when we have a new baby or a new relationship, when we have a relationship breakdown, when we move house, when we experience changes to our health - these are all common times at which we can perceive our safety as being threatened temporarily or (depending on how robust the others levels of our life currently are) we may even see safety as being absent completely. This is scary and it leads to scary thoughts that start off a downwards spiral that we need to catch quickly and turn around if depression is to be avoided. This is why those who think positively (either because they always do that or because they have learnt the skill and art of practising this regularly) are less likely to experience depression - they stop the downwards spiral quickly and naturally through various means and various behaviours. 

But what about if none of the above applies to you? Firstly it is important to check whether they are no longer an issue but were still the trigger for the initial emotional changes that led to depression (I cover that later on in the post) and secondly it may be that Depression has been triggered at a different level and we can look at that more now...

As previously mentioned depression can occur when any of the levels in the hierarchy are missing or any element of each level. Have a look at the common triggers for depression below and try to identify where it may have stemmed from...remember that often if depression has been there for a while there can be a whole chain of events that is triggered after the first trigger...what may have started as a sense of isolation may have led to a lack of self esteem, a lack of spontaneity, anger and blame etc, what we are looking for is the initial trigger that started the depression.

Have a look at the list but look at it from the point of view of when the depression FIRST occurred. Think back to when you felt ok and try to ask yourself what happened just before things changed for you...this is your initial trigger.

The common reasons for depression occurring are as follows:


  • Loneliness and Isolation 
  • Blame and Anger 
  • Lack of Control 
  • Criticism of self or others
  • Complaining & Focusing on the negative 
  • Comparison to others 
  • Overexposure to negativity 
  • No direction, lack of meaningful goals
  • Giving in to fear
  • Failure to be 'in the moment' - living in the past or the predicted future
  • Lack of social support
  • Recent stressful events
  • Family history of depression
  • Relationship problems
  • Financial strain
  • Childhood trauma or abuse
  • Alcohol or drug abuse
  • Unemployment, underemployment or changing jobs/roles
  • Health problems or chronic pain
  • Recently quitting smoking
  • Death of a loved one
  • Inability to effectively deal with stress


You can see from this list that they all refer to a human need that is not being met - in order to feel better you need to meet the need that is missing and this is why knowing the cause can be extremely helpful. You need to know what you are missing before you can fill the gap.

There are of course, some needs that cannot be met in the usual way - for example if depression is as a result of grief, sadly you cannot meet the need of having that person back. The depression will in time and with the right support, give way to a different emotion and many people in this situation divert their depression by putting all their energy into something new that in some way or another that is right for them feels better than the emotions they felt before - perhaps by fundraising, helping others, living life differently etc. I am covering this briefly here not because I don't care about this or think it is not worthy of covering in more depth but because I cannot give it justice in such a short space...if this is something you would like to explore further or get some support with please contact me or look for local support services in your area.

The majority of the time though the causes of Depression can be worked with relatively quickly and easily if you are willing to move forward.

Knowing the cause is the first step, taking action to ensure things change is the next step.

What has been the cause of depression for you? Can you identify it? Is it helpful to you to know this initial cause? What action can you take to address the missing factors in your hierarchy? Do you need some help to identify what changed for you?

To join in the discussion at Positive Potential, the facebook group for those who both support those with depression, anxiety and stress and who explore the issues in a safe place please click on the link and ask to join.

Positive Potential is a self development programme that aims to end depression, stress and anxiety with my support and lots of helpful materials. If you would like to find out more about the different levels of support available please click here.

Love Nova xxx



Friday 22 April 2016

Is what you are experiencing Stress or Anxiety? You May be Surprised!




Often when I am working with clients they may come feeling 'stressed' or they may explain that they are feeling 'anxious'. What has surprised me and this is why I am writing about it, it that so many times the two are mixed up - someone who is feeling anxious in their words is actually not experiencing anxiety at all but they DO have a very high stress score.

Other times when people come saying they feel stressed the stress score is normal but the depression or anxiety score is high...so why does this happen and what is the difference?

Stress is often used as a catch all term for feeling like you are not coping as well as you used to. You know that something has changed but you are not sure what but you do find yourself acting somewhat out of character or feeling 'not quite yourself'.

To find out what your Stress, Anxiety or Depression score is you can test it yourself here using my slightly adapted version of the DASS scale. The results might surprise you! 

As a quick breakdown of the difference in the symptoms see which of the following set of statements you agree with the most: 

SET 1


  • I find it hard to wind down
  • I've been overreacting to things I wouldn't normally overreact to recently
  • I've felt a nervous type of energy in my body
  • I am annoyed whenever I am interrupted from what I am doing


SET 2


  • I have been aware that my heart has been racing
  • I have been worried about being in new situations
  • I have felt on the edge of panic at times
  • My mouth has felt quite dry


SET 3


  • Getting motivated has been hard recently
  • I've found it hard to be positive
  • I'm taking a lot of unnecessary risks lately
  • I find it harder to make decisions than I used to


If you identify more with SET 1 then you are identifying more with stress symptoms
If you identify more with SET 2 then this is a sign of anxiety
SET 3 is describing signs of depression

You may have noticed that lots of the statements are quite similar to one another - for example feeling a nervous energy in your body and feeling on the edge of panic or feeling your heart racing are all so close in their descriptions that it may be hard to know which it is that you are feeling.

Why is it important to distinguish between them? 

It's not necessarily important - but it can be helpful. If a child has a learning difficulty we generally don't leave it at that, we seek to learn exactly what that difficulty is so that we can help them in the appropriate way and employ the specific tools that work for that situation.

It is the same with your wellbeing - if you know that what you have been feeling is not stress at all but actually depression, some of the ways in which you may approach the journey back to wellness will be the same but others will be different and more specific. It just helps to know exactly what is occurring.

To work with me through my 10wk programme Positive Potential to end Stress, Depression and Anxiety please email me or click through to the website to learn more.

I offer support and help through my Facebook group for free too, why not join and have a look at the amazing people there who are all willing to talk and support.


Love Nova xxx




Thursday 21 April 2016

The Beast that is Depression and how to Tame it




When I had post natal depression I could describe it no other way than to say that it was as though my world had fallen apart inside me.

My logical brain was locked in battle with my depression brain which told me a completely different story to the one that I knew I should be telling myself.

It wasn't helped by comments like 'yeah but you haven't got it as bad as some people have' or 'well you seem fine to me'...of course I SEEM fine I'm doing that for YOU, I'm being FINE so that you don't see the world of sadness that I live in and move away from me.

It's hard in some ways to recall the feelings that I had, I've never had them again with the same force as before...I get 'twinges' now and again but I recognise them now and I do something about them damn quick because what I do know is that I never want to feel that way again.

I remember the fog...the loss of meaning...the loss of hope...the grief over no longer being 'me' or the me I knew before. I remember the feeling that I wished with all my might that I would wake up the next day and feel better again and the resignation when I didn't.

I remember the guilt too because I had this amazing baby, this beautiful boy who slept well, who ate well, who was well and who continues to this day to be completely incredible...how could I, how could I feel so down when I had him in my life? It felt like a total betrayal, I was betraying him to feel that way when he was so wonderful...would he know I felt that way? Would he blame me or feel that in some way he was to blame? Why couldn't I just feel elated and happy and normal and safe?

There were several factors at play for me that pre-disposed me to PND:


  • The first was that I had got pregnant (all planned and wanted) very early into a relationship with someone much older who I actually wasn't that sure about.



  • I wasn't near any friends or family, I was very isolated and lonely.



  • I knew in my heart of hearts that the man I was engaged to was not going to marry me and I was already feeling rejected and hurt by that.



  • I had a fairly traumatic birth (my son came out back to back, his umbilical cord was tied in a knot and they had to suddenly get him out very quickly).



  • I was still quite young and overwhelmed (I was 24 and I didn't know any other mothers my age).



  • We moved to another country soon after my son was born and I was even more isolated.


So what helped me get better?

1) Talking every single day to someone who cared and didn't mind if I had very little to say (my mum called every day).

2) Focusing on helping other mums in the same situation I was in (I started a magazine so that other mums who were feeling lonely could connect and read articles and find out where local groups were running).

3) Forcing myself to exercise every day - a walk with the pram, doing a yoga DVD whilst my son slept, anything I could.

4) My NCT group...although I often felt just as alone when I was with them I met up with them every week and every week I would feel a little bit better.

5) Focusing on how much I loved my child, focusing on making him laugh and smile (because that made me laugh and smile), focusing on his fingers around mine, focus, focus, focus...being just in the moment.

6) Sorting out my diet - I ate less sugar, drank more green tea, took a seaweed supplement and ate less at each meal so I didn't feel too full (that gave me less energy).

7) Never acknowledging that depression had a hold...I always just looked to feeling better and placed my attention on that.

8) Wise words from a friend that I repeated like a mantra 'this too will pass' (it did).

9) Listening to music - loudly and only upbeat music!

10) Meditation - I didn't get it at first, I didn't see the point or feel I had the time. After a while I made the time - I took my son to a childminder for an hour twice a week and used that hour to meditate and feel good again...after a while the meditation turned into the most amazing experience, I still have never felt the same depth of joy as I did after one particular meditation session...It was pretty magical!

Have you ever experienced depression? What helped you? What 'brought you back'? 

If you would like to join my Facebook Group Positive Potential where we support those with Stress, Anxiety and Depression and exchange ideas on how to improve the wellbeing of humans in general, please click the link and ask to join (anyone can join by the way...it's a closed group because I wanted to ensure that anything shared there is not seen publicly, only by the group).

If you would like to find out more about how my Coaching and Psychotherapy services might be able to help you or someone you know, please visit my website Love Living

Love Nova xxx

Tuesday 16 February 2016

How you Experience Me is Not Who I Am




When you come to experience someone, perhaps for the first time, perhaps the first of many times (each is the first time you have experienced them in this moment), what you experience is not who they are...

That person that you really don't like...that person you love...that person who annoys you...that waitress who flirts all the time....that bloke who can always do things just that little bit better than you (apparently)...they are all people that you are experiencing, but what you experience is not who they are...

Take you on a good day: 

You got up and your hair looked great, you were awake and fresh and feeling vibrant, you had a lovely breakfast, you popped into the local coffee shop to pick up a snack and a drink and because you feel so great you smile widely at the person behind the counter. You ask how they are, you wish them a good day, you are genuine, you are happy and you wanted them to feel good too...more than likely they will experience you as a bubbly, bright person that they enjoy seeing and left them feeling a little bit better than they did before as a result of having met you. Next time you see them they might even give you better service than normal, greet you with a smile, remember your order...

Take you on a bad day: 

The kids woke you up at some un-Godly hour, you didn't have time for a shower, you are tired, you have an appointment you need to get to and you are running late, the boiler broke this morning so you know that you can't even have a shower when you get home (unless you fancy a cold one) and the day has already gone to pot before you even started it. This time you go into the local coffee shop and snap at the person serving you because they are taking ages to notice that you are standing there (too busy chatting...what are you invisible??), they get the order wrong so they have to start again and now you are even more late, you scowl at them and pretend that you mean it when you say 'thank you' even though you think they did a sloppy job and should quite frankly get fired. More than likely the person who served you will experience you as moody, ungrateful, unaware that they were trying their best, that you think you are better than them, that you are looking tired and grubby and they would be glad if they never saw you again...

Both are different experiences of you, they are not who you are. You are not bubbly and bright, nor are you grumpy and annoyed - they are expressions of you at a certain point of time that reflect what was going on for you at that moment, they lead to an experience of you in another's eyes but they are not YOU. 

When you come across someone who holds a view of you because of a moment in time when they experienced you, try to remember that their impressions are formed in that moment and can last a lifetime unless they regularly experience you in another way after that (and even then it can be hard to shift first impressions).

By the same token, when you experience someone and you note that in that moment they are a reflection of tiredness, grumpiness, hostility or anything else you experience as negative that this is not who they are - this is just how you came to experience them in that one moment.

How will someone experience you today? How will you experience others? Will you see through your experience to something deeper in them? 

It is also important to note that how YOU are will affect how you experience another. If you are full of self-doubt and meet another who you find to be unkind towards you (or not, depending on your own personality) because your experience is coloured by your own emotions and your self doubt will muddy the waters of your perception in that moment.

Here is a quick checklist for showing up as your best self:

1. Remember that the first impression you give can end up being the ONLY impression someone ever holds of you - make it a great one!

2. Others appear to you as a reflection of their own current experience - leave room for your first impressions to be wrong when you meet someone.

3. Your own state of mind will affect how you see another - before you decide what you think of them, check in with yourself and see what might be going on that could have biased your view.

When have you experienced someone in a way that has coloured your judgement of them? When have you felt misunderstood for who you really are? What do you do to show up as your best self? 

Monday 15 February 2016

Why life demands Miracle, Mystery and Authority


D.H Lawrence asks the question 'Will mankind always demand miracle, mystery and authority?'


Is that true? Even in today's society? Do we really still have a need for these things or is that just a past thought that is no longer true for us today in a world of science and logic?

Is it true that we really demand Miracles?

A quick search on the UK's Amazon website reveals that there are 39,367 books listed with the word 'miracle' in the title...something tells me we are still searching for a miracle, that we are still innately attracted to the idea that miracles exist.

A miracle is defined in the good old Oxford Dictionary as:

'An extraordinary and welcome event that is not explicable by natural or scientific laws and therefore attributed to a divine agency'

or

'A remarkable event or development that brings very welcome consequences'

or

'An exceptional product or achievement, or an outstanding example of something'

It is perhaps no surprise then that the most watched TV shows ever in the world are the Superbowl championships in America, that the most watched TV broadcast EVER in the UK was the 1966 England World Cup win or that the most popular shows on TV now include all the reality shows that look for singing talent (you know the ones I mean I'm sure!) - we are constantly still drawn, like moths to a flame to any 'remarkable event or development that brings very welcome consequences'...they are miracles that give us hope and we can inhale that hope into our own lives as we watch the miracle unfold, as we wait with baited breath to see how things will turn out, as we cross our fingers, wiggle around on the edge of our seats in anticipation and feel more and more alive as that miracle feeds every soul who is watching/reading or experiencing in some way the amazing events that we see. It gives us hope that good things can happen, it gives us proof that good exists.

We LOVE to hope. Perhaps that is the meaning behind our need for miracles - we demand hope and miracles are proof that hope is worthwhile. It is worth holding out for more, for better, for the outside chance...because miracles do happen. If we believe in miracles, that belief can be the driving force that keeps us trying again and again to achieve something we want, to get well even if we are really poorly, to get up and dust ourselves down even when the going gets tough because we have hope, we have a belief in the fact that a miracle may just happen to us.

I'm sure it is no coincidence that the most popular self help book of all time is 'Chicken Soup for the Soul' a collection of stories that bring hope and explore the best examples of humanity - a collection of mini miracles for us to draw from, learn from and feel good about.

We need hope, we need miracles...it is our Chicken Soup for the Soul.

However, these are 'everyday' miracles, the David and Goliath moments that bring us together and bring us to life...what of the miracles that are described in the initial description in the dictionary?

Are we just as comfortable with the idea that a miracle is:


'An extraordinary and welcome event that is not explicable by natural or scientific laws and therefore attributed to a divine agency'


The number of books sold on the subjects which explore this idea would suggest that whilst we may look to understand the mystery through science, logic, common sense and our own experiences we are still hugely enthralled by there being a 'higher power'. I recently read Jon Ronson's book 'The Men who Stare at Goats' and it seems that even within the realms of the CIA we are still looking for a power beyond ourselves to show that we can harness the power of miracles and hope that they may really exist - or that that higher power exists.

Is that then why religion still exists? Is that where our need for Authority comes in? Is our ultimate goal to discover that over and above any human authority figure we may look to, that there is a higher authority than that? A divine authority even?

Before we get into that...lets look at whether we demand mystery...

If mystery is defined by the fact that we need the unknown, that we need something to ponder on, something unsolved to put our minds to exploring and coming up with answers for then I would say that we can almost definitely answer that yes, we demand mystery. We LOVE a good mystery!

Do ghosts exist? Why are we here? How did life begin and why? Does he love me? Why do we die? What happens after we die? What is love? 

Every time we ask a question related to something we don't understand we are attempting to solve a mystery...even if it is only a mystery to ourselves...what is MY purpose, why do I keep procrastinating? Why is this rash on my face? Etc.

So there is mystery for as long as there are still questions...but do we need it?

To answer that we need to look at what would happen if there was no mystery. Imagine you wake up one morning and everything you ever wanted to know had been answered for you...imagine you could go to your computer and have a programme where you typed in any question you could possibly ever have and get an answer....

hmmm...sound like something we already have? Yup...we have this already, we have the answers to every question at our fingertips, it's called Google...so why do we feel like we haven't? Is it because we don't have one definitive answer to our questions? Is it because we have in fact got MANY answers? If we have a myriad of possibilities in terms of what answer we might find is it true therefore we have no real answers, only partial answers, only options for answers? Even the most seemingly definite of answers can be subjective if we want them to be - think of the person who has been told that they have incurable cancer only to find that actually it was curable because they no longer have it. Think of the person who was born a boy only to find that actually they were a girl in a boy's body...is there anything definitive at all in life and do we like it that way?

The moment we think we have the answers, more questions pop up. We thought we had it all sorted with the Big Bang theory....nope, that is still evolving as an answer too!

Perhaps the reason we will always have mystery (and want it) and will never have all the answers is because our truth is subjective and that's what we love about it - it means things can always change, it means there is always room for a miracle!

My truth on what is right and wrong is not the same truth for another. Mystery is there because we do not all experience life in the same way or through the same eyes or the same experiences.

I think a bit of mystery makes us feel more alive, it gives us a game to play, a childlike excitement that the answers are out there if we go looking for them, like a giant treasure hunt.

It's a bit like a relationship that has gone stale because there is no more mystery...life gets stale and boring when there is nothing new to bring to it...mystery is newness...we love something brand new or at least the possibility of it.


Do we demand Authority? 

As humans we strive to create answers to the miracles of life and expose the truths behind its mystery and we need someone in authority to deliver those answers before we will believe them.

There are so many aspects to Authority and the psychology connected to it that I cannot explore them all here...so for the purposes of keeping this as short as possible I have presented just one idea - that of Authority being our way of diminishing responsibility.

We demand that there is someone or something higher up the chain that we can blame if things go wrong:

'he told me to do it', 'life didn't give me any other option', 'God told me it was the right path'.

I think generally we demand authority because we don't want to feel responsible.

We even assign God this way out...'humanity is the way it is because I told them not to eat the apple and they did...NOT MY FAULT', really? Even God gets to blame someone else? What kind of an example is that to set? 

We want someone to tell us what to do, what the boundaries are, where is safe to explore - partly because if it goes wrong it is not our fault but also because we want to minimize other risks (not just the risk of having to be responsible), the risk of taking the wrong career path, the wrong turning on our way to somewhere new, marrying the wrong person etc.

Authority is in demand because it takes the pressure off us to make choices and also ensures that those choices, should they turn out not to be as great as we thought they would be, are not our fault.

Why does life demand Miracles, Mystery and Authority?

Because life without miracles is life without hope, life without mystery is life without new experiences, life without authority is life without boundaries or a safety net.


Whilst this is by no means the fullest exploration of this subject - so many other things came up when I was writing it, like our need for control and how this contrasts with our need for mystery, our need for solid explanation and how this contrasts with our need for inexplicable miracles, it is however a starting point for further discussion...

What are your thoughts? Do you demand these things in your life? Why? What is the deeper need behind it for you? If you don't demand them why not?