The importance of a healthy level of self-esteem cannot be underestimated:  it determines our worth, value and right to have our legitimate needs met.  It is the ability to set boundaries, attract and maintain healthy relationships, and recognise that we will not abandon ourselves simply for the sake of belonging.  It is a sense of being rooted in ourselves, and recognising intuitively when someone,  or something, is not in our best interests coupled with the ability to act on this gnosis and withdraw if necessary.

Self-esteem becomes our guidance system, our inner compass, to navigate our way through life as well.   We cannot control what happens to us in life but with good self esteem we can learn to sail in high seas.

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The ego can be a thing of terrible beauty – rampantly cocksure one moment, fragile as parchment the next.

It is capable of inspiring and propelling us to moments of true greatness, leaving others around us lost in the backwash of its afterburners. And then, in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it instant, it can plunge us into self-doubt and self-loathing.

Ego defines our emotional and psychological essence, a wild animal that paces the cage we lock it in. We feed it and it grows. We starve it and it shrinks. We neglect it and it becomes savage.

Often, its food of choice – or, perhaps more accurately at least, the diet we choose to feed it – is the app...

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In a shade over six months the UK will no longer be a member of the European Union. Whatever your view of that in principle, the matter of Britain’s membership is a debate that has long since been obsolete. Our love affair with Europe is in its death throes and come next March the political equivalent of a decree absolute will formally be signed by all parties.

Our departure is no longer about the financial terms of the divorce, either. 

Events over the weekend (which largely unfolded in The Daily Mail at the pen of Boris Johnson) and this morning, as it was reveale...

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Give a man a fish and he’ll feed himself for a day. Teach a man to fish and he’ll feed himself forever. Or so the saying goes. It’s probably true, but who really knows? Fish can be damned smart. Particularly the ones that have been caught before.

Here’s a saying which I know is absolutely true:

Give someone five minutes with nothing to do but think and they’ll find a way to beat themselves up about something, no matter how small or trivial.

It’s a sentence or thought that starts with the words If only I hadn’t …

… said that, done the other, been mean about Rachel’s new hairstyle,...

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Over the last few days, former Wham! manager Simon Napier-Bell has suggested that George Michael may have been tortured by a childhood secret that proved to be both the singer’s inspiration and his curse.

Michael was, of course, a global superstar, recognised as one of the most gifted songwriters of his generation. A string of bubblegum hits in the Eighties with Wham! made him the bedroom-wall-pin-up for teen girls – and some teen boys – around the world.

And as he outgrew the sockless deck shoes and coiffured highlights and forged a more contemporary image rendered in brooding charcoal and black and punctuated by goatees and designer shades, his songwriting became similarly substantial...

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As a concept, it’s a fantastic script. Two star crossed lovers wounded by a past littered with one failed relationship after another. Life gives them one last battle to fight: the battle to find each other.

It’s a sweeping, soaring, tear-fest of two people hampered by fate and shackled to a future they can’t yet see but which they both know lies somewhere just beyond their immediate reach. It’s Gable and Leigh, Bogart and Bergman, Tracy and Hepburn. It’s Keira Knightley and Andrew Lincoln in that scene in Love Actually. Except in your version, Keira doesn’t let him walk away.

You have the script and, because this is your love story, you have a ready-made cast. It...

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Nourishing your heart involves making a practice of loving every aspect of yourself. This is about embracing all of your inner world too. This includes those parts of you that are responsible for some of your greatest challenges. Many people have parts of themselves that are closed down to love, push away opportunity and sabotage their best attempts to make positive changes in their lives. It can be tempting to attack these parts of your mind, making them wrong and blaming them for everything that is difficult in your life.  Unfortunately that only makes matters worse. If you do have parts of yourself that seem set against you, they are working on some level to serve you. They always are. Yes, those parts may be serving you in wholly d...

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Having a healthy sense of self esteem and self value is important in all areas of life, and your workplace, whether you are working for someone else or running your own business, is no exception.

So what does valuing yourself in business mean?    Well, it’s helpful to break it down:

One of the most important ways we can value ourselves in business is financially.    Whether this is fighting for the payrise we deserve or ensuring that we are charging enough for our services, time and products, it’s absolutely essential.   In today’s economic climate it’s easy to go into fear, overcommit ourselves financially and timewise, but if you can’t afford it then it’s c...

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What does abandoning yourself mean?

Well it means saying yes when really you feel no, it can also be described as people pleasing, playing small or giving away your power. It’s when you override the protestations of your inner voice and allow yourself to be overly influenced by others opinions, evaluations and verbalisations. Or it’s when you give yourself up to avoid rejection or the fear of it. Turning to a myriad of mild, or not so mild, addictions is another all too common way of avoiding painful feelings and therefore abandoning yourself.  Many of us are guilty of some or all of these at some time or another, but for many it’s become a deeply ingrained habit, or worse still a way of life.

So what does it cost us? Well continuing to abandon yourself is deeply corrosive to ...

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I imagine most people would agree that bullies are a nuisance, and that’s putting it mildly. I’m sure at some point in our lives, we have all experienced being bullied, intimidated, coerced and victimized, and I think we would also agree that it doesn’t feel good. In fact, it can stir up some very uncomfortable feelings, ranging from indignation, fear, sadness and hurt. Some of us will come out fighting, and other’s may retreat and just hope that the person responsible will eventually leave us alone. As a way of coping with the stress posed by this external threat, albeit an individual or group, we may try to be overly nice to compensate, or seek ways of remaining safe, by being hyper alert and trying to anticipate their behaviour. In doing so, we end up compromising ourselves, creating incredible ...

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