‘It is possible to have a good state of mind while we simultaneously feel very disturbed. It’s possible to feel grief or rage or anxiety and to have these difficult experiences arise within a type of well-being that is not dependent on positive thoughts or emotions. …. It’s having a new relationship with our disturbance that offers the potential for transformative change.’ Bruce Tift
Category: Thought for the month
Thought for May 2023
‘Psychological problems move in the direction of healing only when we can relate to them in a spacious way, from the space of our being. When we try to fix our problems directly, we usually pit one side of ourselves against another, and this creates inner stress and pressure which only contract our space…… When we can give our experience space in which to be, with awareness, the jam in our mind starts to clear up and the traffic has room to move freely once again. We may not have fixed the problem, but we have found a larger space in which to hold the problems. This is how true healing occurs.’ John Welwood
Thought for April 2023
‘Vulnerability is not weakness; it’s our greatest measure of our courage……There is no courage without vulnerability. Courage requires the willingness to lean into uncertainty, risk, and emotional exposure.’ Brené Brown
Thought for March 2023
‘It’s only human to find other people annoying. It happens to all of us….. I’m happy to tell you there’s a solution to the problem. If you want someone to be easy to deal with, to behave in a way you find tolerable, there’s really only one way: learn to like them exactly as they are. Because, when has anyone…ever become more like someone else thought they ought to be, simply because that person walked around judging them?’ Bjorn Natthiko Lindeblad
Thought for February 2023
‘Forgiveness…..is giving up the hope of a better past’ Richard Holloway
Thought for January 2023
‘“Don’t believe your every thought.” Few things have helped me more in life. Unfortunately, that superpower, which we all possess, is often overlooked. But the fact is that approaching our own thoughts with a measure of scepticism and humour makes it infinitely easier to be you and me.
What do you gain from not unquestioningly believing every thought that flashes through your mind? Something as invaluable as a true and genuine inner confidant. Someone who is always on your side…….Where’s the dignity, where’s the freedom, in a life where you believe everything you think?’ Björn Natthiko Lindeblad
Thought for December 2023
‘we sense that something is missing in our lives and search the world for it, not understanding that what is missing is us.’ Parker J Palmer
Thought for November 2022
’Human freedom involves our capacity to pause between stimulus and response and, in that pause, to choose the one response toward which we wish to throw our weight.’ Rollo May
Thought for October 2022
’The compassion you have for yourself is the greatest gift you can give to others’ Judith Lasater
Thought for August 2022
’The more you try to manage your time with the goal of achieving a feeling of total control, and freedom from the inevitable constraints of being human, the more stressful, empty and frustrating life gets.’ Oliver Burkeman, Four Thousand Weeks.
Susannah Izzard Psychotherapy 