But what will they think? I want to quit my job and start my business. I want to say no to the promotion everyone expects me to take. I want to work a "smaller" job that makes me happier. I want to stay single, on purpose, for a long time. I want to divorce my partner. I want to dress the way I actually want to dress. I want to shave my head / grow my hair / get that tattoo. I want to gain weight. I want to lose weight. On my own terms. I do not want to have children. I want

The belief that a partner is necessary for a complete life is one of the most aggressively marketed ideas in human culture. If you are not with someone = you are broken. If you are not with someone = you are incomplete. If you are not with someone = you are not whole. This is something that we as a society have made every single child born in the last 40 years feel. We have romanticised the idea of romance, and it's cancerous. People are more in love with the idea of love tha

I was reading The Untethered Soul by Michael Singer. Good book. Genuinely good. And then he started talking about energy bubbles cycling inside your heart centre, and I had to put the book down for a second. Not because it felt wrong. But because it felt like it was almost right, just wrapped in a layer of mysticism it didn’t need. Let me walk you through what I mean. The Highway Analogy Singer opens with something really simple. You’re driving on a highway. Trees are going b

Fairy tales end with 'happily ever after.' Real life doesn't. And the belief that it should is quietly making you miserable. Here are 4 myths about happiness that nobody told you were lies.

In Part 1, we looked at what people-pleasing looks like, where it comes from, and why it's not a personality trait, it's a survival strategy that outlived its context. If you haven't read it yet, start there: Are You a People Pleaser? Here's Why You Can't Stop Saying Yes Now the real question: what do you actually do about it? I'm not going to give you some motivational speech about "just love yourself." That never worked for me. What worked was small, uncomfortable, very spe

Do you…? struggle to say no to people, even to good friends make your choices based on other people’s opinions tend to avoid conflict even if something goes against your values apologize a lot, even if it’s not your fault leave the last bite for someone else to have even if you wanted it for yourself struggle to truly express yourself and think that if you do then people might see that you’re unworthy and probably leave need drugs to truly be yourself so that you can blame it

Scrolling, eating, avoiding, numbing — you do them to feel better, but they quietly make things worse. Here's the psychology behind why your coping strategies backfire, and how to break the cycle.

Nobody told you that you were broken. They said something subtler. Something that sounded almost reasonable. “You are OK... if.” If you get good grades. If you stop crying. If you make everyone happy. If you work hard enough. If you get a degree, a job, a partner, a house, and a kid(seriously?). That tiny two-letter word “ if “ is where most of our adult suffering begins. In my coaching training, I came across a concept that changed how I understand almost every person I've

“You are not in control of your mind — because you, as a conscious agent, are only part of your mind, living at the mercy of other parts.” ― Sam Harris The average person has between 12,000 to 60,000 thoughts (double it if you’re like me) a day of those 80% are negative and 95% are the same repetitive thoughts you had the day before. In another interesting study, it was found that 85% of what we worry about never even happens, and 15% of the things that do end up happening,

You’re sitting in a room full of people. Someone cracks a joke. You don’t find it funny. You laugh anyway. Someone asks your opinion. You have one. You say theirs back to them. Someone asks how you’re doing. You say “I’m good!” with a smile so convincing even you believe it for a second. You can DM me, I’ll be there for you. Not kidding. You get home. You crash. And you’re not tired because you did too much. You’re tired because you spent the entire day being someone you’re n

It’s 2 AM. Your body is begging for sleep, but your brain has other plans. It’s replaying that awkward thing you said at lunch three days ago. It’s rehearsing tomorrow’s meeting for the seventh time. It’s reminding you of everything that is not going according to your plan. Fun. I know this feeling intimately. Not because I read about it in some psychology textbook, but because I lived in it. Every single night. For years. My first real bout of anxiety showed up in 2020, unin

Do you intermittently find yourself yearning for love? That omniscient partner that would fix all the problems in your life. Who will make your life scintillating like sunlight breaking through after a storm? We all have been there, I guess — that desperate urge to find someone. It usually happens when we see happy couples all around us, elated by each other’s company, sharing those pretty smiles, making beautiful memories. It also happens when you maybe lose touch with your

Can you stay alone for a while? Or do you keep finding the need to look at your phone, call your friend or play some music? I think most people are like that. They fear being alone so much that they always need some stimulation around. But why do we do that? We are slaves of dopamine addiction. All day, we are being bombarded by the suckers of attention in the form of social media notifications on our phones and smartwatches. We are constantly being distracted from the presen

Globally, close to 800,000 people die from suicide every year. That’s one person every 40 seconds. For every person who dies, 20 more have attempted suicide. Due to the stigma associated with suicide and the fact that it is illegal in some countries, this figure is also likely to be an underestimate, with some suicides being classified as unintentional injuries or accidents. This certainly gives us a clear answer that happiness is not as normal as people think it is.