Burnout in organisation - leaders and employee

Imagine working late into the night, sometimes into the early hours of the morning trying to finish a project, meet expectations and prove that you can do the job. You are exhausted. Your nervous system is already running on overdrive. Perhaps you haven't been sleeping properly. Work follows you home. You replay conversations with your manager and worry about whether you have done enough. And then you are told that you are being placed on a Performance Improvement Plan (PIP).

What if you’re not behind in life? What if you were simply expected to figure out too much of it on your own?

We spend so much time asking, “Do I love this person?” Perhaps we also need to ask, “Do I know how to love this person well?” I recently watched The Roses, and underneath the dark humour, arguments and eventual chaos, I found myself thinking about relationships. About how two people can love each other and still hurt each other. How two people can begin with genuine affection, attraction and admiration, and somewhere along the way lose their ability to see one another. And pe

Sitting with grief and loss.

Years ago, I worked with a woman who had been struggling with severe neck problems for almost two years. She had sought medical help, but the problem persisted. As she began telling me about what had been happening in her life during those same years, she spoke about a particularly difficult relationship. Somewhere in the middle of telling her story, she said: “He has been such a pain in the neck!” We both stopped. And looked at each other. There it was. Not a diagnosis. Not

When most people hear the word addiction, they often think of alcohol or drugs. But addiction can show up in many forms. At its core, addiction is often less about the substance or behaviour itself, and more about what it does for the person.That’s an important distinction. Because when we only focus on stopping, we may miss the deeper reasons why the behaviour is there in the first place. The two broad types of addiction Broadly speaking, addiction can be understood in two c

I've been asked a few times:"How do I know if I'm burnt out? I am not motivated, I procrastinate and I am tired most of the time”. It's a question I've heard many times over the years. In fact, many people experiencing burnout don't realise it at first. They assume they need to work harder, become more disciplined, take a holiday, or simply "get over it." But burnout is rarely about a lack of motivation. More often, it is the result of carrying too much for too long. What i

Content note: This reflection briefly references childhood punishment and emotional experiences. It is shared in a professional and educational context. On the "hot seat" as we call it - experimenting with Brain Switch 2.0 From moment to moment, we are all making meaning of our world. Our nervous system is constantly interpreting what is happening around us and within us asking quiet questions like: Am I safe? Do I belong? How do I protect myself? In response, we sometimes

Understanding ACE, Attachment, and the Parts That Protect Us The child within us that yearns for love, and connection. Many of us quietly ask ourselves questions like: Why do relationships feel so hard for me? Why do I want closeness, then suddenly pull away? Why do breakups affect me so deeply, even years later? Why do my relationships not work out? These are some of the most common questions people search for when looking for therapy especially around relationships, attachm

Many people wonder why they are drawn to certain partners especially when, looking back, those relationships feel painful, confusing, or no longer aligned. A common belief is that we “chose wrong.” From a psychological perspective, that’s rarely the full story. Often, the people we are drawn to are not chosen at random. They feel familiar . They carry something of our earliest experience of safety. How our nervous system learns “safety” Long before we can think logically abou

A while ago, a friend asked me a simple but profound question:“Why do we end up marrying the people we do?” The question stayed with me, because the answer is rarely simple. Often, the people we marry are not chosen at random. They are familiar. They carry something of our earliest sense of safety. From a psychological and nervous system perspective, we are drawn to what once helped us survive. Long before we have language or logic, our bodies learn what safety feels like: w