Conversations On Living

Of all the things we can do to nourish ourselves, sleep is perhaps the most vital. Alongside food and hydration, sleep is the thing that helps us to function at our best, with clarity and confidence. So vital is it, that lack of sleep can slow us down and make life harder. And severe tiredness can also begin to affect our decision-making abilities, our self-esteem, our courage, our grip on reality and our mental health. Getting enough rest, and good quality sleep, then, should be a crucial...

As we hopefully begin to emerge from the Covid-19 pandemic, we step into the harsh light of a world on fire. Social injustice, climate change, corruption, inequality have never appeared so prominent. A landscape of crisis begging to be solved, and the failed detritus of all previous attempts at stewardship are calling for a new approach. Is a spiritual revolution the answer we’re looking for? And what would that look like in a world where the genie of materialism has been out of the lamp...

People like us don’t do things like that. People like us, with our low self-esteem, our lack of confidence, our imposter syndrome, our insecurities about what other people think, about how we’re not good enough, talented enough, clever enough, lucky enough, don’t realise grand vision. We don’t start companies. We don’t take on massive projects. We don’t change the world. We leave that sort of thing to the others. The successful. The charismatic. The gifted. Those other people, who are not...

What happens when we get quiet, push past the distractions of the world around us and the noise within us, and come face to face with whatever lies deep inside? What monsters are waiting for us when we turn the volume down and listen to what is whispering beneath the hubbub? And how can we be sure that they’re monsters at all, and not instead, angels, keen to shine a light on our true authentic selves? What happens when we shed all that we are not, and tune into everything that we really...

Being who we came here to be, living and experiencing life in a way that is authentically ours, and remaining true to ourselves, is incredibly difficult when, from our earliest days, we become encumbered with the experiences of culture, the programming of society, and the big and small traumas of life. Whether or not we’ve been through catastrophic events or situations, the low level stress of life, of getting by, doing and being our best every day, in world that seems – according the to...

From the moment we are born we are acted upon by the influences of the world we are born into. The programming of things like language, culture, aesthetics, behaviour, and etiquette all start to imprint themselves upon us. And so too do experiences, expectations, incidents and accidents, joy and happiness, and also trauma and hurt. All of these things embed themselves in our memories, our neural pathways, our subconscious, and ultimately our ego, our identities, our inner narratives, and...

What does it mean to be “always on”. To have the entirety of human knowledge in your pocket, and to know what’s happening right this minute on the other side of the world… all the time? What does it mean to be “always available”. To be contactable, ready to respond at a moment’s notice. Never nowhere, always somewhere. Of course this all has its benefits, right? But is it necessarily healthy? This week I’m speaking with Christina Crook, author of the book The Joy of Missing Out: Finding...

What does it take to do something new, a new career perhaps, and to build something bigger than yourself? What do you need in order to keep turning up even when failure and rejection seem to be the lay of the land? How much of finding success it is about experience and know-how, and how much of it is about attitude, courage, find the angles that work, and finding the energy to keep showing up when you just can’t face another day? Today I’m chatting with Kelly Robinson, the founder of the...

When we think about nature, or we talk about spirituality, it’s easy to see it as something ‘other’. Something disconnected from the modern world that we have to live in, day to day. We save it for the weekend or for our morning meditation sessions, and we view the wisdom of the ancients as something quaint – but certainly not something that we should bring into the office. But this cultural disconnect could actually being doing us more harm than good. By turning our backs on nature, and...

To celebrate the release of Martha Beck's recent book, The Way of Integrity, we're replaying our episode from 2020. Here are the original show notes: ---- I have a favourite quote by the Swiss psychoanalyst, Carl Jung: “Beneath the threshold of consciousness, everything was seething with life.” This notion – that there is life beyond what we know in the physical world of systems and money and society and iPhones – is reflected in a drawing called Three Worlds by M.C. Escher. It...

What does it take to do more, live more, and be more, when our programming, our culture and our society are all designed to keep us right here where we are. And for the most part, that is in a state of dissatisfaction, of unease, of unfulfilled potential? How can we really fulfil our potential, and live beyond the day to day, the mundane struggles and mediocrity, in order to spread our wings and fly to the highest altitudes of our potential? How can we follow in the footsteps of Maya...

It’s said that if you’re not angry, you’re not paying attention. And indeed, all you have to do is turn on the news or take a look at social media, and you’ll find plenty to be angry about. Or sad about. Or worried, anxious, or fearful. But is this any way to live? Scores of studies have shown that the stress caused by being permanently in these sorts of emotional states can lead to a wide range of health issues – both mental and physical. So surely it’s better not to be angry, or sad, or...

“Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life,” asked poet Mary Oliver. As children we wanted to be astronauts, movie stars, wizards or unicorns, as grown-ups we generally just settle for a reasonably comfortable existence with something good to watch on TV and a beer at the end of a hard week. As that other great literary mind Zadie Smith said: “what modest dreamers we have become.” So what does it take to live a life of fulfilment, of impact? To leave a dent on...

We’re surrounded by information, and it’s easy to turn this information into stress within us, allow it to begin influencing how we feel, how we act, and how we experience life. Whether it’s a work deadline, the subtext of an email, the news media, advertising, past experiences, or so-called cultural norms, sometimes we can feel overwhelmed. Sometimes we can feel triggered. Sometimes we just want to yell “stop the world, I want to get off.” But what if there was an easier way of being. A...

In the Ayurvedic tradition, our constitutions are categorised into different types, called doshas. These doshas – Vatta, pitta and kapha – define the best types of food to eat in order to to be healthy, vital, energised and to avoid inflammation and illness. It’s a beautiful idea, and for thousands of years people have adopted this Ayurvedic principle to live a bright and energetic life. But what if we could take it beyond diet. What if we define our ‘type’ and then use this in order to...

“The universe is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper." These are the words of Eden Philpots. And since he wrote them in 1918 our senses have certainly got sharper. The Hubble telescope introduced us to the idea of dark energy and billions upon billions of galaxies far beyond our own that we didn’t even know existed. Today, thanks to the work of Thomas Dalton, we regularly look at atoms through powerful microscopes, even though their existence had been...

Do you ever wonder where it all went wrong? Find yourself cursing life for being unfair? Struggle with where you are, why you’re here, or even how things would be if you could only just get your act together and sort your life out? You’re not alone. In fact, I’d wager that most people feel stuck, dissatisfied, or at least a little bit disenchanted – if not with their entire life, perhaps one or more aspects of it. It’s easy to blame everything outside of ourselves for our unhappiness – the...

I haven’t read Frank Herbert’s Dune, nor have I seen the recent movie. Scenes from the cult David Lynch film are, however, imprinted on my mind, and I’m not just talking about Sting in his underpants. I’m referring - of course -to the Litany Against Fear, a poetic mantra recited by the Bene Gesserit, and it goes like this: "I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through...

Does your life ever feel like a suit that doesn’t quite fit properly? Do you ever wonder why, no matter how hard you work, how closely you follow the advice and the tried and trusted steps that convention says you should follow, you never seem to get where you want to be? Chances are the life you are living is out of alignment with who you really are. Today's guest is Sam Thiara. Sam teaches at the Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, and the author of Lost and Found, his personal story...

It was Primal Scream who told us “don’t fight it, feel it”. And if ever there are key messages that resonate in the world of mindfulness and personal development, this could be one of the big ones. After all, what you resist persists. Yet resist we do, and most of the time we don’t even know we’re doing it. But every time we feel discomfort or disatisfaction in our lives, it’s our resistance to “what is” that we’re feeling. This anxiety about the future, the worry about the past, never...