Let’s have the most difficult conversation of all — let’s talk about death

The subject very few people want to talk about, the sum of all of our fears, the epitome of vulnerability and the one sure thing in our life — death.

Not talking about death does not make it any less scary or heartbreaking, in fact I would argue that it makes it more so.

And I believe embracing death actually helps us live far more fully, be more discerning with our time and priorities and less afraid of failure and judgement.

It offers the kind of perspective you will not find anywhere else in life, it cuts through the meaningless…

All of these random thoughts have been written in the second and third national lockdown, during the covid-19 pandemic of 2020. The naivety, purpose and fear associated with the first lockdown, has given way to a sense of weariness, constantly re-living groundhog day, frustration, division over our response to the pandemic and a deep seated rumble of hopelessness — perhaps the most dangerous of all of these feelings.

We dare not hope for an end date as they constantly shift, or are withdrawn, or have so many conditions attached to them, they are simply unbelievable. The threat of new variants…

It’s 4.30 am, I am fully awake, an anxious rumble in my stomach, a worry I cannot quite pinpoint.

So, I get up, make tea, let the dogs out, light the fire and write.

It’s the perfect time, everyone else is asleep, I finally have the silence I crave and the headspace to think.

Once the day starts, with 3 kids needing to be home schooled, fed, the house looked after and the animals cared for (including having to find a way to keep our ducks and chickens in now we also have bird flu to deal with, ffs), the…

We are all agreed, we cannot wait to see the back of 2020 — it’s been pretty sh*t to say the least and we have all had enough.

The start of a New Year brings new hope, new vaccines, mass testing and dare I say a new dawn. But what have we learnt from our year of adversity, that will stay in our minds and serve us well in the years to come? Because the honest answer is not as much as we think — much of what we say now will be forgotten, as our memories fade and we…

I’m one of the missing statistics from the workplace — the army of women who disappeared to raise families, make homes and try to stay sane, whilst balancing all of the demands and expectations of them.

My career break turned into more of a retirement, the years passed and something else more important always came along — recovering from PND, juggling the needs of 3 young children, supporting my sister as her husband battled MND and died, absorbing every precious minute with my dad before cancer took his last breath and embarking on a ridiculously sh*t menopause.

And so eventually…

I was asked to do a short vlog on hope. Thus far I have failed. I have failed because hope is perhaps the biggest word in the world and I cannot seem to find the right words to truly express its scope, impact and true meaning.

So, I turn to the dictionary for inspiration and what I find is this:

As a noun ‘a feeling of expectation and desire for a particular thing to happen’ — my god this is even more inadequate than even I could have imagined.

As a verb ‘want something to happen or be the case.’…

My frustration is so great, I’ve re-written this intro 3 times already. It’s either too angry, too sad, or too tired. None of those words are particularly inspiring it has to be said, so it’s a good job there is a deep seated, primal drive within me that fuels me to action each day. …

“The secret of change is to focus all of your energy not on fighting the old, but on building the new” -Socrates

The line between the individual and the organisation is becoming increasingly blurred, as organisations move away from a mechanistic, bureaucratic structure, towards a living community and individuals strive, for a balanced life, where they feel that what they do matters and that they matter too.

The skills required in our brave new world are changing — we are living in unpredictable, volatile and unprecedented times of change, disruption and opportunity. …