2019: Worthy Achievements vs. Real Life

I need to lose some weight. I should quit smoking. I think I should drink less. I really need to exercise more. I have to get more organised. Yep. It’s here. That strange, slightly awkward, time warp-like period in between Christmas and New Year. The time when we start thinking about what we’re going to do to make next year bigger, better and more successful than the one about to end. The critical little voice

Continue reading »

NHS Peer Leadership Academy (Part III)

This is Part III of a three-part series about my experience of the NHS Peer Leadership Academy. Click here for Part I and here for Part II. The last two days of the Peer Leadership Academy were awesome and really full-on, but also a tiny bit sad. It’s surprising how well you feel like you get to know people when you do something like this together! The first part of Tuesday focussed on the Myers-Briggs stuff

Continue reading »

NHS Peer Leadership Academy (Part II)

This is Part II of a three-part series about my experience of the NHS Peer Leadership Academy. Click here for Part I. It’s been sitting in my drafts folder for weeks waiting for me to have time to edit it! The 16th and 17th of October were the second two days of the Peer Leadership Academy. After the first two days in September I was looking forward to coming back because I knew the other

Continue reading »

NHS Peer Leadership Academy (Part I)

Several months ago, Fiona tagged me in a Tweet about the NHS Peer Leadership Academy. The academy is a personal development programme jointly delivered by the NHS and an organisation called PeopleHub, and is geared towards people with an interest in life with a long-term health condition or disability, whether they’re patients, carers or family members. It focusses on how personalised care, in particular personal health budgets (PHBs), make a huge difference to quality of

Continue reading »
demons on the boat

Anxiety, Storms & Demons on the Boat

Sometimes life is very loud. Thoughts, worries, ideas and concerns spin around and around inside my head all at the same time, jumbling together to create a mess of confusion that’s impossible to find a way through. Finding myself in the middle of this mess is often totally overwhelming. I have spent many years in doctors’ offices and counselling sessions in an attempt to treat my severe anxiety. I have talked a lot, been given

Continue reading »