Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, wherever you are.

This morning I was yanked from sleep, kicking and screaming, by the dog barking. You know the feeling; it might be the alarm has hit you (figuratively), sharp between the shoulder blades, usually in the middle of a dream. You wake without passing smoothly through dormiveglia, and with a hangover from that dream – with regret if it was a nice one; a nagging discomfort if it wasn’t.

Dormi-what? Dormiveglia (n). say ‘dorm-ee-vegg-leah.’

Dormiveglia is the Schrodinger’s Cat of consciousness; the space that stretches between waking and sleeping, neither one nor the other.

Sometimes it lets you float, yawn and surface gently. You bathe in its warmth, the comfort and peace of an unhurried weekend morning, your subconscious showing you strands of pictures and ideas. Perhaps threads of dreams, half-thought thoughts, brilliant ideas that swim out of reach.

Its etymology is from the Latin dormi-, meaning ‘to sleep’, and veglia, meaning ‘to wake’.

Neuroscientists might describe the alpha brainwave state as dormiveglia. Alpha waves are seen in the brain of someone who is just awake, relaxed, and has their eyes closed.

It’s a meditative state we can get into easily; just close your eyes and ‘look’ up towards our eyebrows from behind your eyelids. Be gentle as it can be a bit uncomfortable, but it helps relax the brain and conjure up images and relaxed thoughts; thoughts that might show you stuff you’re not consciously aware of. Some of it’ll seem mad, but there might be gold in the dust.

This week’s questions are an exercise to practise:

Do this before you go to sleep, or as you wake in the morning.

1. Relax and get into an alpha brainwave state (see above). Allow pictures, words, voices to pop up and swim into view without judging them.

This gets you practising the skill/art of deliberate dormiveglia. Do it a few times because no doubt your conscious mind will want to intrude. When it does, just come back to your breath and look gently upwards again. If you fall asleep, don’t sweat it, but just try another day.

2. Can you ask a question and use this relaxed state to get an answer? What question needs answering (this week’s lottery numbers won’t be there, BTW)? What keeps you stuck or awake at night?

3. If you don’t have a question that springs to mind, then think about what your future-self wants your today-self to know. It might be general or about something specific. What will your alpha-mind say and show you?

That’s it. There’s so much brilliant stuff going on in our non-conscious mind that we don’t access because we’re busy with the everyday, and our conscious mind is noisy.

Let me know how you get on in the comments.

Until next week,

All the best,

Elspeth.

Buy me a coffee? Thank you!

Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, wherever you are.

This little gem was at the top of James Clear’s newsletter this week:

(not on Substack, sign up from JamesClear.com),

And because he said, “What lights you up right now?”, it got me thinking about joy. Joy is a light-up call.

As says in her poem about it, joy doesn’t arrive with a fanfare; it’s small and sweet and fleeting. You sometimes can’t invite her – you have to notice her when she’s there. Life doesn’t have to be perfect to experience joy: it’s the other way about. When we notice joy, life becomes more perfect.

So, this week’s weird word is Laetitia (n) from Latin, meaning Joy.

And this week’s coaching questions are about noticing, finding and conjuring joy. Notebooks and pens at the ready. Let’s get journalling.

1. When no one else is around, what does joy look, sound, feel like?

2. Where do you feel it in your body? These 2 questions are about identifying it when it pops in for a visit.

3. When you’re with others, what does it look, sound and feel like?

4. Is it in a different place in your body?

5. What comes before joy, or what other words might you have for it – contentment? Ease? Peace? Excitement?

6. Where in your life are you choosing things you should enjoy, over what you actually enjoy?

7. What are you prepared to do to change that?

8. What have you stopped doing because it felt too small or not “productive,” but could that be a source of joy?

9. If you gave yourself permission to live a slightly slower and/or more joyful life, what would you change first?

That’s it. Have a joyous week,

All the best,

Elspeth.

Different trees make different sounds as the wind goes through them. The pine trees near us almost sound like there’s a car coming up the lane behind me, but the beeches in the wood just whisper.

This week’s word is psithurism (n), the sound of wind in the trees and rustling of leaves. Pronounce it “see-thoo-er-ism” – the ‘p’ is silent.

And, unless you’re paying attention, psithurism is lost in the noise of our own thoughts, traffic, and chatter. Much like our intuition.

There’s a quote I have stuck on the wall of my office that says:

And for quiet people like us introverts, that’s not hard. But how often do you miss a piece of whispered advice from your unconscious, only to remember it when it’s too late?

We override our inner voice too regularly, favouring conscious logic instead, but sometimes conscious logic doesn’t play out well.

And how do we hear the psithurism above the chatter? In other words, what do we do to help the whispers get louder when it comes to making decisions?

This week’s questions:

1. When have you heard a whisper and ignored it?

What was the situation and what was the whisper, what did you do instead, and what were the consequences?

I can remember being accepted for a job and making a site visit that left every cell in my body screaming, “Don’t do it!” Naturally, I ignored the screaming, and that job was not a happy experience because I was listening to the logical “Well, you need an income” voice.

2. When you get a whisper, where do you feel or hear it?

Some people hear something over their shoulder, sometimes it’s a feeling in the pit of the stomach, a buzzing in the head, or a physical pull in a particular direction. It might be any one of these and more, depending on the situation.

3. If you did know the answer, what would it be?

Get still when you ask this, and close your eyes. Let it tell you in words or pictures.

Write down what you heard/felt and what action you can take, either in the direction of the nudge or against it. This builds a reference and helps to improve your intuitive confidence.

4. How do you know if this is logic, intuition or something else?

Practise and log your experiences. What’s a good steer and what’s a bum steer.

Some intuition specialists say that generally, intuition doesn’t have an emotion attached to it. It’s a neutral feeling. So if you’re sure, damn sure, and positive you’ve met The One, or are definite about your lottery ticket numbers and feel a sense of excitement, then maybe that’s wishful thinking and not intuition.

There is an argument that our intuition, or inner knowing, arises from pattern recognition from previous experience. By that I mean, we take in thousands of pieces of information all the time, but the brain can’t consciously process it. We pay attention to what we need now, but most of the rest of the information is still in the brain. It could certainly explain why first responders, firefighters, and experienced medical personnel say they sense there’s something wrong before there’s evidence to back them up.

When intuition pops up to guide you, it may be because your mind is showing you something you hadn’t consciously remembered.

Others say it’s more spiritual. I think it’s probably both.

The best way to track intuition vs wishful thinking is to track it (question 3).

5. If the cleverest and wisest person you know (in real life or not) had an answer, what would it be?

If we’re close to a situation it can be hard to see the wood for the trees, but someone removed from it can help us access a better part of own selves.

6. If your future-self had some advice, what would it be?

This is similar to number 5, but you’re using your future self as the external source. I find this one works better for me as I have a history of not wanting to rely on others’ wisdom (it’s a long story).

7. What’s your main insight about the situation generally?

Look from a helicopter perspective and then from a snail-on-the-ground perspective. What do these different viewpoints show you?

That’s it for this week. I hope some of this was useful – remember, you don’t need to answer all the questions or any of them in any particular order.

Until next time,

All the best,

Elspeth.

Buy me a coffee?

Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, wherever you are.

You may never have heard of the pudendal nerve, but you’ve certainly experienced its effects. It’s the major nerve in the perineum – the area around the vulva and anus. It sends sensation from the genitals and anus to the brain, and controls the sphincter muscles which regulate when we pee and poo.

I know you didn’t come here for an anatomy lesson, but this week’s word amazed my inner nerd and made me roll my of-course-they-did eyes. Early anatomists named this nerve via the Latin pudendus – “to be ashamed.”

Because, of course, women are embarrassed by their sex and their genitalia; we’ve been taught to be ashamed of how amazing our femininity is. But it’s not our natural state.

So, this week’s coaching questions tackle the topic of shame. You may need to come back to this letter a few times – it’s not a one-and-done.

1. When you think of shame you carry, what comes to mind? Words? Images? Memories?

If nothing comes directly, where do you feel the word in your body? Where do you contract? What feels heavy and dark? If we were shamed before we had words, the feelings will remain in the body as a memory.

Usually, shame comes about when we’re told by someone whose opinion we value that we’re wrong, have some shortcoming, or have behaved inappropriately in some way. We’re conscious of the pain of guilt and wanting to hide.

It’s often something from childhood, but it can happen anytime in life. It might be a single incident or an accumulation of words and actions from one or a number of people.

2. If a voice comes with the shame, whose voice does it sound like? Is it truly yours, or something you absorbed from family, culture, or past criticism?

3. Is there a story with the shame – does it stem from a particular incident or is there a theme, for example around sex, or not working hard enough, or spending money, etc?

4. If your closest friend told you this story about herself, how would you respond to her? If a small child told you the story, what would you say?

5. Write out what you can remember about what actually happened. No fancy reflections, just dump it on the page.

Now strip out all the emotive words from the narrative – all the ones that make you feel something or re-live it some way.

How does it read?

What story have you been telling yourself about it? Remember, the pain and shame don’t come from the event itself, but the story we tell ourselves about the event.

6. What would change if you viewed this moment as something you experienced, rather than something you are?

How have you internalised this shame and made it part of you? What actions do you do, what beliefs do you hold?

7. Close your eyes for a moment and take a few deep breaths to relax. Imagine looking at yourself and this shame in the mirror.

a. What does the shame look like? Colour, size, weight, any movement?

b. Are you wearing it? What costume does it put on you? It may look ridiculous, but you’re the only one looking, so don’t worry.

c. How are you standing when you look in the mirror?

Still looking in the mirror behind closed eyes, try one of these things: either

a. See your present adult self standing next to the adult/teen/child with the shame, and help her take off the costume or burden of the shame. Remove it. Pull it out from inside, or take an eraser and rub out the memory that put it there.

b. Or, if you’re happy to do it yourself without help, pull off/out the shame.

When it’s gone, look again in the mirror in your mind’s eye, and see how you look. How are you standing? What are you wearing? How do you feel?

Repeat this step as often as you’re able to relax and spend 5 minutes doing it.

8. What would self-respect — rather than shame — guide you to do next?

Until next week,

All the best,

Elspeth.

No one loves chaos.

Or do they? Well, not me. This is the view from my study this week as we start to build a house, and there’s worse to come before it gets any better. So I’d better get used to it.

Buy me a coffee to ease the pain?

Which brings me to this week’s word: sisna (say sis-nah). It has a variety of (interesting) meanings in Sanskrit, but this one caught my attention: “one who blooms in chaos; a breaker of norms and lover of quiet rebellions.”

And who doesn’t love a quiet rebellion, especially if you’re at the helm?

This week’s questions are about driving our own revolutions – even small ones in our own minds. Creating change where we want it, not apologising, and not taking any prisoners. If you’ve long wished for a change, to take charge, to just feel more in control, this is the one for you.

Don’t worry, no weapons, other than your own razor-sharp intelligence and thinking capacity, are required.

This week’s coaching questions:

1. When you read change, to take charge, to just feel more in control, above, what was the first thing that came to mind? Was it in a romantic relationship or the lack of one, work, a financial situation, or a family situation?

2. Hear me out: what are you assuming about the situation? What are your beliefs about it? We often get so entrenched in a position that it’s hard to see what’s really going on.

If you’re single and don’t want to be, what are the stories you’re telling yourself?

If it’s a work or family situation, what do you believe that, on closer inspection, might not be true?

If it’s financial, are the old soundtracks of money beliefs that keep you stuck?

3. A belief is something that feels true, but may not be. No matter how factual it feels, there may be another story.

So, imagine your belief is like a table – four legs and a top. The top is held up by the legs, but if you take a leg away, it’ll start to wobble. The legs are your evidence for your belief.

Take the belief and interrogate the evidence that holds it up. It won’t be comfortable because this may be something you’ve held on to for a lifetime. But that’s the rebellion – challenging something you’ve always ‘known’ or assumed is true.

· For example – belief: “My brother and I hate each other.”

· Evidence: we always argue, our politics are miles apart, we’ve always been rivals, mum preferred him to me, he sabotaged my marriage…etc etc.

· Now kick the legs out from the belief ‘table:’

o Why do we argue? What about? Could it be that you and your bro are both passionate about the same things but don’t actually hear each other over the shouting?

o Where’s the common ground in our politics? Are there other qualities you like in him, even if you disagree on this?

o Did mum really prefer him? Did he get more attention because he needed it for a medical/educational need? Was she just biased? Was she wrong and her attention wasn’t his fault at all?

o What other factors were at play when you think about how he sabotaged your marriage?

4. What’s a better belief to hold? And how do you find evidence for it? Find enough and you’ve shifted your way of thinking and made a little mental rebellion.

Don’t apologise for changing your mind about something. It’s something science does all the time when presented with more, better or up-to-date evidence.

That’s all for this week,

All the best,

Elspeth.

Buy me a coffee?

Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, good night, wherever you are.

Stop for a moment.

Close your eyes.

When was the last time you felt wonder and awe? You saw, heard, or experienced something so amazing it left you slack-jawed and unable to move?

This week’s word is Émerveillement – say “i-mer-vee-yay-ee-mon”. It’s French and means ‘wonder,’ ‘awe,’ ‘amazement,’ the feeling you get when something is so beautiful and magical that it makes you stop and smile.

If you’re thinking “Pah, it was decades ago,” or “Errr, I can’t remember,” but you’d like a little more of it, then this is for you.

I can’t remember when something really took my midlife breath away either. Something so wonderful it made me cry or laugh. The closest thing was last evening: after a day spent in my very cold, uninsulated and unheated home, with the wind and rain blowing a hooley from the north, I got into my pyjamas, made a hot water bottle (two, actually) and climbed onto the sofa under a blanket. Once my feet were warm, there it was: emerveillement. Relaxed awesomeness. I lay there and just smiled.

You can argue that was perhaps hygge, but it gave a sense of emerveillement.

This week’s coaching questions and a simple, awesome exercise:

1. When you read When was the last time you felt wonder and awe? You saw, heard, or experienced something so amazing it left you slack-jawed and unable to move? what was your first thought? If you’ve just returned from the holiday in Florence and the sun bathed everything in artistic, heart-stopping light, you have a good place to start.

But what if you haven’t?

2. Make a list of the favourite parts of your day. The little things.

Some of mine are walking the dog, my first glass of something alcoholic in the evening, getting into bed and reading, and then turning off the light, kissing Hubster goodnight and going to sleep.

Realising what makes you smile during the day is the first part of finding some really awesome stuff in there too. Nobody’s listening, so make these things anything you like.

3. If there are a few (or more) of those things that you’d like more of, and more often, which would they be?

4. And how do you get more of them?

If they’re like mine, you might not be able to replicate them – I only get to go to bed once, and there’s nothing like the first drink, so I don’t bother with a second. But which of yours could you turn up the brightness, frequency, volume etc of if you wanted to?

5. You may have done this relaxation exercise before, and even if you have, try it now.

a. Look around you: name 5 things you can see that are green/red/orange/ pink/any colour you choose. Look for them, name them allowed (or in a whisper if you prefer).

b. Close your eyes and listen for 4 things you can hear.

c. Still with your eyes closed, find 3 things in the air that you can smell. You may not be able to name them, and that’s fine, just pick them out with your nose.

d. What are 2 things you can touch and feel right now? Touch them, feel them, and describe the sensation to yourself.

e. What’s 1 thing you can taste? Nice or nasty?

Finding our emerveillement is essentially about slowing down and allowing ourselves to experience it. It’s also about inviting more of it into the everyday.

That’s all for this week. Have a good one and let me know your experiences with emerveillement in the comments.

Until next week,

All the best,

Elspeth.

Good morning, good evening, good afternoon, wherever you are.

Will it ever. Stop. Raining? I am done with the mud and the flooding and the news about our changing climate knowing that, come summer, we’ll be in a drought with a hosepipe ban in place.

One of the best parts of my day is walking with my dog. We do about 4 or 5 miles in the morning, and he’s quite the best walking companion: just the two of us and the countryside. But, perhaps because I don’t bounce the way I used to when I fall over, I hate the slippy and sloppy. Everything’s just a squelch forward and half a slide back.

This week’s word is ombrophile (say omm-bro-file). It means someone who loves rain and finds joy and peace in wet weather. And that would have been me a couple of years ago.

The sky goes dark, you switch the lights on at 3 in the afternoon because here comes the rain…light at first and then the heavens open. Watching the rivulets on the window and the distorted scene beyond them, knowing you’re safely warm and dry, is a calming, almost romantic sensation.

But not when it rains every. Damn. Day.

So, what do you do when something you used to love – a person, relationship, job, situation, version of yourself – is now tedious, boring or just makes you sigh with frustration?

This week’s coaching questions:

1. Name the thing/person/situation/whatever that drains you. Then get specific about what makes you feel that way. Get granular, because there will be good bits and bad bits – sort the wheat from the chaff.

2. If you find you have more wheat than chaff, great. What’s next? For instance, if you have a job that’s dull but has great benefits, how do you go about livening it up and making it better?

3. If you have more chaff than wheat, what’s next? What beliefs do you hold about this person/situation/relationship that might hold you back from acting (always remembering that action is where the magic happens)?

a. Look at those beliefs and think about whether they’re correct. Is there another explanation for why your partner forgot Valentine’s Day, other than they’re hopeless and are thinking about leaving you? Could there be another job out there that has all the benefits and is just as good as your current one, and you can cut the golden handcuffs?

b. Challenge your thinking.

4. Close your eyes: what vision do you hold for the future? And how does this thing you’re disillusioned with fit in?

5. What does that vision hold for you, and how does it make you feel?

6. What’s the first tiny step you can take to close the gap between where you are now with this thing, and where you want to be?

7. When are you going to take that step?

For rainy dog walks, I consign myself (well, me and the dog) to appropriate clothing and avoiding muddy places. It’s not ideal and he doesn’t get to run around a lot, but the sun will come out again.

That’s all, folks. Until next week,

All the best,

Elspeth.

Buy me a coffee?

Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, wherever you are.

There’s a quote I have on a Pinterest board that says:

“For those who understand, no explanation is needed.

For those who don’t, no explanation is possible.”

And it’s so true.

A woman I once knew, someone I was close to (inexplicably), epitomised the second sentence. I could have explained the pants off why I felt one way about something she felt another way about, and she would never have understood.

Our word for this week is exulansis: the tendency to give up trying to talk about an experience because others are unable to relate to it.

We withdraw, hold the experience to ourselves, and leave others to their own devices. It’s a giving up; evidence of how difficult it can be to connect with others, and a feeling of disappointment when that happens.

As introverts, we’re quite used to this, perhaps.

So, this week’s questions and activities are about this theme, but specifically how we can improve our connection with other people in our own introverted way, or at least let go of the disappointment.

After all, we are (so we’re told) a social species.

This week’s coaching questions:

1. Think of a scenario where you haven’t been able to connect with someone when you really wanted to. Maybe someone who might have been a new friend/colleague/client/romantic partner. You were up for it, but they weren’t, or you disagreed about something and the relationship didn’t get off the ground.

a. What story did you tell yourself about the person or the situation?

b. Was it a healthy, balanced story, or were you paranoid about it?

c. If it was a bit paranoid or ‘unhealthy,’ what alternative explanations could there be?

I don’t make friends easily, so this scenario for me would be about turning “I’m ugly/I smell/no one likes me” or any explanation my inner 5-year-old can come up with into something more adult, like “They’re just busy and thinking about something else/we’re just not the right fit for each other/bad chemistry/maybe they’re an introvert too”.

If I don’t tell myself a better story, my inner 5-year-old keeps thinking she’s right. Much as I love her, she’s sooo 1974, and I need to upgrade my mental software.

2. Make a list of 5 ways to say “I love you” without actually saying it. Think gestures as well as words or phrases. These are for the people you love and maybe need to know more often.

a. Use them or do them – don’t let them just be words or ideas in your private journal.

3. If a scenario like the one(s) you found in question 1 popped up again, what would feel like a good risk to take to improve the situation?

For me, it would be to a question like “The story I’m telling myself about our disagreement is…. What’s your take on it?” Or “I sense your mind is not here right now. Are you ok?”

It would probably take me out of my comfort zone because what I’d really like to do is run and hide with my inner 5-year-old.

4. What’s something(s) you wish you and the important people in your life talked about more? Politics, Uncle Martin, the price of fish…?

a. Find 3 ways to open the conversation. It could be something as simple as “You know we never talk about X and I wonder why that is…”

5. What are the little things you notice about people close to you? Make a list of 5 (good things) for each, and over the coming weeks, tell them about what you see in them.

That’s it for this week. Happy thinking,

All the best,

Elspeth.

Buy me a coffee? Thank you!

Dumfungled (adj). Tired. Mentally and physically exhausted. More than the exhaustion that says, ‘I need to sleep more, or get better sleep’. This is the sort of fatigue that makes one feel like a wrung-out dishrag. In fact, if M&S made tiredness, ‘dumfungled’ would be that sort of tiredness.

For introverts, it’s too much peopling. Often, the wrong sort of peopling, too –networking, parents-in-law, loud parties, restaurants and bars – and then being unable to recharge our batteries.

For on-fire executives, it’s one-more-deal-and-then-I’ll-rest. But that deal, the one before you rest, never comes.

Dumfungled is running on empty.

It’s a word to roll in the mouth like a fine whisky; a Dallas Dhu single malt, a Dufftown, or a Dalwhinnie. Don’t water it down; like a fine whisky, it’s auld Scots and perfect as it is.

But unlike whisky, dumfungled is an informal, fun word – whisky is serious business.

This week’s coaching questions:

1. Where are you dumfungled in life?

Is it a life stage? Are you a Sandwich Generation woman with children, ageing parents and a career loaded with responsibility, trying to shoehorn your preferred life into cracks of time?

If you look up for a second, you’ll lose balance and a plate will slip.

Perhaps one more crucial, life-determining decision and their whole card deck will come crashing down.

Perhaps it’s the repetition of a predictable life that creates exhaustion, not from overactivity and responsibility overload, but from a lack of the activity that sparks intrigue, love, light and energy.

2. If you’re still stuck, rate the areas of life where you do, and don’t have energy. Mark them on the wheel of everything (above).

3. For each of the areas that drain you, what are you assuming? If you’re a woman looking after parents, are you assuming no one else can do it as well as you do? (I see you, fellow control freak.) If you’re exhausted from a household budget that gets tighter every time you look at it, are you assuming nothing can be done and you just have to white-knuckle it?

4. Based on these assumptions, what would your next actions be?

5. If you took a large sheet of paper and a pen, how would you challenge each of these assumptions?

6. To this end, what’s the evidence you’re right about your assumptions?

7. If you were in a court of law and had to challenge the evidence for the assumption, how would you pick it apart?

Until next week,

All the best,

Elspeth.

Want to show your appreciation?

Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, wherever you are.

What can we do to deoppilate (v) ourselves?

Deoppilate is an old medical word whose etymology is de- = to remove.

Oppilate = to block, stop, or obstruct.

To deoppilate, then, is to free ourselves from an obstruction.

Anyone who’s suffered an obstruction - physical, mental, or spiritual - knows the relief that comes with its removal; the sense of clarity, the lift, and the oomph.

Freeing ourselves from obstructions can often mean getting out of our own way.

This week’s coaching questions:

1. What is the obstruction?

Is it mental/emotional? Is it mental/emotional manifesting as a physical ailment?

Is it a physical ailment – a broken leg and the pain that goes with it, a condition you have to live with, something you haven’t got the answer to yet?

Is it something spiritual or a lack of spiritual connection?

At the beginning of the year, I got tendinitis in my foot. Man, it hurt! It was like walking on blisters with every step, so I was set for 6 months of this pain…until I asked myself why. Why my foot? What’s that about? It felt like a blockage.

Name your blockage or obstruction. Physical, mental/emotional, or spiritual? And what exactly is it?

2. Where has it come from?

Sometimes the answer is simple – “I fell and broke my leg.” “I have diabetes.” “I have depression.”

But whether it’s a simple answer or something more complicated, how does it block you? How does it stop you or hold you back?

Hubster and I are about to start building a house and, as exciting as that is, it’s also scary. I wondered if the pain in my foot had anything to do with “not wanting/being wary” of stepping forward in this adventure. IDK, but since I called it out, it’s gone.

3. How do you start to deoppilate – remove your obstruction?

Sometimes it comes with meditation, forest bathing, or a simple walk. Perhaps it’s the whisper that answers a conundrum while you’re doing the washing up or some other mind-freeing menial task.

Journalling to get things out of our heads and onto the page is a deoppilation technique.

Julia Cameron’s Morning Pages enable us to see patterns in our stuck thinking and potentially formulate a figurative Dynorod. No one needs to see the pages, and we don’t even need to look back on them if we don’t want to. The important thing is that whatever is oppilating us is out and on the page, taking up less real estate in our heads.

Remember, questions are the answer. Ask yourself why, why and why. What’s under that? And what’s under that? And under that?

Give it time. Keep asking, reflecting, and listening for answers.

Leave a comment

How about a coffee?

With the world a little further along the road to hell in its handcart in every passing day, it’s easy to slip into a hopeless state of meh.

Ok, maybe I’m writing this as much for me as everyone else (which is usually the case, actually).

Athymy (noun, say athy-me) is a medical term, literally meaning “the absence of emotion; morbid impassivity.”

In reality, it’s a melancholic, persistent sadness. A pensive mood characterised by gloom or a sense of despondency.

I’m not an advocate for toxic positivity, so it’s important to feel the feels because we’re human. Very often, a low mood is a normal reaction to a personal situation or broader circumstances.

What we resist, persists.

But we also need to acknowledge that this is not a place to stay.

So, when the gloom strikes and seems to persist*, what can we do to lift ourselves out of it?

Or

Buy Me a Coffee

This week’s coaching questions.

1. If this feeling of sadness comes and you know it’ll go at some point in the future, have a “grab-bag” toolkit. This might be…

• Can you plan a down day? A day, or part of it, that allows you to wallow. A day where you can binge-watch crap on Netflix, eat junk food and not make the bed? Can you have a duvet day and shut yourself off from the world?

• What will make this happen so you can relax into your wallowing? I.e., how do you navigate, delegate or postpone immediate responsibilities like child/parental care, etc.

• Or is this a time that you want to be with someone else/other people? Who’s your go-to person? What’s your go-to activity with them? It might just be to talk or hang out.

• Are you going to set a timeline for your marination in athymy?

2. Having indulged our athymy, we need to climb out of and away from it. Know what helps you move past it. Suggestions…

• Does journalling help? Ask yourself:

• Where has this come from?

• Do I recognise it?

• Do I need to wait for it to pass?

• What’s underneath the feeling?

• What’s underneath that feeling? Keep digging to find what’s underneath until you feel something strongly – something that says, “yes, that’s it.” It’ll likely be a stronger emotion.

• If you can’t figure it out by asking it what it is and where it came from, try letting it express itself as a poem or a story. Set a timer for 10 or 15 minutes and free write – don’t think, rationalise or pause.

• Try this picture as a free writing prompt. What are the shapes? What do they mean? No right or wrong answers, BTW. Write a story or poem about them:

Your interpretation of the shapes will change according to what’s going on in your mind.

Now think about what the story/poem is telling you – analyse your psyche.

• Close your eyes for a moment and focus on your body - where do you feel the feeling in your body? Does it have a colour, weight, shape? Does it move? Which way – clockwise or anti-clockwise? How fast?

• Think of the feeling as a small child. She’s come to you because she wants you to know something. What will she tell you? If the child is young and pre-verbal, this may not be in words, so breathe, close your eyes again and look for any pictures or other messages.

If it helps, write them out and think about them as you go about the rest of your day.

Here’s to hoping the sun comes out again soon.

Until next week,

All the best,

Elspeth.

*If low and depressive symptoms persist every day/most days for 2 weeks or more, see your doctor.

Buy Me a Coffee

Leave a comment

You receive free posts from Weird Words and Coaching Questions, and thank you for signing up. I hope the words and the questions give you something to think about and actions drop out of your thoughts.

Action is where the magic happens.

If you already love your life but want to make tweaks, these few coaching questions and the actions you take will get you there.

HOWEVER, behind the scenes here, I have a host of tools, questions, reflections, and journalling prompts for those who want to quietly reflect and make more changes in their own time.

You can use them over and over, for all the changing circumstances in your life. They’re adaptable, easy to use, and yours to keep forever.

I’ve used them on myself and with clients in one-to-one settings and with groups. I’ve seen aha-moments light up a room, and I’ve personally felt the difference they make.

So, IF – and ONLY IF - you’re serious about change and want to take yourself further, upgrade to paid. You’ll get the weekly posts AND a monthly email with these fire-starters:

· self-coaching tools,

· more motivations

· more reflections and

to kick your tail into a life you’ve crafted, curated and created.

No one can make it happen for you, and it’s not easy. But with paid, you can tap me on the shoulder in the Substack Chat, and I’ll see if I can help.

There’s not a lot to lose, really.

If you’re still thinking about it – completely fine, BTW – but enjoy the weeklies, feel free to buy me a coffee.

All the best,

Elspeth.

Share

Share Weird Words and Coaching Questions

As an introvert, how many times have people said, “You need to come out of your shell/speak up”? And how many times have you wanted to snap back, “Why can’t you go away and shut up?”

Isolophilia. If you’re anything like me, you know what it means as soon as you look at it (but I’m a word nerd, so maybe that accounts for it).

“Philia” is the love of something, “isolo” being on your own (obviously) - like isolate.

So, here we have an actual word for the thing we love - that preference or simple enjoyment of being alone. What’s not to love about peace, introspection and personal space?

This week’s coaching questions are about owning our isolophilia. Not all of us are comfortable with it in an extrovert world, and can seem like an act of rebellion.

Most of us have had some version of the “You need to” instruction at some time, and some feel that being an introvert can be a handicap (maybe that’s just me).

This week’s coaching questions

Get out your pen and journal, and get your thinking/reflecting head on. We’re going to be pondering people and identity.

1. Think about the people in your life - the ones you have a fair amount of regular contact with, and those who are close (friends, family for example), but you don’t see regularly. When I say “see” think of face-to-face and remote meet-ups. List them.

2. Look at the list and decide who is:

a radiator - they are on your side, give comfort and boost your confidence. Don’t worry if one person doesn’t tick all 3 boxes.

a drain - someone who saps your confidence.

a blocker - someone who stands in the way and doesn’t want you to succeed.

a role model - someone you admire because they’ve achieved what you want to achieve. You might know them or they might be someone you know of/who’s in the media.

3. The idea here is to find ways to cultivate the radiators and role models, and minimise the drains and blockers.

You might need some strategic thinking, for example, if you see your mum a lot but she’s a drain, how do you balance that or address the shortcomings in the relationship?

Who can soften the angst of a drain or a blocker and help you deal with them? Which of your radiators can you offload to and celebrate with?

4. Now think more closely about the people you’ve listed and how they respond to you as an introvert.

A woman I used to know and was close to, just didn’t get that I didn’t want to go to parties or networking events, or share my innermost secrets.

My mother was the same. Always wanted me to go to friends’ houses and have a jolly time with other people, and regularly had parties herself.

My husband, on the other hand, completely gets the need to limit time spent peopling, and can recognise a boundary from 50 feet.

5. Spend a few minutes exploring how you feel about being an introvert. When did you realise this was you?

6. What stereotypes do you have about introverts - how true or false are they in your lived experience? Pull out all the positives of being an introvert.

7. Do you want to own your identity as an introvert? (I’m guessing if you read this far, you do.) If you don’t already feel ok or positive about it, but want to, work a bit more on point 6 above. Then…

8. Close your eyes and see yourself in a long mirror. The person you’re looking at is strong and confident, has good boundaries for what she will and won’t put up with, and isn’t afraid to happily say when someone’s about to overstep. Her level of politeness about that is up to you. Take her in and really feel that reflection in you.

9. Now mentally step into that strong, happily introverted image. Repeat a few times each day for a week or so until your subconscious gets the message.

10. Keep your journal with you as you practise this identity shift. You’re going to look for evidence to prove to yourself that you’re a happy introvert. Not just that: you are going to realise that being an introvert is your superpower.

• All the times you sit alone in a coffee shop with a book.

• Whenever you decline an invitation even when someone’s nagging you to go.

• Wherever you need to stand up for yourself and not let the extrovert in the room out-loud you.

Good luck and let me know how you get on in the comments.

Until next week,

All the best,

Elspeth.

Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, wherever you are.

If you prefer life at 90mph, this is not the post for you.

Oleilu (Finnish, say “oh-ley-loo”)  is a calm, unhurried state of simply being.  Not doing, achieving, reaching or even planning, just being quietly in the moment.

Where the 1980s and 90s were our hustle decades, attaining goals, salaries and shoulder pads, the 2020s are our time to find calm.

Some days allow this better than others, but what can we do to make more of it happen?

This week’s coaching questions:

1. What are the things that keep your head busy?  That stop the calm?  List them.  Things like child and parental care, work worries and relationships are the usual suspects.  Get granular about what aspects of these concerns keep you from your oleilu.

2. Trigger alert - uncomfortable question coming: to what extent do you enable these issues?

   1. Could you delegate more? Would delegating some things help someone else to learn and be more independent?

   2. Could you ask for help?  Not easy when you’re the one who always does everything and it’s part of your identity.

   3. Could you create better boundaries?  What will it take to get more comfortable with “no”?

   4. Are there things you’re worrying about but not taking action on?  Action is where the magic happens and will relieve anxiety.

      1. What first step could you take to make something happen rather than going round in a worry circle.  It might be as simple as writing down your concern and journalling on it, or 5 minutes meditation and allowing the answers to come.

3. If your worries, or elements of them, are beyond your control, imagine if you had some oleilu for a moment or two.  What would have had to happen to enable that?  Reverse engineer what you did and who helped.

4. What’s your first action in that engineering process?

Happy New Year, and until next week,

All the best,

Elspeth.

We get to certain age, a season of life, and wonder who we are.

Perhaps the children have left home, we’ve had enough of the job we’ve worked so hard in, parents have died and there’s no more caring we need to do.

Do I still love my partner?  If I don’t, is there more than love that’ll keep us together? Do I want to live in this town, that had a good school and was a handy commute for my partner’s work, but not for mine, for the rest of my life?

Who am I now?  Without the roles I’ve been in for decades, who am I?

Ipeseity (n) (say ip-sey-itty) is the quality of being oneself; embracing our individuality and what makes us unique.  Our selfhood.

Subscribe

So, this week’s questions focus on how we find that selfhood.

1. List all the roles you’ve ever had - daughter, mother, wife, carer, job roles, sub-roles etc.  And see how you’ve transformed yourself into every one, sometimes several times a day.  You spoke a different language, dressed differently, smiled differently… this list goes on.

2. Perhaps you’re all those things and more, and that’s ok.  But if you’ve lost sight of the woman you were before the world got it’s hands on you, read on.

3. Your values are the things that hopefully stayed the same throughout all those costume changes.  Off the top of your head, what are your values?  This will give you an idea of who your selfhood really is.  Sit down and give this exercise some time (do it now, because you know you won’t come back to it).

4. Who are you when you’re alone?  When there’s no one watching or judging.  Do you laugh a little louder, walk lighter, smile more broadly?  Do you feel real?

5. What makes life good?  What sucks the life out of life?  How do you get more of the former and less of the latter?

6. If you gradually created and curated a life that was yours, and had more of what enables you to be you, what would the world see?

7. How do you feel about unpeeling the layers of the roles you’ve played?

8. Do you need a dose of courage and bravery?  Who/what can help you?

9. What’s your first step to finding your ipseity?

Until next week,

All the best,

Elspeth

Share

Subscribe

Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, wherever you are.

Weemoed (noun. Dutch, say “vey-moot) is a longing for the past. A feeling of nostalgia, wistfulness or melancholy, and wanting to go back there.

This time of year is full or weemoed. We remember past holiday seasons and what they were like when we were children.

We remember people who’ve died or are no longer in our lives and wonder.

We remember when…

We wish for time travel.

We often look back with rose-tinted glasses, or with a heavy dose of resentment if things weren’t so great. Sometimes we want to go back and change it – a la The Butterfly Effect or Sliding Doors?

Subscribe now

This week’s coaching questions:

What scene are you imagining from the past?

How does it make you feel (other than nostalgic)? Happy, content, sad, angry? Just notice the emotion and where you feel it in your body. No judgement.

If it’s a memory that haunts you, try this 6-step journalling/thinking process:

1. Make a single sentence description of it.

2. Why do you want to be free of the haunting? Get into the weeds and find the nub of what irks you.

3. What do you want to achieve with this memory?

4. What have you done in the past that has or hasn’t worked?

5. How will you know when you’ve achieved it?

6. What’s your first step?

Share

If it’s a happy memory, what makes it so?

How can you create more happy memories that you want to go back to?

How do you craft, curate, and cultivate with intention? Do you need to slow down, lift your head from your screen?

Remind yourself that, one day, the little things will be the big things.

Until next week,

All the best,

Elspeth.

Subscribe now

Share

Leave a comment

Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, wherever you are.

We all dern (v) some things in life.

Things that live in a vault and we can barely admit to ourselves, let alone to another living thing. The exam you cheated on, the affair you considered, the lie you told. They’re dark and sombre things best left unsaid and unacknowledged.

Dern is an old English word that comes in adjective and verb flavours. It means dark, dire, secretive, crafty or underhanded. But it can simply mean ‘private’, too.

It’s our Shadow self: the traits we dislike in others because they unconsciously dislike the same traits in ourselves.

The things we hide from ourselves and others, psychology tells us, often get in our way. They stop our development – what we resist persists.

We need to get out of our own way by safely bringing the hidden into the light. Once we do that, we understand the things that hold us back.

Things like our beliefs – why we act the way we do.

Things like the projections we put onto others – making it easier to get along with other people.

Things like the emotional baggage we carry with us – it’s heavy and exhausting. Finding our Shadow can mean we put it down and get more energy.

Subscribe now

This week’s coaching questions:

1. Think of all the people you really don’t like. People from your past, from history, in the public eye, celebrities, people you work with, family members. Anyone.

2. If you have a lot, pick 5 that you dislike the most. What character traits make you recoil from them? List these.

Carl Jung’s Shadow theory suggests that the reason we dislike some people is that they display traits we have ourselves, but have hidden from our consciousness.

3. What triggers you in other people? When are you hurt, jealous, angry?

4. Where might you have some of these qualities, but you don’t want to admit to them? What are the things you don’t want others to find out about you?

5. Don’t judge yourself as you do this exercise (difficult, I know). Ask, “Why am I resentful/angry/triggered etc, with this person? Journal your answers or make voice notes. Do it over a few days.

6. We come to terms with the shadow parts of ourselves by accepting them. That’s where it’s important not to judge. Write a letter to your shadow, as if it were a friend or small child.

7. Write with kindness and to understand, not to fix.

Until next week,

All the best,

Elspeth.

Subscribe now

Share

Leave a comment

Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, wherever you are. Your brain and your life will thank you for taking the time to read and unravel.

This week’s word:

Kalokagathia (say ‘kallo-kag-athee-ah’)

Another ancient Greek noun that means “a combination of the good and the beautiful in a person”.

Now, why wouldn’t you want more of that in the world? And have a word to describe it.

Kalokagathia is something that encourages us to go below skin deep – to think better than we see.

It was a noun used by classical Greek writers to describe an ideal of gentlemanly personal conduct, especially in a military context.

Think of people you admire. What are their good and beautiful characteristics? Tell them what you see in them – it might be the lift they’re looking for today.

This week’s coaching questions are designed to help you see your kalokagathia:

1. When you think of your own beautiful qualities, what’s the feeling that comes with them? Is it a parental voice that tells you to stop bragging? A partner or friend (fiend) who gives you the “who do you think you are?” look?

2. Challenge any negative feeling or inner critic. Show her evidence of your qualities – journal these so they stick in your mind next time she shows up.

3. How do you already demonstrate your kalogagathia to the world?

4. What else can you do/what else would you do if you were braver?

5. Write your beautiful qualities on a Post-It®, or make a picture of them and have it as your phone’s home screen, and make them your mantra. Radiate them.

Until next week,

All the best,

Elspeth.

Subscribe now

Share

Leave a comment

Good morning, good afternoon, good evening.

Read more

Weird Words and Coaching Questions

When Time Opens a Door

Using kairos to make decisions that feel aligned, not rushed.

Elspeth

Nov 22, 2025

Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, wherever you are. Your brain and your life will thank you for taking the time to read and unravel.

Kairos (say keye-ross)

Welcome to a couple of quick lessons in Greek.

In ancient Greek, Kairos is ‘the right or critical moment’, and in modern Greek it also means ‘weather’ or ‘time’.

Other definitions add ‘the perfect, crucial moment; the feeling of rightness of time and place that creates the opportune atmosphere for action, words or movement.’

That’s quite a big ask of a single moment.

This week’s coaching questions

1. How do you create that right or critical right time?

2. And if you don’t create it, how do you recognise it when you see it?

3. When you think about it, we practice this all the time: when you’re cooking there’s a moment when something is perfectly done (cookies, cake, Sunday roast).

Something as critical as crossing the road involves Kairos – judge the speed of the truck coming towards you and the speed you can walk/run against the width of the road.

You’re looking for Kairos.

How does that change your answers to 1) and 2)?

4. When have you waited for the right moment only to find you’ve missed it?

5. Are there times when, instead of “Ready, aim, fire,” “Ready, FIRE, aim” is better? Could you start before you’re ready and not wait for the Kairos moment, but let the process guide you?

Share

How do you judge Kairos in any situation?

Sometimes it’s just doing what the recipe says.

Sometimes it’s a skill you can’t put into words, but you just know because you’ve done it a thousand times before. Kairos comes from your learned unconscious and muscle memory.

Sometimes Kairos is your inner voice. Your intuition.

Is intuition a mystical power or is it your non-conscious mind filtering more information than your conscious mind is aware of? Whatever it is, it’s worth cultivating.

Until next week,

All the best,

Elspeth.

Share

Leave a comment

Subscribe now

© 2025 Elspeth

Privacy ∙ Terms ∙ Collection notice

Start your SubstackGet the app

Substack is the home for great culture