Life Skills Writing
I am a life skills Journalist and Advice Columnist with over 30 years experience. I have written for The Guardian, Evening Standard and Daily Mail, plus Red, Grazia, Take A Break, Marie Claire, Men’s Health, Prima, YOU and Sainsbury’s Magazine. I am the author of 16 wellbeing and smart thinking books which have been published in six countries.
New: Keep calm and carry on coping
Worrying never solved anything
The noise in my head nearly destroyed me
How to leave a bad relationship
How to stop worrying and start living
From bosses to mother-in-law… how to deal with life’s critics
Quiz: How should you reset for 2020?
Adoption Writing
I was adopted at six weeks old and told six years later. For the next 25 years I tried to ignore how being adopted had affected me. It was only when I began studying to become a life coach that I discovered what had been going on in my own head. I recognised a finely tuned self-preservation caused by the fear of being rejected and abandoned again, a guilt about my natural mother’s damaged life after she was coerced into giving me up, and the shame of feeling different growing up to everyone I knew, a permanent outsider. Overcoming these issues has been life-changing for me and I now write extensively on all aspects of the adoption experience.
My birth mother deserves an apology
A letter to… my adoptive mother to apologise