Read True Life Stories

Live LOUD!

My story starts way back when I was just 3 years old.At that tender age no young child should witness a murder, let alone the murder of a parent.My father was murdered when I was 3 years old, by my eldest sister’s boyfriend. My mother instantly became a widow &

Read More »

Am I just Delusional

Look this complicated feelings have been literally hunting me for the past three years .Three years ago I was accepted to the best high school in the state however I found my self obliged to move cities and live in dorm , supposedly with my best friend. Problems happened and

Read More »

CHILDHOOD ABUSE – I SURVIVED, SO CAN YOU!

By James I was born in a beautiful little town in Belfast, Northern Ireland. The first nine years of my life were wonderful. However, in beginning in 1967, my childhood was abruptly changed forever. Often, when I would go to play at my best friend’s house, his older brother would

Read More »

Why Living With Anxiety Is Like Walking on Custard

The following is an adaptation of a TED Talk from TEDxLeamingtonSpa called “Walking on Custard: How Physics Helps Anxious Humans.”

Fear usually pops up when we do something scary: jumping from planes, running from bulls… going clothes shopping…

But sometimes our response gets out of control, and we end up spending a disproportionate amount of time feeling afraid. We call this “anxiety.”

Language is limiting, and it’s frustrating we use the same word — anxiety — for both “reasonably worrying about a job interview” and also “crippling terror which prevents me from leaving the house.” It’s like having the same word for “all-out nuclear war” and “playful tickle fight.”

Anxiety is a spectrum, and so the association each of us has with the word might be different. For me, I’ve always been at the more unpleasant end of the spectrum. As a child, I was deeply worried about mortgages — for some reason — and then as I grew up it became obvious worrying was my main way of relating to the world.

Read More »

Willis 1985

We chewed pancakes and sipped our juice, lost in our private thoughts.

“Coffee?” I interrupted her stare into space.

“Oh, I would love some, thanks.”

As we sat on the couch together to enjoy our coffee, I asked, “And you Marge, do you have any of these dreaded moments that you’ve hidden far away in your past, and would like to share?”

“Oh yes, I have quite a few of those horrible moments, thankfully deeply buried. And you?”

“Oh yes. Me too. Okay, I’ll tell you mine, if you tell me yours.”

Read More »

Spending my Work Sabbatical at Big Sur California

My second sabbatical destination was in Big Sur on the high cliffs of the central Pacific coast where I registered as ‘work study’ for eight weeks at the somewhat isolated 120 acres of the Esalen Institute. I pictured myself wearing crystals while learning more psychobabble.

Read More »