Control and expectations march exhaustedly to the beat of their own drum, while surrender and curiosity skip along in the rhythm of life.

In these transformative times, the fear of what might happen is like this inner child making us fear, stoke up or try to deny the things that are happening around us. Yes, there are people getting sick and there are people dying, but until you or your loved ones are sick, until it touches your life and demands your attention, it is like the elephant under the bed.

It would seem that the world divides equally into people that…

This alternative start to the new year is filled with emotional desires, which is often why our good resolutions from the 1st January fall by the wayside this week. We want to feel that we are alive, we want to go out there and do new things, we dream and fantasize about another world, a better world, or maybe our own professional success. And those who consciously deal with this energy can use this week to explore whether they filter this fantastical dreamlike energy through a fear filter, where it gets stuck, and diverted in satisfying our life hunger in other ways, through food, alcohol or the pursuit of financial and personal success, or from an openhearted loving and trusting frequency.

We live in a world full of labels. A world of this and that, a world of contradictions and dualities. It is a left-brained world where we stagger under the weight of the general expectation to name the shape of the lives we are living, be it our personal, professional, or even spiritual lives. I am a this, I do a that. And yet, if we know anything for sure, it is that the shape of things always changes and that the real dance of life is to adjust and adapt, not to constrict and obstruct.

If I am to survive my next foray into the world, I will need to grow up a little, and find that balance or restraint. Not being held back, nor propelling forward… just being, like a Jedi, right in the moment. In that inner still-point. Or as the wise Greeks say, making haste slowly and savouring the journey!

So we can choose to walk around with cringing, fear based cells, that may or may not be attracting our worst nightmares, or we can choose not to jump on these negative, fallible outcome controlling trains of thoughts, let them pass the platform, sigh, and say ‘what will be will be’.

The more I allow myself to patiently watch this process with curiosity and trust, the more my mind begins to understand that it can calm down and that in the absence of control surrender is actually the most economic use of our energy.

But why, why should we do that? Why not just fight for our own little patch of ground, our own little patch of ego, and that of tribe, our wives and our children? Why do we need courage to make peace? The courage to stay peaceful inside ourselves?

One day I might realise that I have successfully met the fears that made me compromise my true self and allow betrayal into my life. One day I might be able to take ownership of my own part in the sorry affair. The triggers for shame and low self-esteem will have been bound up and anointed by an inner love that is forgiveness in its purest form. And when we realise that we become free.

Listen As small people we learn to walk, talk and generally…

How lucky I am that as I enter my fifth decade I have a tribe around me of loving, loyal, generous and patient friends whose loving eyes teach me more about myself than I could ever learn alone.

Good clean communications are about stating your needs, hearing the needs of the other clearly and being honest about the extent to which you are able and willing to meet them. Compromise, driven by mutual generosity will feel more liberating and life enhancing than any self-imposed sacrificial demand ever could.

If your mantra is; "If they're happy, I'm happy," then beware! Your needs are not their needs. Not solely. If putting others first is your default setting be careful, you may be driven to hit the 'off' switch for good.

The challenge is to let go of what no longer serves, either yourself or the people on whose behalf you continued to love an object. To protect the next generation from having to sift through every single school report and essay that their mum or dad ever wrote, yet to keep enough to allow yourself, as well as them, a peek into the emerging person that you once were and are. Sorting through the past, dealing with what’s unfished, letting go, holding on, and really experiencing that life is an ever-changing journey. A journey we can scarcely control, but one that nevertheless, we are here to enjoy and learn from.

Failing, or getting it wrong, just means that we are in the process of learning something new, trying something we've not done before. Perhaps even something other people haven't done before. Sailing in uncharted waters. And while that is scary, it's also the way we move life forward. And in doing so we join the explorers of new continents, the space missions, the inner space astronauts, the mystics, and every single toddler taking his or her first steps.

From childhood we do what we have to do to fit in. We know this from countless research studies as well as many hours spent with coaches, therapists and counsellors. More often than not, the song we end up singing in life is ‘I am what I’m not’. When life circumstances push us into a period of transition we very often bump up against our intrinsic need to remain acceptable and likeable to our tribe.

Please stop fighting! I heard a little boy shout this at his parents on a sunny terrace. I saw people tweet it when the middle east once more exploded in violence, and I heard my own prime minister ask it of the ukrainanian separatists so that we could bring home the bodies of the victims from flight MH17.

At Christmas and during the summer many of us go home to our…

Part of our earliest confusion about believing external authorities, rather than our own internal wisdom, comes from the fact that we can’t, as babies, question the authority of those who hold up the ‘mirrors’ in which we see our ‘selves’ reflected.

Intercultural couples might never have thought about whose 'home' will be the one where they rest their bones. Couples who share one culture, as well as individuals may face the prospect of reverse culture shock. And some of us may even find we lose our acquired languages.

Rather than clamour for the same, we should explore what our unique need is, and clamour for that. What is bananas to one, is peanuts to another and what seemed to be less attention for me, was the care and love that was more needed by the other

There will always be a period of transition, of being a little lost. Being lost in transition is part and parcel of the adventure.

Judgement is a bit like the hammer. Good instrument, lazy application. When we talk about becoming less judgemental we have to make sure that we don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. Judgement is an important human trait.

I am a healthy size 48, with big strong baker's arms that can…

However, what we have only just begun to understand is that the amygdala can't distinguish between an outside impulse or one that comes from within the brain. We are literally making ourselves sick with worry.

When it relentlessly pursues us with its ‘must do and can do better’, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, something is out of balance. That's bad enough living in the comfort zone of your wn national identity, but for expats, who are already confused about the new cultural and linguistic paths they have embarked on, it can become a hinderance, rather than a help to settling in.

Many people experience the changing of their identities abroad.…

What is the difference between shame and guilt. Between 'feeling'…

As a young reporter, just making my way into the grown up world,…

This is a story about how sub-personalities are born. They are…

No one likes to admit that they are lonely and yet, for most internationals, dealing with the loss of friends and family is always going to be part of the process of adjustment. Singles may travel abroad in search of adventure, to take up a new job, or just because that particular country has always exercised a particular pull on them

Dealing with the in laws can be confusing and confounding and…

For many expats their geographical location is more likely to…

Even when we don’t move around the globe, being happy all the time is not a normal human condition. Life can be really tough sometimes, but when our need to grieve, to be angry, or to experience failure is inhibited we add insult to injury.

Companies need to become willing to embrace the 'liquid' nature of international relations. Rather than teach cross cultural theory by sticking to a teaching of cultural identities, it is the very loss of any cultural identity that points to the future.

We are not one unified identity but rather a collection of subpersonalities, or different selves that struggle and strive for attention and power. This has been accepted thought in psychology for a long time, but now even neuroscience is coming aboard.