Hesitation or judgement: can you still tell the difference
You’ve been careful about AI. Perhaps you’ve used it and not mentioned it. Perhaps you’ve barely touched it, and there’s a low hum of being behind that you’d rather not examine. Either way you’ve filed it under something unflattering: not technical enough, no time, slower than you used to be. It’s none of those. Researchers […]
She’d lost her spark.
She had built the business herself and run it for more than twenty years. She was extremely good at it. Everyone said so, and they were right. Quite early on she said: I’ve lost my spark. So she went looking for a new direction, thoroughly, the way capable people do. She had the profiling done. She […]
Typecast by your own competence
It’s Sunday evening. You’ve actually had a good weekend. Then you open your calendar and glance through the week ahead. Monday looks full. Tuesday has those back-to-back meetings. Wednesday, the client call. Thursday, the piece of work everyone comes to you for, because you know exactly how to handle it. Nothing terrible. Nothing you can’t […]
Nobody knows, do they.
Nobody knows how tired you are. Not properly. The people closest to you think you’re just busy. Your clients think you’re brilliant, and you are — that’s rather the point. The work happens, the standards hold, everything runs beautifully. And there’s that minute in the car. You’ve arrived somewhere — the meeting, the office, […]
I’m not very disciplined
At 05.20 last Thursday morning, I was beginning to question a decision I had made three days earlier. I had signed up for a seven-day sadhana with the Isha Foundation, culminating yesterday on Guru Purnima — the first full moon after the summer solstice and, in the yogic tradition, a time to honour the teachers […]
The practice that disappears when life gets busy
Britain has just appointed its seventh prime minister in a decade. In his first speech, Andy Burnham said the country needs to show that it can regain its stability. Meanwhile, the Bank of England’s April report contained no central forecast at all. It set out three scenarios instead — three possible versions of the next […]
What Is Your Resistance Protecting?
A few days ago, in a yoga class, we were preparing the body for an advanced variation of half pigeon involving a deep twist and a turn onto the back. We weren’t expected to perform the final pose. The preparation was the practice. I watched the demonstration, tried it—and got the legs wrong. My body […]
At 10:22pm on Saturday, I quit
Listen to how you describe yourself when someone asks how you’re keeping. Not the passing how are you? that we all answer with fine — but the real one, the one that wants to know how you’re holding up, how it’s all going, how you’ve been lately. Watch the words as they leave you, and notice which one lands […]
You’re at a crossroads. You just haven’t told anyone
There’s a moment most of us know intimately, even if we’ve never named it. Nothing dramatic has happened — you’re still doing the work, keeping the commitments, showing up. But somewhere underneath, a question has started to hum: is this still the direction? That moment is a crossroads. Whether you’re weighing whether to stay or […]
You rarely fully switch off, do you?
Summer arrives, and something in you finally exhales. However you take your break — a fortnight abroad, a week at home, or simply the lighter rhythm of these months — the promise is the same: rest. The pool will be beautiful. The weather, gorgeous. You will sleep. You will laugh. Perhaps there will be wine, […]