It’s summertime here in the UK –  though you won’t get any clues from the weather! Despite our gloomy skies, it’s the season for outdoor theatre. Across the UK, audiences swap their opulent theatre seats for picnics and deck chairs. And as they say … the show goes on … come rain or shine.

A few years back, I took my children to see a play in a walled garden near our home. When the performance ended, I was surprised to see only a handful of actors on stage. As it turns out, the rest of the cast hadn’t done a runner … there weren’t any others. Each person had cleverly played multiple roles.

I remember thinking how incredibly skilled they were to keep changing characters without lapsing into the wrong role. It seemed like a big ask … even if they were trained to act. And yet, what they were doing, is similar to the mental gymnastics we perform when we catch-up with friends or colleagues around the barbecue or water cooler.

There's a huge amount of flexible thinking involved in the humb...

Last week, we saw gymnast and gold medallist, Simone Biles, withdraw from the Olympics in Tokyo. As we now know, she chose to prioritise her mental health over her medal count.

For the most part, there was a wonderful outpouring of support – from the likes of Michael Phelps to Michelle Obama and Justin Bieber, but … not everyone was kind.

Some criticised her actions, painting her as selfish and weak. Piers Morgan, journalist and media figure, tweeted:

“Are “mental health issues” now the go-to excuse for any poor performance in elite sport? What a joke. Just admit you did badly, made mistakes, and will strive to do better next time. Kids need strong role models not this nonsense”.

Now, I must admit that my initial response when she pulled out, was disappointment. It looked like she was giving up. Surely this was just an “off” day?

But far from succumbing to defeat, Biles has given us a beautiful example of resilience in action.   

Yes, resilience is about mental tou...

Embarrassing moments? Yep. We’ve going there today. We’ve all got a tale to tell and here’s one of mine …

In an effort to make friends when we first arrived in the UK, my husband and I would often invite people to tea over the weekend. There’s nothing like a good carrot cake and I loved having an excuse to eat some!

But it was only when my children started to visit friends of their own that the penny finally dropped. “Tea” has different meanings. English people use “tea” in the way that I would use “dinner”.

I don’t know how many people came to my home expecting a meal, only to be given a piece of cake, but there were quite a few. It was 5 years before my first child was even born so I had plenty of opportunity to offend!

That mini cultural difference is an example of the confusion that often happens in neurotypical / neurodivergent communication exchanges.

Autism is sometimes referred to as a “difference” or a “hidden difficulty”. That much we know. There is no phy...

Who doesn’t love a good movie? My family and I recently watched “Knives Out”, a good ol’ fashioned “who dunnit” that keeps you guessing to the end.

“Knives Out” has all the elements of a great story. Drama. Mystery. Intrigue. Struggle. Villains.  Twists. Humour. Surprise and of course, a fitting ending.

You’re kept on your toes throughout as Detective Blanc works his way through all the possible suspects to find out who murdered Harlan Thrombey, the wealthy novelist. All along there are little titbits to dupe you into thinking you’ve figured it out but then … wham, something else crops up and it’s back to the drawing board. 

In most great stories, there is a struggle of some sort. The main character faces what looks like impossible odds. The prince must first slay the dragon and beat his way through a thorn forest before he can even think about rescuing the princess from the tower.

This is why we keep watching. We’re drawn to tales of rising above and overcoming. If the...

Here in the UK, summer is well … sort of happening. It’s 23°C outside so no complaints there but courtesy of high-pressure systems in other parts of the world, we have seen our fair share of unsettled conditions. We’ve had flooding in London earlier this week and some strong winds recently which were very reminiscent of my Cape Town years where the howling southeaster regularly showed us who was boss.  

When describing wind, weather forecasters tell us about the direction and speed but there aren’t, for obvious reasons, any words to describe what it looks like. Though we can’t see it, we can certainly see the effects. In extreme conditions, wind can decimate large areas leaving piles of rubble where houses once stood.

Like wind, autism is something that can’t be seen but nevertheless has a huge impact. An issue that regularly comes up in conversation with clients is, “How do I explain this to my friends and family?”  

A common explanation for autism is that it is a spectrum conditio...

In his book simply titled, “But I survived”, Tadeusz Sobolewicz shares the story of his personal ordeal surviving six Nazi concentration camps, a Gestapo prison and a nine-day death march. It is the harrowing tale of a man who fought bravely to stay alive in hellish conditions for the duration of World War 11.  

Thankfully, most of us will never have to face such extreme hardship but Sobolewicz’s story nonetheless has relevance for our lives today. We may not be trying to escape death but difficulties come in all shapes and sizes. And this tragic tale of woe is also one of hope. Hope that whispers, “you can too”.    

Of course, we know that for every Sobolewicz, there are many more who give up. Plenty who try and fail and fail to rise again.

So, what enables one person to overcome whilst another crumples in defeat?

I believe the answer lies in resilience. Resilience is the antidote to succumbing, complaining, blaming and numbing. Resilience is the ability to endure with hope. It is...

Some say that adults make about 35 000 choices every day. I don’t know which patient soul took the time to count, but the point is, we make a lot of daily decisions.  

And because we face a constant barrage of options, our brains look for ways to make things simpler. It might take 10 minutes to decide what to eat in a restaurant but if every decision took that long, it would be hard to get anything done!

So, our very efficient brains get really good at finding ways to manage excessive information. We develop habits which remove a lot of conscious thought. If you always exercise first thing in the morning, it becomes something you “just do”. You don’t act based on how you feel or if there’s enough time. It’s simply part of a routine that always happens.  

Repeating activities until we are skilled is another way of reducing the thinking load. Do you remember when you first learned to drive or play a musical instrument? It took all your concentration. But after years of performing thos...

No, this has nothing to do with the idea that money makes you happy. I’m no financial guru and I’m not about to share tips on investing in stocks and shares. But one thing I know from the financial masters is that investing succeeds because of compounding.

Albert Einstein described compound interest as “the eighth wonder of the world”. It’s a faster way to grow money because you earn interest on interest. In a nutshell, you invest money which earns interest giving you a bigger sum of money. The following year, you earn interest on that bigger sum and this cycle continues causing exponential growth.

Now the miracle of compounding, as it’s sometimes called, doesn’t just apply to money. It works equally well in other areas including our emotional health.

There are many things we can do to take care of our emotional well-being. Each time, we make one of those “investments”, we lift our baseline mood to a higher level. The next “emotional investment” now has a different starting point. A...

Have you ever recognised someone but not been quite sure who they are? That sense of knowing but not knowing at the same time. The person looks familiar but you aren’t sure how or if you know them.

These impressions are like the way we experience our emotions. Especially the softer ones. Strong emotions are easier to detect but there are times when it’s hard to put your finger on what you are actually feeling.

This isn’t surprising when you consider the nature of emotions. Like our thoughts, they are neural messages which are not easily defined or understood. They can linger or be fleeting. They can layer or combine with each other to create different nuances.  

Most of us can read internal physical states, like pain, hunger or thirst without difficulty. We don’t easily confuse these signals unless they are very mild.   

Autistic children, do however, have more difficulty recognising their internal physical states¹. This tends to disappear in adulthood but may explain why the emoti...

Salt and pepper, knives and forks, socks and shoes, hot chocolate, and marshmallows. There are some things which just go together … although the jury is still out on hot chocolate and marshmallows.

Each of these things has a unique function. If you run out of salt, you can’t improve the taste of food with extra pepper. Two knives don’t make for easy eating and an extra pair of socks won’t cut it if you’ve forgotten your shoes.  

Synergy is defined by the Oxford dictionary as “the interaction or cooperation of two or more organisations, substances, or other agents to produce a combined effect greater than the sum of their separate effects.”

When it comes to our emotions, we are similarly equipped with two complimentary systems that work in a synergistic way.

On the one hand, we have neural pathways in a part of the brain known as the limbic system. These neural networks help us to make sense of our world. They underpin our emotional responses, memories and biological functions that ...