Jane O'Brien's Blog

Feeling stressed and anxious seems to be fairly common these days. If we are too stressed and anxious, we become rather paralysed with fear and unable to function very well. That feeling can become overpowering in many ways. I notice that often people use the terms ‘stressed’ and ‘anxious’ interchangeably and they speak of one when perhaps they mean the other. Both can be useful and/or destructive.

If we are stressed because we are doing a lot of something we love, that can be fine for short peri...

Continuing on with our discussion of relationship, I would suggest some more areas of life with which you have a relationship whether you have thought about them as such or not.

As I suggested in the first part of this blog, the clearer we are about our relationships with a variety of things in life, the more defined we are and the better we can be in terms of living our lives according to what is true for us. When we are able to do that, we are also able to be clear with ourselves and others to ...

When we use the word ‘relationship’ usually what is meant is a primary relationship in the sense of partner or spouse, husband, or wife or some ‘other’ with whom we can share our life.

Many people come to me because they are looking for ‘The one’ or a meaningful relationship with a partner, and I ask what qualities they seek and what their experiences have been. We then look at what may be blocking them from finding what they want. I usually suggest to them that it would be better for them to fir...

I notice that often people seem to believe that any attraction to someone else must be for the purpose of a romantic love relationship and if it is not that, it is not of interest to them. Attraction is not simply about romantic love.

There are many kinds of attractions and many purposes for them. Usually I see an attraction to someone as a kind of invitation that indicates there is something important here, some business to be done between the two people. It may be to do something together or to...

Now that the Coronavirus has caused huge changes to daily routines, I feel as if I had first been in shock and I have gone through a range of feelings, like fear, terror, anxiety, anger and sadness just to name a few. I also at times have felt positive and hopeful, but still it seems as if present life is nearly unrecognisable now compared to what it was a mere few weeks ago. Even as lockdown is being lifted, a huge range of thoughts and feelings come to me.

Will I be able...

“If you would indeed behold the spirit of death, open your heart wide unto the body of life.
For life and death are one, even as the river and the sea are one.”

Kahlil Gibran – the Prophet

Do you believe that you are Spirit here and now, having a physical experience?  Do you also believe that there is life after death, that your Spirit continues and in that way your e...

Are we doing the ‘right’ thing?  Are we in the ‘right’ relationship? Have we chosen the ‘best’ career for ourselves? All of these questions are ones that can be answered with a yes or a no, but does a yes or no answer really help? Maybe we first need to admit that we don’t know.  That is very difficult for some because we have been taught for years that we are expected to know the answers.  Especially when we are embarking on something new we...

In the piece on Body, Feelings, Mind, Thoughts, Beliefs I suggested that your body is your best friend because if you are considerate and take care of it, then it will serve you well through your life.  If you abuse it, then it will rebel at some stages and cause you grief and pain.  There are many ways of taking care of your body, and food is one of the most enjoyable at times and also most puzzling issues we have in our lives.

There was a time when it was said that ‘you are what you eat’.  I ne...

Many people come to me asking to find ways of overcoming fear and leaving it behind. I wonder about why that is so. Fear is a valuable feeling that helps to put us on alert that something is out of our comfort zone. I remember hearing Dr Elisabeth Kübler-Ross say that we are born with only two natural fears: the fear of falling and the fear of loud noises. Every other fear is learned. That may be so, and I suspect that if we were facing a live tiger that had arrived in front of us, we would...

The feelings that we experience and need to embrace are not simply the negative ones.  We have every right to enjoy the positive ones. If we block and shut down the negative ones when they need to be felt and expressed safely, we also block and shut down the joyous ones, so we reduce our bandwidth in the way of the range of feelings that are available for us to experience and enjoy. We have such a wonderful range of feelings that we can experience in this life that it is a shame to miss som...