Self-Knowledge
Naturally You Don’t Trust Anyone!
We know of course that a principle requirement of being thought a healthy, acceptable person is that we should be…
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Articles by The School of Life
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Self-Knowledge
Naturally You Don’t Trust Anyone!
We are continually on our guard. Our alarm is always on – even around our closest friends and lovers. We are always anticipating an attack.
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When It’s Extremely Hard to Choose
We are obsessed by the idea that a wise choice will help to prevent a nightmare, but considered soberly, there will be something pretty difficult about every route we take.
Read ArticleRelationships
What We Can Always Do to Improve Our Relationships
Once we know we’re not facing a uniquely misfiring human, only another version of our own broken selves, we can abandon once and for all the delicious yet ruinous sense that there is only one mad person in the couple.
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Who Actually Ends a Relationship?
The one who ends a relationship is not necessarily the one says it’s over. The one who actually ends the relationship is the one who ceases to love.
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Why Some Of Us Are So Bad At Spotting Red Flags
We can put it like this: the ability to respond actively to red flags depends on having had a certain sort of childhood.
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The Appeal of Rescuing Other People
We might say that everyone, at the start, longs to receive love. But when it has not been especially forthcoming, one way to handle its absence is to turn into a compulsive caregiver.
Read ArticleCalm
On Feeling Manic
Many of us are prone to slip into states of mind we might call ‘manic’ – in which we run obsessively and at high speed away from something within us that asks for our attention.
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Daring to Love
It might take some of us the greater part of our lives until we no longer hold it against someone that they can warmly adore us.
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The Pains of Heartbreak
We should not try to be brave. This has to count among the greatest griefs of our lives. Only thereby can we give the love we had for them proper stature – and begin to let it go.
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What Is It Like to Be Mentally Unwell?
Most states of unwellness are not radically different from those occasionally and briefly experienced by all of us; they are simply much, much more extreme.
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How to ‘Grow’
What does ‘growing’ really involve? And, crucially, how might we train ourselves to grow a little more – and a little more quickly?
Read ArticleRelationships
People Pleasers in Relationships
People pleasers are prone to initiating a variety of secret agendas in the hope of continuing to be liked.
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Why It Can Take Us So Long to Understand How Unwell We Are
A lot about our behaviour doesn’t make sense until we can take on board a basic idea about the way we humans are built: that our biology privileges survival over self-awareness.
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The Life-Saving Nature of Poor Memories
To never forget is to be permanently pressed up against the worst collisions between our wishes and the horrible course of reality.
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Living Long Term With Mental Illness
The more time passes, the more we have to take on board a bleaker, unavoidable reality: this thing is here for the long term. In the one life we’ll ever have, this is us.
Calm
Might I Be Feeling Lonely Rather Than Worried?
Might I principally, at heart, be lonely rather than worried?
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The Impulse to Sink Our Own Mood – and Return to Sadness and Worry
We may have grown up to associate a low fearful mood with safety. Sadness means you don’t get attacked; it keeps you out of trouble.
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How ‘Mad’ People Make a Lot of Sense
If we look with sufficient rigour at the behaviour the mentally unwell exhibit, we almost always find a logic within it that can be decoded, listened to and in many cases dealt with.
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Why We Keep Repeating Patterns of Unhappiness
We aren’t here again by coincidence. We are – in an unconscious part of our minds – steering ourselves to a place of pain with hidden intent.
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Self-Knowledge
When It’s Extremely Hard to Choose
A significant and intense chunk of our lives may be spent pondering ‘hard choices.’ Should we continue in our relationship…
View
Relationships
What We Can Always Do to Improve Our Relationships
We don’t need to be especially self-righteous or particularly obtuse to settle on the view that – on balance –…
View
Relationships
Who Actually Ends a Relationship?
There is a particular kind of pain that some of us have to endure at the end of a relationship…
View
Relationships
Why Some Of Us Are So Bad At Spotting Red Flags
Some of us have a distinctive attitude to red flags in relationships. We can certainly see – if we push…
View
Relationships
The Appeal of Rescuing Other People
We might assume that our great longing in relationships would be to be looked after by someone; an exceptionally kind…
View
Calm
On Feeling Manic
Many of us are prone to slip into states of mind we might call ‘manic’ – in which we run…
View
Relationships
Daring to Love
Some of us are involved in a dynamic in love that, when it’s laid out squarely, sounds very strange indeed:…
View
Relationships
The Pains of Heartbreak
For all the songs and poems and novels written in its honour, the sickness of heartbreak is unlikely to strike…
View
Select themes
Self-Knowledge
When It’s Extremely Hard to Choose
A significant and intense chunk of our lives may be spent pondering ‘hard choices.’ Should we continue in our relationship…
View
Relationships
What We Can Always Do to Improve Our Relationships
We don’t need to be especially self-righteous or particularly obtuse to settle on the view that – on balance –…
View
Relationships
Who Actually Ends a Relationship?
There is a particular kind of pain that some of us have to endure at the end of a relationship…
View
Relationships
Why Some Of Us Are So Bad At Spotting Red Flags
Some of us have a distinctive attitude to red flags in relationships. We can certainly see – if we push…
View
Relationships
The Appeal of Rescuing Other People
We might assume that our great longing in relationships would be to be looked after by someone; an exceptionally kind…
View
Calm
On Feeling Manic
Many of us are prone to slip into states of mind we might call ‘manic’ – in which we run…
View
Relationships
Daring to Love
Some of us are involved in a dynamic in love that, when it’s laid out squarely, sounds very strange indeed:…
View
Relationships
The Pains of Heartbreak
For all the songs and poems and novels written in its honour, the sickness of heartbreak is unlikely to strike…
View