This excellent book is subtitled How to be strong and positive in a changing world: it’s a short, practical primer on techniques to raise your personal resilience. William’s books inspire me by their skill in presenting ideas which are potentially complex or strange, in common sense mainstream language. Here, he explores the physiology of resilience, … Read more
For four years the focus of my learning and teaching was resilience. I believe it’s a crucial skill set for all of us in these uncertain times, but I’ve now decided to put another focus beside it: natural happiness. Since 2011, I’ve learned lots about the benefits of resilience, but also the limitations of the … Read more
This is published by Action for Happiness, probably the biggest UK network focussed on happiness. It may be stretching things to call it a book; it’s a 28-page free download from their website, www.actionforhappiness.org. Along with the ten keys, all helpful, the book suggests ways to use them, for example creating a local group, or … Read more
A hand-made easel, a mango tree, and a goat: resilience training in rural Ethiopia: I feel so honoured and touched that this flipchart easel has been hand-made locally for me: square section steel, painted grey, with a big panel of wood bolted to its front. Its two coat hooks just about fit with the brass eyelets on the pad – ironically, made in China.
Handmade easelWhy here? Why me?
If you’re wondering what a book on this theme has to do with resilience and wellbeing, read on. The book points out that a new level of snobbery has developed as inequality of various kinds has increased. Class judgements at all levels of society are even more derogatory. And it’s clear that relative position, and … Read more
Eigg is a small island in the Hebrides: five miles by three, with 100 inhabitants. Try adding to your resilience challenges: harsh climate, high transport costs, poor soil, and … a series of despotic landlords. However the gift was in the problem: the despots provoked Eigg’s people into creating the first community land buyout in … Read more
Learning from extremes: hospices: In my exploration of resilience, I’ve become interested in what we can learn where this quality is tested to an extreme. Death is a pretty severe test of resilience,…
The idea that progress is always linear, forward and upward, has long been questionable. In recent years, many economic observers have declared that even stable living standards should be seen as an achievement. Recently, I found myself pondering different models of how progress can be recognised: we urgently need these as the conventional linear ones … Read more
Colin Tudge thinks big, positive and practical. His main expertise is in food and farming: he helped start the Campaign for Real Farming, whose annual conference is now bigger than the NFU’s. His ideas for positive change could be a blueprint for many other sectors too. I heard Colin speak recently at a session hosted … Read more
The recent weeks have seen a fascinating shift in both the UK Government policy and public opinion about the refugee crisis (or migrant flood, as some have called it). If you doubt the role of emotion in these matters, look at the effect the pictures of one drowned boy have had. For months, the media … Read more