If you are having a rough ride at the moment this one’s for you…

There is no more important time to be taking good care of yourself than during a crisis. Unfortunately, this is generally when it feels the hardest to do it!

 It’s difficult to connect with eating nourishing food being a priority when you have suffered such a huge loss that nothing can fill it. However, improved self-care is exactly what we need to do at this time.

 We can meet adversity with more resolve when we have slept well, have eaten well, are hydrated, and up and dressed ready to face the world, even when we just want to hide under the duvet and hope it will all go away.

 Going back to basics with sleep/nutrition/exercise non-negotiables gives us a platform of physical resiliency to deal with whatever faces us emotionally.​​​​

 A crisis situation is what it is; but it is always going to be better to face it with a good night’s sleep and a full belly than being wired and tired.

When life has thrown a curve ball and looking after yourself feels like more than you can handle right now.

1. Reach out for support. People care. They WILL help you. At my darkest times I have been amazed at the kindness of friends gently shepherding my self-care forwards. Looking after me when I can’t do it myself.
2. Don’t try and do All The Things. Just doing ONE piece of self-care will feel empowering and that you are controlling SOMETHING, when life itself feels out of control. Just do ONE good thing for yourself. Don’t set the bar too high. Just do ONE.
3. If you need ideas, you can get my book (it’s so pretty and easy to use you will love it) and tick off one new self-care action each day. You don’t even need to have the energy to think of a thing, I’ve done it for you, and broken it down into 8 different categories of self-care. All you need to do is ONE a day. They will all gently move you forwards.

You can get it here: 101 Self-Care Ideas

The post When life gets rough… appeared first on Louise Thompson, Life Coach, Wellbeing Writer and Speaker.

A good friend will not just tell you that it’s all going to be fine. Because sometimes it’s just not.

A good friend will turn up with cold wine and her best snacks and say that it’s not going to be fine, that it will be hard, but you will get through it.

A good friend will cancel her plans, cajole you to put your trainers on and get you running or walking that trail.  She knows it won’t fix or mend it, but that fresh air and movement will help in a subtle way.

A good friend will know that sometimes there are no words that will fix it, or make it better, but a gentle presence is reassuring in the darkness.

A good friend will check in and see how you are doing, even when there is nothing new to say.

Sometimes it’s not all going to be fine. And having someone say “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” makes you want to kill them as they inadvertently invalidate your loss.

Sometimes a platitude won’t cut it.

But words of wisdom won’t either.

Sometimes it’s just hard. The only way out is through. And good friend will walk it with you.

That the greatest thing they can do for you is to know they cannot heal it for you, but that you will not face it alone.

I hope you have not just one, but a good strong handful of these people in your life.

Hold onto and treasure those people like gold. 

The post What makes a good friend? appeared first on Louise Thompson, Life Coach, Wellbeing Writer and Speaker.

Life would be a LOT easier if only other people (boss/partner/sister/ex) changed what they were doing/saying so it suited us better or was (what we perceived to be) better for them.

If other people were more reliable/fun/on-to-it/organised/truthful/adult/well-intentioned/ thoughtful, our lives (and potentially theirs) would be SO MUCH EASIER!

However….

Giving up the illusion that other people could/should/will change to suit us is a huge personal growth milestone.

 People will never change unless THEY want to.

 Even then it might not be consistent or lasting.

 People will not change unless they want to and are READY to.

You can try and cajole, beg, guilt, shame, plead…use logic, use emotion, but until it’s what they want and are ready for it’s not going to happen. It will be their timetable, not yours.

They will be ready when they are ready.

(Which might be NEVER)

Change is hard – it requires choice and commitment. Parking the need for others to be different in order for us to be happy is HUGE. It allows us to put that wasted energy where it can make a genuine difference.

The ONLY place we can truly effect change?

Changing ourselves. 

The post Want the people around you to CHANGE? appeared first on Louise Thompson, Life Coach, Wellbeing Writer and Speaker.

None of those places as it turned out, including, and – shocker – especially not the spa.

What I learned was that peace wasn’t to be found in a specific location. Whether I was in a hammock, a beauty spa or on the beach I was still wound up. Still thinking about other stuff that needed to be done with work, family, home commitments. I could BE somewhere peaceful but still NOT have the feeling peace in my mind, heart or soul. Frustrating. Finding how to get some peace in my soul was harder to crack than the Da Vinci code. 

The answer of course is that inner peace is not OUT THERE, in the spa or on the beach or anywhere external.  Peace, clarity and calm are 100% inside job. Peace is something that lives inside us, deep down, but we have covered up with insidious layers and habits of people pleasing; perfectionism; overachievement; self-esteem issues, unachievable body image comparisons and so on. It’s like peeling an onion, peel back the layers that limit us…and low and behold…underneath, right there is peace. It was there all along.

The peace of mind and heart we seek is already with us if we take the time strip away what separates us from it.  We can actually have peace and clarity wherever we are. No hammock required.

Great question to ask yourself: WHEN do I feel most peaceful? WHY? The big CLUE here is not where you ARE, or who you are with: it’s what you are THINKING about where you are and who you are with. That’s the start of unravelling your personal path to inner peace. Well worth a moment of your reflection time.

Could you do with more peace in 2026? What’s in the way for you?

The post Inner Peace on tap appeared first on Louise Thompson, Life Coach, Wellbeing Writer and Speaker.

As adults we somehow expect ourselves to be knocking it outta the park day after day after day after day. Being “On Top Of It” and by “It” I mean All The Things.

Kind of not possible as an expectation, but there we are: most of us have our internal thermostat of expectation set to HIGH every. single. day.

To be clear it is an utterly mad expectation that we will be at 100% on all levels each day.

In fact “Our best” each day can and WILL look radically different. 

That is because, dear reader, we are not freaking ROBOTS.

We will have a natural ebb and flow to our physical energy. Our creative resources. Our patience. Our compassion. Our productivity. And so on.

We are COMPLEX. We cannot be at 100% on all the things all the time. 

Some days just getting through the day at 22% is an ENORMOUS WIN.

Some days we can conquer all and truly dazzle ourselves.

But not every day.

(I am not sure the plethora of permanently smiley seemingly continually productive and “perfect” influencers helps anyone here with our own expectation setting)

Some days just getting through it and not dropping any serious balls is 100% of what we had available in the tank THAT day.

That IS our best.

So I think we should all cut ourselves a little slack.

We are not going to meet every day the same 

And that, my friend, is okay.

What percentage are you functioning at today?

The post Embrace your best: Let’s ditch the perfection appeared first on Louise Thompson, Life Coach, Wellbeing Writer and Speaker.

Where do you give the balance of your attention?

It’s an important question to ask of ourselves.

Especially if life isn’t going super well for us right now.

Because whatever we focus on GROWS

Focus on the love and opportunity present in your life…you will get more

Focus on the drama and difficulty in your life…more will come join it

This isn’t about ignoring or avoiding reality (you can’t, anyway!)

It’s about looking at where you direct your focus once you have taken care of what you need to.

What you choose to water your mind with is what will grow

Water it with thoughts of your own capability rather than worry

Water it with memories of good times if the now is feeling hard

Water it with lists of your achievements or your loves rather than your fears

Yes this is work – directing our mind IS work

Yes this sounds woo-woo. However, does that matter if we feel happier?!

Our FOCUS is really important

Direct it to what you want MORE of in your life

What you focus on is what will GROW

And I want you to have more of the good stuff!

Remember what we choose to focus on GROWS What will you choose to focus on this week?

The post Where should you give the balance of your attention? appeared first on Louise Thompson, Life Coach, Wellbeing Writer and Speaker.

Hating your body will never get you as far as loving it will.

We are surrounded by messages of “not thin enough!!!!” and “too thin!!!!” – the line between which seems increasingly thin itself if the women’s weekly magazine market is anything to go by.

This media soup we swim in of body image transmission is a tricky sea to navigate.

It encourages a continual mental dialogue of comparisonitus.

It’s pretty much totally unhelpful, because we are always going to come off worse on something when we are comparing ourselves to a myriad of images of people 20 years younger who have access to a full-time personal chef and personal trainer, and who have also been liberally photoshopped.

We can’t compete. Obviously! WE KNOW THAT. Right?

Like I know you know that. I know you know you can’t compete with a photoshopped image of Jessica Alba in a bikini.

I know that. You know that. Even Jessica Alba herself knows that!

Logically we are all totally on the same page there.

And yet? And yet, in our heads we do.

The restless whispers of “not enough”.

Not thin enough
Not toned enough
Not eating well enough
Not exercising enough
Not stylish enough
Not dewy and fresh enough

God, it goes on and on ​​​​​​​.

This creates a poisonous mental dialogue – I know we don’t say this stuff out loud – but believe me we are saying it silently in our minds.

Well…that’s okay, right? No one can hear that?

Actually yes – someone IS listening to that stream of destructive Crazy Talk in our heads.

We are.

Our body is listening, and hearing every pejorative word we think.

And it does exactly what we would do if we had, say, a personal trainer who attempted to motivate us by shouting the following at us repeatedly:

“You are SO FAT. Why are you even bothering? Nothing you do makes a DIFFERENCE. You are old. Looking really old today actually. And your ass looks massive…repeat to fade…”.

Now – would that make you WANT to go work out?

Exactly.

What do you expect from a personal trainer?

“Attaagirl. You are doing so well. You’ve gotta start somewhere baby, you are doing GREAT!”

Would that make you want to go work out?

Exactly!

Think of it another way. Would you talk to your beloved pet, or treasured child in the way you talk to your body?

“Fido/Bella, I hate you. You are ugly. And fat. And useless. I hate you for being the way you are”

Exactly.

Not nice – right?

We can do WAY better than that.

Remember that the most important person who influences how your body responds is listening when you Talk Smack in your head about it.

And that’s YOU.

Keep your self-talk loving. Keep your self-talk gentle and encouraging.

Keep it light. Keep it positive. Talk lovingly and compassionately.

Talk to yourself like you would a treasured child or pet.

You might just be amazed at how you respond when the comparisonitus judgey self-hating body talk is exchanged for a stream of encouraging, loving positivity. You body might well just surprise you too.

Hating your body will never get you as far as loving it will.

​​​​​​​Take care of yourself.

Be good to you 

The post Words on Loving Your Body appeared first on Louise Thompson, Life Coach, Wellbeing Writer and Speaker.

Well, it comes from THREE specific places:

1.  From the crap that happens to us in life: unwanted CURVEBALLS force us to grow, whether we like it or not, to expand to cope with whatever craptastic life event has come our way.

2.  From positive circumstances that come into our life: new baby / new job / more money / OPPORTUNITIES that are welcome, but stretch us to meet them.

3.  When we CHOOSE to expand and grow as people by CREATING INTENTIONAL personal growth. This might be signing up for a half-marathon, or for a programme of guided personal growth like my coaching Academy*. This is where you consciously choose you are ready to EXPAND who you are, and who you are BECOMING.

Notice the first two are largely PASSIVE: we grow by default because of what life throws AT us.  It’s a kind of uncontrolled personal growth: it just happens TO us, we HAVE to grow to COPE.

The third option is OUR CHOICE. It’s ACTIVE. It’s where we say to ourselves that we are READY for MORE of something in our lives. That we will DELIBERATELY CREATE CHALLENGE for ourselves in order to grow and become the expanded version of ourselves we can be.

The challenge we choose in order to stimulate our personal growth might be:

 PHYSICAL (learning to windsurf, dropping eating sugar)

 MENTAL (getting on top of our finances or learning techniques to reduce overthinking)

 EMOTIONAL (having that difficult conversation we have been avoiding)

Or it might be  SPIRITUAL in terms of personal expansion (developing a meditation practice)

We CANNOT help but GROW through life because life WILL throw things at us – good and bad, wanted and unwanted – all the way through life…till the day we die! That is a fact. What I find the coolest though…is the people with the CAPACITY to SEEK ADDITIONAL personal growth through CHOICE.

Who actively STEP TOWARDS expansion and make it happen for themselves through challenge, as well as the inevitable coping with what life brings stuff.

However you get your GROWTH, passively or actively, know that it’s all about a reaction to CIRCUMSTANCES.

Either your GROWTH RESPONSE to meet circumstances that happen TO you. This is inevitable.

plus,

Your GROWTH RESPONSE to circumstances you CHOOSE to introduce into your life in order to CHALLENGE and change you.

I want to let you know, that although crap in life does indeed make you grow, there are TWO other ways to do it.

This is a big concept, and I’d love to know if this resonated with you today, Test? Have you been growing more passively, or actively choosing and channelling it?

The post Where does personal growth come from? appeared first on Louise Thompson, Life Coach, Wellbeing Writer and Speaker.

I think it’s REALLY important to recognise that one woman’s cup-filling is another woman’s nail-chewing nightmare.

We are led to believe that it’s a one-size-fits-all activity, usually illustrated with a photo of a bubble bath or a massage. That’s not every woman’s cup filler AT ALL, so don’t think you are weird if it’s not your bag. Cup filling (AKA self-care) comes in MANY other forms…for you it might look like:

 Trail running, losing yourself in the music in your ears and the landscape under your feet.

 That novel you just can’t put down and time disappears.

 Playing catch with your dog /grandkids.

 Cooking something new and delicious or icing a cake.

 Checking in with a community of like-minded women as you do a 30-Day health challenge together (hello The WW Coaching Academy, cup-filling is our game!).

 Getting in or on the ocean – so many people’s recharge, whatever the weather.

 Volunteering and filling your cup with the pleasure of helping others.

Bubble Bath with nice oil and candles! It does count…but it’s a very LIMITED definition of cup-filling!

What’s your favourite cup-filler? How often do you do it?

The post How full is your cup today? appeared first on Louise Thompson, Life Coach, Wellbeing Writer and Speaker.

Start with YOU.

NO-ONE is as hard on us as we are on ourselves!

Stop it boo!

Be kind. TO YOU.

I know you are kind to others, you have that on lock, but please

BE KIND TO YOU first. Start with YOU.

Lower the bar a little.

Cut yourself a little slack (like you would for others)

You are doing just fine.

Perfectly imperfectly fine.

More than good enough.

Be kind where it matters MOST.

Inside your own head and heart

Please don’t say things to yourself in your own head that you would never ever E V E R  say out loud to any other human being.

There is wayyyy too much secret internal chatter of the “your bum looks big in that”; “you need to be more efficient” ;“you are just not good enough” variety.

You would not whisper that in the ear of a stranger (let alone a loved one).

We cannot give away what we do not replenish: so please, say some nice things to yourself today. Be kind. Give grace. Be patient. Be loving.

I can see you from here. And to me, you look pretty damn fantastic.

The post Being Kind to….who? appeared first on Louise Thompson, Life Coach, Wellbeing Writer and Speaker.