Stop assuming people are mad or pissed off at you in some way. 

Stop attempting to read their minds and adapting your behaviour around that assumption.

Stop trying to manage the thoughts and emotions of others. Those thoughts and emotions live in their heads and their bodies, not yours, so let people be in charge of themselves. 

If they have something to say to you, they will.

If they have something they genuinely need to ask of you, they will.

If they have something to say that truly matters to them that they want you to know, they will.

And if they don’t – it is their responsibility, not yours. 

And just like that, we get to recalibrate. Confronting this one I know, especially if we have been stuck in people pleasing patterns for years, (decades!) but stopping the default assumption of over-responsibility is a sure path to peace, my friend, I promise you.

Have a wonderful weekend, and if you do want to look at doing VIP Coaching with me, I only take 10 clients per year (all sold out!) but you absolutely can join my group coaching programme and get live coaching on your issue and situation each Friday morning. You can check that out here. 

The post Are you being “over-responsible” for how other people feel? appeared first on Louise Thompson, Life Coach, Wellbeing Writer and Speaker.

Do you keep deferring relaxing? 

And if so (this is the important bit) what do you defer it about?

We are jolly good as humans at pushing ourselves further, faster, longer in ways I am increasingly convinced humans were never designed to do.

We seem to have become programmed to defer any kind of relaxation until the work is done, which our cavewomen forbears would never have entertained as they told stories around the nightly campfire.

We defer relaxation – WHICH HUMANS ARE PROGRAMMED TO REQUIRE! – for so many things:

We defer leaving work on time so we can finish that report. 

We defer feeling good about our body til we have lost those pesky last 5 kilo’s

We defer feeling relaxed about money until we are debt free

We defer rest until we are on annual leave

We defer laughter and connection until the washing up is done

We defer reading that book til the work is done

We defer going for that walk til the house is tidy

We defer defer defer in all sorts of ways…

We treat rest and relaxation as if they are optional extras

Treats we have to earn like a dog for good behaviour

That relaxation needs to be earned and it comes at the end of a very long To Do list.

Thing is, this is a lie that keeps us trapped in a mode of “perpetual productivity”, which has been a boon for large organisations for sure as it’s become adopted as a cultural norm. However, it sure makes for a lot of perpetually anxious people overdelivering both at work and at home!

“Always On” and endless deferral of rest and relaxation have been good for the bottom line but not been good for our mental or physical health. We are designed, programmed, built as human beings who need and require mental and physical REST and RELAXATION as much as we need food or sleep. The cultural downgrading and deferment of relaxation has been so pervasive, and we have internalised it so much we quite willingly DO IT TO OURSELVES!

My mini-challenge for you today is to have a think about where you might be treating rest and relaxation (either physical or mental) as an optional extra, and where you could make a different choice on that today.

We live in a world of ‘jam tomorrow… jam tomorrow”.

Deferring rest. Deferring relaxation.

I think we should all be having a little more “jam today” 

I’d love for you to find one way to do that for yourself this week.

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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?

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