It’s completely normal to feel shy or nervous sometimes, especially when you’re young. Such as when you want to ask someone out on a date. But if that idea worries you so much that you just can’t make the attempt, then maybe you’re not just suffering from shyness.

Does your nervousness come from always having the feeling that everyone’s watching you? After every conversation, do you agonise over what the other person thought about you? Quite sure you messed up, every time. Or maybe you hate meetings where you’ll have to speak, convinced you’ll make a fool of yourself?

Probably you really want to go to parties and stuff. But instead you find you stay home because you’re so nervous about meeting new people. Somehow you just can’t just let go and relax, because you’re so focused on your anxiety. So much so, it’s easier just to avoid parties altogether, even though that means you’re lonely. Continue Reading

Everyone’s heard of IQ, and most of us have had to take an ‘intelligence test’ at one time or another during our lives. But IQ only measures your ability to deal with hard facts, to follow instructions and to organise information so you get to the ‘right’ answer – and we all know there’s more to life than that.

In fact there are several other sorts of intelligence, none of which are measured by IQ tests. There’s the practical intelligence which enables us to get things done. And the aesthetic intelligence which gives us our sense of design, music and art. Skills like sports, dance, driving and so on depend on our kinaesthetic intelligence, and a sort of emotional intelligence gives us the ability to understand and manage our own feelings. Last but not least, there’s the social intelligence which enables us to deal with other people. Continue Reading

This path stretching before me

This path that I must tread

This path that drains my tired heart

With every step ahead.

This winding, steep, eventful path

This tricky, twisting way

This overwhelming task;to climb

higher every day.

This soul, fatigued within itself

This body, drained and weak

These lips, so filled with words

and yet

too exhausted to speak.

This burden weighs my shoulders down

causes conflict within

This battle must be fought

yet only-

only-

one can win.

Take a seat, have a drink

Stop screaming at me

See, the neighbor’s think

That there’s something to see

Rip right round the reason

And don’t be a bore

Evidence my treason

And do nothing more

A mere kiss?

Is that all

For all this?

So small

My lip bleeds

Your eye’s swollen

Just pack and go

Guilty deeds

The fallen

Under a broken rainbow