The post It Must be Love … Love … Love appeared first on Wellbeing Magazine.

Time, that gracious (and at moments stressy) companion – invites us to pause and reimagine our relationship with its rhythmical flow. We’ve become experts at filling time, but what if 2025 became the year of feeling time? Not counting it, racing through it, or drowning in its expectations, but truly experiencing its gentle whispers and collection of moments.

Imagine time not as a bossy taskmaster, but as a friend gently guiding you towards more meaningful connections. As our modern world bombards us with productivity I invite you to see not just what we accomplish, but how deeply we are present in those moments.

Here are 3 simple gentle practices for reclaiming and feeling your time:

• Mindful Pause – Begin or end each day with a simple, unstructured 5-minute window. No agenda, no goals. Just breathing, being, watching your thoughts drift like soft clouds. Think of it as a daily spa for your overwhelmed nervous system.
• Connection Check-In – Once a week, reach out to someone. Not to solve, plan, or perform – simply to listen and be present. A text, a call, a cuppa – let gentle and genuine human connection be your one and only intention.
• Rhythm Reset – Choose one routine activity and transform it into a mindful moment. It could be brushing your teeth, brewing tea, waiting at the bus stop, or waiting for the lift. Slow down. Notice. Breathe.

Let’s remember that we are not machines, processing minutes and hours, but humans, experiencing a multitude of micro-moments. 

In 2025 may your time be less about efficiency, and more about meaningful moments. Dare to be the Change you want to see in your organisation, family, community and life!

Words: Mathilde Barbier

Gentle January

Have you reached that phase in life where:

• your thermostat is more unpredictable than the weather,
• your brain is as foggy as the South Downs on a winter morning,
• and your mood swings as vertiginous as the pendulum ride on Brighton Pier?

Midlife doesn’t have to be wild and mad! Unsettling feelings often resurface during menopause, bringing unexpected emotional ups and downs. Together, we can turn these unfamiliar territories into a gentle self-discovery, mastering your inner pressure cooker gracefully!

Unlock the transformative power of gentleness in 2025. Choose your path (pick and mix):

• 1-1 personalised coaching
• Woman circles for shared wisdom and connection 
• GENTLE JANUARY online resource 

(Special offer, sign up for £15 (instead of £35) until January 31^st using this link https://www.daretobethechange.today/gentle-january

Yes, it is time to be MAD! (Master Adaptable Determination and Make A Difference)

mathilde@daretobethechange.today – 07947 319 362

The post Moments That Matter appeared first on Wellbeing Magazine.

However, as adults, we need to learn to be more aware of our responsibilities to our children and loved ones and our responsibility for our personal health, not expecting the medical profession to fix us with “a pill for every ill.”  We all have a responsibility to ourselves and society to choose our lifestyle wisely. What does this mean? 

It means choosing a healthy diet, doing adequate exercise, learning to breathe well, learning to relax and be mindful, dealing with stress, finding work that is reasonably satisfying, fulfilling as well as rewarding, developing friends in the community, and being grateful for the miraculous world we live in and more.

After over forty years as a holistic healthcare professional, I decided to put all my experience and all I have learnt from many others far wiser than myself, into one small book. This book would be a simple guide to living a healthy, happy, long and active life, entitled “Be Your Own Doctor of Health and Happiness – You Are a Miracle!”

May I recommend it to anyone looking for ways of improving their health and wellbeing, as a reference guide to stimulate your thinking on your own journey. It is available as a paperback from Lulu.com, Amazon, or as a signed copy from my bookstore here, https://totalhealthmatters.sumupstore.com/

Alternatively, you can download the eBook version or the audiobook version.

After reading please let me know your thoughts and suggestions – email (lingard@totalhealthmatters.co.uk) so I can improve the next edition. I’d appreciate that.

Michael Lingard BSc. DO

The post A Longevity Guide appeared first on Wellbeing Magazine.

Time is a precious commodity these days, with packed schedules and never-ending to-do lists. What if we were intentional about carving out pockets of undivided attention, free from the pings and dings of technology, an intentional space to tap into the restorative power of presence?

Gifts of time and love are surely the basic ingredients of a truly Merry Christmas – Peg Bracken

This could mean a leisurely coffee date with a dear friend, an unhurried stroll in nature, or an evening of board games with the family. We can truly listen, connect, and be present with those we love in these moments.

And then there’s the simple act of gentle touch – a warm hug, a comforting hand on the shoulder, or an affectionate pat on the back. Studies have shown that physical contact not only strengthens our bonds with others but also has tangible benefits for our mental, emotional, physical and social well-being. Touch can lower blood pressure, reduce stress, and even boost our immune systems. Yet in our increasingly isolated world, this fundamental human need is often overlooked.

In a world that often values productivity over presence, the simple gifts of time and touch can be gentle acts of self-care and connection.

So slow down, reach out, and nurture the relationships that truly matter, starting with yourself! You might be surprised by the ripples of calm, joy, and fulfilment that follow.

Consciously make time and gentle touch a priority, to cultivate more meaningful relationships, rediscover the joy in the everyday and dare to be the change you want to see in your organisation, family, community and life!

The Gift of Time and Touch Matters

• Bring calm and relief to a stressed or anxious friend, colleague or yourself
• Share a special time between parents and children
• Communicate when you can’t find words

Learn to Give a Hand Massage

This two-and-a-half-hour workshop will provide you with the foundational skills to share the gift of gentle touch with family and friends. It is an introductory exploration of the energy of gentleness, a moment of self-care and it will give you the confidence to safely offer your presence and a hand massage to people you know. No previous experience is necessary.

Get in Touch Today – mathilde@atouchofgentleness.org – 07947 319 362

Words: Mathilde Barbier – DareToBeTheChangeToday

The post The Gift of Time and Touch appeared first on Wellbeing Magazine.

I was sitting quietly in the living room, with Kira asleep next to me. The rain, pushed around by gusts of wind, was tip-tapping rhythmically on the window. Suddenly, without warning, she lifted her head. Her body was perfectly still. Only her ears were moving very slightly, precisely and purposely, scanning the air. Beyond the noise of the rain, her sensitive dog ears had captured a sound that, as a human, I did not have access to, and sure enough, a few moments later the doorbell rang.

After attending to the door, I returned and praised Kira for her guard dog skills!

This time she was not just hearing but listening to me, watching my every move, tuning in to the tone of my voice. Her eye contact was solid, as her ears lifted and rotated. I could tell she was fully present, listening with intensity through her whole being.

This experience got me thinking about our human listening habits.

When you listen to someone, do you ever find yourself:

• Faking attention, or practising selective hearing?
• Waiting for your turn to talk?
• Interrupting the conversation?
• Making assumptions, or jumping to conclusions?
• Giving in to internal or external distractions?

How do you feel when the person you are talking to is engaging in some of these habits? 

We can all improve our listening skills, with the first step being to stop talking (our bodies give us a clue since most of us have two ears and one mouth so perhaps we should use them proportionally!) and observe our own ‘not so helpful’ listening habits with humour and gentleness.

Kira’s Top Tips to Be a Better Human Listener

1. Remove external distractions – put your phone down and switch off the TV.
2. Be present and aware of your inner chatter.
3. Show that you are listening – nod, or tilt your head.
4. Look for verbal, and non-verbal cues – intonation, pace, body language, and facial expressions.
5. Listen to understand (not to respond) – be aware of your personal interpretations and assumptions and ask for clarification if necessary.
6. If you feel you are not in the right space to listen, be honest and gentle with yourself and the other person, and confident enough to say so.

Lend an ear to someone, disconnect from your life concerns, reconnect to the subtle and powerful art of listening and dare to be the change you want to see in your organisation, family, community and life!

The Gift of “Presence”

Workshop: Hand Massage for Family & Friends

This workshop will give you the foundation skills to share the gift of touch with family and friends. It is an introductory exploration of the energy of gentleness, a moment of self-care and it will give you the confidence to offer a lovely hand massage to people you know. No previous experience is necessary.

Touch matters to:

1. Share a special time between parents and children.
2. Bring calm and relief to a stressed or anxious friend, colleague or yourself.
3. Communicate when you can’t find words.

Get in Touch Today

mathilde@atouchofgentleness.org – 07947 319 362

Offer a Hand Massage to someone you care for.

Words: Mathilde Barbier

The post Listen Like Kira appeared first on Wellbeing Magazine.

I shall be following the genius of Albert Einstein and Occam‘s razor in trying to find the simplest explanation for the inexplicable. This will take me a matter of minutes and just a few lines of words.

I realise that I risk falling into the trap of trying to comprehend the incomprehensible with the limited capability of the human mind.

Let Me Begin With Three Formulas

The first will be accepted by everyone I believe, and is the product of the genius of Einstein:- E = mc² where E (energy) equals m(mass) times c squared, where c is that large number 186,000 miles/second.

I would like to add another simple equation (with no scientific data to back it) but bear with me:- I = es² where I (information) equals e (energy) times, s squared; with s being another large number similar to c.

Finally, I would like to add the last equation again with no scientific data to back it:- C = iv² or C equals information times v squared, where v is another large number similar to c, and C represents what we currently call consciousness, but which I feel may be nameless.

With the aid of these three equations, I can now demonstrate that there was no Big Bang and that we live in an eternal learning universe to which you and I and every part of it contribute. 

At this moment in time, we try to perceive a beginning and a future, but I contend that there was never a beginning, and there will never be an end, but that we are experiencing an eternal informed universe.

We have become accustomed to accepting the interchangeability of matter and energy. Maybe in years to come we will be able to accept the interchangeability of energy and information, and if my hypothesis is valid in future years, we may even accept the interchangeability of that which we call consciousness and information. 

Unfortunately, using the word consciousness brings with it a host of preconceived ideas and hence I feel we need a new word for this ultimate “stuff” of the universe.

This hypothesis allows us to envisage a universe without a beginning or end and discards the Big Bang dogma. It also permits us to recognise a learning universe that mankind, all life forms from viruses to mammals, and what we currently think of as unconscious matter are contributing to this phenomenon.

That fundamental “stuff” might be beyond our comprehension, but ancient sages would have termed it mystical, the mind of God, or had the humility to accept man’s infinite ignorance.

A Mind Experiment

I have found a useful mind experiment that I’ve used with many of my patients and friends, again taking a leaf out of Einstein’s book!

Imagine that everything we shall ever know about the universe fills the room you’re standing in now. How much of the room would represent our current knowledge and understanding of the universe?

Is it, do you think, half the room, a quarter of the room, or perhaps just a small corner of the room, or even a bucketful, or an egg cupful?

Interestingly, people’s intuitive assessment of this question leads them to favour a cupful or less. Very few have suggested any significant chunk of that space.

The other mind experiment I have offered is to convert all the matter in the universe, including you and me into energy, then convert all the energy into information according to my proposed formula above, and finally convert all the information into the “stuff” of the universe as proposed above.

We now have a universe that is not material, has no energy, and has no information. This might be classed as the mind of God or the source of everything. It then begins to condense into information, energy, and matter. The mix of these basic qualities will be ever-changing and has no beginning and no end and right now we are trying to interpret what we find in this minute moment in time.

These Are Some Conceptual Hurdles to Overcome!

Although we may have witnessed films of the matter-to-energy effect of an atomic bomb, it is difficult for us to see how energy could convert back to matter except in the acceleration of a particle in a high-powered accelerator. 

When it comes to accepting that information and energy are interchangeable we have a similar problem, except that we are all used to storing vast amounts of information in our computers using energy and regarding conversion of consciousness or “stuff” to information and vice versa, we are up against our innate intelligence limits. 

I find the concept of Morphic Resonance as postulated by Dr.Sheldrake helps us here, in that all matter living or inanimate needs information for its formation. We no longer accept that genes do this work alone. Perhaps the morphic fields are an expression of the fundamental “stuff” or consciousness.

Your Comments to: lingard@totalhealthmatters.co.uk

Words: Michael Lingard

The post Consciousness is Just a Name appeared first on Wellbeing Magazine.

You will find me in your garden but I’m not grass
I move slowly (1 metre per hour) but I’m not a sloth
I have a shell but I’m not an egg
I leave a shiny trail but I’m not a slug
What Am I?
I am small but I am not weak (I can lift up to 10 times my body weight)
I am a creature of perseverance and resilience
I am slow and mellow, present in the moment
I am the humble snail

With the abundance of rain we enjoyed this summer you will surely have come across these gastropods or at least the glittering trail they leave as evidence of their nocturnal activities. You might not have noticed their 14,000 microscopic teeth but you will certainly have witnessed how effective they are in devouring anything you are trying to grow in your garden!

As far as I can remember I have always been fascinated by snails. For me, they embody gentleness in how they steadily move their body, their delicate eyes scanning the air and the beauty, harmony and mystery of their spiralling shell.

Life Lessons From a Snail

• In a world continually speeding up, the snail invites us to relish the slow lane and cultivate the virtue of savouring all of life’s precious moments, with gentle yet steady and focused, movements.
• Did you know that snails can sleep for up to three years? Self-care at its best. A big and bold reminder to prioritise our wellbeing. 
• Self-sufficient, they carry their home wherever they go. Similarly our ‘shell’ is our collection of life experiences and knowledge. It grows with us and, we grow with it. 
• Snails leave a silvery path behind them and, so do we. It is our legacy. What gentle trail do you leave for others to follow?

This October, I invite you to poke your head out of the “fast-pace-race” and, like the snail, take the time to contemplate. Move at your own pace. Look after yourself. Carry your shell of wisdom with awareness. Intentionally leave your mark and dare to be the change you want to see in your organisation, family, community and life!

Mathilde Barbier

The post Slower October appeared first on Wellbeing Magazine.

“There are only two ways to live your life. One way is as though nothing is a miracle. The other way is as though everything is a miracle”. Albert Einstein (1879-1955) 

It sometimes pays to stop and think and take note of where we are and who we are to gain a sense of the miraculous. You and I have inherited the evolutionary miracle over thousands of years from single-celled creatures through all ranges of invertebrates, mammals, and others to the point where today we see ourselves at the top of this evolutionary tree.

Over those thousands of years or even longer we have developed a means of living, a means of survival and the means of thinking that deserves a little more attention. Much of this incredible development has been due to a single concept that I like to consider, namely, response-ability. 

Yes, it has been throughout those vast periods of time, that our ability to respond to our environment has driven our ever-successful evolution. Remember that this process of evolution has not stopped and that we are still very much in this process, each one of us in our own lives.

So, what has this evolution given us as human beings? Perhaps the essence of this small book is attempting to answer this major question. It would be difficult to argue that we have not developed a remarkable ability to ward off and conquer diseases wherever they come from, otherwise we would not be here to tell the story. 

It would be difficult to argue that we have not evolved to understand how to live in our environment and thrive, otherwise you would not have reached this stage of our development. It would be difficult to argue that we have not evolved an ability to think beyond the mere necessity of survival, otherwise we would not have developed all the mental skills and abilities in science and art that we enjoy today.

For most of this journey as humans, we had no medical support in this process of survival, which surely means that we all have all the necessary abilities to live long and healthy lives so long as we learn to respond intelligently to our environment, so long as we become response-able individuals. 

This is no simple achievement as it will include evaluating all those things in our environment that may be affecting us adversely or beneficially and choosing the right ones to correct, avoid or enhance.  I’m sure for primitive man this was almost second nature. Some have argued that this is exactly why we have developed our large, complex brains. 

As hunter-gatherers we had to have a truly encyclopaedic knowledge of our fauna and flora, which leaves, berries, shoots or roots were good to eat and which were poisonous, how to track down animals, grubs or insects that could be caught or found without too much effort, how to shelter from the seasonal changes of weather and how to avoid even invisible health hazards of diseases. Sadly, modern man has lost conscious awareness of this encyclopaedic knowledge and has increasingly become reliant on our survival with the advice and direction of others, especially on modern medical intervention with drugs or surgical work. 

We have almost entirely lost our ability to respond intelligently to our environment, we have become irresponsible! 

The good news is that despite our loss of response-ability we still have all those ancient inherent abilities to use and support our daily lives. This is the miraculous legacy we all have, our innate healing powers to repair tissue damage, combat harmful viruses or bacteria, to extract all the complex nutrients from our food and deliver exactly the nutritional requirements to every specialised cell in our bodies, to maintain our body temperature, our blood circulation, our breathing at just the right levels and far more. All this with the integration and help from the thousands of beneficial bacteria, viruses, and other micro-organisms that we all naturally host. 

We must all start to become more aware of our miraculous capacity for healthy living and support it in our lifestyle. This does not mean we should reject all our modern discoveries in healthcare, but we can enjoy both our inherited capabilities and our modern aids. Surely this would be a win-win approach. 

There is a growing body of well-documented, scientifically tested “spontaneous remissions” patients recovering from “incurable diseases” without medical intervention. This perhaps demonstrates the extreme impact of this miraculous healing potential we all have. I am not suggesting this extreme example of self-help is within the ability or acceptability of everyone, but it should encourage us all to ponder just how much we could help ourselves to simply lead healthier, happier, longer active lives if we only tweaked our lifestyles a little. 

“I am a Miracle!”

Read the full story in, “Be your Own Doctor of Health and Happiness” by Michael Lingard from Amazon.com, Lulu.com and from the author HERE

Michael Lingard

The post Are You a Miracle? appeared first on Wellbeing Magazine.

Notice when your eyes start gazing away from these words and your mind begins to wander. Just observe with gentleness and no judgement.

In today’s world, focusing on just one thing can be very challenging. We used to switch activities on screen every 2.5min in 2004 and between 2016-21 it has been found that we switch every 44-50 seconds. Our environment encourages this as we find ourselves subjected to many distractions, and interruptions, external or internal, on and off the screen.

When was the last time you were able to focus deeply on one thing? You know, that state of total immersion, when time stands still and you feel like you are one with the activity you are engaged in. How long do you think it lasted for?

Explore Your Ability to Focus

Be aware of your current level of attention: 

• How many distractions have you experienced while reading up to now? 
  • Write a list of the internal and external interruptions you notice.
• What inner chatter can you hear? 

Self-care:

• What effect do those interruptions have on you? 
• What can you change in your external environment to reduce the risk of distractions and support your attention?
  • Be gentle with yourself.

Dare to restore your attention daily with some of the following: 

• Read a couple of pages of a book, an article, something that brings you joy.
• Go for a mindful walk, and be present with your posture, footsteps, and environment.
• Give someone your undivided attention; maybe a hand massage(*)

What Else Could You Do?

This month I invite you to bring focus back to your life. Be attentional, intentional, and aware, practice self-care and dare to be the change you want to see in your organisation, family, community and life!

Half-Day Workshop With A Touch of Gentleness (*) Hand Massage for Family and Friends

This workshop will give you the foundation skills to share the gift of touch with family and friends. It is an introductory exploration of the energy of gentleness, a moment of self-care and it will give you the confidence to safely offer a lovely hand massage to people you know. No previous experience is necessary.

Wednesday 11th September
9.45 am – 4.40 pm
Eastbourne

Please click here for more information.

Touch matters to…

Share a special time between parents and children – Bring calm and relief to a stressed or anxious friend, colleague or yourself – Communicate when you can’t find words …

Get in touch today.

mathilde@atouchofgentleness.org – 07947 319 362

Words: Mathilde Barbier

The post Find Your Focus appeared first on Wellbeing Magazine.

Join Helen & Team for Half-Day Workshop

Wednesday 28th August, 10.00 am-12.30 pm, Rottingdean, East Sussex

A half-day workshop for those who would like to learn how to give friends and family a lovely hand massage. Minimum donation request is £20.

For More Information https://www.atouchofgentleness.org/join-us

The post The Art of Listening appeared first on Wellbeing Magazine.