I remember early on in our marriage shopping for a new BBQ. The store had a sale on so I bought not only a whiz bang BBQ but also a heap of extras to go with it. In the end, I had overspent and busted our budget plans. It took a few months to recover from that impulse buying spree. Nowadays, when Nicole and I are discussing a possible purchase we will often say to each other, “Let’s not do another BBQs galore!” 'Impulse buying' refers to unplanned expenditures that we make based on emotion. This is the number one... Read more →

As I teenager I loved to play RISK, a board game similar to Monopoly, but in RISK the goal is to conquer the world, not just own the houses in the neighbourhood. Each player is dealt a certain number of countries and armies to placer on them. Then through the roll of the dice they choose to attack neighbouring countries endeavouring to conquer them and expand their territory. The winner is the one who eventually conquers the world. We played it for hours, even creating multi-day games through treaties and all sorts of secret strategies. I also loved Geography while... Read more →

Yesterday, we talked about sadness and I shared a very personal poem with you. Like journalling, poetry is another way to give expression to our emotions. I am very much an amateur but writing poetry has been worth the effort. It helps me to put my feelings into words, my thoughts on to paper, and to give a voice to my emotions. [Read more of my poems here] In our modern society, men have often been known to bury their feelings and therefore to not be in touch with them. Sadly, these suppressed feelings can fester there and then burst... Read more →

Yesterday, we started talking about the mystery of our emotions. I am a fairly optimistic person and therefore I have a lot of positive emotions. My family have called me everything from 'Peter Pan' to ‘Tigger'. Yes, I do have a lot of enthusiastic energy … usually from the moment I wake up. In the first few decades of my life, I had little experience with some of the darker emotions of life such as sadness, grief, disappointment and depression. But as life has gone on, these have come into my world and added new colours to my life. Three... Read more →

Emotions. Feelings. Difficult things to understand … at least for me. I wouldn’t describe myself as an emotional person while growing up, although I would easily tear up while watching a movie that had anything to do with family. I am an Achiever type. Head down, suck it up, tough it out, get on with it, do what needs to be done … regardless of how you feel. There are many things we do in spite of our feelings not because we necessarily feel like doing them. As I have grown older, I have learnt to get more in touch... Read more →