At some time in our lives, many of us will have a serious illness or love someone who has a serious illness. Both the illness itself and the treatment for it usually affects the ways we think and feel. There are often a lot of emotional effects from illness including:

• Anxiety and depression (constant worrying thoughts, fearing the worst, constant feelings of unhappiness)
• Tension and pains in our muscles, brought about by stress rather than the actual illness
• Feeling unable to relax at all
• Dizziness
• Feeling faint
• Indigestion
• Difficulty in sleeping/early waking
• Irritability
• Losing interest in sex
• Loss of self-confidence
• Feelings of hopelessness and despair

Even with improved medical treatments and people surviving very serious illnesses nowadays, there’s still the feeling that things might go very wrong and we will die. The emotional impact can be overwhelming and can affect our relationships, how we socialise, our work and our spiritual beliefs if we have a faith. These effects can, in themselves, make us feel isolated from family and friends.

It’s easy to feel that other people don’t understand, even those closest to you, and that’s why it’s important to talk to the people around you and make sure that your family and friends know that you need them at this time. Don’t put on a ‘brave face’ if that’s not how you’re feeling even though you don’t want to upset them.

If they’re trying to support a loved one, or a child, with a serious illness, try to listen to what they’re saying and understand what they’re going through. If the illness is successfully treated, they will eventually feel better emotionally but this will take time. It’s important to understand that some drug treatments, such as steroids, affect the way the brain works and can cause anxiety and depression.

If it’s you or your partner who has a serious illness, both of you may feel worried about how you will cope, how your relationship will survive and how you will manage financially.  Don’t be surprised if you feel resentful and angry – this is normal because your lives have been turned upside down and, unless you got together when one of you already knew they were ill, it’s not what you expected.

It’s often difficult to ask for help with anxiety or depression, particularly when we’re physically ill because we don’t want to appear ungrateful to the medical staff who are providing physical care, it’s hard to admit we’re not coping and we often think nothing can be done about it. If you’ve been anxious and depressed in the past, you may feel that friends and family think it’s part of being ‘you’ but whether or not that’s the case, you will need as much support as possible at such a difficult time.

If you’re in pain, everything is more difficult to bear and if your mobility is affected, it will mean that you’re very dependent upon others for your most basic needs. Where your relationship is concerned, this may mean that your partner also becomes your carer and this is something that couples often find incredibly difficult. The intimate things that you once kept to yourself, can no longer be private and this will almost inevitably affect your sex life. However, it doesn’t mean that it will always be the case – this is a testing time, but with patience you may well be able to work through it together. Again, talking about your fears is a way of working through them; try to bear in mind that this hopefully won’t be your lives forever and if the prognosis is good, life will return to some sort of normality.

One of the more likely times to experience anxiety and/or depression when you’re physically ill is when you’re first told about your illness. Another time is after having major surgery and when there are unpleasant side-effects from treatment. If your illness isn’t responding to treatment, that’s a source of huge worry and anxiety and it’s natural to feel devastated by this.

If the illness comes back after it seemed as if things were improving, a recurrence of, say, a second heart attack can seem even more devastating than the first time.

When an illness is progressive, like multiple sclerosis or rheumatoid arthritis, this is very difficult to come to terms with, whether you’re the sufferer or it’s your partner or sibling who has the illness. A progressive illness has long-term implications for everyone, but there are organisations which can provide support and information (see below).

If you are caring for someone close to you with a progressive illness, recognise that you need to care for yourself too, otherwise life will become too difficult to cope well. Because a progressive illness has consequences regarding life insurance and mortgages it’s important to seek professional advice as soon as possible, regarding this.

Financially, if one of you isn’t able to work, things will be difficult – make sure that you know of any benefits that you’re eligible for and apply before things become untenable and you run up debts.

The following can also be a huge support:

Macmillan Cancer Support: Seven days a week from 8a.m. to 8p.m. Freephone 0808 808 00  http://www.macmillan.org.uk . For help with money worries and advice about work, to someone who’ll listen if you just want to talk

Arthritis Care: helpline:  0300 790 0400 email: info@arthritiscare.org.uk. Provides information and support for patients with arthritis and their families and carers.

Multiple Sclerosis UK: helpline: 0808 800 8000 Provides information on multiple sclerosis (MS), including MS and depression, plus there’s a forum for sufferers to post their views and how they’re feeling.

National Kidney Federation: helpline: 0800 169 09 36; email: Helpline@kidney.org.uk. Provides support services for patients with kidney disease and answers questions that you may have.

Samaritans: helpline: 116 123(UK) and 116 123 (republic of Ireland) ; email: jo@samaritans.org. 24 hour service, 7 days a week. National organisation offering support to those in distress who feel suicidal or despairing and need someone to talk to.

Epilepsy Action: helpline: 0113 210 8800 (UK); Freephone helpline: 0808 800 5050  email: epilepsy@epilepsy.org.uk. Provides information and support for people with epilepsy.

British Heart Foundation Heart helpline: 0300 330 331. Plenty of information available on their website and there’s an e.mail form to contact them.

British Lung Foundation: helpline: 03000 030 555; there’s an e.mail form on their website to contact them too. Lots of information, support and understanding for people affected by lung disease.

Counselling can also be of great benefit to people who are suffering with a physical illness and for those close to them, who may be their carers. Whether you are the patient of a carer, it’s rarely easy to get through the dark days and it’s not a weakness to accept that sometimes all of us need help.

Most people feel guilt at one point or another in their lives – it’s a feeling of responsibility for something that’s happened, usually bad or wrong. It can have various sources and some of it can come from childhood when parents, teachers or friends blamed a child for something that had happened, even though the child might have done something in all innocence. That feeling can follow us into adulthood and becomes a problem if it affects everyday life.

It can sometimes be a good thing because it promotes remorse and can change future behaviour in a positive way, helping us to grow as people, but it’s unproductive when someone gets into a guilt/shame cycle.

A modern-day example of this might be that a lot of first-time (and maybe second and third time) parents worry about returning to work and leaving their baby with a childminder or in a nursery. They feel it will cause untold damage to their child’s development although there isn’t any hard evidence to support this. Guilt isn’t always rational though and I know from counselling over the years that many parents have this particular guilt. Unfortunately, it produces even more irrational guilt which results in low self-esteem and clients becoming even more self-critical – not a good cycle to get into and not helpful for them or their child/children.

Sometimes we can feel guilty about events outside our control, such as not seeing a loved one before they died or being involved in a car accident where your friend was killed but you survived. This is known as ‘survivor’s guilt’ and happens when we try to make sense of something traumatic that’s occurred.

If you’re feeling guilty about something, first of all try to clarify what it is that’s causing the guilt – this is the first step to doing something about it.

If, for instance, you’ve said something that’s upset a close friend, hopefully you will learn from the mistake. From that perspective, the guilt has worked positively if you change your behaviour and stop yourself from saying something tactless to that friend or others in the future. All you can do to heal any breach is to apologise and explain why you said it, conceding that it wasn’t a helpful thing to say and that you could have handled things a lot better. Just because you’ve apologised, it doesn’t mean that your friend has to accept it but you can’t control how someone else reacts, so you may have to leave it at that and hope that time will heal any breach.

If you left the back gate open and the family dog escaped and was run over, the whole family including you, is going to be upset. Again, sincere apologies can help but this sort of loss takes time to recover from so don’t expect too much too soon, of yourself or others.

If you broke up from your partner and they’re feeling upset and tearful about this, there is bound to be guilt on your part but ultimately there might be more guilt if you stayed in a relationship that was unhappy and told him/her later down the line. Accept the guilt but tell yourself “I know this is hard but I can’t avoid this pain – to some extent it will pass and I will learn to live with it for the time-being”.

Try to reflect on the different possibilities to modify your behaviour and make a commitment to change. For example, your friend dying in an accident is a tragedy and a lot of people, including you, will be grieving which and that needs to be acknowledged, but you can try to forgive yourself and be as supportive and caring towards their family as possible. It’s easy to over-estimate what you could have done/might have done in these circumstances.  Likewise, you can’t bring back the family dog but you can make sure that you’re more careful about letting pets out of the house in future.

As well as modifying your behaviour in the future, it’s worth thinking about turning your guilt into gratitude.  Sounds strange? To do this, it’s necessary to realise that guilt can also be productive by helping you to build empathy so that transforming your own statements of guilt into statements of gratitude adds worth to those experiences. It helps to change how you view the past and turns it into something more productive.

If you write down some of the guilt that you’ve been experiencing and turn each one into a gratitude, it can really help. For instance, you can start with those statements that run along the lines of “I can’t believe that I ……..” and “I could have…………….” and change them into phrases that express gratitude in some way. An example might be: “I shouldn’t have been so critical of my partner when we were together” could be changed into “I’m grateful that I can now learn to be a lot less critical in any future relationship because I know it can be damaging” or “Why didn’t I stop gambling? It meant that my whole family fell apart” which might be changed to “I’m grateful that I’ve learnt how to control my addiction – now I can start making amends to all the people I hurt”.

Another way of dealing with guilt is to write a letter to your younger self or the person you were when you did something that you feel guilty about. When writing, use a loving tone reminding your other self that the past often offers valuable opportunities to learn, building empathy for others. Include how you behaved in a way that you wish now that you hadn’t and close the letter by writing that it is now time to forgive yourself and let it go.

Writing things down can be particularly therapeutic and as well as writing a letter to your past self, you could start a journal to put any thoughts down which threaten to overwhelm you. It’s a way of dealing with them whilst being compassionate towards yourself. At the end of the letter, try putting in some affirmations – these could include something like:

• “I am not perfect. I make mistakes, but I can learn from my past.”
• I am a good person and deserve the best despite my past actions.”
• “I’m human, just like everyone else.”

So, in summary, learning how to deal with guilt comes down to understanding what’s really happening – once you understand that, you can take control of your emotions and choose how you respond. You can start making the best decisions for you and those around you and leave some of those feelings of sadness behind you.

Your ego is the part of your identity that you consider yourself. If you say someone has a “big ego” you’re really saying that they’re too full of themselves. From that perspective, ego sounds a negative trait but we all have an ego of some description because it’s an awareness of our identity and existence.

It’s natural that if someone is good at something, they do more of it and they’re recognised for it so then they try to emphasise it.

Below are some signs of a big ego – they may or may not apply to you.  See you what you think –

You find that you continually compare yourself to others, being very competitive.

You seek acceptance and crave recognition from others.

You are often defensive about your ideas and can’t bear people to criticise them even if it’s in a constructive way.

You find ways of ‘showcasing’ your own brilliance.

The positive aspects of ego are that there’s usually optimism involved and in leaders this can be very positive as it helps people through difficult times, reminds them that there are better things ahead and they’re then slower to get discouraged by events. On the downside, it might be that a very positive person with a healthy ego won’t listen to bad news, believes that a positive outlook can overcome anything and rejects bad news or pessimism.

If your ego is in control of you, you may well experience any of the following:

Taking it personally if someone rejects your ideas, disagreeing with someone simply because you didn’t come up with the idea first, almost compulsively following someone’s lead just to keep up with them, comparing external factors like signs of wealth and status with no regard for inner values.

In fact, we all know people who behave like this but it takes a strong person to admit to engaging in this, even some of the time.  It may be that you are often in conflict with colleagues, partners or family or have trouble working within a team. Perhaps asking someone else to help you may seem  ridiculous and unnecessary and you hate doing so even though showing a little vulnerability might improve your relationships sometimes. So if you think that your own ego has got a bit too big it can  help to look at how you might change things slightly.

• Show an interest in other people – rather than talking about yourself, make eye contact with them and actively listen to what they’re saying. Ask some questions to clarify what they mean and try to focus on them rather than yourself.
• Learn to compromise – controlling your ego is partly about choosing which battles are worth fighting. Accept that it’s okay to conflicting views and learning to compromise can help with conflict. When you reach a stalemate, question whether you are disagreeing just for the sake of it so that you can stick to your original opinion. Are you willing to relent a little? Compromise doesn’t mean defeat and as long as your personal values are still intact, that’s fine.
• Change your views on what ‘success’ means – I find that in counselling as well as my private life, people tend to define success as earning lots of money in a job which is viewed as having status in our society. Work out what success means for you personally and whether not achieving a high salary is such a huge deal. Might there be some things more important in your life that no amount of money is going to improve? There are many ways to measure success other than by money, awards and trophies.
• Recognise that a certain amount of friction can be a healthy thing. If everyone is always agreeing with you, you’re only every getting one opinion which can be incredibly limiting for your career or personal growth. It’s also very ‘rarified’ because there’s no real challenge to take other peoples’ different opinions into account.
• Stop comparing yourself with others regardless of which way you do that. Playing that game can often result in anxiety and depression so by stopping the comparisons you’re able to start appreciating more. It’s possible to simply respect what people have to offer as individuals and remind yourself that no-one’s perfect, including you.
• Change the way you look at failure – at the moment it might seem like the end of the world but it can provide you with the opportunity to look at your knowledge and skills anew. Decide how you want to react to setbacks and change your plans to take into account what’s happened and find something positive in there somewhere.
• Let go of some of your expectations because they shape the way we look at things and can become a trap that we can’t find a release from. In my last blog I wrote about mindfulness and how striving to be fully present in the moment can be invigorating so that you’re not limited by past of future-orientated thinking which can be limiting.

If you’ve found this blog interesting, please do comment below.

Did you make a New Year’s resolution yesterday? A lot of us will do so, maybe to stop smoking, drink less or lose weight but it seems that only one in 10 of us will achieve our goal.  Here are a few tips to make sure that this year you succeed with your resolution:

1. Don’t wait until New Year’s Eve to think about your resolution – take some time a few days beforehand to reflect about what you’re really hoping to achieve.
2. Make only one resolution – your chances of success are greater when you channel your energy into changing just one aspect of your behaviour.
3. By breaking down your resolutions into smaller goals, you’re more likely to succeed.
4. Tell your family and friends what you’re hoping to do – they may well support you when you feel like giving up.
5. Keep reminding yourself about the benefits of achieving your goal. This will help you to keep going. Write down these benefits to look at when you’re tempted to go back to your old ways.
6. Whatever resolution you’ve chosen, try to accept that you may need help and support with it. If you want to stop smoking, visit your GP Surgery for help and guidance from a Stop Smoking Clinic, nicotine patches, lozenges or you could try hypnosis. If you want to lose weight, join a slimming club (you can do this on-line as well as attending classes). There is usually some support available whatever your resolution happens to be.
7. Don’t focus on the downside of what you’re doing. For instance, if you’re hoping to lose weight try not to think about the foods you can’t eat but focus instead on how, in six weeks’ time, you’ll be able to buy clothes that are a size smaller.
8. Expect to revert back to your old habits sometimes but treat it as a temporary setback rather than a reason to give up altogether.
9. If you feel that your success might be hampered by low self-esteem or lack of assertiveness, consider counselling to help you overcome this.

Good luck with your resolutions and don’t be too hard on yourself if you don’t manage to make all the changes that you wanted to straight away. Pick yourself up and start trying again the next day, remembering that change is difficult and that you’re doing your best!