This short video explains how to use an online PDF document editor that can be used by children and adults. I thought I would share this as it can reduce the amount of printing time (and costs!) for parents home schooling during the coronavirus lockdown.

Not just single mums, but for those mums everywhere in difficult circumstances, however caused, a message that you are not alone. Anxiety disorder, panic disorder, often overlapped with other conditions, too often trauma related, can be aggravated by hormonal changes or by new pressures and challenges. These can even generate anxiety and panic, among others, that you previously had not experienced.

Stay strong, believe in you.

For tips on staying well see my Ayurveda Guidance blog from my registered Ayurveda nutritional consultant practice. Advice can be given on general health including anxiety, depression, emotional and general wellbeing. See the Ayurveda - Natural Home Remedies page for more on this.

Thank you to everyone who cam along to what was to be the first and last "Understanding Dissociation & Trauma" CPD event of 2020 - for a while at least.

Here is some feedback received, overall graded "excellent". If you attended this session and would like to make any further comment, you are welcome to share this in the comments section below.

"Very informative - learnt about behaviour - brain responses. I will be able to apply to my practice".

"Reminder of a lot of things I knew plus a lot of new things which I will be able to use to develop our service response to children in schools. Very impressive".

"I feel I have developed my udnerstanding of dissociation and how to work with a person who has experienced trauma. Really liked the practical ideas bit looking at grounding techniques."

"Informative lived experience of dissociation and trauma with useful tips such as grounding techniques."

"I benefitted very much. Very informative compared to the time we have. Very honest and inspiring."

"Review of previous training. New info about NLP. Further reading - Linda Graham & Dan Siegel. Hearing Julie Anne's account was most helpful."

"I feel this has helped fill in gaps in my knowledge and the survivor experiences were very informative. I am grateful for the references because I want to learn more and look at research into dissociation."

"It was very informative. Julie-Anne is clearly very knowledgeable and it was good to hear personal experiences.

"Great insight into thought processes. Actions and reactions. Looking at triggers and the whole picture not just how a person presents at that particular time."

"Gave me useful insight and tools to use in my practice."

I will try and post some resources for adults and children, both of whom need to be mindful of their overall wellbeing at this time. Life seems to be turned upside down and over the last few days we have been doing all we can to get into a whole new routine, or way of life, one could say.

Here is a resource a client forwarded to me giving ideas for all with links to sites and organisations as well as SEN and autism specific links. Hopefully these will come in useful to someone.

I now have a wellbeing page and blog on this site offering advice on staying healthy using natural home remedies and promote natural wellbeing, something we need to be physically and mentally "up for it" right now! The main page is Natural Home Remedies - Ayurveda and the tips and advice page is A

Comment below was received from this weekend session held with some volunteers from York Mind. I much appreciated Darrin's (lead counsellor) having organised this and the invitation. Also, the commitment of the volunteer counsellor's who not only gave up part of their weekend to attend but dedicate their time to helping many others over the course of each week.

"This event opened my mind to many things I hadn't thought of before. It was a very information intensive course. Thank you for such honest and brave sharing of your personal experience"

In January 2020 I was awarded the Diploma in Ayurveda with Distinction. Ayurveda was born from the enlightenment of ancient Indian sage physicians who developed in-depth knowledge of the environment and, along with that, since all living things developed from that environment, in-depth knowledge of what it is to be human.

This understanding of nature and its direct impact on the human body and mind became a lifestyle that follows the flows of the natural environment and seeks to prevent ill-being. 

By relating the natural human system to the laws of nature, balance is ensured throughout the bodily systems. Where there is internal imbalance in any one area, ill-being can occur impacting on other areas of the body and mind. Ayurveda therefore considers the interconnectedness of the mental and physical (and spiritual) to ensure ill-being is avoided and health (equated to happiness) is maintained.

During this course of study I have adopted this lifestyle and dietary knowledge, and employed the natural remedies, in my everyday life and overcome or reduced many adverse trauma responses such as anxiety or panic attacks. Not only this, but the use of natural resources has resulted in minimal consumption of pharmaceutical products to treat common ailments, which has translated into an overall feeling of improved health.
Of many benefits which will be imparted during workshops or to those who enquire, adopting these practices is neither complicated nor costly. For instance, the natural remedies I refer to above are not rare items to be purchased from specialist vendors but herbs and spices, available from even "budget" supermarkets during the regular shop. This doesn't mean additional spending every week either as dried/powdered spices, for example, will last a considerably long time in your cupboard.

I am eager to share my experiences and knowledge in this field and events will be open to everyone with a genuine interest and open mind.

For instance, did you know that something as simple as getting out of bed perhaps half an hour earlier in the morning can improve your alertness and avoid that afternoon slump many of us have experienced? Think of the improved productivity! It can even reduce or prevent depression. Or that certain common foods should never be combined as they create toxins in the body which can aggravate and unbalance our system? Just because two things are healthy individually does not mean they are doubly healthy when consumed together!

With Ayurveda we learn to trust ourselves, our own instincts and internal voice over the media advertisments that tell us the latest time-saving packaged product is what we need to be whatever it is we want to be. Does a one-size-fits-all product really exist to meet all our unique needs?

More to come. In the meantime, I am happy to answer any queries. Contact me here.

Note, however, I am not a medical practitioner nor must any recommendations received be taken as a substitute for seeking professional clinical advice or prescriptions. The skills and techniques practiced work on the basis that essentially prevention is better than cure and therefore healthy choices to improve or maintain good health, suited to our individual constitution is beneficial and possible.

Sharing a blog post from 2017, for those interested.
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Law, legislating and mental health are complex topics, unfathomable to some and to be avoided as much as politics and religion to others. What many a layperson fails to understand is that the laws by which we lead our lives reflect the society in which we live and therefore, the process of selecting, or rather, electing those to have the power to make those laws and rules is one of the most important ones an adult can ever make.

Like so many things around us, too many of us take this right to make a careful, reasoned choice for granted and ignore the significance of and correlation between politics and law. The law-making begins with elected representatives proposing and voting in Parliament (among many other procedures) on what will affect all of our lives.

Nonetheless, it is all too common to hear of politicians being out-of-touch and being held by the public to be above the law, doing as they please and covering up facts, data and activities when they deem fit. Now, criticism is as easy to hand out as it is to tar all with the same brush. So much so that it is equally easy to forget that politicians are human beings who can not only make mistakes but often fall victim to political scheming and are as vulnerable to being made scapegoats to satisfy a political will or the egotistical grandeur of their counterparts.

The notion of being above the law mentioned above is an interesting one and we must set aside for now the concepts of laws and rules to realise that those laws and rules, and their very creation, are underpinned in UK law by this great thing known as the rule of law. It is a "doctrine", in other words, an unwritten set of principles, the starting point of which is that to whom the law applies must not be arbitrary, it must apply to every person. This includes what individually we perceive as good or bad and I will briefly describe each principle of the rule of law and consider how it is seemingly disregarded particularly in a political setting.

Retrospective legislation is one of the UK's cherished underlying principles. The essence of this is that if a law did not exist at the time an offence was committed, it cannot be applied should it later come to exist as law.

A term often heard recently is certainty, and legal certainty is one of those underlying principles in law-making. This means laws must be enforced and applied in a way that essentially is predictable and that the guilt of a person must only be determined in the normal legal manner through the normal trial process.

The next principle, equality, is fairly simple to define: everyone is equal and should receive fair treatment. It also establishes the right to protection from discrimination from the state. Outlining the rule of law principle, AV Dicey specified that the state should be seen to treat officials in the same way as ordinary citizens, i.e. through the same legal and judicial processes and in the same courts since it is important to show that the state is not being sympathetic to its own.

A further principle is fairness. Again, a simple term which means that everyone should have access to the law, i.e. know what it is, and it should be sufficiently clear to all in order to avoid unjust discrimination.

Due process is the principle which lays down that a person must only receive punishment for his or her acts where there is substantial and sufficient evidence of their guilt. A person cannot lose their liberty, for instance, until it is proven that they have committed the alleged wrong-doing.

Certainty is the first principle where we find ourselves at odds where politicians are concerned. Some would say there is nothing more brutal than having a job, then every four and a half years having to fight for it in the most public manner possible, after which life may never be the same again. More brutal is when accusations fly over a politician's activities and without proof or investigation, they are essentially subjected to public flogging fueled by the media. Where is legal certainty in the processes available to him or her in this public arena?

Many will argue the state is guilty of being sympathetic to and protecting its own. However, the flip side to this is that with the public flogging to which political figures are subjected, the target of accusations typically receives considerably less than sympathetic treatment from some of his or her political peers or seniors, all of which are again fueled by media reactions and speculation. When this happens the political target is denied the right to the same legal and judicial processes as the ordinary person.

Considering the principle of fairness, how can the notion of unjust discrimination be avoided when headlines consisting of less than half a dozen words condemn a person before any formal hearing? Surely if the state applies its own internal rules in regard to that person which results in their public flogging leaving them to metaphorically bleed to death in the face of allegations made public with no hearing or proven fact, the state is in fact guilty of unjust discrimination?

When these unofficial public proceedings take place, the political target is punished from the second an inkling of information is made public, stripped of all dignity, privacy and, significantly, rights. The question must be asked: why do these principles of justice not apply to the practices of political organisations and within governmental or parliamentary establishments?

The principle of equality before the law does not exist in these circles. Contrast an individual accused of murder, rape or offences against children with the political figure. The former can be sat down safe in his or her anonymity, with a lawyer, reviewing the allegations against them before he or she is invited to respond to any questioning and put forward his or her defence. The latter is publicly condemned to a death sentence before full facts are known or proven. This is a very worrying state to live under.

We may despise politicians and we may criticise them but if we can easily brush aside the fact they are sentient beings like the rest of us, we allow the political establishments to be a law unto themselves. Consequently, we allow the establishment to deny these people a fair hearing based on principles of equality, to subject them to discrimination by reason of their status and to ignore the principle of innocence until proven guilty that every one of us would expect. If we tolerate this, both society and the political establishment are a shambles. It must be challenged and it must be obliged to change.