The Manifestation Exercises I Personally Use

Manifestation, for me, is not only about saying what you want for your future. It is also about creating the time and space to understand what you are saying to yourself, what you are feeling and what you are projecting into your future. There are a few manifestation exercises that I personally use, and these are exercises that I also bring into my sessions when appropriate.

One of the most important things for me is simplicity. I do not believe you need to memorise long affirmations or follow a complicated routine. I also do not believe you need to practise manifestation at exactly the same time every day. I prefer to allow the words to come naturally according to what I need at that particular moment.

The “I Am” Exercise

One of the exercises I personally use starts with two very simple words:

I am.

I say, “I am,” and then pause for approximately two or three seconds.

Then I say it again.

I am.

I pause again for another two or three seconds.

Then, for the third time:

I am.

After the third one, I stay there for longer. I normally give myself approximately ten seconds without immediately adding anything else to the sentence.

The purpose, for me, is not to rush into saying, “I am successful,” “I am happy,” “I am wealthy,” or whatever else I think I should be manifesting. I want to stay with the simple acknowledgement of I am first.

I am here.

I exist.

I am present in this moment.

Once I feel calmer and more settled, I allow the next words to come naturally. They might be:

I am calm.

I am love.

I am peace.

Tomorrow, the words might be completely different. They might even be different later on the same day. That is perfectly fine.

I do not want to force myself to feel something simply because I have decided that those are the words I am supposed to use. If something different comes to my mind or my heart after saying “I am,” I allow myself to use those words instead.

This particular three-part “I am” sequence is my personal practice. I use the pauses deliberately because I want to give myself time to slow down rather than rushing from one affirmation to another.

Do Not Force the Words

This is something I find particularly important.

Do not turn manifestation into another responsibility that you have to perform perfectly.

You do not need to memorise my affirmations. You do not need to repeat exactly the same sentence every morning because somebody told you that this is the sentence that will change your life.

I actually prefer not to memorise mine.

I have different notebooks filled with different affirmations, prayers, thoughts and sentences. I do not use exactly the same ones every day. Sometimes I sit down and something completely different comes to me because that is what I need at that particular moment.

If you begin with “I am” and another word comes naturally, use it.

Write it.

Say it.

Listen to yourself.

The exercise should give you an opportunity to pay attention to yourself, rather than becoming another set of instructions that you have to follow.

Pen and Paper

The second manifestation exercise I use is writing by hand.

I am a strong believer in writing things down when you need to empty your mind, clear your emotions or understand what is happening inside you. For this particular exercise, I prefer pen and paper rather than writing on your phone or dictating your thoughts.

Find a piece of paper and write.

You can do this in the morning, afternoon or evening. I do not want to give you a timetable because I do not believe that you need another obligation hanging over your head. Ideally, give yourself the opportunity to write something once a day, but if all you can manage is one sentence, write one sentence.

You could write:

I love myself and I give love to the world.

Or:

I accept myself, and I accept the world and everyone else as they are.

Or:

I love myself. I am at peace. I have no pain. I am free, and I welcome love.

Or simply:

I am.

That can be enough.

The important part is giving yourself the time to stop, breathe, write and pay attention to the words you are choosing.

Write Your Own Affirmations

The sentences above are examples. They are words that came naturally to me while I was thinking about this exercise. You are welcome to use them, but eventually I want you to find your own.

If you sit down intending to write one sentence and another sentence comes into your mind, write that one instead.

Your manifestation practice belongs to you.

You may discover that one day you need to write about peace. Another day you need courage. Another day you need patience, love, confidence or forgiveness. There may also be days when you realise that what you need is simply permission to stop and rest.

Allow the words to reflect where you genuinely are.

Give Yourself Time to Feel the Words

There is a difference between quickly repeating an affirmation and actually giving yourself time to hear what you are saying.

If I say, “I am calm, I am love, I am peace,” as quickly as possible while my mind is somewhere else, I am not giving myself much opportunity to pay attention to those words.

That is why I deliberately slow down.

I breathe.

I pause.

I listen.

If I say, “I am peace,” I want to give myself a moment to understand what peace means to me at that particular time. What am I carrying that is disturbing my peace? What am I reacting to? Is something genuinely urgent, or has my body entered a state of urgency because I am overwhelmed?

The affirmation can become the beginning of a conversation with yourself.

Take the Practice Into Ordinary Life

The purpose of these exercises is not for you to feel peaceful for five minutes while sitting with your notebook and then immediately forget everything you have just said.

The practice needs to come with you into ordinary life.

Imagine that you are sitting in traffic. The car behind you is repeatedly beeping. You are becoming irritated and you can feel yourself wanting to react.

Earlier that day, you wrote:

I am kind. I am lovable. I am peace.

That does not mean the person behind you will suddenly stop irritating you. It does not mean an affirmation removes ordinary human emotions.

You can still become annoyed.

What matters is whether you can recognise the reaction and create enough space to decide what you are going to do with it.

You have already spent time reminding yourself that your peace matters. Your kindness towards yourself matters. Your behaviour matters. The person behind you cannot make those decisions for you.

That is where personal responsibility comes into manifestation.

Manifestation in My Sessions

When I work with someone in a deep session, manifestation and mindset exercises can become part of our work, but they are not something I impose at the beginning of every session.

My sessions are primarily about giving you enough time to talk, become comfortable, identify what you are carrying and work through the residual emotions and patterns that may be affecting you.

How we work with manifestation will therefore depend on you.

It depends on what you are willing to share, what we identify during the session and what you actually need. As the conversation develops, we can begin looking at the language you use about yourself and your future. From there, we can work on words, exercises and practices that are relevant to you rather than giving you a generic affirmation that could have been given to anybody.

That is also why I prefer deep sessions. I want you to have enough time to settle into the conversation. I do not want you to feel that you have to disclose everything immediately because the clock is running.

Manifestation Is Still Your Work

You can say “I am” three times.

You can write beautiful affirmations.

You can pray.

You can ask God, spirit, the universe or whatever is greater than you for guidance.

You can fill an entire notebook with the future you want.

But you still have to participate in your own life.

For me, these exercises are there to help me slow down, listen to myself, become more aware of what I am thinking and deliberately consider what I am carrying towards my future.

I do not need to force the words. I do not need to pretend that I feel wonderful when I do not. I do not need to follow somebody else's manifestation routine perfectly.

Sometimes I simply need to stop.

Breathe.

And begin with:

I am.

Manifestation: What Do We Actually Mean by It?

I have a relationship of love and not-so-much-love with manifestation. It is not that I do not believe in it, because I do, but I am cautious about the way manifestation is sometimes presented. For me, manifestation is not about sitting down, asking the universe for something and expecting it to appear because you have repeated the right words enough times. There has to be more to it than that.

In my personal understanding, manifestation is about the words, thoughts, behaviours, intentions and actions that you create for yourself to develop a positive pattern within your life. It is about what you are projecting towards your future, but it is also about what you are prepared to do between where you are now and where you want to be.

I like to think about this as Point A and Point B.

Point A is where you are right now. You might be frightened, confused, overwhelmed, uncertain or completely unsure about what you are going to do next. Point B is somewhere in your future. It might be an examination, a new job, a relationship, a house, a business, a difficult conversation or simply a different version of your life.

Manifestation, for me, is what happens between those two points.

You cannot simply stand at Point A, describe Point B beautifully and expect the distance between the two to disappear. There is work in the middle. There are decisions in the middle. There may be fear, disappointment, mistakes, learning, prayer, writing, rest, changing direction and starting again. There also has to be responsibility.

Manifestation Does Not Remove the Work

As I have been building Thrive Forward Coaching, I have been manifesting constantly, although I did not always stop to call it manifestation.

I created TFC while completing my LLM because I wanted to build something bigger than what I was already doing. I wanted something different. I wanted to support people in a more focused and concentrated way, using the areas in which I had experience, knowledge and the ability to help.

Before TFC, I had already supported people professionally and had been paid to do similar work, but I was working within somebody else's organisation and therefore within somebody else's rules. Eventually, I asked myself: why don't I do this myself?

That thought was a manifestation, but the thought did not create the business.

I had to create it.

The last twelve months have involved building the business, making mistakes, changing things, learning, writing, reviewing my services and constantly questioning what I wanted TFC to become. Every few months, I have sat down and reviewed what I have done, what is working, what I no longer want to do and what I want to do next.

More recently, one of my manifestations has been around speaking. I have been praying and asking for guidance towards speaking events because I realised that I had spent so much time inside the office building the business, writing books, creating guides and developing my work that I also needed to think about how I wanted to communicate this work outside the office.

Again, I cannot simply say, “I want to become a speaker,” and then wait.

I have to prepare myself to speak.

That, to me, is manifestation.

Manifestation Does Not Mean Pretending You Are Fine

This is where I sometimes disagree with the way manifestation is discussed.

I do not believe that positive manifestation means denying what you are genuinely feeling. If you are frightened, you are frightened. If you are grieving, you are grieving. If you are overwhelmed, then something is overwhelming you. Repeating positive sentences while refusing to acknowledge what is happening inside you does not resolve the problem.

When I was completing my LLM, I struggled enormously. There were periods when reading and writing were extremely difficult for me, while at the same time I had the responsibilities of ordinary life, caring responsibilities and everything else that did not simply disappear because I was completing a Master's degree.

I could have projected all of that fear directly into my examinations.

Instead, I had to tell myself: I am going to sit these examinations. I am going to study. I am going to understand what I am studying rather than simply trying to memorise everything. I am going to do the best that I possibly can.

And if my best is not enough this time, I will have a break, regroup and do it again.

That was extremely important.

I was not manifesting a guaranteed result. I was preparing myself to face the result.

I allowed myself to experience the emotions I was experiencing. Sometimes I cried. Sometimes I went walking in nature, took my shoes off, walked on the grass, sat beside a tree and allowed myself to feel everything that needed to come out. Then I returned to what needed to be done.

I was essentially telling myself: I know that I am frightened at Point A, but I do not want today's state of urgency travelling with me all the way to Point B.

There are things I can do between the two.

What Are You Projecting Into a Future That Has Not Happened Yet?

This is another reason I find manifestation interesting.

We normally associate manifestation with things we want. A house. Money. Success. Love. A new career. A holiday. But we also spend an extraordinary amount of time mentally projecting things we do not want.

Imagine that you desperately want a romantic relationship, but your previous experiences have left you feeling rejected or disposable. You start thinking about the relationship you want while simultaneously telling yourself:

I am not attractive enough. I am not successful enough. I am not educated enough. I do not have enough money. Nobody stays with me. I will probably be hurt again.

The future relationship does not even exist yet, but emotionally you have already begun preparing yourself for its failure.

This does not mean that thinking negatively causes another person to mistreat you. Other people remain responsible for their own choices and behaviour. Your vulnerability does not make you responsible for somebody else's harmful behaviour.

What your internal beliefs can influence, however, is how you approach situations, what you expect, how you respond, what you tolerate, the boundaries you establish and the decisions you make.

That is why I am interested in what we repeatedly tell ourselves.

Your Body Is Coming With You

There is also a nervous-system element to this conversation.

When we repeatedly imagine a future situation as threatening, we may experience very real emotional and physiological responses in the present. When something resembling that imagined situation eventually happens, our previous expectations and associations can influence how we respond.

This is why I do not want people to use manifestation simply to create fantasies about the future. I want you to pay attention to what is happening inside you now.

What are you scared of?

What do you believe is going to happen?

Can you do anything about it today?

Is the problem actually happening now, or are you experiencing today's emotional response to something that might happen later?

You are allowed to be scared. You are allowed to think about the possibilities. You are allowed to acknowledge the worst thing you think might happen. I would rather you recognise those thoughts than pretend they do not exist.

The important part is what you do next.

Sometimes the Manifestation Changes

For years, I have said that I would love a house in the countryside where my next-door neighbours are cows.

I can see it. I can describe it. I know exactly what I mean when I say it.

Then, at some point, I asked myself: do I actually want to live somewhere surrounded by cows with nobody else around me?

Maybe not.

What I realised was that the house itself was not necessarily the most important part of that manifestation. I was describing a feeling and a lifestyle. I wanted nature. I wanted peace. I wanted space. I wanted comfort. I wanted to be able to walk outside and feel connected to an environment in which I feel well.

Perhaps I will eventually have the house with the cows. Perhaps I will have neighbours and nature will be five minutes down the road.

The manifestation can evolve because I evolve.

That is why I do not believe we should become so attached to the exact picture in our minds that we fail to recognise something good when it arrives in a different form.

The Universe and Personal Responsibility

I pray. I use affirmations. I speak to God and to spirit. I ask for guidance. I put my intentions into words, and I believe there is value in putting those words out into the universe.

But I also work.

Those two things are not contradictory to me.

If I manifest a particular future but do absolutely nothing that could move my life towards it, I have removed my own responsibility from the process. If I want the house, I need to organise my life towards being able to have the house. If I want to speak professionally, I need to prepare myself to speak. If I want a healthy romantic relationship, I also need to look at myself, my expectations, my boundaries and what I am bringing into that relationship.

And sometimes I may do everything within my ability and still not receive exactly what I asked for.

That is also part of life.

My spiritual belief is that the universe listens, but I do not believe that gives me control over every outcome, every person or every event. Sometimes what comes next may not look anything like what I originally imagined.

So, Do I Believe in Manifestation?

Yes.

But I believe in manifestation with responsibility.

I believe in putting words around what you want. I believe in writing things down. I believe in prayer. I believe in positive affirmations. I believe in asking for guidance. I believe in examining the fears you are projecting into a future that has not happened yet.

I also believe in getting up and doing the work.

Manifestation, for me, is not pretending that everything is wonderful. It is not denying fear, pain or uncertainty. It is acknowledging where you are at Point A, deciding where you would like Point B to be, and then taking responsibility for what you do in the space between them.

You may reach Point B and discover that it looks completely different from what you imagined.

You may even discover that you no longer want Point B.

That is okay.

You have moved. You have learned. You have changed. And perhaps that movement was part of the manifestation too.

In the next blog post, I will share some of the manifestation exercises I personally use, including my “I am” practice, writing by hand, affirmations, deliberate pauses and the way I use these exercises to slow down, become present and think more carefully about what I am putting into my future.

My Life With Spirit: What Is It Actually Like?

People ask me quite often what it is actually like to live my life with an awareness of spirit. Have I always been like this? Have I always had this sensitivity? Do I actually see spirits? Do I hear them? Do they tell me what decisions to make? Do I ask them what I should do with my life?

The answer is not as straightforward as people sometimes expect, because my spiritual life is simply part of my life. I do not wake up every morning and enter a separate spiritual world. I wake up as Marcia. I have responsibilities, work to do, decisions to make, things to question and ordinary life to live. Spirit does not remove any of that.

I was born with these abilities. I have always had an awareness of spirit and communicated with spirit, but those abilities have changed and matured throughout my life. Some have become stronger, while others have become less noticeable. I have learned more about myself, questioned my experiences, developed my understanding and become more responsible about how I use what I have.

One of the questions people ask me the most is: Do you actually see spirits?

My answer is usually no, followed very quickly by yes, which understandably confuses people.

I do not normally see a spirit standing directly in front of me in the same physical way that I would see another human being. I do not have the experience of walking down the street surrounded by fully materialised spirits and wondering whether somebody is physically alive or not. With all honesty, I am very grateful for that because I would probably spend my life screaming.

However, how can I say that I do not see spirit when I can sometimes perceive someone beside me or see something from the corner of my eye? Sometimes I understand it as energy or presence rather than physically seeing someone. Other people describe their experiences differently. I can only explain mine.

Do I hear spirits?

Yes.

Sometimes I hear words. Sometimes information comes through intuition. Sometimes there is simply a very strong knowing or awareness. My intuition has always been strong, but that does not mean I listen to it every time.

Of course I don't.

I am still Marcia.

I can question something I already know a hundred times before finally accepting it. I have personal doubts. I have life doubts. I have ignored my intuition before, made the decision I wanted to make anyway and discovered afterwards that perhaps I should have paid more attention.

Being spiritually aware does not make me immune from being human.

Do spirits make my decisions for me?

No.

This distinction is extremely important to me. Guidance does not remove personal responsibility.

I can sit in prayer or meditation and ask my spirit team for guidance. I can ask them to help me understand a situation or show me something I have not considered. Sometimes an answer comes and sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes I understand something immediately, and sometimes I understand it much later.

But ultimately, I am responsible for what I do with my life.

I have received guidance and ignored it. I have felt very strongly in my body that something was not right for me and continued anyway. I have made mistakes. Spiritual awareness has never removed my responsibility for those mistakes, nor should it.

What has changed considerably as I have become older is how much more I respect my body, my intuition and what I understand as spiritual guidance.

Sometimes my body needs rest. It might only be one evening, one night or a little longer than I expected. In the past, I was much more likely to tell myself, Come on. Move. You need to do this. You need to do that. I would force myself to continue.

I have learned that when I continually force myself beyond what my body is telling me, eventually my body makes the decision for me and I become physically unwell. I therefore pay much more attention now. Rest is not always giving up. Sometimes it is information.

Do I ask deceased loved ones to guide me?

My personal practice is to speak primarily to my spirit team rather than continually calling deceased relatives.

That understanding developed through my own experiences. In my belief, somebody dying does not suddenly mean that their entire spiritual existence becomes centred around the people they left behind. They have their own spiritual journey, their own development and their own experiences.

If I need guidance, I ask my spirit team.

Does that mean I always receive an answer? Absolutely not.

Sometimes I receive guidance. Sometimes I receive nothing. And sometimes, in my own experience of spirit, the message is essentially: Marcia, stop now.

Apparently, the spiritual world does not exist solely to answer all of my questions.

Is spirituality part of my writing?

Increasingly, yes.

However, I want to be very clear about what I mean when I say that.

I am not saying that spirit sits down and writes my articles for me. I do the writing as I believe I am thinking and questioning. I do the connecting information, but I have spirit writing with me. I never write alone: I have a spirit co-author!

Then I do the work.

That distinction matters because spirituality does not require me to abandon my rational mind. Quite the opposite. My rationality, my curiosity, my willingness to learn and my spiritual understanding have to exist together.

This Is Not About Religion

I am not here to dictate religion to anybody. I am not a religious person, nor do I intend to become one.

I respect wherever you are in your own life. You may understand yourself as spiritual. You may believe in life after death. You may not believe in it at all. You may have an entirely different explanation for experiences that I understand spiritually.

I do not want you to put yourself into a box, and I certainly do not want you to put me into one.

I am open-minded. I am willing to learn. I want to see life through other people's eyes and understand what it might be like to walk in somebody else's shoes. Learning is enormously important to me because without learning, I cannot continue developing into the person I aspire to become.

Tomorrow, I want to be a better person than I am today.

And that brings me to something much bigger than whether somebody believes in spirits.

Human. Person. Spiritual Being.

What matters to me is what you do with your own body, thoughts, choices and decisions. How do you take responsibility for them? How do you recognise what needs changing? How do you use what you have learned to become better than you were before?

I believe we should work towards becoming better humans, better persons and better spiritual beings.

For me, those are three distinctive parts of ourselves. I am not talking about who you are as a parent, someone's child, a professional or a member of society. I am talking about you as a human being, you as an individual person and you as a spiritual being.

They complement one another, but that requires us to work on ourselves consciously, with dignity and respect.

My spiritual experiences have contributed enormously to the person I am today, but so have my mistakes, education, relationships, difficult experiences, happiness, love, pain and everything else that has formed my life.

Spirit has not made me perfect. Spirit has not removed my emotions or replaced my rational brain. Spirit has not removed my responsibility.

If anything, my understanding of spirituality has made personal responsibility even more important to me.

And This Is Part of Why I Created TFC

This is also part of why I created Thrive Forward Coaching and why my sessions developed into the deep sessions I offer today.

My experiences with spirit, the guidance I believe I have received, the lessons I have learned through pain, tears, happiness and love, and everything I have learned through my own human experiences have contributed to the way I sit with another person.

When I say that spirit is part of my work, I am not saying that I stop being Marcia and become merely a messenger. I bring my listening, reasoning, knowledge, experience, intuition and spiritual awareness into the room while the person sitting opposite me remains responsible for their own life.

That responsibility belongs to them.

Perhaps that is the most important thing my life with spirit has taught me.

I can receive guidance. I can listen. I can question. I can ignore it. I can make mistakes. I can learn. I can change my mind. I can grow. And I am still learning.

That is what my life with spirit actually looks like.

What Happens When Spirit Comes Forward in a Session?

I talk about spirituality regularly, but I don't often explain what actually happens to me when spirit comes forward during a session. I think it is important that I start talking about this more openly, particularly because spirituality is part of who I am and part of the work I do.

The first thing I want to make clear is that I don't sit down with every client expecting spiritual communication to happen. Someone can book a session with me because they need clarity about their life, work, relationships, decisions or something they are struggling to understand. They do not have to come because they want to communicate with someone who has died.

There are also people who specifically want the spiritual side of my work, and naturally those sessions are different.

For me, spiritual communication is not something that begins because I decide, “Right, now I am going to talk to spirits.” It can happen while I am listening to the client, while I am taking notes, while I am asking questions or later in the session when we have started identifying patterns and working through what the client has brought into the room.

How Does Spirit Come Forward for Me?

This is probably one of the hardest things to explain because there isn't one single way.

Sometimes I receive words. Sometimes I have a physical sensation. Sometimes something comes into my awareness very strongly. Sometimes I experience information intuitively. There are also occasions when I become aware of something without immediately understanding why it is important.

My abilities and senses have also changed throughout my life. What was particularly strong for me years ago is not necessarily what is strongest today. I have learned not to expect spiritual communication to remain exactly the same simply because I experienced it in a particular way before.

This is also why I am careful about telling other people how they should experience spirituality. My experience belongs to me. Someone else's experience may be completely different.

When something comes forward during a session, I still continue listening to the client. I don't immediately stop everything because I have experienced something spiritually. The person sitting in front of me remains the priority.

Who Comes Forward?

There isn't a list.

I don't sit there choosing who I would like to communicate with, and I don't promise a client that a particular person will come forward.

Sometimes I understand the presence to be someone connected to the client. Sometimes the information becomes clearer as the session continues. Sometimes I don't have enough information to identify anything confidently.

That distinction matters to me because I don't want to fill the gaps simply because somebody desperately wants an answer.

Grief can make us want certainty. Missing somebody can make us want one particular person to appear, say exactly the right thing and answer every question we have been carrying. I understand that desire, but I don't believe I should manufacture certainty for somebody simply because certainty would make them feel better.

If I don't know, I don't know.

What Do They Say?

This also varies.

Spiritual communication, as I experience it, is not necessarily a long conversation containing answers to everything happening in somebody's life. Sometimes what comes forward is extremely simple. Sometimes it relates to something the person has been discussing. Sometimes it appears completely unrelated initially.

And sometimes I receive something that I simply keep to myself.

Not every piece of information that enters my awareness needs to become somebody else's information.

This is particularly important in my coaching sessions because a client may not have come for mediumship or clairvoyance. I need to remain aware of the difference between what I am experiencing internally and what the client has actually asked me to do.

What Happens Inside Me?

I remain conscious of the room, the person in front of me and what we are discussing. I am still Marcia. I am still listening. I am still taking notes. I am still thinking about what the client has told me.

At the same time, there can be another level of awareness occurring alongside that conversation.

That is probably the simplest way I can explain it.

I don't disappear from the session. I don't surrender responsibility for what I say because I believe something came from spirit. If the words leave my mouth, I still have a responsibility for delivering them appropriately.

That responsibility is particularly important to me because people can be extremely vulnerable when discussing grief, death, relationships, regret, guilt and the people they have lost.

Spirituality does not remove my responsibility towards the human being sitting in front of me.

What If You Don't Want Spiritual Communication?

Tell me.

There is a difference between booking a session with somebody whose work includes spirituality and booking a mediumship or clairvoyant session specifically because you want communication.

You are allowed to establish your boundaries.

You can also be curious without being convinced. You can believe in life after death and question mediumship. You can be interested in spiritual experiences while wanting to examine them intellectually. You can believe completely, partially or not at all.

I don't need you to adopt my beliefs for us to have a useful conversation.

There may still be things that I experience internally during our session because I cannot promise to switch off something that has been part of my life for as long as I can remember. What I can do is remain responsible for how I work with you and respect the boundaries we have established for the session.

I Don't Expect You to Take My Word for It

This is another reason I have started writing more openly about spirituality.

For a long time, I kept much of this side of myself private. I am changing that, slowly and responsibly.

I don't expect somebody to read one of my articles and suddenly believe everything I believe. In fact, I would rather you didn't.

Question things. Think. Read. Research. Pay attention to your own experiences. Decide what makes sense to you and what doesn't.

There are things I understand spiritually because of my own experiences, and there are questions I continue to have. Those two things can exist together.

The same applies when you sit with me.

I can tell you what I experience. I can tell you what I understand. I can tell you when I believe something has come through spiritually. But your interpretation still belongs to you.

That is an important boundary in my work.

I am a Clarity Coach who is also deeply spiritual. I don't need to remove one part of myself to make the other part more acceptable. What I do need to do is practise responsibly, communicate clearly and make sure that the person sitting opposite me remains a participant in their own session rather than becoming a spectator to my beliefs.

And perhaps that is the most important thing I can tell you about what happens when spirit comes forward.

The session is still about you.

Why Am I Your Clarity Coach?

When someone sits down with me for a session, one of the first things I often hear is, “I don't know where to start.”

My answer is usually very simple: start where you feel comfortable.

You do not need to arrive with your thoughts organised. You do not need to know exactly what the problem is, and you certainly do not need to arrive with a solution. That is part of the reason you are there. You may have one particular issue that you believe you want to discuss, or you may have several things happening at the same time and have no idea which one deserves your attention first.

You may also wonder whether we are going to talk about spirituality or spirits. The answer is that we can, but we do not necessarily have to start there. Some people come to me specifically because they want to explore their spirituality. Others are curious about it but are much more interested in the academic, philosophical or scientific questions surrounding spiritual experiences. Some people do not want that conversation at all. The session starts with you, not with my spiritual beliefs.

I Listen Before I Start Looking for Answers

Once you start talking, I listen.

I listen and take notes. I try not to interrupt unnecessarily because I want to understand how you see your own situation before I begin asking you to look at it differently. Sometimes I will ask a question because something you have said needs clarification. Sometimes I will write something down and leave it alone for a while because I want to hear what else you have to say before deciding whether that particular point is important.

While I am listening, I am also paying attention to patterns. I pay attention to timelines, relationships, important ages, decisions, changes in behaviour, repeated situations and the way you describe particular periods of your life.

I am not creating those patterns for you. I am looking at what you have already told me and evidencing the connections that appear to be there.

This is where one of the exercises I use naturally within my work becomes important: working backwards.

I have used this way of thinking for most of my life. I start with what is happening now and slowly work backwards. Sometimes we can go back many years. Sometimes we cannot. Some people are comfortable exploring their childhood or teenage years, while others do not want to go anywhere near those periods of their lives. If you only allow me to work with the previous two years, then those are the two years we work with. I cannot and will not force somebody into a part of their life they are not prepared to explore.

The important thing is that the situation you walked into the room talking about may not exist independently from everything that happened before it.

Then We Stop and Look at What We Have

This is also one of the reasons my deep sessions are long. We are not rushing through a list of questions to reach a predetermined conclusion.

Once I believe I have enough information, I will normally stop.

We may take a couple of minutes to breathe and relax. I may ask whether you want some water, whether you want the window open, whether you need to move around the room or whether you would prefer to step outside briefly and get some fresh air. Sometimes the client wants the break. Quite often they tell me, “No, let's continue.”

Then we continue.

I go back through my notes, but I do not read everything I have written. I select the points that I believe matter and start presenting the connections one at a time. I will explain why I have connected one point with another and continue working backwards where appropriate.

You can stop me.

You can disagree with me.

You can tell me that something means absolutely nothing to you.

That is also information.

I do not need you to agree with me simply because I am your coach. Sometimes something I notice will immediately make sense to you. Sometimes it will not. Sometimes we leave something alone and return to it later. The objective is not for me to manufacture a meaning for your life. The objective is for us to look carefully at what is already there.

Where Does Spirituality Come Into the Session?

This is where my work is somewhat different, and I think it is important for me to be transparent about that.

Spirituality is part of who I am and part of how I understand my work. Intuition and spiritual awareness can therefore be present within a session, but that does not mean every session becomes a clairvoyant or mediumship session.

If you have specifically come to me for spiritual communication, that conversation will naturally be different. If you have not, we establish boundaries around what you are comfortable exploring.

I do not believe that I can truthfully present myself as one person when I am coaching and suddenly become another person when spirituality enters the conversation. My spiritual understanding, my academic learning, my professional experience, my life experience and my ability to listen are all present in the same room.

However, you are still the client. You remain responsible for what you accept, what you question, what you want to explore further and what you decide is not for you.

Identifying a Pattern Is Not the End of the Work

Finding a connection does not automatically solve anything.

Once we have identified something that appears important, the question becomes: what are you going to do with that information now?

This is where the boundary between my responsibility and yours becomes much stronger.

I can ask questions. I can show you the patterns I have noticed. I can challenge something you have said. I can offer another perspective. I can help you work backwards. I can bring you back to something you said an hour earlier that now appears to have a completely different meaning. I can also help you create practical exercises to continue the work after you leave.

But I cannot live your life for you.

Towards the later part of the session, I start considering what practical work may be useful for you. I do not necessarily arrive with a standard worksheet that I give to everybody. Sometimes I create an exercise there and then, while you are sitting in the room with me, because by that point I understand much more about what you actually need.

I particularly like practical tools such as the Eisenhower Matrix, but the tool has to serve the person. The person should not have to fit themselves into the tool.

By this stage of a long session, people can also be tired. They have been talking, thinking, remembering, questioning and sometimes discussing things they have kept inside themselves for a very long time. That is another reason I pay attention to pace and boundaries. Intensity for the sake of intensity achieves very little.

So, Why Am I Your Clarity Coach?

Because I am not there to make your decisions for you.

I am there to listen carefully enough to understand what you are actually telling me. I am there to ask questions when questions need to be asked, to recognise connections, to evidence patterns, to work backwards when that is useful and to help you distinguish between what appears urgent and what actually requires your attention.

Sometimes spirituality will be part of that conversation. Sometimes practical life will dominate it. Quite often, the two exist together because human beings do not live their lives in perfectly separated boxes.

My responsibility is to help you see more clearly.

Your responsibility begins with what you decide to do with that clarity.

That, for me, is the difference.

I am not there to become the authority over your life. I am there to sit beside you for those hours, look carefully at what you have brought into the room, and help you understand it well enough that when you leave, you are in a better position to decide what happens next.

What Happens When Science Studies Spiritual Experience?

In the last two writings, I have spoken about something that has been part of my own life for many years: the relationship between spirituality, personal experience, questioning and research.

First, I asked whether someone can coach another person and still talk about spirits. Then I explained why I no longer publicly provide lists of researchers, books and names for people to follow, and why I believe research does not begin and end with a Google search.

There is another part of this conversation that I find particularly interesting.

What happens when science studies an experience that the person experiencing it understands as spiritual?

The first thing that often changes is the language.

If I tell you that I sensed the presence of a spirit, I am describing my experience using the language through which I understand it. If someone studying human behaviour, consciousness, the brain or the experience of bereavement wants to investigate what happened to me, that person cannot necessarily begin their research by establishing that what I experienced was a spirit.

They have to investigate the experience.

What did I see?

What did I hear?

What did I feel?

Was I awake or asleep?

What happened to my body?

How long did the experience last?

Had I experienced anything similar before?

Did anybody else report something at the same time?

What happened before and afterwards?

Those questions do not necessarily confirm my spiritual interpretation, but they do not automatically take it away from me either. They create a way of examining an experience that is otherwise extremely difficult to measure.

This is where terminology becomes important.

The person having the experience may use words such as spirit, soul, intuition, presence, communication, energy or something completely different according to their own spiritual or religious understanding. A professional investigating the experience may need different terminology because they are asking a different question.

That does not necessarily mean that one person is right and the other is wrong. They may simply be approaching the same experience from different positions.

This becomes even more interesting when different areas of science become involved. The human experience does not conveniently divide itself according to university departments. Our thoughts, emotions, memories, senses, bodies and environments interact with one another. Therefore, something that one person experiences spiritually may raise questions about psychology, neuroscience, psychiatry, consciousness, sleep, memory, perception, physiology or several of those areas at the same time.

And this is where I believe we need to become comfortable with something that human beings sometimes find extremely uncomfortable:

We don't always know.

Science can investigate certain parts of an experience without necessarily being able to answer the ultimate question behind it.

If someone reports seeing or sensing a deceased relative, for example, many things could potentially be investigated about that experience. What science can investigate depends on the circumstances, the research question and what can actually be observed or measured.

The much larger question: was that genuinely the consciousness or spirit of the deceased person? Is considerably more difficult.

That distinction matters.

Sometimes people believe that because science can explain one component of an experience, the entire spiritual interpretation has therefore been disproved. Other people make the opposite mistake and believe that because science cannot completely explain an experience, the spiritual explanation must therefore have been proved.

I don't think either position helps us very much.

Not knowing is not the same as proving that something does not exist. Equally, not having an alternative explanation is not proof that our preferred explanation must be correct.

My personal position remains spiritual. I believe in spirits. I believe that the physical body is not the entirety of who we are. I have had experiences throughout my life that I understand within that framework, and I am not going to pretend otherwise simply because I am discussing science.

However, my belief is not a scientific measurement.

That distinction does not threaten my spirituality. If anything, it gives me greater freedom to ask questions.

I can believe something and still investigate it.

I can have an experience and still ask myself what happened.

I can listen to a scientific explanation without feeling that somebody is attacking my spiritual beliefs.

I can also read scientific research without expecting science to validate everything that I already believe.

This is where I think spirituality and science can have a much more mature conversation.

Science requires methods, definitions, observation, measurement, evidence, criticism and the possibility that an explanation may change when better evidence becomes available. Spiritual experience is often personal, subjective and interpreted through someone's beliefs, culture, history and understanding of existence.

Those differences do not mean that the conversation has to stop.

They tell us where the difficulties begin.

There is another responsibility here that I believe is extremely important. We should be careful when interpreting unusual experiences, particularly when another person's well-being is involved. Not every unusual experience should immediately be described as spiritual, just as I don't believe every spiritual interpretation should automatically be ridiculed or dismissed.

Sometimes a person needs spiritual support. Sometimes a person needs medical or psychological support. Sometimes those things may exist alongside one another.

Recognising the possibility of a spiritual interpretation should never require someone to ignore their physical or mental health.

This is particularly important to me because spirituality should not remove personal responsibility. It should not become an explanation for every behaviour, every decision or everything that happens to us.

If I behave badly, I cannot simply blame an energy around me.

If I make a poor decision, I still have responsibility for that decision.

If I believe I have experienced communication from a spirit, I still have responsibility for how I interpret that experience and what I choose to do afterwards.

For me, spiritual growth requires that responsibility.

And perhaps this is why I continue to find the relationship between science and spirituality so interesting. I am not looking for one to destroy the other. I am interested in what happens when we allow ourselves to investigate human experience without deciding the conclusion before we have even asked the question.

There are things we know.

There are things we are learning.

There are things we believe.

There are things we experience.

And there are still things that we simply cannot explain.

I am comfortable with that.

Perhaps the better question is not whether science can prove every spiritual experience.

Perhaps we should also be asking:

What can science actually investigate about the experience, and what remains outside the question it is currently capable of answering?

That is a much bigger conversation.

And I think it is one worth having.

Legal Insight Services Are Now Live

Legal questions can become overwhelming very quickly.

Sometimes you receive a letter and do not understand what it means. Sometimes you need to prepare a statement, organise information, respond to correspondence or understand which direction you need to take next. Sometimes you need somebody to sit with you, listen carefully and help you make sense of the information in front of you.

This is why I created TFC Legal Insight.

Legal Insight has been updated, and the services are now live.

What is Legal Insight?

Legal Insight provides legal administrative, documentation and information support.

My role is to help you understand and organise the situation you are dealing with, work through the information and documents available to you, and support you with the administrative and documentation work that falls within the services I provide.

Legal Insight is separate from my coaching work at TFC.

This is also important: Legal Insight is not a solicitor's practice, and I am not offering legal representation or presenting the service as a substitute for a solicitor. Where your circumstances require regulated legal advice or representation, you may need an appropriately authorised legal professional.

Who is it for?

Legal Insight may be useful when you have a legal or administrative matter in front of you, and you are struggling to understand, organise or communicate what is happening.

Perhaps you have documents that need organising.

Perhaps you need assistance preparing written information.

Perhaps you need help understanding the general legal information surrounding your situation.

Or perhaps everything has become so overwhelming that you simply need to sit down, explain what has happened and begin putting the information into some kind of order.

You are welcome to contact me and discuss whether the services available through Legal Insight are appropriate for what you need.

£45 Per Hour

Legal Insight services are currently charged at:

£45 per hour.

This applies to the time we spend together discussing and gathering information and to subsequent work undertaken on your matter.

The overall cost will therefore depend upon the work required and the amount of time involved. Before additional work is undertaken, we can establish what needs to be done and the time required as clearly as possible.

Please read the individual Legal Insight service descriptions for further information about what is available and what each service includes.

The Law in Human Terms — Coming Soon

There is another part of Legal Insight that I am currently developing.

The Law in Human Terms will become the writing and educational side of Legal Insight.

I intend to write about areas of law that I am studying and working within, discuss aspects of the British legal system from my perspective, and explore what legislation, legal developments and changes can mean in ordinary human language.

Where appropriate and where confidentiality allows, I may also discuss legal issues raised by cases I study or work with. Client confidentiality and privacy will remain fundamental.

I also want this space to help readers remain aware of relevant changes in legislation, rules, policy and legal developments within the areas covered by Legal Insight.

This writing is intended as legal information and education, not individual legal advice.

The Legal Insight blog is planned to begin between October and the end of November 2026.

For now, however, the services themselves are live.

If you have a legal question, documentation concern or administrative matter and believe Legal Insight may be able to support you, have a look through the available services and contact me.

Legal Insight is open.

The Law in Human Terms is coming soon.

Research Does Not Begin and End with a Google Search

In my previous writing, I asked a question that I have been asked several times: can you coach someone and still talk about spirits?

That question leads me to another conversation that I believe we need to have, particularly when we discuss spirituality, Spiritism, consciousness, life after death and experiences that we cannot easily explain.

Research does not begin and end with a Google search, and human attempts to understand spirituality did not begin with modern academic research.

I have reached a point where I no longer publicly tell people which researchers they should follow, which books they should read or which particular areas of research they should investigate. That is a deliberate decision.

It does not mean that I don't read. It does not mean that I don't research. It certainly doesn't mean that I don't want you to research. Quite the opposite. I want you to research properly and, most importantly, I want you to develop your own ability to question what you are reading.

We live at a time when an extraordinary amount of information is available to us. We have search engines, academic search engines, libraries, books, lectures, podcasts, interviews and educational material that previous generations could never have accessed so easily. There are academics and professionals discussing their work publicly. There are long lectures available online. There are conversations between people from completely different disciplines that we can sit at home and listen to.

Yet having more information available to us does not necessarily mean that we have become better researchers.

Sometimes we type someone's name into a search engine, read the first few results and believe that we have researched that person. We haven't. Sometimes we find criticism of a researcher and assume that the criticism automatically disproves everything that person has ever studied. It doesn't. The opposite is also true. Finding someone with impressive qualifications whose work supports something we already believe does not mean that everything that person says must be correct.

Research requires considerably more from us.

You have to read. You have to compare. You have to understand what the person actually investigated. You have to distinguish between someone's personal beliefs and their professional work. You have to understand what conclusions were actually reached rather than what somebody else online says those conclusions mean. You also have to be willing to read disagreement.

This is particularly important when we enter subjects such as spirituality and Spiritism because people arrive at these conversations carrying very different beliefs. Some people already believe in spirits. Some believe in an afterlife but would never use the word Spiritism. Some are religious. Some are spiritual without following a religion. Some are interested because something has happened to them that they cannot explain. Others are sceptical and simply want to understand why somebody else believes what they believe.

There is room for all of those people in a serious conversation.

What I don't believe is useful is entering the conversation having already decided that everything must either be proved or ridiculed.

My own understanding comes from years of personal experience, reading, studying, questioning and changing my mind about certain things as I learn more. I have experiences that I understand spiritually, but those experiences belong to me. I can tell you what happened to me. I can tell you how I understand it. I can tell you what I have learned from it. What I cannot do is demand that my experience becomes your evidence.

This is one of the reasons I tell people: don't take my word for it.

Go and research.

But when I say research, I don't mean typing one question into Google, reading three paragraphs and returning ten minutes later with a conclusion.

Take your time.

If you are interested in consciousness, study consciousness. If you are interested in what people report around death and dying, explore that subject. If you are interested in spirituality, understand that spirituality itself contains an enormous number of traditions, interpretations and experiences. If you are interested in Spiritism, study what Spiritism actually teaches rather than relying entirely on somebody else's description of it.

And don't only search for information that agrees with you.

If something challenges what you believe, read it. If something supports what you believe, question that as well. Ask yourself why you find one argument convincing and another one uncomfortable. Sometimes research teaches us about the subject, and sometimes it teaches us about ourselves.

There is another reason I no longer publicly provide lists of names.

When I am working privately with someone and that person demonstrates genuine curiosity about something we have discussed, that is different. I can recommend reading within the context of our conversation. We can discuss it afterwards. They can tell me what they understood, what they disagreed with and what questions it created for them. I can also make it very clear that I am giving them something to explore, not something they are required to believe.

A public blog cannot provide that same conversation.

Someone can take one name, search for that person, find a negative article or comment, and suddenly something that had been helping them understand their own experience becomes associated with an argument that may have very little to do with the actual subject they were researching. Someone else can do exactly the opposite and become so convinced by one person's work that they stop questioning altogether.

Neither response is what I want to encourage.

I want people to think.

I want people to remain curious without abandoning their judgement. I want people to be able to say, “I don't know,” without feeling that they have failed to reach a conclusion. There are questions about human existence, consciousness, spirituality and death that humanity has been asking for generations. We should not be embarrassed that we still have questions.

We should also remember that human beings were questioning existence long before we had modern laboratories, universities, search engines or the scientific terminology that we use today. Different generations have attempted to understand life, death, consciousness and human experience using the knowledge and methods available to them.

Modern research gives us extraordinary tools with which to investigate some of those questions. It does not mean that every question has been answered, and it certainly does not mean that every spiritual interpretation has been scientifically established.

That space between what we know, what we believe, what we experience and what we are still trying to understand is exactly where I believe some of the most interesting conversations happen.

So I am not going to give you a convenient list at the end of this blog.

I'm going to give you something considerably more demanding.

A question.

What are you curious enough to research properly?

Find the subject. Read about it. Question it. Give yourself permission to disagree with what you find. Give yourself permission to change your mind as well.

Then, if you want to, come back and let's talk about it.

Because research does not begin and end with a Google search.

Can You Coach Someone and Still Talk About Spirits?

One of the questions that professionals, including therapists, have asked me is: how can you coach someone about their life and, at the same time, talk about spirits? How can you prove that spirits exist? How can you prove that when someone dies, something of that person continues to exist somewhere else?

My answer is that I cannot prove that to you, and I don't think I should pretend that I can.

These are questions that require research, discussion and, for many people, personal experience. They are also questions that human beings have been investigating for a very long time. Research into experiences associated with death, the possibility of consciousness continuing after death, near-death experiences, mediumship, unusual experiences reported by children and adults, and other questions surrounding what we call the afterlife exists. There are books, academic papers, medical discussions and decades of disagreement about what those findings actually mean.

That disagreement matters. The existence of research does not automatically prove the existence of spirits, just as the inability to explain every reported experience does not automatically prove that nothing exists beyond physical death.

My position comes from somewhere different because these questions were never purely academic for me. I have had experiences since childhood that I understand spiritually. My own sensitivities have also changed throughout my life. For example, there was a period when my sense of smell was particularly noticeable to me. That sensitivity is much less prominent now, while other senses have become more noticeable. I understand those changes through my own spiritual framework, but I am not asking you to interpret your experiences in exactly the same way.

This is particularly important when we are grieving someone we love. You may find yourself wondering where that person has gone, whether anything of them remains and whether there is any possibility of connection.

Within my own spiritual practice, prayer and meditation are ways in which I approach those questions. I believe people can ask for spiritual guidance and support concerning someone they have lost. However, I would never tell someone that an answer must arrive immediately, that it will arrive exactly as they expect, or that every feeling, dream, coincidence or unusual experience is necessarily communication from a spirit. That is a completely different discussion, and one that deserves considerably more care than a few sentences in a blog post.

What I would rather say to you today is this: do not take my word for it.

Research it.

And I mean genuinely research it. Read people who believe consciousness may continue after physical death. Read researchers investigating near-death experiences and reported mediumistic phenomena. Read neuroscientists and psychologists proposing conventional explanations. Read sceptical researchers as well. Look at methodology. Look at sample sizes. Look at criticism. Look at what has and has not been replicated. Then decide what you think.

The same invitation applies to professionals who disagree with me. You are entitled to believe that there is no life after death and that what I describe spiritually has another explanation. I have no difficulty with that. What I encourage is intellectual curiosity rather than dismissing a subject without examining what has actually been studied.

There is also a difference between reading about something and experimenting carelessly with something you do not understand. If you decide to explore meditation, intuition or other spiritual practices, I believe that should be done respectfully, safely and without abandoning critical thinking. Spiritual exploration should not require you to surrender your judgement.

This is one of the reasons I enjoy bringing spirituality and scientific inquiry into the same conversation. I don't need science to validate every spiritual belief I hold, and I don't need spirituality to replace science. There are places where the two can have a conversation, places where they disagree, and places where we simply do not have an answer yet.

So don't believe something because Marcia wrote it on the TFC spiritual blog. Read. Question. Research. Think about your own experiences. Then come back and talk to me.

I want these conversations to grow within the TFC community, both academically and personally, because questions about consciousness, death, spirituality and what may exist beyond our present physical experience are too important to reduce to either “of course it's real” or “that's nonsense.”

There is much more to discuss.

And we can discuss it together.

Meditation Does Not Have to Fit Inside a Box

I have practised several different forms of meditation throughout my life. I have experienced Sufi meditation, Buddhist meditation, visualisation, slow and rapid breathing practices, and different forms of sitting meditation. Some practices have worked better for me than others, and what I have learned through that experience is that I personally do not want to put meditation inside a box where everybody must follow the same ritual for their practice to count as meditation.

There are established forms of meditation that involve sitting or lying down, closing the eyes, controlling or observing the breath, changing the position of the hands, repeating particular words, using visualisation or maintaining attention for a particular period of time. I understand those methods, I have practised several of them myself, and I know how useful they can be. However, I have also learned that meditation can become part of ordinary life when we deliberately bring our attention back to what we are doing in the present moment.

You can experience a meditative state while washing the dishes if, for those few minutes, you are genuinely washing the dishes. You are feeling the water, paying attention to what your hands are doing and allowing yourself to remain with that activity rather than mentally travelling through tomorrow's problems. The same can happen when you are cooking, kneading bread or working in the garden. When I am gardening, I can become completely focused on the plant in front of me, the condition of the soil, whether it is dry, what is growing around it and even the worms underneath it. I am not trying to solve everything else happening in my life at that moment. My attention is there.

This does not mean that thoughts suddenly disappear. Thoughts will come. For me, part of the practice is learning to acknowledge them without allowing every thought to take me somewhere else. I can recognise that something needs my attention and mentally say, “I hear you. I see you. I acknowledge you, but I do not need to deal with you at this particular moment.” Some things belong to later today, some belong to tomorrow, and some do not require my attention at all. Gradually, I can return my attention to what I am actually doing.

Eventually, there are moments when I realise that my mind has become quiet. I am no longer consciously trying to empty it because my attention has naturally settled into the present activity. That, for me, is one of the most useful parts of meditation.

My own meditation practice has changed because my life has changed. There was a time when I could spend two or three hours meditating, and I genuinely enjoyed doing that. At the moment, I do not regularly practise meditation for that length of time. Life became considerably busier while I was completing my master's degree and building my business, and I allowed some of those longer practices to disappear from my routine. I could simply say that I do not have time, but that would not be completely honest. I can find five minutes. I can find ten minutes. If I organise myself properly, I can also find an hour.

So I have started using those smaller periods instead of waiting for the perfect circumstances to return. Sometimes meditation is five or ten minutes of deliberate quiet. Sometimes it is sitting properly in meditation. Sometimes it is being completely present while doing something ordinary. I am slowly teaching myself again that being busy does not mean that every available moment has to be filled with another responsibility.

You can even begin in the morning by opening your curtains and looking outside. If there are houses immediately in front of you, look upwards. Find whatever part of the sky you can see and spend a few minutes looking at it. Pay attention. Do your morning gratitude if that is part of your practice. You do not need to turn it into an elaborate ritual. Give yourself ten minutes in which your responsibility is simply to be present.

I am also returning to meditation because of the work I do with other people. If I am going to sit with someone while they are trying to gain clarity about their own life, I need to continue creating clarity within mine. Running a small business can be intense because so many different responsibilities sit with the same person. Meditation is therefore not something I want to teach while neglecting it myself. It is part of how I continue taking responsibility for my own state of mind.

Breathing is part of that practice as well. During sessions, there are moments when I will stop and breathe before continuing a difficult conversation. I sometimes encourage the other person to take that moment too, but I do not want to prescribe one perfect way of breathing to everybody. I want people to discover what helps them regulate themselves and become more conscious of what they are doing.

One of the simplest practices I use in my own life is giving myself three seconds before I respond or make a decision. I do not always remember to do it. Sometimes I react quickly and afterwards realise that I forgot my three seconds. That does not make the practice useless. It reminds me why I practise it.

Meditation, for me, is therefore not about becoming perfect at being calm. It is a practice of attention. It is repeatedly learning how to come back to what I am doing, what I am feeling and what is actually happening now. The particular method can change because our lives change. What matters is finding a practice that genuinely helps us become present rather than forcing ourselves to perform somebody else's idea of what meditation is supposed to look like.

Spiritism and Neuroscience: What Happens When Spiritual Experience Meets the Brain?

For a long time, spirituality and science have been treated as though they must stand on opposite sides of a conversation. If you believe in spirits, consciousness beyond the physical body, mediumship or life after death, you are often expected to move away from science. If you approach these subjects scientifically, you are sometimes expected to dismiss spiritual interpretations altogether. I do not believe we need to do either. I believe we can have a much more interesting and responsible conversation when we allow both areas to exist without forcing one to prove or destroy the other.

Spiritism proposes questions and interpretations about consciousness and spiritual experience. Science provides methods for investigating those experiences, their effects, their biological correlates and, where possible, the accuracy of claims made during them. That distinction is important to me because I do not believe we should take a scientific study, find something interesting happening in the brain and immediately announce that science has proved the existence of spirits. It has not. However, I also do not believe that identifying activity in the brain automatically explains away the spiritual experience itself. Observing what happens neurologically while someone is praying, meditating, reporting a spiritual presence or experiencing what they understand to be mediumistic communication tells us something extremely valuable about the brain. It does not necessarily answer every question about the origin or meaning of that experience.

This becomes particularly interesting when we talk about consciousness. Neuroscience can investigate the brain through electrical activity, neural networks, perception, memory, attention and altered states of consciousness. Spiritism approaches consciousness from a different position because it understands the human being as more than the physical body and considers consciousness capable of continuing beyond physical death. These are clearly not identical explanations, and I would never pretend that they are. The scientific question is what can be observed, measured, replicated and investigated. The Spiritist question goes further into the nature of the spirit, survival after death and the relationship between the physical body and consciousness. We therefore have to be careful about where evidence ends and interpretation begins.

This is one of the reasons I am interested in research into spiritual experiences themselves. Prayer, meditation, contemplation, silence and other spiritual practices can be studied scientifically because people are having those experiences while possessing a functioning human brain and nervous system. Researchers can observe changes associated with attention, emotion, sensory processing and the way we experience ourselves in relation to the world around us. This does not mean that researchers have discovered a single area of the brain where spirituality lives, nor does it mean that a brain scan can tell us whether God, a spirit or an archangel exists. What it demonstrates is that spiritual experiences are also human experiences and, because we experience them through our human bodies, there can be measurable biological processes occurring alongside them.

This brings me to something I have discussed many times: the difference between identifying a neurological correlate and identifying the ultimate cause of an experience. If I pray and my brain activity changes, neuroscience can investigate that change. If I meditate and my breathing, attention, emotional state or nervous system changes, those changes can also be investigated. However, if I tell a scientist that during that prayer I felt the presence of a spirit, the fact that something happened in my brain does not by itself establish whether the spirit was present or absent. The brain must participate in the experience because I am experiencing it while living inside a physical body. The more difficult question is what produced the experience and how much of its meaning can be determined through neurological measurement alone.

The same caution should apply when discussing mediumship and channelling. I have never believed that we should approach mediumship by beginning with the conclusion that every person claiming communication with spirits must be communicating with spirits. Human perception is complicated. Memory is complicated. Suggestion, expectation, emotion and unconscious processes are complicated. There are many possible explanations that have to be considered. At the same time, I do not believe the responsible scientific response is to begin with the opposite conclusion and assume that every mediumistic experience must be false, pathological or imaginary. If someone claims to experience communication with something outside themselves, we can ask questions. What happens neurologically during the experience? Does the person's brain activity change? Can information produce during the experience be independently verified? Can the conditions be replicated? What alternative explanations are possible? These are scientific questions, and asking them does not require us to decide the answer before the investigation begins.

Near-death experiences raise similar questions. People from different cultures and belief systems have reported extraordinary experiences close to death or during severe medical emergencies. Science has proposed and investigated different physiological and neurological explanations for these experiences, and research into consciousness surrounding cardiac arrest and dying continues. Spiritism interprets death very differently because physical death is not understood as the end of the spirit. Again, I do not think we need to misuse one field to defend the other. A near-death experience is not automatically proof of an afterlife simply because somebody experienced it, but neither should unanswered questions about consciousness be presented as though they have already been completely resolved. There is a considerable difference between saying, “We have possible neurological explanations for aspects of this experience,” and saying, “We now know everything that happened and therefore there is nothing else to investigate.”

Meditation is another good example because people sometimes describe meditation as though it automatically opens somebody spiritually. I would be much more careful with that language. Meditation changes the way we direct attention. It can reduce external noise and make us more aware of thoughts, physical sensations, memories and internal experiences that we may normally overlook. Someone following a Spiritist understanding may interpret certain experiences during meditation as spiritual perception or communication. Neuroscience can investigate what happens in the person's brain and body during that process. Those two descriptions can exist alongside each other without pretending that the neurological observation proves the spiritual interpretation.

We should apply the same responsibility to people who report voices, visions or the feeling that another presence is close to them. These experiences exist across cultures, religions and periods of human history, but they can also occur in psychological, neurological, sleep-related and other circumstances. There are therefore situations where medical or psychological assessment is extremely important, particularly when an experience is distressing, frightening, disruptive or represents a significant change in someone's normal functioning. A spiritual belief should never be used to discourage somebody from seeking appropriate healthcare. At the same time, acknowledging the existence of psychological and neurological explanations does not require us to ridicule every spiritual interpretation of human experience. We can remain curious while remaining responsible.

The pineal gland is perhaps one of the clearest examples of why this responsibility matters. The pineal gland has a recognised biological role, particularly in the production of melatonin and regulation of circadian rhythms. It has also acquired considerable spiritual significance in religious, philosophical and esoteric discussions, and later Spiritist literature has attributed spiritual functions to it. Those are different categories of claim. We cannot take the established biological functions of the pineal gland and use them as scientific proof that it operates as an antenna or communication centre for spirits. Claims surrounding the pineal gland, DMT and spiritual communication are frequently repeated online with considerably more certainty than the scientific evidence allows. I do not believe Spiritism benefits from exaggerating science in order to make spiritual beliefs appear more credible.

Where neuroscience becomes particularly useful to my own understanding is in the study of behaviour, repetition, attention and neuroplasticity. Human beings learn through repetition. Habits become easier to repeat because our brains and bodies adapt to what we practise consistently. This connects with something I discuss constantly in my own writing: responsibility. What we repeatedly think about, practise, choose and reinforce matters. Spiritism approaches moral and spiritual development through its own philosophical framework, while neuroscience examines learning, behaviour and changes within the nervous system. I do not need neuroscience to prove the Spiritist explanation in order to recognise that both conversations make us consider the importance of what we repeatedly practise in our lives.

For me, this is also where the conversation about spiritual development needs to move away from fascination with extraordinary experiences. Seeing a spirit does not automatically make somebody spiritually developed. Hearing something that someone interprets as a spiritual communication does not automatically make that person wiser, kinder or morally superior. Mediumship itself should not become a measurement of someone's value. My understanding of spiritual development has always been much more connected with responsibility, humility, compassion, charity, self-awareness, forgiveness, learning from our mistakes and becoming better human beings. If a spiritual practice makes us less responsible for our behaviour rather than more responsible, then I believe we should question what we are doing with that spirituality.

Science also requires humility because good science changes when better evidence becomes available. There are things about the brain that we understand far better today than we did fifty years ago, and there remain fundamental questions about consciousness that continue to be debated. Spiritism also asks us to study, question and develop our understanding rather than simply accepting everything we hear because somebody has labelled it spiritual. I find that common willingness to investigate particularly important. We should be able to say, “I don't know.” We should be able to distinguish what we believe from what has been demonstrated. We should also be able to change our minds when the evidence requires us to.

I therefore do not see neuroscience and Spiritism as two enemies fighting for ownership of the human experience. They are approaching some of the same enormous questions from very different directions. Neuroscience can investigate what happens in the brain and body while we pray, meditate, experience altered states, report spiritual encounters or approach death. Spiritism provides a philosophical and spiritual framework through which consciousness, moral development, mediumship and survival beyond physical death are interpreted. Sometimes their questions overlap. Sometimes they do not. Where a spiritual claim becomes testable, science should be allowed to test it. Where science identifies a neurological mechanism, we should accept what the evidence demonstrates rather than changing it to protect a belief.

Perhaps the most responsible place for the conversation to stand is therefore not at “science proves Spiritism” or “science disproves Spiritism,” but somewhere much more interesting. We know that spiritual experiences can affect us psychologically and biologically. We know that the brain participates in everything we consciously experience while we are alive. We know that consciousness remains one of the most difficult subject’s humans have attempted to understand. Beyond those points, there are questions that remain open.

I am comfortable with those unanswered questions. In fact, I think they are precisely why we should continue the conversation.

Spiritism does not need me to manipulate neuroscience in order to defend it, and neuroscience does not require me to abandon my spiritual understanding in order to respect it. I can study both. I can question both. I can accept evidence where evidence exists, acknowledge uncertainty where uncertainty remains, and continue asking what it means to be a conscious, biological and, in my understanding, spiritual human being.

Morning Message to the universe

I AM KIND.

I AM CAPABLE.

I AM LOVABLE.

Good morning, life. Good morning, Sunday.

To all angels and Archangels in the highest sky, I ask you to guide me through this day with love and kindness.

I ask you to send to my aid throughout the day your highest masters, so that they guide me and teach me.

I ask you for forgiveness for all the wrongs I have been making, and I will continue to make.

I want you to know that I love you and I respect you. I now ask you for healing for every single person and their extended loved ones who are reading this beautiful morning message.

Thank you for allowing me to grow, so that I can be a better human, a better spirit and a better person for myself and for others.

I love you, and I trust I am being guided by you.

TFC’s First Million

This is me, working hard and celebrating every step with laughter and tears. In between work and sessions doing what I love the most: writing,flower arrangements, table setting, and being with my son. And many other things.

Thrive Forward Coaching is celebrating its first anniversary.

When people hear the words “first million,” they usually think about money. They imagine a business reaching an important financial milestone and placing £1 million into its bank account.

TFC has not made £1 million in financial income during its first year. Financially, we are still developing. But when I look carefully at everything we have created, learned, survived and become, I recognise that we have accumulated something of enormous value.

This is what I call TFC’s First Million.

Our first million is not sitting in a bank account. It is held within the knowledge we have acquired, the experience we have gained, the mistakes we have made, the systems we have built and the clarity we are carrying into our second year.

From an idea to a living business

A year ago, TFC was an idea.

It had a name, a purpose and a developing vision, but so much still needed to be discovered. I knew that I wanted to create a space where people could step back from complicated situations, examine what was happening and find greater clarity. I also knew that I did not want to create another conventional coaching business.

During this first year, we discovered what TFC genuinely represents, and what it does not represent.

We created a business with its own identity, language, principles and spiritual foundation. We built services from nothing and continued refining them through experience. Some ideas developed beautifully. Other ideas needed to be changed, paused or removed altogether.

That process was not failure. It was part of building a truthful business.

I learned that creating a service is not simply deciding what to sell. It requires understanding what belongs within the business, what reflects its values and what can be delivered responsibly. It also requires the courage to remove something when it no longer represents the direction of the work.

TFC today is clearer because we allowed it to change.

What we created during our first year

We developed a professional website, strengthened our digital presence, and learned how to communicate through social media with greater purpose and intention.

We created books, courses, essays, guides and reflective resources. We began developing TFC Publishing and continued exploring the future direction of the Legal Insight strand.

We introduced face-to-face sessions alongside our online work and created relationships with professional venues, organisations and local communities.

We also learned that privacy and discretion are not secondary details within TFC. They are essential parts of the experience.

The people who come to TFC may be carrying personal, emotional, professional or spiritual questions. They need to know that their time, their information and their experiences will be treated with respect.

We became clearer about the people TFC is here to guide and the depth of work we are prepared to provide.

The lessons that could not be purchased

Growth is not always measured by bookings, followers or immediate income.

This first year brought disappointments. Some experiments did not work, ideas that did not attract interest and periods when the business appeared very quiet.

There were moments of uncertainty, illness and exhaustion. There were also moments when I questioned whether I was building the right thing in the right way.

But we did not abandon the business.

We learned how to change direction without losing the heart of TFC. We developed stronger professional boundaries. We learned to protect the value of the work instead of allowing pressure to decide what the work should become.

We gained practical knowledge that could never have been acquired through a business course alone.

You can study business planning, marketing, websites and client processes. However, some lessons only arrive when you are responsible for making real decisions about your own business.

You learn what you can sustain. You learn what drains you. You learn what needs to be simplified. You learn when to listen, when to reconsider and when to stand firmly behind the value of your work.

That knowledge is part of our first million.

What I brought to TFC’s first million

As Founder and CEO, I brought the original vision and spiritual foundation of Thrive Forward Coaching.

I brought professional, academic, legal, educational and lived experience. I brought books, teachings, essays, client guidance and a willingness to continue learning.

I also brought the courage to create something that did not already exist in the form I imagined.

During periods of uncertainty, illness and exhaustion, I continued protecting the purpose of TFC. I refused to force it into becoming a conventional coaching business simply because that might have been easier to explain.

The first year required leadership before there was any guarantee of success. It required me to continue making decisions, building systems, writing and refining the work even during the quiet periods.

Most importantly, it required me to become more confident in the value and depth of what I had created.

What JLove brought to our first million

JLove built and maintained the technical structure supporting TFC’s online presence.

He contributed to the development, maintenance and improvement of the website. He supported the business with analytics, digital systems, downloadable resources and practical problem-solving.

He remained patient while TFC’s direction continued to evolve, and it evolved frequently.

Many ideas began inside my mind or within handwritten notes. Somehow, he found ways to translate those ideas into practical systems and visible pages.

His work created a reliable technological foundation that TFC can carry into its second year.

What HLove brought to our first million

HLove contributed creative and practical support behind the scenes.

He assisted with social media, images, publishing and digital tasks. He brought a younger perspective to the way TFC communicates online and showed a willingness to learn while contributing to a developing business.

Many of the tasks supporting a business are small when viewed individually. Together, however, they help the larger vision move forward.

His contribution and place as a valued member of the original TFC team are part of our first-year history.

Our real first-year balance

If I were to prepare a different kind of first-year balance, it would read like this:

Financial return: yet to reflect the value created.
Knowledge earned: invaluable.
Experience gained: impossible to purchase.
Foundations created: strong.
Identity established: clear.
Team built: Marcia, JLove and HLove.
Value accumulated: our first million.

This is not an attempt to pretend that financial income does not matter. Of course it matters. A business needs to generate income, pay its expenses, support its development and compensate the people responsible for its work.

But financial success needs something beneath it.

It needs knowledge, structure, identity, professional boundaries and the ability to learn from what did not work. Those are the foundations we created during our first year.

We are entering our second year without pretending that everything has been easy or immediately successful. We are entering it knowing considerably more than we knew twelve months ago.

That clarity is valuable.

Carrying our first million forward

During our first year, TFC did not place £1 million in the bank.

We created our first million through knowledge, experience, courage, creativity, resilience and growth.

That is the capital we are carrying into our second year.

To mark this anniversary, TFC has also prepared something special for three individuals seeking meaningful clarity and direction.

You can read the complete information, including the booking period and applicable terms, here:

https://www.thriveforwardcoaching.co.uk/first-anniversary

Thank you to everyone who has followed, encouraged, questioned, read, shared or quietly supported Thrive Forward Coaching during its first year.

Thank you for the yeses, but also for the nos. Both have helped us think, learn, improve and develop stronger foundations.

Happy first anniversary to Thrive Forward Coaching, to the small team working behind the scenes and to every person who has become part of this journey.

We are entering our second year with greater clarity about what we are building, who we are here to guide and why this work matters.

Because clarity changes everything.

Before You Quit, Ask Yourself This One Question

One of the easiest habits to fall into is believing that one bad day means everything has gone wrong.

You decide to improve your health. Something gets in the way. You miss a few days, and suddenly you start thinking about giving up altogether.

You decide to focus on your career. You have a difficult day at work. Your manager is in a bad mood. Something doesn't go to plan. Suddenly, you begin questioning whether you should stay at all.

You decide to invest in yourself, learn something new, change your routine, improve your finances, or work towards a goal. Then life happens, and because one day feels difficult, you start thinking that perhaps the whole plan was a mistake.

It wasn't.

One bad day does not erase weeks, months, or years of progress.

I see this happening in different age groups for different reasons.

Some people reach their 40s, 50s, or 60s and begin developing health concerns. They know they need to make changes, but after a few difficult weeks they start thinking, "What's the point? I'm too old now."

Others are much younger. They start a job, a course, a project, or a business idea. The moment it becomes uncomfortable, they begin questioning whether it is their passion. If it doesn't feel exciting every day, they assume it must be the wrong path.

The truth is that very few worthwhile things feel enjoyable every single day.

Growth can be uncomfortable.

Learning can be frustrating.

Building a healthier life takes consistency.

Creating a career takes patience.

Developing new habits takes time.

None of those things mean you are failing.

They simply mean you are in the middle of the process.

Before you decide to quit something, ask yourself one question:

Am I giving up because this is genuinely wrong for me, or am I giving up because I had a bad day?

Those are two very different things.

Sometimes we need to change direction. Sometimes we need to adapt our approach. Sometimes we need to rest and rethink our plans.

But we do not need to restart our entire lives every time something goes wrong.

One bad day is just one bad day.

It is not the end of the story.

Looking for practical career guidance?

Over the next few days, the Legal Insight section of TFC will include free downloadable CV templates, covering letter templates, and practical resources designed to help you take your next step with more confidence.

Sometimes moving forward doesn't require a complete restart. Sometimes it simply requires the right tools and a little direction.

The Woman Motherhood Helped Me Become

Hello - the picture was taken many moons ago... afternoon tradition… baking with my little Chef….

My name is Marcia, and perhaps this is the first proper introduction I have written.

I have been living in the United Kingdom for just over twenty years now. This is my home. I am a great-granddaughter of Portuguese immigrants in Angola that have married Angolan women. A heritage of which I am very proud. Salford/Manchester is where I gave birth to my son and have been raising him.  Greater Manchester is where I have built friendships, where I have walked away from other friendships, where I have laughed, cried, learned and grown.

If you spend a little time exploring this website, you will discover different parts of who I am. You will read about my work, my journey, my books and the values behind Thrive Forward Coaching.

Today, however, I simply wanted to tell you who I am from my heart.

This month has been incredibly special for me because my son is celebrating his birthday.

As parents will understand, birthdays are never only about our children. They are also moments when we quietly reflect on the journey we have travelled with them.

I have spent this entire month celebrating him, because I am very proud of the gift of being a mother that I have chosen to accept and carry. Motherhood is one of the most incredible gifts that Mother Nature gave to us Humans. In spirituality, it also has an amazing meaning. You grow spiritually as you learn to become the best parent that you can be to your child. And please, what I am talking about is bearing a child inside of you for nine months and feeling that little human growing inside of you. It is amazing, and at the same time it is painful and ugly. Still, motherhood through biological pregnancy is probably one of the best gifts a woman can have for her entire life. Back to how I have been celebrating this month, not with extravagant plans or expensive gifts, simply by being present.

We have watched films together, spent quiet afternoons at home, talked, laughed and enjoyed one another's company. Those simple moments have become some of my favourite memories.

Parents of teenagers will probably understand exactly what I mean when I say that, for a little while, we almost lose them.

Not because they stop loving us but because growing up requires them to discover who they are. Then, slowly, they begin finding their way back to us again.

That has been one of the greatest gifts for me this year.

...

Now, the special part for me is seeing that my son, who is a person on the Autistic Spectrum, has achieved so much on its own. He dedicates himself within his own time and strength to become what he aspires to be. What an amazing gift. Being a parent/carer for your child and reaching this milestone of adulthood, you feel entitled and empowered to see that you made it. You celebrate the caring parts that once were so painful and so difficult to go through. Now is different because every seed you planted inside your child’s heart and conscience is there alive. Is pulsing inside of him and ready to become visible and used in the best possible way. For us parents of Divergent persons, we need to learn when it is time to step back. But we stay close, because our caring responsibilities never end. But we have to learn to let go, slowly if must be. But let go!

And that is where and the why I have dedicated this entire month. It is painful; I cried so many sad and happy tears. But I have to be honest with you, I am also celebrating. Because we parents of persons with a disability know and feel every single minute of the day, the pain and the struggle. Once they reach adulthood and we see they will be “OK”, it gives us a massive release and relief of the heavyweight in our hearts and thoughts. So, please, understand that I am with you; I have walked in your shoes as a parent and as a professional. I see you. Take my hug, and together we will shed happy tears.

Now…. Society … You person that keeps saying: he does not look autistic. Please STOP!!! If you look at yourself in the mirror, what do you look like? … So, please stop the uninformed comments.

Now, back to WHO I AM … I have started to redefine myself and discover myself as another person and not just a parent, probably when he turned 16 years old… It’s been a while. Who I am today has also been moulded by my solo parenthood. I have appreciation for all mothers and dads out there doing it all on their own. I love you, and I respect you.

Who I am is what you see across the website; TFC was designed and thought of as I was discovering myself as a woman, as a mother and most importantly as a professional. Now, I have lost myself a bit because building a business and being a solo parent of my autistic son sometimes felt like a really bad idea. Why? Because autistic boys and girls go through phases, and every phase we have challenges, and for them it is always amplified by their own biological system. It is beyond the person. It is embedded into their system; it’s part of them.

Building a business while raising a child on the autism spectrum has never been easy. Daily challenges; some days it was hourly challenges. Because everything interferes in a new life phase they are trying to figure out, and you need to be fully present to support and guide. And most importantly, to give reassurance and to hold them when they need it the most. The problem for me is that I love what I do. I really do. I love it! So, giving up is not part of my plans. Building TFC and holding my son has been done somehow. And I believe this is who I am: the mother, the professional, the carer. My clients have my full attention and commitment as my son does.

I want to send to all carers out there my love and my words of healing. We care for the most amazing humans. They are sent from above with special gifts, and the most important gift they have is to make us learn and grow every day. We dedicate our lives as parents/carers, and we learn to see the world with different eyes. We become more caring, more humble and more dedicated to compassion and understanding. Never underestimate a parent who is also a Carer. They have special powers. A parent who is also a carer who is most interested in their caring responsibilities and trying to not lose themselves in them is remarkable, and we must respect and learn from their resilience and amazing strength.

Thank you to all carers. I see you, I respect you, I understand you.

And this is who I am.

And you, do you know who you are?

I would love to hear/read about who you are.

Remember: we have so many versions of ourselves, and all are acceptable. You are lovable.

A little hello from my favourite office this week. ☀️

The UK is still being blessed with a very long heatwave and I am doing my best to enjoy it whenever I can.

I've barely managed to visit the sea this year, but I have been making the most of the sunshine, whether that's cooking outside, spending time in the garden, enjoying my tiny paddling pool, or simply slowing down for a few moments between work and writing.

Life at the moment feels very much like "one day at a time." There isn't a grand plan for every day. Things are unfolding naturally, and for once, I'm allowing myself to enjoy that.

At Thrive Forward Coaching, we continue to work quietly behind the scenes. We're organising appointments, improving systems, reviewing feedback, and preparing new projects that will be released over the coming months.

I also wanted to remind you that I am available for sessions.

If you are based in Greater Manchester, face-to-face sessions are available in Salford and Sale.

If you are elsewhere in the UK, online sessions remain available, and we can discuss face-to-face options where appropriate.

I currently have a small number of appointments available over the next two weeks, and regular bookings will resume from the first week of August.

I would also love to hear from you.

Whether you have read a blog post, one of the books, attended a session, or simply follow the work from a distance, please feel free to email me, send a message, or join the TFC WhatsApp Channel - 07955331663.

Thank you for continuing to read the blog, support the work, and share this journey with me.

As a small thank you, I have two paperback books available to gift. If you would like one, send me an email and tell me which title you would prefer:

📚 The Return To Self
📚 After The Return II

I will choose two readers and send them by post.

Before I go, a gentle reminder:

Please enjoy the weather.

Stay hydrated.

Rest when you need to.

Protect your energy.

Your energy influences how you think, how you feel, how you respond to life, and how clearly you can see your next step.

And most importantly, allow yourself to enjoy the small things.

The sunshine, the moment you're living right now.

Thank you for being here.

With love,

Marcia

Why do we keep saying yes when we already know we should say no?

Say no at least once a week to something that drains your energy unnecessarily. Say no to unnecessary noise and behaviours that take space in your life, that make your time unproductive towards your own personal benefit. Anything that doesn't make you productive in any shape or form towards your own personal life, towards your own personal goals, professional, whatever it is, say no to that. If you said yes, that's also okay.

Why is it okay?

Because then you have learned the lesson, the next time, or when a next opportunity surges, you can say no, or you can step back and redirect that something that you know for sure now, because you've been through it, and now you know for sure that you need to redirect or full stop no, so that you can protect your own energy, your space, your physical space, your mental space, and whatever goals you have in mind.

 What I am saying is: don't be prompt to say yes to everything. Don't always be kind. Remember, kind people get abused as well. Nice people get abused as well by other people. And quite often, people who are kind and nice are often misunderstood. So don't be afraid to say no when you feel this is wrong. Whatever is coming towards you, whatever that is, verbal communication, physical behaviours, space, environment that you're reading, say no.

Protect your energy.

What do I mean by protecting your energy?

What I mean by protecting your energy is when you're not capable of saying no, because you're so used to saying yes, and you are kind, you're a caring person. Remember, people who are carers are the ones who are more inclined to continue to say yes. Even though they've learned to say no, they will say yes even when they don't need to say yes, or when it's best for them not to say yes.

When you say no, and protect your energy, is as if you don't protect your own energy, and then after the event has happened, after the situation has happened, you're going to relive that, you're going to rethink that, you're going to complain about that, you will tend to complain about that, and you are probably going to blame yourself.

You are going to create a system within yourself: this is my fault, and you may well go and pin each point of that situation that is your fault. In reality, you are making it for yourself impossible to say no. Most importantly, impossible to protect your energy.

So, what that creates on your own personal vibration, energetic vibration, is that it creates a sense of anxiety, a sense of urgency, a sense of hopelessness, a sense of self-betrayal, a sense of I've learned to stand my ground and now I've lost it. I don't know how to recover it.

Sometimes we say yes when we want to say no. That doesn't mean we failed. It just means there is another lesson to learn.

What I want to make you aware of is that all of that is not true. All of that is not happening inside of you. Because if you have outgrown and if you have learned.

You know that you are now mature enough, emotionally mature enough to not go back to that urgency. You have outgrown your emotional insecurities; you have learned to detach from the people-pleasing behaviour.

Meaning, that is only your fear of forgetting for a second that you know exactly how not to go back to emotional urgency, emotional punishment.

Hence, I am here to remind you of that.

I am here to tell you, sometimes we say yes instead of saying no. But that doesn't mean that it's utterly bad for us. It just means it's another lesson to learn. It's another curveball for us to deal with.

And that means to remember not to make the same mistake again. Because patterns happen. Negative patterns, negative mistakes, misconceptions, misunderstandings, they happen. And sometimes they come in disguise. Sometimes the no that is approaching you, the question or the behaviour or whatever it is that is approaching you, already knows how to shake you, already knows how to make you unaware of unsettled.

Something that it does not help you. It then triggers your nervous system.

I am here to tell you that saying no is amazing. It's an amazing tool, but you don't learn to say no overnight.

And even when you create that tool within yourself, when you have that tool, when you learn to say no, even then, you will fail to say no. Because it's natural. It is human. You are a human being. You're alive. You have blood running through your veins. It is okay. Do not punish yourself. And do not blame yourself for not saying no, for saying yes instead.

By saying yes, you had somewhat chaotic events happening. Chaotic events might be that you just wanted to sleep, you just wanted to do other things, and you couldn't. Or chaotic events might be that you wanted to go on a trip somewhere else, and you couldn't because you didn't say no.

Let’s go through a scenario: You want to book a holiday at work, and because you couldn't say no, you couldn't go on holiday on that specific day.

Remember, you've already grown, learned how to grow, and you have outgrown now your emotional instability, your emotional pains, your emotional struggles, your emotional urgency. Now you are emotionally mature enough to understand that your losses when you say yes instead of no are gains in a productive way. And remember, you will not say yes instead of no more than once, more than three times. You will not. You know that. You know you will say yes once, which might be exactly the wrong time to do it.

But why is it the wrong time? Maybe there's a lesson there. Check your energy. Check how you feel afterwards. Check how you feel during the period that you decided to say yes instead of saying no.

 I want to focus on saying yes, the wrong way, saying yes at the wrong time, saying yes to the wrong places, to the wrong events, to the wrong memories, to the wrong behaviours.

 That's what I want to focus on, because we all know we have to learn to say no. Okay, full stop. We've learned that. But how do we train ourselves not to say yes? Because it's so easy to say yes when your whole life or most of your life you said yes. You know who you are. You know how easy it is for you to say yes. You know how it is for you to say yes, I can help you, yes, I can support you, yes, I can guide you, yes, I can change my holidays, yes, I can do this, yes, I can do that.

And you don't compare to the other people, you do not expect anything in exchange. You do it for goodwill. You do it just because you like to help.

When you say yes instead of the no, to change your holidays at work, and then you miss that date that you really wanted to go to this specific place because during that date there's something specific, that event that is happening there, a cultural festival. And because the dates have now changed you will miss the opportunity. And that festival is not going to happen until the next year, the same date or in a different date, but you already know you are not going to be available to commit for that next year.

How does that make you feel? Upset? Worried? Stressed?

Another scenario:

It might be something like you want to spend the day just in bed, relaxing, or just watching movies, and you can't. Because you said yes instead of saying no.

It might be that you went for a walk. You decided to go for a walk, and then your neighbour caught up with you:

Neighbour: Oh, where are you going?

You: I'm going for a walk. I'm going to do two hours walk.  

Neighbour: Okay, I'm walking with you.

You: Oh, okay, yes.

But you planned to walk on your own, to think, to relax, because you have so much gone on and you needed that headspace.

There is nothing wrong with any of those examples. Nothing wrong with that. The best part of it, the beauty of it, is that you have been allowing yourself some study time to learn to grow emotionally. And you know now how mature you are, how emotionally mature you are. To be able to feel the emotional, to feel the disappointment, the deception, then to move past it within less than 24 hours, and then to move on. You know how to do that. That's the important part.

Because sometimes we say yes when we want to say no, and we stick to that. And we feel that pain, and we feel it for over and over and over and over again. Sometimes we tend to verbalize things, negative things or behaviours, but that does not mean you are feeling in your heart.

 That's what I mean.

As long as you don't feel it for more than 24 hours, it's good. It's all good. But even if you still verbalise it after 24 hours, try to reduce it.

Because you are just reminding your brain. In reality, you are just playing it over and over and over again to understand how you could not say no.

How could you choose the yes instead of the no? Stop doing that. There's no reason for that. Stop it. It's gone now. It's past. You cannot fix the past.

You're in the now, in the present. Focus on the now, on the present. Focus on how I can say no next time? What I do? I go for my headspace. I go and relax, empty my brain, and then I reset.

How do I say no next time? This is me, Marcia:  Well, I have to confess, with time and maturity and age, I'm a bit grumpy now. So, when I'm not happy with the situation, I tend to say no for the next time there and then, in the moment, which is a bit rude of me. And I am quite blunt when I say it, which is extremely rude of me. But if I am being honest, I do not want to lie to people. I'm not feeling happy. It's not making me happy; I simply say it. It's not about me not caring that the other person doesn't have feelings.

It is me saying to the other person, look, this is what I expect, this is what I want, this is what I need to be. And then the person comes to me with their side of it, and then we can sit and talk about it. If I'm still not happy, I prefer to say full stop, no, that's it.

 And I tend to do it (to say yes) the first time, and then the second time I am already saying no but still inclined to give it a second chance. I have learned with time to be brutally honest with people and just say it as it is. Yes, it sounds rude the way I do it. And I'm not telling you to do it like that.

Be kind to people, please. I think I'm just a bit too raw when I say things. It works for me. But then I believe people know that I'm a caring person. I don't mind. I take care of them. If they need me, I'm here. But even that, I have my limits. And when I say no, it's a no. That's it.

Find your balance. Find your balance within yourself, within your space. Find your headspace to think through it, to organise your thoughts, to organise your life, to organise your personal interior life, to organise your physical life around you, to organise your professional life, whatever it is that you need to put in order. And then from that, it will be so much easier for you to understand why the no is so important.

But I hope you understood what I was trying to say. Instead of focusing, I need to learn to say no, let's focus on how I can say, how can I not say yes in a manner that I'm protecting my own energy.

Your energy is more important than anything else. Unfortunately, if we keep saying yes, what does that do to our personal energy? What does that make you feel?

How do you feel throughout the day? How do you feel when you go to bed, are feeling heavy, are you feeling guilty, are you feeling sad?

That is what I'm trying to get to you. That's what I want you to think about.

We know for sure that we need to learn to say no. We know that. That's not the issue.

The issue is how we get there. And the best possible way to get there, in my personal opinion, in Marcia's way, is how can I say this yes, how will I say this yes, and how will I feel after I say this yes. This is Marcia's opinion.

Go for Walks Without Turning Every Moment into Productivity

One day, I went for a walk with a friend in her local park.

She is an amazing woman. She is an amazing mother. But one of the things I admire the most about her is how determined she is. When she decides, she is going to do something, she commits to it. She is very disciplined with her exercise, very mindful about her health, and she knows exactly what she wants to achieve every time she goes for a walk.

I'm not like that.

I also enjoy exercise. I genuinely love exercising. I have one of those smartwatches. I press "Outdoor Walk" and I go. The difference is that, after I press the button, I almost forget the watch is there.

My friend doesn't.

She knows exactly what pace she wants to walk, what heart rate she wants to reach, how many steps she wants to complete, and how long she wants to walk for. She has everything planned.

Meanwhile, I'm just trying to keep up.

I remember saying to her,

"Can we slow down a little? I can't walk that fast."

She smiled and said,

"Okay... but not too much. My heart rate."

We both laughed because that sentence described both of us perfectly.

We continued walking and talking about life.

She started showing me parts of the park that I had never seen before. They were building something new nearby, and she pointed out different plants and trees because she realised I enjoy those kinds of things.

Then, without even thinking about it, I looked down.

A tiny little baby toad was crossing the path between our feet.

I stopped immediately.

"Look!"

She looked down and smiled.

"I've never noticed those before."

That surprised me.

I looked at her and said,

"But this is your park. You walk here all the time."

She laughed.

"I know... I've never looked."

That stayed with me but not because she was wrong or because I was right. In all honesty, neither one of us was doing anything wrong. We had simply experienced the same walk in completely different ways. As always, she was focused on her exercise and me being the person that I am (somewhat distracted by nature) was focused on everything around me. Both of us enjoyed ourselves. We did enjoy and benefited from the walk but we definitely noticed things in different ways. This is what I mean when I say:

Go for walks without turning every moment into productivity.

I'm not saying you shouldn't exercise, I would be crazy to say such thing. Be mindful as my friend is. Be focused on your exercise goals as she is… What I'm saying is that, every once in a while, allow yourself to go for a walk without trying to achieve anything.

Walk because you're walking. Simply because you're alive and your body can still move.

Feel you’re breathing. Feel your lungs filling with air.

Notice how your arms move without you even thinking about it.

Look at where your feet are stepping.

What type of ground are you walking on?

Is it soil? Is it gravel? Is it old tree roots?

Are there little flowers growing through the cracks? Have you noticed them before?

Look at the trees. Do they look different today? Has a new branch grown? Are the leaves changing colour?

Look up. Look around. Listen.

Just notice.

A few months later, I went back to that same park by myself.

I happened to be in her town for work, and once I had finished what I needed to do, I decided to stay for a while.

I went for another walk; I chose a spot on a bench and simply sat there.

I honestly don't know how long I stayed. It felt like two hours. Which is possible, I get overly distracted by nature around me. Time just disappeared. While I was sitting there, I started watching the birds. I noticed birds I had never seen before. Bare in mind I am not a bird expert or even try to be. I know the Magpies, the pigeons, Swans, Ducks, and please forgive me if any of them are not birds.

Back to my moment in that park:

It was the beginning of spring, and they were protecting their nests.

They were talking to one another from different trees.

There seemed to be a distance of a few metres between them, yet they worked together.

One would call. Another would answer. They were alert. They were protecting their young. It was beautiful to watch. I had been to that park before several times and I had never noticed those birds. Not because they weren't there but because I hadn't slowed down enough to see them.

That is what I have learned over the years.

Every time you slow down, you notice something different. Hence every single time you allow yourself to slow down, something catches your attention that didn't catch it before. The world hasn't suddenly changed. Your attention has. And this is the reason why I'm also a big believer in walking without noise. Allow your own thoughts to have a chance to appear. Those walks have helped me more than I can explain. Whenever something is sitting heavily in my chest and I don't want to unload it onto someone else, I go for a walk.

I don't force myself to find an answer.

I don't tell myself that I must solve the problem before I get home.

I simply walk.

Movement has a way of creating clarity.

When your body starts relaxing, your mind often follows. Sometimes that's enough. If I know I need complete space to think, I don't walk somewhere that I know I'll meet lots of people. I choose somewhere quieter. Not because I don't enjoy saying hello. I do and I engage in long conversations with locals. About what? The threes, the weather, the dogs, kids, amazing random but useful information. But if I know I need to process something, I also know that stopping every few minutes to have conversations interrupts that process. So, I choose somewhere different. Somewhere I can simply keep walking.

My friend and I still laugh about that little toad. That's another thing I love about friendships.

You don't have to become the other person. You simply borrow little pieces of wisdom from one another.

I admire her discipline.

I admire the way she takes care of herself.

She's a role model for me when it comes to exercise.

She knows that.

Perhaps now she'll notice them more than just her exercise goal. That's all I'm inviting you to do. Go for a walk.

Walk for your health.

Walk for your body.

Walk for your heart.

But every once in a while... leave productivity at home.

Walk because you're alive.

Walk because there is a whole world beneath your feet and above your head that keeps quietly changing, whether you notice it or not.

And you might discover that the thing you needed most that day wasn't a faster pace.

It was simply paying attention.

What Are Your Fifteen Things?

One of the twenty-one small things I suggested we should probably start doing again was reading. Even one chapter every two days is enough.

Today, I decided to follow my own advice.

I picked up a book from my shelf, opened it at a random page, and started reading. The book was What I Know for Sure by Oprah Winfrey. The page I opened was page 99, titled Gratitude.

On that page, Oprah shares fifteen things she loves. As I read through her list, something interesting happened. I stopped reading about her life and started thinking about my own.

One of the things she mentioned was making blueberry lemon pancakes on Sunday mornings. That immediately took me back to when my son was younger. We had our own ritual. Every Saturday morning, I would make Nigella Lawson's pancakes. I used to make blueberry jam as well, but mine was made with orange instead of lemon. We would spend slow mornings together, watching cartoons and enjoying the beginning of the weekend. We did that for years.

Another thing Oprah mentioned was a rainy day and a fire in the fireplace. I smiled when I read that because it reminded me of the flat where we used to live. We had a fireplace there and I loved using it during winter, especially around Christmas. After moving into this house, we no longer had a fireplace, so we created a different tradition. During the colder months, we would light a small, safe fire in the garden. We would toast marshmallows and, being Portuguese, we would often add sardines and make sardine sandwiches. Looking back, those were beautiful moments.

Then Oprah mentioned books.

I have always loved books. At one point I owned more than one hundred of them. When we moved house, I donated many of them, but books have always been part of my life. Many were children's books in both English and Portuguese for my son. Others were dictionaries, language books and educational books. We even had books in German and Chinese because my son decided, at different points in his life, that he wanted to learn those languages.

I also owned many colouring books. In fact, I still love colouring books today. If I want to stay away from screens and truly relax, I can spend hours colouring. I admire artists enormously. I love paintings, illustrations, tattoos, and creative work. While I enjoy building furniture, organising spaces, cooking, and writing, I cannot draw to save my life. So I leave the art to the people who do it beautifully and enjoy colouring instead.

Another item on Oprah's list was sleeping until her body wanted to wake up.

I laughed when I read that because sleep is one of my favourite things. I genuinely enjoy sleeping. If my body needs rest, I allow it to rest whenever possible. During busy weeks, I often save that extra rest for Saturday mornings. I love waking slowly, looking out of my bedroom window, watching the trees move, and listening to the birds outside.

Then there was silence.

This may have been my favourite part of the list.

I love silence.

I love sitting in my garden late at night with a blanket and a cup of tea, looking up at the sky. Because I live in a city, I often have to wait until very late before the sky becomes dark enough for me to enjoy it properly. I love quiet walks. I love organising donations in silence. In fact, whenever I donate clothes, household items, or other belongings, I do it quietly. I like to think about the person who might receive those items. I donate with love and hope they will bring someone else comfort or joy.

The final item on Oprah's list was gratitude.

That is something I practice every day, although perhaps not in the organised way she describes. For me, gratitude often begins with a simple thought when I wake up.

• Thank you for another day.

• Thank you for allowing me to wake up.

• Thank you for allowing me to see my son healthy and well.

• Thank you for giving us another opportunity to live this day.

By the time I reached the end of page 99, I realised something important.

Reading is not always about learning something new.

Sometimes reading reminds us of things we already knew but had forgotten.

One page took me through years of memories, traditions, habits, people, and moments that shaped my life.

So today, I would like to ask you a simple question.

What are your fifteen things?

What are the small moments, habits, memories, and experiences that bring you joy, peace, gratitude, or comfort?

Perhaps it is time to sit down and make your own list.

Read a Book Again

One of the twenty-one small things I suggested we should probably start doing again was reading.

Even one chapter every two days is enough.

Today I decided to follow my own advice. I picked up a book from my shelf, opened it at a random page, and started reading.

The book was What I Know For Sure by Oprah Winfrey.

The page was about gratitude.

What surprised me was not what Oprah wrote.

What surprised me was what happened inside me while reading it.

One page took me back through years of memories.

• Saturday pancakes with my son.

• Fires in the garden.

• Books I used to own.

• Colouring books I still love.

• Looking at the sky after midnight.

• Sleeping until my body wakes naturally.

• Quiet moments.

Gratitude.

“I realised that reading is not always about learning something new.

Sometimes reading helps us remember things we already knew but had forgotten.”