When I started out writing my book, “Journey to Chocolate”, one of the tasks assigned to me was to do some research in book shops. Where would my planned book sit on the shelves? What were its competitors? I reluctantly set myself to looking through the self-help books. Why reluctantly? Because I didn’t like what I saw. Authors were making great claims about the level of change that could be achieved in as little as a week and, presumably, making money on the back of those claims. But worse still, as far as I was concerned, was that these claims were exploiting vulnerable people. But my book does belong in that genre, it is intended to help people help themselves, it acts as a guide as my readers set out on their own personal development journeys. It is my hope that the tools and techniques that I have included in the book will help them as they have helped me.

To explain more about what I mean let me use the words of Elaine Hanzak-Gott who wrote the foreword of my book:-

“Often personal development books are written at us – we are supposed to think that these perceived ‘greater beings’ have all the right answers and we are failing and useless in some way. The authors and speakers appear ‘to have it all’. Ann writes about herself, but with us and for us, in a way that as a woman makes you think me too. She inspires by sharing aspects of her journey which have been painful, and that inspires us to take action from where we are in life right now to where we would like to be.”

Neuroscience shows us that we can change the way we think, feel and behave, it is never too late. But real change does not happen overnight. Our brains have worked in the same old way for a long time and the pathways in our brain are well embedded. It takes time for us to lay down new ones. However one way we can do that is to repeat a new behaviour or the same affirmation every day without fail for 30 days. Only then will that affirmation start to be who we are or that new behaviour become easier.

The New Year is a time of new beginnings and it is often the time when we do make that resolution to do something different. I am writing this blog on Jan 8th. If your will power is fading or you think you will never be able to achieve that goal or dream you long for keep going. A week is never long enough. And, remember, there are people like me who are life coaches and whose purpose in life is to help and encourage people along their way and to help them overcome the barriers that are in the way.

To start off with why don't you download a chapter of my book or even buy it!!

This is what someone said about it in an e mail this week: “I must tell you that your book is so beautifully written and intuitive, it has certainly struck many a chord with me. I am still working through the end-of-chapter exercises, realizing how little time I really take to be insightful about myself. Anyway, thank you for the experience your sound advice is allowing me.”

At long last I can hold my book in my hands. It gives me such a sense of fulfilment and achievement. It is such a lovely book to hold, far more than I ever expected designed by a talented lady called Shelli Walsh who I would happily recommend.

And selling the first copy was so exciting but it’s also very scary putting something so personal out into the public arena. All those old concerns come to the fore about what people will think. But, as I was reminded only the other day by my coach “Ann, get over yourself, you have a job to do.” My job, I believe is to help women gain fulfilment in mind, body, heart and soul. That way their potential will be released into the world.

But to do that we have to attend to our mental and emotional wellbeing. We have to start realising we can’t have it all and make choices. A Simple Truths movie arrived in my inbox recently and the opening words were Mother Teresa’s: “To keep a lamp burning, we must keep putting oil in it” and it ended with these words directed at women “Take time to fill your lamp. The world needs your flame but first you need your oil.”

What us women tend to do in our pursuit of having it all is get on a hamster wheel to prove that we can. I did just that and here is an excerpt from chapter 6 of my book which describes how it was for me:-

“There’s a feeling of no choice but to be on that wheel. We become victims of the circumstances we find ourselves in. Somewhere deep inside we are not hearing our spirit crying out to be heard.”

Now I know just how hard it is to get off that hamster wheel. Indeed I ignored all the messages from my body that were telling me how stressed I was until I fell off and was ill. That seems a bit extreme but I see so many women having the same experience I want to shriek at them to stop. These are women I want to reach out to and help them change. But two things get in the way; they claim not to have the time and they probably don’t value themselves enough to give themselves the time. I wrote my online programme for just such women because I recognise that feeling of there never being a moment for me except late at night or early in the morning. This programme is one that can happen in just those times, you can grab a glass of wine and have some coaching. In making that choice you will find a place where you can take the time to reflect and look forward to what it is that your spirit is crying out for.

So if you feel I am speaking to you take some time for you to complete the free fulfilment questionnaire or contact me to learn more about the online coaching programme.

During this week I have been at a trustees’ meeting with my fellow trustees at the Joe Bingley Memorial Foundation. Two weeks ago it was the inquest into Joe’s death and Chris, her husband and founder of the charity, was talking about her death and how its impact spread not only to her family and friends but to those who witnessed her taking her own life. The ripples of postnatal depression spread far and wide.

This meeting also took place just two weeks before the launch of my book, “Journey to Chocolate” which is being held to raise money for the charity. Chapter 3 contains some of my thoughts and feelings of an undiagnosed but mild postnatal depression. Joe’s was clearly much more severe as it led to her decision to end her life. These are my experiences:-

“And I was alone, desperately alone. Yes I had and still have a wonderful husband who wanted to be far more involved but when it came to bringing up our daughter I had to do it myself. After all I was the expert wasn’t I? The health visitor clearly thought so .. she walked into our house and said in so many words that as I was a health visitor I obviously knew what I was doing. She never came to my house again. I went to the clinic week after week but she never spoke to me, never asked how Laura or I were. How many women long to be asked how they are in a genuine empathic way so that they can say how they really feel?”

“I created my own aloneness. I never asked for help. I never wanted anyone to know how useless I was. I had no family nearby and no close friends.”

“That time was one of loneliness and aloneness, the days during which I cried and she cried, the nights of trying to get her back to sleep”

“It wasn’t until years later when I learnt about post-natal depression that I realised what had been going on for me but there was no one there to recognise it at the time and of course I would always put on a brave front and say that everything was fine and I didn’t ask for help.”

What struck us when we were talking was that my experience was 30 years ago, the other trustees’ experiences were 20, 15 and 8 years ago and Chris and Joe’s much more recently. However the dreadful conclusion we came to was how little seems to have changed in terms of the help and support offered, the information given and the treatment received over that period of time.

A recent 4 children report entitled Suffering in Silence published some research looking at the plight of new mothers. It concluded that 49% of women who had suffered from postnatal depression had not sought help. That is about 35,000 women a year who are suffering in silence. Some did not realise they had the condition, others did not feel it was serious enough to seek help. Those statistics are frankly unacceptable. Our charity aims to give women the information they need and to give them a checklist of what they are entitled to so they can request services.

If you feel you want some help you can call me on my advice line which is 0906 400 6213 (£1.50 from a BT landline. Calls from mobiles & other networks may vary). Coaching may also help. Contact us if you would like to get involved with the work of the charity or book a place on the book launch on November 11th at Pryors Hayes Golf Club near Tarporley, Cheshire.

I think somewhere deep down we all want to make a mark in the world but do we know what we want that mark to be? We could call it our legacy. In particular do we know what our purpose for being in the world is? Because once we get that our lives become more meaningful and we know what we want that mark to be.

And that is why I wrote my book, “Journey to Chocolate” which is going to be launched on November 11th at an event in aid of the Joanne (Joe) Bingley Memorial Foundation, a charity set up a year ago to educate, inform and fight the stigma of postnatal depression. It is my very real privilege to be a trustee of that charity and I have a strong sense that that work will contribute to my legacy.

Many years ago I was doing a postnatal depression workshop to a group of Homestart volunteers and I found myself telling my story. I have never forgotten the response of one of the participants when she said that my story had inspired her. It was several years later when I was listening to a fellow personal developer speaking about his book that I recalled those words and decided then and there that I was going to tell my story.

So, yes, I want to inspire women to stop and reflect on their lives and look at what might be better in it. After all I don’t think any of us have that perfect life but we tend to accept what we do have in the same way we may accept a substandard meal in a restaurant. It’s not until something happens and we are pulled up short that we start to reflect and that can be the defining moment when we set out on our journeys to a life of greater fulfilment.

Here are the first 2 paragraphs of the introduction to my book and describes how that moment arrived for me:-

“It was in 11 years ago in the year 2000, that I hit my 50th birthday. I was quite happy to do that, it didn’t faze me in any way, I felt I had everything I wanted in my life; a lovely home, a wonderful and supportive husband and a daughter about to go out and make her mark in the world. I also had a challenging and rewarding career as professional lead for health visiting in the NHS, I felt it was a job for life and would serve me well for the next 10 years when I would receive my pension, a just reward for all those years working in the NHS.

What I didn’t realise was that a number of life events, ranging from the impact of going to boarding school, through mild postnatal depression, through secondary infertility, through a miscarriage had left me with the need to grieve but I had never allowed myself to do so. My way of coping was to keep busy, that way I never had to feel those intensely painful feelings which were stuffed down in the bin of my mind. But inevitably the time came when the emotional bin was full and the lid burst open, and I had to face those feelings. I had to confront the guilt, the lost confidence and low self-esteem and most of all the pain of those losses.”

Over the next few weeks up until the launch day I will be posting more blogs containing extracts from my book. I hope you enjoy them.

For more information on how I help women set out on their journeys through my life coaching programmes or you want to know more about my book click here to send an enquiry or call me on 07787 568699.

At this moment I am just two days away from going off on holiday with a dead line of finishing my book, “Journey to Chocolate”, before I go. I kept making this blog a low priority but I really couldn’t let another day go past without sharing some of my thoughts on the recent looting and rioting on our streets. I have seen riots at odd times throughout the last 20 years or so but, much as I always will condemn violence of any kind, riots in the past have had a reason; poll tax or poverty and unemployment. Maybe they have happened because there are people who feel their voices are not heard so they turn to violent demonstrations against those in authority whether it be the police or government. But these latest ones were just totally mindless.

Soon after they ended, someone expressed her concern to me that we were powerless to do anything. I had to disagree; there are a growing number of us who are remaining true to ourselves and want to have our authentic voices heard and the more of us that commit to doing this the more impact we will have. Maybe that is why I have chosen to write this blog. I don’t have any solutions but I do have some thoughts that I hope are of greater value than evicting families and stopping their benefits along with the view that we should bring back the birch; in other words treat violence with violence.

I was a health visitor for many years visiting all kinds of houses. One of the things that disturbed me was how many homes had no table, no place where the family could gather to talk about their day and most importantly no place where the rules and the norms of the family could be made. I remember some years ago reading an article by a young man who had been brought up in a sink estate in London expressing exactly those views.

Another thing that I have read a lot about and feel passionately about is in the area of infant mental health. There is a growing body of research which evidences the importance of love on the infant’s developing brain. The impact of abuse and neglect is devastating. I wonder if the growing abuse of drugs and alcohol over the past 30-40 years has meant that the focus of the parents has been on the need to feed their habit rather than the needs of the infants. A great book to read more about this is Sue Gerdhardt’s “Why Love Matters.” I wonder how much love these gang members have experienced? What kind of attachments have they made to their parents?

I fear that the normal knee jerk response of government will do nothing to make any difference. More money needs to be invested in those early years to help these vulnerable babies and children get the loving care they need. But the cynic in me knows that that doesn’t win votes whereas heavy handed punitive measures do.

But what, you may ask, has this got to do with life coaching? Honestly I’m not sure except that I strongly believe that the more we, as a nation, embrace coaching and it comes into the mainstream of our culture the less this kind of behaviour will happen but that is a tall order. Maybe a table in every home would be an easier solution!

10 years ago I was in a job for life or so I thought. I worked in the NHS as a health visitor, it felt safe and secure and I thought it would serve me well until I retired. I didn’t realise that a part of me was crying out for something else, there was a voice inside of me that wanted to be heard. What it was trying to say was “I need to sort my life out”. I didn’t hear it because I was busy trying to stay on the treadmill I had created for myself and that took all my energy. Until the day came when I couldn’t sustain it anymore. I fell off and ended up with a diagnosis of “stress related depression”, not unusual at all. It is well documented that 1 in 4 women will suffer from a mental health problem at some point in their lives.

In the end I had to hear that little voice saying “I need to sort my life out”, It had become louder and with the help of therapy and then a life coach I realised that I had to take responsibility for my life and I had to make changes if I was going to lead a more balanced, healthier and fulfilling life. And that’s just what happened and that journey has formed part of my book, “Journey to Chocolate”, which is to be published this October. Exciting times ahead I feel!

So I wonder how many other women there are that I meet on a regular basis who are also not hearing that voice or the women who are living with the feelings of guilt, lack of confidence and low self- esteem following postnatal depression or stress related illness. Because of the enormous stigma attached to any form of mental illness they are unwilling to talk about it. One of the things that now fulfils me is to help women who are ready to hear that voice “I need to sort my life out” and help them find focus, direction and a new life and to feel whole and happy again. I know it can happen because I’ve done it!