I’ve started hearing the phrase “our new normal” when people discuss post pandemic life. According to Webster’s dictionary normal is “conforming to a type, standard, or regular pattern.” Hmmmm. A regular pattern seems a long way off.

So now we have giant hornets – murder hornets. As someone who has carried an EpiPen for stings most of my adult life, learning about yet another flying threat really gave me quite a jolt. Come on.

Threat. For the past 10 months I’ve been working on some personal rewiring – developing my self calming skills.

I can’t sleep. Or at least that’s how it feels. Maybe I am but I don’t feel rested in the morning and I’ve started to dread going to bed at night. And guess what? Most of my colleagues are saying the same things.

If you’re feeling shaky right now, it could be, that you’ve lost yours too. Without knowing it, all of us have a set of beliefs about how the world (and us in the world) work. Things like, “hard work pays off, the world is basically good, people are basically good” are like an invisible fabric operating in our lives.

“Well, look on the bright side. Now you have an angel watching over you.” More than 13 years ago a work colleague said that to me a few weeks after my brother died. They meant no harm. It was a response to my obvious distress. As humans, we often struggle in these emotional conversations – even more so when they occur at work – and we try to soothe the “unsoothable” with words.