Has gratitude turned into another thing on your to-do list? Try a stock take instead. Walk round the house and actually look at what is in it.

I used to do stock takes for a living and hated them. Counting ice cream bars in the freezer at the end of a long night. But the idea works on a life. Open the cupboard. Open the fridge. Look at the clothes. Get in the car and notice that it starts. You do not have to write three things down every morning for this to land.

One thing to try: Walk into one room and look properly at what is in it. Not a list. Just look.

• (0:05) Why gratitude needs a different angle
• (1:38) Counting ice cream bars in the freezer, and hating every minute
• (3:00) Walk each room, open the cupboards, open the fridge
• (4:03) Getting in the car and noticing that it works
• (5:31) The phone box, and what we used to put up with
• (6:54) Deciding what is for tea, twice a day, forever
• (8:14) Why this beats three things written down each morning

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Steven

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Why am I so happy in a wheelchair? I get asked constantly. The honest answer is that I am not always, and I no longer think happiness is simply a choice.

I cannot feel anything below about my nipples, so half the time something is wrong and I have no idea. I do not look at the accident through rose tinted glasses and imagine the better life I would have had. There was no other deal on the table. Happiness moves depending on where you are standing. At the doctors, happiness is just wanting the ordinary day back.

One thing to try: Notice where your happiness is being measured from today. It moves, and that is most of the answer.

• (0:08) The question I get asked more than any other
• (1:49) Not feeling anything below the chest, and what that hides
• (3:20) Looking for the gift instead of the alternative life
• (4:19) There was no other deal on the table
• (5:55) Being open to whatever the day does, including disagreement
• (7:36) Getting things done without your life depending on it
• (8:58) At the doctors, happiness is just wanting the mundane back
• (10:05) These are only my thoughts today, and I will be wrong again

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Steven

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Why is it so hard to love yourself when everybody keeps telling you to just do it?

Not the narcissistic kind. The ordinary kind. Here is the problem. You have seen your own cupboard. You know every skeleton in it, and you compare that to everybody else's beach photos. They post the day out. They do not post the hell that started at teatime. We are the only person whose full history we have to sit with. So we sit in shame and call it honesty.

One thing to try: Go easy on yourself today. That is it. That is the love.

• (1:26) Not the self-love that means I am amazing
• (2:39) Why it takes time, and where it starts
• (3:45) When I thought I was a doctor and a vet and an oracle
• (5:14) We are the only ones who see our own history
• (6:24) The beach photo and the teatime nobody posts
• (8:13) Go easy on yourself. That is love

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Steven

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Why will your body not let you fall asleep? Because it is checking you are safe. Sleep evolved to happen in a cave, and your bedroom has to convince it.

I could not function, could not think straight, and the drinking each night made it worse. The survival mechanism will not stand down until the room feels safe. So drop the temperature. And go to bed when you are actually ready to sleep, not before, because lying there awake teaches your body that bed is where you lie awake.

One thing to try: Cool the room and only get in when you are genuinely ready to sleep. Not before.

• (0:08) Why can I not fall asleep, and what was going on for me
• (2:44) Not functioning, and drinking each night for comfort
• (4:53) The survival mechanism that has to be overridden
• (7:44) Making the cave, and making it feel safe
• (9:56) Go to bed when you are ready to sleep, not before
• (12:05) Not worrying about the mind yet. Just the body

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Steven

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What does Elvis missing a word teach you about being perfect? If you never miss one, you practised too much, and it is probably not coming from the heart any more.

Perfectly imperfect never made sense to me until I got older. Listen to Are You Lonesome Tonight and you hear it. He cares whether he gets the words right and he cares whether he hits the notes, and the caring is the bit that lands. The wobble is not the flaw in it. The wobble is the evidence somebody meant it.

One thing to try: Let one thing today be slightly imperfect on purpose, and see whether anybody minds.

• (0:03) Four years earlier, and the conclusion I could only come to
• (2:26) Perfectly imperfect never made sense until now
• (5:02) Are you lonesome tonight, and what is in that recording
• (7:18) Caring whether you get the words right
• (9:49) Never miss a word and you have practised too much
• (12:07) His reasons for saying it, and your opinion of it

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Steven

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What happens when you sit and properly listen to people you disagree with? I ran out of excuses, went to the council meetings, and found it genuinely fascinating.

It did not mean I agreed with them at the end. Sometimes I really did not. But sitting in an echo chamber of only your own opinions makes them so loud you lose the peace. One side says pick yourself up and get on with it. The other says it is not always that simple. Both are describing something real from where they are standing.

One thing to try: Listen to one person you disagree with, all the way through, without preparing your answer.

• (0:06) A question that made me think this week
• (2:35) Running out of excuses, and going into the meetings
• (4:20) Listening to the opposite side, and finding it fascinating
• (6:40) Hello cat, please do not eat my peanuts
• (9:13) Pick yourself up, versus it is not always that simple
• (11:07) Still catching myself at it, less than I used to
• (15:30) The echo chamber gets so loud there is no peace left

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Steven

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Can there be anything good about being paralysed? Seven things, and I am only half joking about most of them.

Reframing is one of the most useful skills we have. It does not delete the bad. It makes it liveable. So: I do not get the aches from sitting still that my incomplete friends get. I do not do the housework. I get the comfortable seat at the cinema while everybody else chews their knees. Anything I do at all gets treated as impressive, so I can fail badly and still be fine. Some of it is genuinely not a bonus. Carers in your home is not a bonus.

One thing to try: Take one hard thing in your life and find one real gift inside it. Not a silver lining. A gift.

• (2:41) Why reframing matters more than positivity
• (5:44) Number one, and it is about aching
• (7:30) If somebody tied my legs up I would not know
• (8:47) I do not do the dusting
• (11:16) People compare me anyway, so surprise them
• (12:34) I can tell a disabled joke
• (14:08) Pendennis Castle and the grass
• (16:26) The part that is honestly not a bonus
• (20:17) Reframing does not remove the bad. It makes it liveable

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Steven

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What if this year you do not need a big change, just a slightly different altitude?

Happy New Year. We had a year with more time than we have ever had and most of us did not use it. I did not finish my book. Nobody would have judged me for watching Netflix and taking the odd call. That is the trap. You cannot have peace without some progress, and you cannot have progress without some peace. People will not start the climb unless they can do the whole mountain today, and that is exactly why they never start.

One thing to try: Pick the smallest version of the thing. Do that one. Tomorrow do it again.

• (1:35) I want you to have the best year, and I mean something specific by it
• (2:33) We were all going to read books and get fitter
• (4:13) Twenty years old, and the country music channel
• (5:27) Nobody would have judged me for doing nothing
• (6:29) Adulthood takes hold, but there are still small things
• (7:56) Peace and progress need each other
• (8:59) Halfway up the mountain today, the rest tomorrow

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Steven

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What is the first thing to do when stress has hold of you? Be quiet. Not deep breathing, not affirmations. Stop talking, and let the body come down a gear.

The damage is not the stress itself, it is the mechanism staying switched on for hours at a stretch. I am a city councillor, which qualifies me on stress. Picture the body going from a run to a walk to sitting to lying down. All you are doing is slowing it. So first, be quiet. Everything else works better after that.

One thing to try: Next time it grips, say nothing for ten seconds. That is step one and it is most of it.

• (0:04) Reducing suffering through the difficult times
• (2:36) Being on the city council, which qualifies me for stress
• (4:57) The mechanism staying alive for hours on end
• (7:38) Taking control of it rather than it controlling you
• (9:50) Number one. Be quiet. Somebody is in your face, so stop
• (12:06) Run, to walk, to sitting, to lying down
• (14:24) Why the obvious answer is not the answer

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Steven

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Is the spiritual journey really from the head to the heart? Partly. But most people then try to disconnect the head entirely, and that does not work either.

I only wanted less pain and less suffering when I set out. We start living in the body more, which is the useful half. Thoughts are not bad, they are just thoughts. Feelings are not bad, they are just feelings. A heartbeat is not a good one or a bad one. It is a heartbeat. Once you stop grading them you can approach the whole thing from somewhere steadier.

One thing to try: Take one thought and one feeling today and refuse to grade either of them.

• (0:01) The journey from the head to the heart
• (2:28) Living in the body more, and where people go wrong with it
• (4:24) We have thoughts and we do not have to do anything with them
• (6:31) A heartbeat is not a good one or a bad one
• (8:50) Spreading a little more stillness when it is needed most

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Steven

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