The Importance of Values
Without carefully considered personal values, we drift from distraction to distraction. An invitation to pause and ask: what, for you, is a life well lived?
26 July 2026 · 3 min read
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Blog
Ideas explained well, no magic recipes.
Clinically grounded articles on IFS, realistic self-compassion and healthy relationships — once or twice a month, at an unhurried pace.
Against Positive Thinking as a Painkiller
What toxic positivity costs — and the realistic alternative: acknowledging the difficulty and moving forward from there.
11 July 2026 · 3 min read
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Realistic Self-Compassion: Why It Is Not Self-Indulgence
The science of Kristin Neff and Paul Gilbert against the self-pity myth: self-compassion is tenderness with firmness — and it can be trained.
11 July 2026 · 4 min read
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The Parts Are Not the Problem — the Polarisations Are
Why "I want to change but I sabotage myself" is not a lack of willpower: two parts at war — and how the inner conflict comes unstuck.
11 July 2026 · 4 min read
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The Wound Beneath the World: Insecure Attachment and the Path to Collective Healing
How our earliest bonds shape the way we love and trust — and why each person's emotional security also transforms the world around them.
1 June 2026 · 3 min read
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Secure Relationships — Where the Heart Can Breathe
How to recognise a secure relationship: respectful communication, consistency and the capacity for repair — and the signs of a relationship that sickens from within.
1 February 2026 · 4 min read
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The Benefits of Silence
Silence is not emptiness: it regulates the body, gives emotions room and improves our relationships. An invitation to listen to it, from the Arrábida Convent.
1 November 2025 · 3 min read
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The “happily ever after” myth and the reality of relationships
Healthy relationships are not those without difficulties, but those that grow through them. What research says about real love, beyond the fairy tale.
1 October 2025 · 3 min read
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The Science and Power of Self-Love
What science says about self-love: its effects on the brain, on mental health and on relationships — and five practices for cultivating it day by day.
1 April 2025 · 3 min read
Read the article →New Beginnings
The power of new beginnings: letting go of the past, cultivating active hope and trusting in our capacity to learn and grow.
1 January 2025 · 4 min read
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The art of listening to others – building relationships through understanding and empathy
Listening is more than hearing: what active listening is, what changes in our relationships when we practise it, and six ways to develop it.
1 February 2024 · 3 min read
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We Can Agree to Disagree – Disagreement and hostility are different things
Disagreeing without hostility is possible — and it helps us grow. Six steps for debating with respect while keeping the relationship intact.
1 November 2023 · 3 min read
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A Stone Age brain in the Digital Age
We live in the digital age with a brain shaped 200,000 years ago. That mismatch explains much of today's stress and anxiety — and there are strategies to compensate for it.
1 May 2023 · 4 min read
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What Is Your Story?
The story we tell about ourselves shapes the future we are able to imagine. What if we could rewrite it with more freedom and creativity?
1 May 2021 · 4 min read
Read the article →Impostor Syndrome
Feeling that your success is undeserved is more common than it seems. Where impostor syndrome comes from and how to overcome it.
1 September 2019 · 3 min read
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The Paradox of Acceptance
Carl Rogers’s paradox: only after accepting reality as it is can we mobilise resources to transform it. What research says about suppressing thoughts and feelings.
1 April 2019 · 3 min read
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The Power of Self-Compassion
Treating yourself as you would treat a dear friend: the difference between self-compassion and self-esteem, and why self-criticism undermines motivation instead of fuelling it.
1 March 2019 · 3 min read
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Are You Stressed?
The signs of stress, what happens in the body and the brain when the alarm goes off — and the most effective ways to reduce it.
1 December 2018 · 3 min read
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Mindfulness
What mindfulness is, where it comes from and the benefits science recognises in it — with a simple suggestion for starting today.
1 May 2018 · 3 min read
Read the article →Showing the articles available in English. The full archive is available in Portuguese.
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