There’s something we don’t talk about enough when discussing loneliness. We often describe it as the absence of people, yet you can be surrounded by people and still feel profoundly alone - and this experience can elicit much shame.

What loneliness is really about, I think, is the absence of witnesses. Someone who sees you. Not the version of you that’s easier to be around. Not the you who’s holding it together. You.

People often come to therapy expecting healing to come from words. The right interpretation. The insight that finally makes sense of everything. The moment when the therapist says the thing that unlocks the door.

Sometimes it happens. Words matter. Understanding matters.

What heals most isn't what is said. It's what happens in the space between two people, something harder to name and more fundamental than language itself…

There's a time that comes in almost all long-term therapy, sooner or later. The client has done the difficult, presenting work. They've sat with the hard stuff, named what was nameless, and felt what was unfelt. Yet life is still complicated. Loss still hurts. Loneliness still visits. The difficult parent is still difficult. And sometimes, from somewhere inside, comes the thought: did it work, am I suffering less?

A question has troubled philosophers, scientists, and concerned commentators since artificial intelligence entered our homes: Does it possess awareness? Is there anyone inside? Will there be anyone inside? Does Claude or ChatGPT experience anything when it responds with what appears to be eerily warm and understanding?

It's a fair question, and I suggest we're looking in the wrong direction…

When someone we love dies, we lose their presence, the physical, everyday world of companionship. Their voice, expressions, the way they moved through a room, the warmth of shared glances, and the familiarity of conversations that needed no preamble all disappear. This is the most immediate and recognisable face of grief: the aching absence where a living presence once existed…

There is a form of shame that does not originate in childhood; it arrives later, often within institutions: A training room. A university seminar. A clinical meeting. A spiritual community.

Nothing explicit happens. No one excludes you. No rule is broken. And yet the body registers something. A tightening in the chest. A faint self-consciousness. Your voice sounds slightly different to your own ears. You become aware of yourself as if from the outside.

I have felt this in rooms where I ostensibly belonged as a trainee and later as a leader. The codes change depending on where you stand, but the body still knows when it is navigating the hierarchy.

In the Sakka-pañha Sutta, Sakka approaches the Buddha with a question that is remarkably current. Sakka is troubled by conflict. He notices that beings wish to live peacefully, free from hatred or violence, yet time and again they become involved in quarrels, rivalry, and war. He asks the Buddha directly:

“Why is it that beings who wish to live in peace end up living in hostility, hatred, and conflict?”

The Buddha’s initial reply is stark and uncompromising. He says that conflict arises from envy and miserliness.

Oppression does not arise from a dark inevitability in human nature. It happens when fear, hierarchy, and unprocessed trauma come together. Many cultures have struggled with these forces, though not all have fallen victim to them; some endured through reciprocity, others through domination.

Oppression, then, is not innate to humanity; it is a defensive structure born from wounds. What is learned through fear can, with care, be unlearned through humility.

“To love is to be in a state of perpetual want,” wrote Friedrich Nietzsche, a line that pierces straight to the heart of our restless condition. Love, for Nietzsche, was not a serene harmony but vital turbulence: the current that keeps existence in motion. To love is to reach, to desire, to yearn for what we can never wholly grasp. It is, in his view, the very expression of life’s creative yearning, the same force that drives the artist to paint, the thinker to question, the body to live.

Love, then, is not peace; it is movement. It creates a gap in the heart, an ache, a leaning, a pull towards the other. Even in moments of deep intimacy, something remains beyond reach: the ungraspable interior of the beloved. We can touch, but not merge; understand, but never exhaust. This distance is not the failure of love but its condition. Love requires the space between to stay alive.

Every generation discovers its own way of discussing courage. For Gen Z, one of the more unexpected expressions of bravery is “rawdogging.”

The term originated in African American Vernacular English in the 1990s, meaning to have sex without a condom. 'Raw' meant unprotected; 'dog' evoked roughness or instinct. Over time, the phrase transitioned from hip-hop lyrics into ironic digital slang. 

On TikTok and Reddit, 'rawdogging' now means doing anything without protection, this time not physically, but psychologically: without music, screens, caffeine, or distraction.

You might hear someone mention in relation to rawdogging: ‘I experienced the train journey without distractions, no headphones, no scrolling’.

It’s absurd, yet strangely profound. What counts as courage in the digital age is simply being undistracted. Sitting with one’s own mind has become a new test of endurance.

“Write a blog,” he says.

I know my colleague’s words are kind and encouraging, yet they somehow sound like a demand. “Oh yes, I’ll put it on my list,” I reply. But where exactly on the list? Perhaps before doing my tax return, but probably after cooking dinner, cleaning the toilet, and topping up the kids’ lunch money.

There’s always a list and I am supposed to find time for all the things on it. Some are essential, some not, and others supposedly “good for me,” like writing a blog.

So here I am writing on a Wednesday morning, after making a packed lunch, emptying the dishwasher, feeding the cat, and putting away the laundry. I sit down with a cup of tea and ask myself: Why am I writing this? What purpose does it serve? Who would even want to read my words? Does it help anyone?

Before infants have words, their interactions with caregivers take on a musical quality.

This can be observed in the rhythm of their gestures, the pitch changes in their vocalisations (we hear it in their cooing and babbling), and the melodic phrasing of their expressions which exists in connection to the turn-taking musical dialogue between caregiver and infant. Babies love to hear their caregivers’ voices, whether that be talking, humming, or singing. These voices are recognisable to babies from an early age and are learnt in the womb.

The Buddha often refused to answer vague and unprofitable questions, which he called avyākata, meaning “undeclared,” neither affirming nor denying them. These were not seen as irrelevant but were deliberately left unanswered because they do not directly lead to relief from suffering.

Such questions include enduring speculative puzzles, such as whether the universe is eternal or not, whether the self is identical with the body, whether, upon death, the liberated being continues to exist, or whether there is or is not a soul.

Refusing to assert or deny is not a sign of ignorance. Instead, it is a compassionate and practical response. Engaging in such speculation often causes people to become trapped in mental loops, confusing permanence with impermanence, fixating on views, and polarising eternalism, such as the idea of some permanent essence, against annihilationism, which is the belief that selfhood ends at death.

Both extremes can hinder clarity, tranquillity, and dispassion, ultimately preventing freedom from suffering.

We all go through suffering. This isn't a moral judgment, but a basic fact of being human. The Buddha clearly described it: beginnings, ageing, illness, and death; not getting what we want; being separated from loved ones; and facing difficult people and situations. Even more fundamentally, the very framework of our experience, including our bodies, feelings, perceptions, mental patterns, and awareness, shows signs of suffering when examined. These are not abstract concepts but everyday realities. Life brings us loss, frustration, and vulnerability.

And when suffering occurs, our instinctive response is often to look outward. We search for someone or something to blame. We believe that if we could only improve external conditions, such as our job, house, or relationship, then the pain would finally subside.

It’s not entirely wrong. External factors do matter. But suffering is seldom solely about them.

The word confession carries considerable weight. For many, it evokes images of dark booths, whispered sins, and the heavy burden of judgment. It has long been associated with guilt, penance, and the hope of absolution, something endured rather than embraced.

Yet confession can be something entirely different. It need not be a ritual of humiliation or an expression of shame. At its best, confession is an act of bravery, more about honesty than guilt. And as the Buddha reminded us, “Three things cannot be long hidden: the sun, the moon, and the truth.”

I left boarding school carrying not just my school blazer and a polished sense of privilege but also a deep well of shame, confusion, and a fractured sense of self. On the surface, I appeared to be articulate, capable, and respectable. Inside, I bore the marks of humiliation, the kind that blurs discipline with worthlessness, strength with cruelty, and authority with moral truth.

For years, I didn’t fully grasp the depth of this wound. Like many men from similar backgrounds, I worked hard, sought success, and took pride in my independence. I learned to appear competent and confident. But beneath it all was a sort of ache, a dislocation within the nervous system. Something in me recoiled from intimacy and bristled at the thought of vulnerability. I knew how to dominate a therapy room, but I didn't know how to be genuinely held in it.

Eventually, the suffering that had been hidden beneath the surface started to emerge. It guided me, initially cautiously and then with growing urgency, towards psychotherapy, meditation, and the slow, patient process of disentangling the internalised narratives I had been fed…

Humiliation is seldom welcomed. It strikes like a sting, a collapse, a wound to the identity we spend our lives shaping. Yet, suppose we are willing to face it with courage and curiosity. In that case, humiliation can become an unexpected gateway to humility, not the false humility of performance or religious virtue, but the humility that emerges when the self-protective shell cracks, letting something more honest shine through.

In the Acrobat Sutta, the Buddha presents a simple yet striking image: two acrobats performing a balancing act, one standing on the shoulders of the other. The teacher says to the student, “You look after me, and I’ll look after you. If we protect one another, we’ll perform our tricks, earn a reward, and come down safely.”

The Buddha gently reimagines the scene. “It is not in watching after the other that one protects the other,” he says. “By watching after oneself, one protects the other and by watching after the other, one also protects oneself.”

Decolonising therapy does not mean claiming purity. It involves being more honest about the frameworks we inherit, the harm we may unconsciously continue, and the ways even our most well-meaning practices can bear the mark of dominance. It is about prioritising the voices of those most affected by colonisation, racism, and intergenerational trauma, and following their lead.

The call to decolonise is resonating across disciplines, including education, the arts, and, increasingly, psychotherapy. What does it mean to decolonise therapy, a practice already linked with healing and care? Can something that seems harmless still cause harm?

In therapy, we often encounter a longing for the polished self: the one who is healed, organised, and beyond doubt. More often, healing involves befriending the cracks, not sealing them. It’s about attuning ourselves to the truth that wholeness is not the opposite of brokenness; it includes it. This is not easy. We’ve been conditioned to perfect and present ourselves; to tidy up before facing others. Accepting imperfection means allowing grief and gratitude to share the same breath. It means welcoming the parts of us that never quite got it right and noticing that perhaps they’re the most interesting ones.