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Paul Parkin is a globally renowned Online Counsellor and Life Coach. He is qualified and has many years experience. Paul now offers his Confidential, unique skills to people around the world using secure chat platforms and MSN Messenger for complete ease of accessability.

Please see below some of Paul Parkin's published articles. These articles have been published by Ezinearticles.com and have gained Paul Expert Writer status. I hope that you find them useful and that they contribute to your wellbeing.

Stress - The Silent Killer - How to Reduce Dangerous Stress Levels and Live Happier and Longer?

Stress is as individual as we are, what makes one person stressed may be no problem to another person. Some people strive on stress and excel when the levels are high, for others stress can be crippling and disabling. We must learn what our own threshold is, and take steps to maintain it at a healthy level in order to safeguard our well-being.

No one else can tell you how much stress is right for you, your body and your mind will tell you when enough is enough. Receptors in the brain will be triggered when things are out of balance, there will also be a physiological or physical response from your body. Becoming aware of how your body feels when things are calm and normal is a good start, it will give you a marker for how you feel when thinks are in balance.

When stress levels reach a point where you are unable to function normally, you may experience all or some of the following physical symptoms. Tension, Anxiety, a Headache, a Negative attitude or Irresponsible Behaviour. Sometimes when the symptoms are present it is too late and the stress level may have reached a dangerous level. This is why knowing your body and how it feels at a normal healthy stress level is important, this way you can take precautions in order to self monitor stress levels and take appropriate action if the levels are rising.

The first task in tackling stress is to find your optimum stress level. To do this try to become aware of your mind and body, how it feels, how you function and whether your frame of mind is healthy. When things begin to change you will be aware and be able to respond by using stress Beating techniques.

For more information on how to reduce stress and live a healthier, Longer Life, talk to a Life Coach or Therapist and discuss strategies for redressing the balance in your Life.
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Is this pilot scheme planned for six secondary schools in Oxfordshire, a positive tool in the struggle to tackle unwanted pregnancies, or does it go a little too far? There has been fierce condemnation from various quarters, most rigorously from Parenting groups. Oxfordshire County Council have defended the scheme by saying "Our commitment is to reduce the number of teenage conceptions in Oxfordshire so we're looking at the most effective ways of doing that."

The Local Authority added "This will provide an extra level of contact for those young people who think they have taken a risk and don't want to approach a doctor or a pharmacist". Naturally Parents are worried knowing that their child may have the option of discussing their sexual practices with someone else and in some cases receive the contraceptive. Reports over the past few years have criticised Parents for not taking responsibility for their Children's Sex Education, so what can Parents do to connect with their Daughters and discuss this issue openly?

In my experience many schools struggle with this issue and many teachers are just not equipped with the skills to teach this subject. What most young people know about sex is learned from their Peers and in a lot of cases the information they have is incredibly wrong. We have to accept that Sex is still difficult for many people to discuss, and talking to a child about it with any degree of coherence is difficult for most lay people. I feel that in the majority of cases the task is best left to Parents.

Parents must become comfortable with the topic of Relationships, and Sex being a part of some relationships will crop up at some point. There are courses for Parents that will teach them how to talk to their Child about these issues, there are Life Coaches who can help them through the barriers and enable open discussions between Parent and Child, they can help Parents to talk about this issue, just like any other issue.

My advice is to talk to children about Relationships from an early age, about all the different kinds of relationships we have in our lives, Family relationships and Friendships. If the conversations about how we connect with each other are discussed early on, then when it comes to the time for the "Sex" part, there will be an existing understanding which will make the discussion much easier and comfortable for all involved.
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Was Getting Yourself Out of Bed This Morning a Real Drag? - You May Be Depressed!

Depression is the most common of all Mental Health Issues and the fact that it has the word "Mental" in it's title is one of the reasons people find it difficult to discuss. Although the words "I'm Depressed" are used lightly these days, there is still a social stigma attached to diagnosed or Chronic Depression.

Depression generally has up to Three main triggers. Social factors, which could be something like losing your job, Divorce or Bereavement. A Psychological factor such as Low Self Esteem, Anxiety or an unsatisfactory Relationship. Physical factors may also result in Depression, maybe an infectious illness like Influenza or Glandular Fever. It is also widely accepted that some people have a Genetic predisposition to Depression, if your Parents suffered from Depression, you may be more likely to be affected by it too.

If your low mood and apathy continues for a number of weeks and begins to interfere with the balance and the usual business of your life, for example if you no longer enjoy activities that you used to, or you feel that you would like to curl up in bed because you cannot face life, then maybe it is time to accept that you may be depressed. If everything, even tasks you used to find easy become a struggle, then Depression could be taking a hold.

So what can you do about it?

There are two main methods to tackling Depression, the first is to make an appointment to see your GP or Physician. If you take this option make sure you have time to explain how you are feeling and the affects your mood is having on your day to day life. You should receive medical advice on the options, including any medication that may help. It must be said that medication cannot change any of the underlying issues that may have led to your Depression.

The other option is to discuss your feelings and what may have led to your Depression with a Counselor or Life Coach. They will be able to help you explore the reasons behind your change in mood and suggest techniques that you can work on together in order to lift mood and create energy. A lack of Motivation is synonymous with Depression, and for this reason it can be difficult for a Depressed person to go out and seek the help they need.

Many people find it easier to access a Counselor or Life Coach Online, there are hundreds of suitably qualified professionals to choose from, and most have websites where you will be able to learn about them and how they work before finally choosing the one that you feel comfortable with.
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Online Counseling or Life Coaching can be just what Men are looking for. Most men are practical and they want to find something that works, something that is easy to access and that offers them the security and Confidentiality which will help them to feel secure and in control.

I have found that once Men have made the decision to talk to someone about what is on their mind, they want to get right to it. Online counseling or Life Coaching offers clients an array of benefits compared to more traditional face to face therapies.
The first of the benefits is a huge issue, most men would not want to be seen entering a Psychologists or a Life Coach's office, it states "I need help" and anyone in the vicinity would know it. Online help is different, the client can remain completely Anonymous if he wishes to do so, he can get help from the safety and security of his own home or office. No one will ever know that he is receiving support from a professional.

Convenience is the next benefit. Men are busy, we have little time to spend on ourselves, so if we can get the professional help we need at a time and place that suits us, it is more likely that we will use that method. Online Therapy or Coaching can be accessed anywhere that you have a personal computer, at home or at work. You can choose a time and a day that suits you.

Confidentiality is the next important issue, most online professionals do not keep any records of the sessions, before beginning work with any professional, ask whether your sessions can be record free. This will mean that the content of your session will be in the head of you and your Therapist or Coach, eliminating any risk of your privacy being breached.

The final benefit to Online help is the Cost. Because there are no expensive overheads for offices, telephones and receptionists, the cost of Online Support is significantly lower than face to face therapies. In a time of Global financial slow down this is an important aspect, and an increase in the use of Online Counseling and Coaching has been reported.

Finally, it is widely accepted that men prefer to share their worries with other professional men. When searching for a Therapist or Life Coach, it may help to look for a suitably qualified professional male. Men seem to be able to relate better to other men, if that is the case, there are male Counselors and Life Coaches to choose from.
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Avoiding simple Parenting mistakes. For most new Parents and those struggling to find a way to parent, their experience comes from their own childhood and the way they were parented. Now whether you had a good or not so good experience of growing up, you will have subconsciously interpreted some of the experiences you had and decided if they were good for you or otherwise.

Experience is a great tool, if you consider your childhood as happy and meeting your needs, then chances are that you had a successful upbringing. You may however, be able to recall specific areas of your development where you feel a different parental approach would have been better suited to meeting your needs. Parents can never be perfect and you are not supposed to be your child's friend, that has "Mistake" written all over it.

Children and Teens will go to extreme lengths to demonstrate that they do not want or need rules, boundaries, Curfews and Behaviour Agreements. They are wrong, they do need them, and here's why. Your Child or Teen needs to feel safe, it is a basic Human need, which they require in order to develop properly. A Parenting style which fails to put enough security in place will result in a Child or Teen which will not learn how to take appropriate levels of risk, this can be increasingly difficult to manage and can in some cases result in dangerous activities and high risk pursuits.

Your Child/Teen will have a lot of pressures to deal with whilst growing up, some you may be aware of and some you may be able to anticipate, others will be outside of your understanding. Let's face it, it may have been a while since you experienced growing up and the world has changed since then.

If you are uncertain of how to parent don't feel embarrassed, it's the toughest job there is and we have all made mistakes. If you need some guidance try talking to other experienced parents, if their children are polite, happy and seem well adjusted to you, then their advice will probably be useful.

Maybe you would rather share your worries and gain tried and tested parenting advice from an experienced Child Development Professional with years of experience in helping Parents to get their Children to Adulthood without compromise.
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First of all, find a quiet space where you will not be interrupted for around 30 minutes. If you can lay down and close your eyes. Make sure that your space is safe and secure before you begin. Try to slow down your breathing, become aware of your breaths and concentrate on your in and out breaths. After a couple of minutes, begin to breathe slow and deep, your out breath should take twice as long as your in breath. Continue like this for a further couple of minutes, clearing your mind by concentrating on only your breathing. If other thoughts come to mind, simply let them float away again and continue to focus on your breathing.

Then, think of a favourite place, it could be the countryside or the ocean. In this example I will use the countryside. In your mind I'd like you to visualise a long, long country lane with fields either side, nothing and no one other than fields. It's summer and the warm sun is warming the skin on your face, the sky is cloudless and clear, a gentle breeze keeps the sun from burning and you begin to be aware of birds singing their tunes way off in the distance.

Walking down the lane you become aware of a secluded country cottage way off in the distance, it has a yellow gateway in an old stone high wall. You are drawn towards it and as you walk admiring the beauty of the fields and stunning landscape either side of you, you become aware of your surroundings, the peace, the quiet and the safe feeling of knowing there is no one else around.
As you approach the yellow gate, you notice it is unlocked and there is a large key in the lock, you push the gate and it opens to a beautiful cottage garden, filled with your favourite flowers and shrubs. The smells awaken your senses even more and in the expanse of the garden towards the rear you notice a swing hanging from a very large tree. It beckons you towards it and you head towards it, you are filled with a feeling of youth and energy. You lower yourself onto the swing and gently push yourself backwards and forwards in the light summer breeze, the sun still warming and the birds still singing.

This place is so peaceful and safe, you feel all of your worries left outside the gate, in this cottage garden you are at one with nature and your energy is tuned to the beauty around you. You stay here for what seems like a whole summer, however in reality it is a short time. When you feel relaxed and feel ready to return to the real world you leave through the yellow gate, pulling it shut behind you. The key is yours now, this is your special sanctuary, you can return whenever you want to. As you walk back up the country lane you are aware that your troubles and stress has left you, you feel so peaceful and relaxed. As you go back to your reality you know that this place is there for you, just you, and you realise that you will go there again.

I hope that you found this technique useful, please feel free to adapt it in anyway which appeals to you. This is an example of relaxation techniques used to reduce stress and anxiety.
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Raising your Self Esteem.

The word "Control" often has a negative meaning, however in this situation of raising your own Self Esteem, taking control of your own life is definitely a Positive. In this tip on how to raise your Self Esteem we look at what YOU can do to affect change and lift your Self Esteem...

You won't ever develop a higher Self Esteem if you leave things as they are now, shying away from the challenges will only prolong your unhappiness and further damage your Self Esteem. If you stay "stuck" where you are now because of Fear and Anxiety, you will continue to feel frustrated and unhappy and you will undoubtedly deal a damaging blow to your self-esteem.

When you take action and you take control of YOUR life, regardless of the outcome, you will feel better about yourself for trying. Making the effort should never be underestimated, If you keep trying one day it will work out how you want it to be.
Take a look at this quote from Michael Jordan "I've missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I've been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life, and that is why I succeed".

Think of all the times in the past when you have attempted something, think about how close to success you may have been. Sometimes if you can just keep going a little longer, the goal will be reached. Every time you feel like giving up, go that little bit further to reach your objective.

We cannot win If we are preoccupied with losing. Try it anyway, If it doesn't work out you will have at least tried, that alone will improve your Sense of Self and begin to build your Self Esteem.
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Actualizing Tendency works on the premise that everything living, no matter how simple or complex that organism is, it will do its best, that all living organisms are programmed to survive and do as well as they possibly can.

Have you ever wondered how a potato left in a dark space, with no water of food still manages to sprout new growth? It has the very minimum, only its self, yet against all the odds, it does what it is meant to do, it grows and creates new life, it reaches it's full potential. This is a good example of Actualizing Tendency.

Against all of the odds and with all of the problems us Humans encounter in life, we overcome most of them on our own. We do this by using our inner resources and we create supportive mechanisms to assist us when we need help. Yes, there are times when things get tough, however we mostly get through tough times in a remarkable manner.

There are times when our Actualizing Tendency is not as efficient as it could be. If we have low Self Esteem, we cannot believe that we have within ourselves the resolve and skills required to get us out of some difficult situations. Maybe we have never had to rely on ourselves and therefore are not aware of the power within, either way, many people find it difficult to understand the concept that we can mostly solve our own problems.

Often people have to tune into their inner resources and understand how to harness it for their everyday life. Many find that working with a Therapist or Life Coach helps them to understand the concept of Actualizing Tendency and to learn how to use the gift we were born with.

When a person can believe and understand Actualizing Tendency, it is powerful for them to have that self belief, knowing that they can succeed and reach their full potential, what that potential is, is a matter of choice and is ultimately the individuals decision or choice.

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The Organismic Self is only truly intact for a short space of time, it soon becomes corrupted by what is called the "Self Concept". Self Concept is the term given to explain outside influences on the Organismic Self. It could be said that the battle between who we authentically are as people and what the world and significant people around us feel we should be is what causes us to feel lost.

If we think of the Organismic Self as being at one with ourselves and feeling that who we are, what we do and our general feeling of inner harmony as being comfortable, the opposite is true of the Self Concept, this is generally a feeling of awkwardness, feeling lost, unreal and can result in later life as a crisis.

Here is an example of the two elements at work. A very young child, unaffected by the outside world is fed Carrots for the first time, the taste and texture being new and unknown displeases the child, who spits it out. The caregiver, often the child's mother, again attempts to feed the child the carrot, again it is spat out by the child. The child notices a change in the mothers tone of voice, and in her facial expression, the child quickly realises "I don't like this, but she wants me to have it, I must please her as I don't like the tone and the face when I reject it" the child eats the carrot. The child has done what someone else wants, rather than to go with it's own choice.

This is a simplistic example, however, if you think of the concept. How many times from birth to adulthood do we do something we do not want to do in order to please our parents and others in society. The answer is many times, some small things and some big. We may have wanted to be an actor, but our father may push us to become a doctor. These decisions which are taken away from us all eat away at our inner authenticity and our Organismic Self. If there are a lot of times when our own need is not met at the expense of others needs, we can feel totally fake.

By the time we become adults we may not have any idea of who we truly are, the messages of what we should do and how we should be are all around us, in the media, from our parents and friends. We constantly get told how and what we should be, there are laws, religion, politics, the pressure to conform is immense.

Knowing or feeling that there is a problem is difficult to understand, the best way to describe it is a sense of feeling lost or unreal. It can often feel fraudulent or extremely stressful to end up as someone you don't want to be.

Counseling and Life Coaching is the most effective way to redress the balance and to get back in touch with the Organismic Authentic Self.

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An incredible motivational story - committment counts big.

As a society we have looked up to successful people and those individuals who have overcome extraordinary feats of courage and determination. We all have our favourite stories and legends, but hearing others examples of how they overcame adversity is a great way to stimulate and to motivate ourselves into achieving our own goals.

We have all heard real life stories of ordinary people achieving extraordinary tasks, in fact it is often the task that makes otherwise ordinary people into legends. I would like to share with you one such story, I hope you find inspiration from it too.

Florence Nightingale - Nurse.

Was born to wealthy English parents in 1820, she was educated at home by her father and had a strict upbringing. Florence rejected marriage because she felt she would become entrapped by domestic responsibilities. She always felt she had a calling to serve, and in a time when respectable young ladies were expected to marry well, she refused and was not supported by her parents, who felt such a profession was beneath their status.

In 1853 the Crimera war broke out, it was a bloody war for both sides. This war received extensive press reporting and the stories from the battles shocked a whole nation, it was then that the legendary status of Florence Nightingale began. Florence went to the Crimera in 1855 and was asked to organise a group of nurses, initially cleaning the hospital though this would change when the hospital became overwhelmed by the number of casualties.

Florence soon blended her unique passion for cleanliness with her compassion for the injured and dying. Stories reached the English press of how comforting she was to the injured soldiers and her name became synonymous with caring. Florence Nightingale returned to England after the war and opened a school for Nursing at St Thomas's hospital London.

Florence Nightingale is not famous because she became a Nurse, she became famous because she thought outside of the box, did something she was not supposed to do, disobeyed her parents and followed her dream to help people and make a difference. It is easy to follow a path that is already marked out, but making a new path takes courage and determination, how easily she could have failed to achieve her goal, thankfully she succeeded, she has a place in history because she was motivated and determined.

Motivation and Determination are not Human Givens, they need to be learned.

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