When I was at university, being an environmental activist was such a central part of my identity that I was nicknamed Captain Planet.

The belief system I had was that polluters and exploiters cared more about money than the harm they were doing, and the average citizen cared more about an easy life than taking a stand, changing their behaviour, going to a protest or learning about the issue.

Eventually, I gave up being an activist, because it felt as though nothing I was doing was working. Trying to live a low-carbon lifestyle, protesting, encouraging people to save energy, signing…

Fear is one of the major causes of suffering for we humans. It can keep us awake at night, ruin our relationships, make us addicted to our devices, distract us from pleasurable experiences, stop us making decisions, work too much and just generally feel unhappy — even miserable.

Clearly, being able to deal with fear is a major life skill, and one of the many that ought to be taught in school, but isn’t.

Step 1: Name it

One very simple way to reduce fear is simply to name it: to write it down and — even better — tell…

Do you love yourself? Turns out, I don’t.

Earlier this year, I did a workshop called Free Your Future. As part of it, I had to write down things from my past that I felt had caused me hurt.

Then, the facilitator asked us how those events make us feel now.

My answer came very quickly: inadequate.

I don’t think I’m useless or a terrible person; just not good enough.

Straight away, I could see how this plays out in my business, my relationships, my health, how I feel about my body, my family… pretty much everything.

I was left…

Going to an all-boys school, joining the hockey team at uni and watching Hollywood movies gave me a very clear idea of how men are supposed to behave. This included:

• Drinking vast quantities of alcohol, quickly.
• Sleeping with as many women as possible.
• Making as much money as possible.
• Owning a big, fast car.
• Only showing two emotions: anger and lust. Never showing vulnerability or crying.
• Being good at sport.
• Being physically big and strong (with a large penis, of course).
• WINNING.
• Never showing any verbal or physical affection towards another man, and telling your friends you like them by…

When I was at university, I read a book called How we can save the planet. It totally convinced me that if we didn’t act urgently and drastically to curb carbon emissions, the world would become all but unliveable as a result of floods, droughts, sea-level rises and extreme weather. Once I accepted that, no other issue really seemed to matter. Why bother doing anything about homelessness, mental health or poverty, if the rug was going to be pulled out from everyone’s feet within decades anyway?

My girlfriend at the time went to Mexico to work in an orphanage in…

Today I’m sharing three stories of forgiveness that blew my mind.

Imagine you’ve made a video about an issue you really care about. You’ve spent hours producing it and you feel vulnerable about telling the world what you think, but you also feel proud of what you’ve created.

You then post it online and someone comments underneath it, ‘You’re a piece of shit.’

How would you react?

This didn’t happen to me, it happened to the actor, writer and activist Dylan Marron.

Would you be upset? Angry? Maybe just ignore it?

I bet what you wouldn’t do is call up…

To people who hate Trump, this election result might have felt like a relief. The good guys won. But, as has been pointed out several times, this was not the rejection of Trumpism that many were hoping for.

He got more votes than last time, and those 71 million people aren’t going anywhere just because Biden won. Also, 70% of them believe it was not a free and fair election. That is a lot of people to have lost faith in the democratic process.

What interests me most about the US election is the level of polarisation, and the questioning…

It’s not just Hugh Grant. In almost every romance story in our culture, two people get together, something goes wrong and then, eventually, they fall in love and live happily ever after.

This gives us the totally bogus view that once you’re in love with someone, the rest of your life is like the last scene of the film Notting Hill. Picnics in the park, staring longingly into each other’s eyes and bringing up joyful children.

What could be further from the truth?

Being in a committed, long-term relationship is hard. In every partnership, the individuals sometimes rub each other…