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January is often the time of year when many people’s attention turns towards setting goals and intentions for the year ahead. Often these will relate to career or health and fitness but have you ever considered intentionally thinking about your relationships as part of your January reset? Strong relationships take dedicated work. Any day of the year is a good time to review how they are doing but why not direct some of that new year, new start energy towards your relationship? With relationships being one of the most important factors in overall wellbeing, the impact will last much longer than the shine on those new gym trainers, I promise!

All relationships benefit from reflection and review but the focus of this particular article is on romantic relationships. In the same way as you might do an end of year review, it can be helpful to spend some time thinking about what is going well in your partnership as well as some of the areas which are challenging and where you’d like to see improvements. This will arm you with the information you need to make positive changes to focus on in the coming months.

First of all, have a think about what will work best for you and your partner? How do you best communicate and when might be a good time to have a look at the prompts below? Would you like to spend some time reflecting on them by yourselves and then come together to have a chat about how you are both feeling or would you prefer to use them as stepping off points for a discussion right away?

I’m guessing that if you’re curious enough to read this blog then this relationship really matters to you. Doing a relationship MOT can provide a space to resolve minor problems before they escalate, help you to reconnect after a period of emotional distance/disconnection, allow you to express what you need/want and find a shared path forwards. Thinking about where and when you choose to have this conversation can help to ensure a positive outcome. Picking a time when you are both feeling calm and relaxed, with no distractions will make communication much easier. Can you choose a place that feels safe, private and comfortable?

Here are some areas for you to reflect on:

What’s going well in your relationship?

+ What are you enjoying about this particular relationship right now? Can you tell your partner some of the things about them that you are most grateful for?

+ What have been your highlights together over the last 12 months? It’s very easy to focus on the things that we are unhappy about but noting what’s going well will remind you both of the strengths in the relationship and hearing what they love about you will give you a lovely boost of feel good Oxytocin (the love hormone).

Emotional intimacy

+ How close do you feel to each other? Do you make time to talk about how you are feeling? If not, what are the barriers to having these conversations and what might help you both to feel safer to open up a bit more?

+ What would you like them to know about how you’re doing with your mental health right now?

Sexual/physical intimacy

+ How are you both feeling about your physical relationship? As well as thinking about sex, this can include physical affection such as everyday touch, hugs and kisses.

+ What do you both need and want and are there any changes you’d like to make?

Time together

+ How well do you prioritise this relationship over other parts of your life? Relationships, like plants, needs frequent care and attention.

+ What do you enjoy doing when you spend time alone together? Do you make time for date nights and, if not, are there obstacles in your way that you can remove, such as arranging childcare or making time in your diary to catch up and do something fun? Maybe you’d like to learn a new skill together, try out a different hobby, go for a day out or explore a new place?

+ What memories would you like to make together this year?

Outside pressures

+ As well as making the relationship a priority, it’s important to consider your relationship in the context of the rest of your life. What are the current challenges you are facing individually and together and how can you minimise the impact they have on you as a couple? Thinking about work, parenting, finances and family commitments can be useful here.

+ How can you work together to protect the relationship, so that it is resilient enough to withstand these challenges?

Life goals

+ What’s important to you both in the coming years? Thinking ahead to what you’d like to see for yourselves in one, five and ten year’s time can be a useful way to check where your hopes and goals are aligned and make any adjustments and compromises to ensure you are happy as individuals as well as in the relationship.

+ Are there any shared projects you have in mind and how might these fit in with your individual ambitions and dreams?

+ Thinking about your personal values and being really honest about your non-negotiables here will be helpful in preventing disappointment later on.

What would make your relationship even better?

+ Are there areas you’d like to focus on together in the coming months?

+ Are there any small or big changes you can make right now which will help you to feel closer?

+ Do you have any unmet needs that need addressing, both within the relationship and perhaps for you as an individual? How can you begin to meet them?

Working on relationships takes time and effort and it’s not always easy. Depending on our past experiences it can sometimes bring up unexpected and difficult feelings. Many times offering each other kindness, compassion and the space to talk and be heard will be enough to navigate past this. But it’s okay to ask for help too. A relationship or couples’ therapist can offer a neutral space to help you figure out what might be going on both individually and in your interactions together that’s perhaps keeping you stuck and unable to resolve conflict or move forwards.

I hope 2025 brings you relationships that are healthy, happy and fulfilling.

What counts as self-care? Is it going for a run? Booking a massage? Getting a good nights sleep? Or eating well?

The simple answer is that it can be all of these things and more. It really depends on what your individual needs are. It’s certainly true that there are some cornerstones of good mental health that will help us all to feel better if we pay attention to them: sleep, movement, nutrition, connection with others, engaging in meaningful activities, as a few examples. But what we each need and when we need it can vary a great deal depending on a number of factors, such as the time of day, what else is going on in our lives, what we have access to, what makes us individually feel good, what we enjoy and our way of being in the world.

Self-care activities will differ from person to person and day to day. We need to have a whole menu of things that help us to meet out needs, so that we can choose what feels right at any given time.

It can help to start to think about what works for you in terms of different areas or categories. You might like to consider the following broad headings and then add any extra of your own that feel right for you.:

• Physical (taking care of your body) eg nutrition, exercise, going for health checks, sleep, stretching, yoga
• Mental (taking care of your brain/thoughts) eg learning new things, acquiring skills, challenging oneself, coaching, mindfulness
• Emotional (taking care of your heart and mind) therapy, talking to a trusted loved one, journalling
• Relational (taking care of your relationships and making meaningful connections) eg time with friends/family, connecting with like minded individuals, community/belonging
• Spiritual (taking care of your soul) eg faith, sound baths, meditation, prayer
• Joyful (taking care of your creativity/joy) eg singing, arts and crafts, hobbies, painting, baking, gardening

One fun way to think about what your personalised version of self-care looks like is to do my self-care jug activity. It’s a creative way of working that I use in the room with clients but you can do it at home any time. All you need is a piece of plain paper and some pens (make it as colourful as you like). It comes from this idea that you may have heard of before, which is ‘you can’t pour from an empty jug.’ Doing this exercise every few weeks can be a lovely way of checking in with where you’re at and what you need. And remember, self-care needs will vary over time, so the jug and what you need from it will change over time too.

1. Imagine yourself as the jug. Draw a simple outline of a jug in the middle of the page (no need to worry about artistic skills here, it’s just for you). Think of this jug as a visual representation of your personal ‘capacity’ (the energy you have on any given day to cope with what life throws at you)
2. At the top of the jug, list all the self-care activities that you can think of that help you to feel replenished, refreshed, resilient, taken care of or nourished. Use the categories above to trigger some ideas and don’t forget to consider what your unique needs are (see blog post ‘What is self-care’). Add arrows to show these self-care activities being poured into the jug at the top. These are the ways that you ‘top up’ your capacity and take care of yourself. They can include things you currently do, things you used to do but had forgotten about or new things that you’d like to try.
3. Once you’ve done that, consider the bottom of the jug next. There will always be things in life that challenge us and which drain our capacity to cope with life. Some examples might include the following: mental health challenges, caring for loved ones, work stress, financial worries, particular unhealthy relationships, illness, life admin, everyday chores. Think big and small here. The small aggravations in life can build up and use up a lot of psychological energy over time. Draw arrows from the jug to these labels to indicate their depleting effect.
4. Draw a line in the jug to indicate where your capacity is at in that particular moment. Don’t beat yourself up if it’s low right now; you’ve taken the first step in caring for yourself better and this new awareness will spur you on to improve things even more.
5. An additional step, which you might like to do as a separate exercise at a later time, if you’re running out of self-reflective steam, is to take a look at the balance of replenishing and depleting labels. Can you name just two of three things that you can do now to a) add in more self-care at the top or b) plug the holes a little at the bottom eg by reducing the impact of that particular stress point?

Have fun and remember, caring for the ones you love, starts with caring for yourself.

Warm wishes,

Nicky x

If you take a look at any mental health social media feed you’ll probably notice that the words ‘Self-Care’ pop up frequently. It’s a concept that therapists have been teaching to their clients for some time but in recent years it’s become popular in mainstream media and it now seems everyone is talking about it. But what does it actually mean? Why is it important? And how do you actually do it? I hope to share the answers to these questions with you in a series of blog posts over the coming weeks. So I invite you to grab a hot drink, settle down in a comfy spot and take a few minutes to reflect on what self-care might mean for you.

Interpreted literally, self-care can be considered as ‘caring for one’s self.’ One way to start thinking about this is by considering what it means for you to meet your needs as a human being. We all have a series of needs, or requirements if you like, that have to be fulfilled in order to function well. Much like putting oil and fuel in a car and taking it for an annual service, human beings need to have these needs met in order to move through life with ease, adaptability and resilience.

Some of these requirements seem more obvious. Basic needs include having enough to eat, a roof over our head, getting enough sleep, feeling loved and valued and being in healthy relationships with other people. Then there are more subtle needs; to have fun and adventure, to occupy our time with meaningful activity, to feel challenged, to belong to a group or community, to feel seen and heard by those around us.

When we are able to meet most of these needs for a majority of the time, life feels easier and more satisfying. We are less likely to experience that niggle of ‘things just not being quite right.’

Clients sometimes ask me ‘but isn’t self-care selfish?’ and they are often surprised to hear my response. Many people aren’t used to giving themselves permission to meet their own needs. But when we do this we are in a much better position to give to those we love and to fulfil all our many roles. Rather than being selfish, taking care of yourself becomes a gift to both you and others. You are able to be fully present in your relationships, work and other responsibilities, as a whole and replete individual. In short, everybody wins!

You might like to spend a few minutes journalling around the following prompt, completing the sentence as many times as necessary until you feel satisfied that you’ve identified as many of the conditions you require to thrive, as possible:

I need…

Once you have a clear idea of what your needs are, you can begin to consider how you can meet them and take care of yourself. In my next blog post, I will share with you some ideas about how you might do this in a way which is personalised to you.

Warm wishes,

Nicky