The arrival of Mothers’ Day can be a trigger to many - if you have lost your mother, a child or if you dearly wanted to become a mother and it didn’t happen, it is probably a Hallmark Day you prefer to avoid.

But what is a mother? Words such as nurturing, caring, loving, fierce - we all need to channel these attributes to mother ourselves. And we need that female energy - present in men as well as women - to heal the growing divisions in our society and to speak truth to power in our quest to save our beautiful planet.

This week, in honour of Mother’s Day in the UK, I’d like to talk a little about mothers - even if we haven’t had children ourselves we all had one! So this is about our own mothers, step mothers, mother figures, our own experience of mothering and the energy of Motherhood in general.

I want to honour the women who shaped me and helped me to become the person I am today.

Carole

Sadly, I never met my mother, Carole. She died when I...

Let’s talk about sex. If we use the media as a yardstick, everyone is swinging from the chandeliers on a nightly basis, making the earth move and giving Meg Ryan a run for her money in the oh-oh OOOOHHH stakes. But what if you’re not? What if a cup of cocoa and an episode of Escape to the Country is more enticing of an evening than squeezing into your sexy undies…

Some are content to leave that side of life behind, and that is a perfectly valid choice. So long as you and your partner are both happy in a celibate relationship, it’s no one’s business but yours. If, however, a lack of sexual intimacy is making you sad, how can you bring it back?

I asked writer, Amy Kavanagh, to explore the reality of midlife libido.

Menopause and the physical and emotional changes of your body can really put a strain on so many women in regard to the S word…SEX! There are so many factors that contribute to a loss of libido, including:

• Dropping oestrogen...

Guest Blog: Parenting Your Parents

As life expectancy rises, we’re finding ourselves looking after not only our young family but our parents too. Parenting our parents is new territory for us – how do we best look after the people who have always cared for us?

 Jessica Silver from ElWell provides support and information to people looking after their parents as they get older. So we spoke with her for advice to help understand how to parent our parents.

When do the tables turn?

You have your parents’ best interests at heart, so it makes sense that you want them to stay healthy and well and don’t over-stretch themselves. But we need to make sure we don’t project our worries and concerns about them getting older onto them unnecessarily. Don’t just assume because they’ve reached a certain age that they should be winding down. Yes, they may need to – and then a conversation should be had – but don’t enter the caregiver...

Whether you believe in a Higher Power, God, the connectedness of all things or nothing at all, your relationship with yourself is inevitably going to be the most enduring human relationship of your life! If we can't find love and compassion for the flawed yet vulnerable essence of ourselves, what hope do we have of loving others... or being happy?

This Valentine's Day my Facebook feed is filled with posts about

• how loved the poster feels because an extravagant gesture has been made by a loved one and
• how sad and unloved the poster feels because they either don't have someone to make that extravagant gesture, or whose love interest just doesn't play the game and
• exhortations to self love

But what does that mean, exactly? (Don't be rude, you at the back!)

First of all, what is "Valentine's Day"? Let's have a quick look at all the elements that make up this annual festival of love and misery: St Valentine, Cupid, roses, hearts and cards.

• Legend has it that a Christian priest,...