On a week that started with IWD and ended with Mother’s Day I am once again left in what can only be described as despair a t the state of violence against women in this country. I am sure today Mothers and our coaches and mentors at Girls Out Loud will be navigating difficult conversations with teenage girls about personal safety that borders on restricting their freedom and liberties.

Well you decide….

Stalking, silencing, harassing, trolling, gaslighting, assaulting, mutilating, threatening, abusing, trafficking, dismissing, raping, cancelling, attacking, slut-shaming, murdering, sexism, growth in far right misogyny, coercing, violence, revenge porn…

I know, I know t’is the time for New Year resolutions and the closely followed self-flagellation, but can I suggest a more gentle approach this year??…

As we are all making moves to gently ease ourselves from our caves and breathe the air outside of our home prison, albeit through unflattering masks, I find myself reflecting on the past 22 weeks and my conclusion is, to quote Vinny Jones ‘It’s been emotional!’

Head over to ‘Videos & Vlogs’ to watch the latest series: Top 7 Personal Development Habits Series

Resilience is defined as the ability to recover quickly and easily from hardship. It is a doing word and as such must be experienced, not learnt from a book, podast or a classroom. But the irony is, experiencing it, also means experiencing hardship, uncertainty and failure as without this, it is not needed.

Many of you will know I am recovering from my second knee replacement this year so not in full work flow at the moment and maybe watching more news than I would normally allow myself to do and I am beyond angry even after only a week!!

‘So are you one of those feminists then Jane?’ This question fills me with dread every time I hear it and it is posed in this way quite often as though a feminist is somehow other and weird.

We need investment and focus on gender. We keep being told it makes good busies sense to have more gender balance in the workplace and around the board table so why have we stopped caring? Are we exhausted? Are we surrendering?

So my hubby and I just had lovely break in sunny Spain and as always we pay for extra leg room on the plane so I can stretch my legs and feel a little more comfortable in flight. This time we found ourselves on the fire exit row and the outbound flight went without a hitch, however, on the way home I experienced my first ever fat shaming incident.