Mary Martin

Our minds often wander into darker thoughts like a curious but cautious cat exploring a dimly lit room. It takes great willpower and a blend of wisdom, perspective, and a touch of whimsy to extract oneself from these shadowed corners

We can use the shadow imagination as a mechanism for uncovering our future power. When we’re introduced to how bad things could get, we’re at a choice point. We can turn away, we can dive into the waters of the worst-case scenario and allow them to drown us, or we can touch the suffering that’s possible and remind ourselves of our own abilities. We... See more

‘I think there are offences that are unforgivable, and that we don’t have a moral obligation to forgive them,

intelligence has inadvertently become a ‘human success’-shaped cookie cutter we squish onto other species. Switching from baking to sports metaphors, we could say that everyone else – animals, amoebas, AIs and aliens – has to play the game on a field that we have laid out, according to rules that we have established and proven ourselves extremely... See more

When you view a situation as a challenge, you’re combining recognition of the problem that needs to be addressed with faith that you can rise to the occasion and deal with it successfully. Doing this can mobilise one’s positive self-regard and sense of potency.

Research has shown a staggering number of health benefits associated with dispositional optimism, from improvements in cardiovascular health, to how quickly wounds heal, to slower disease progression.