Okay the simple truth is that if I am hating my life then somewhere and in some way something has crossed a boundary and I didn't notice. Perhaps this is familiar to you? The time when your back was hurting but you pushed on with that last piece of computer work anyway. Or you thought okay, better do that thing than rest, cos I can always rest later and if I don't do the thing then there will be hell to pay. It is sad but true that our entire lives sometimes feel like they are set up to please something or someone else. We are so accustomed to pushing beyond our bodies natural signals that we need to stop that we become hardened to the point of not even noticing. And then we wonder why our bodies rebel - through illness or tiredness, or lack of orgasm or just plain old pain. If I am in full blown hating my life mode, then almost without fail I have pushed beyond just one time too many. Self-consent - or the simple art of listening to what my body wants moment to moment, is a gentle way back to a life I love to live.

Apart from sugar. In fact, I don't care if you love sugar. Sugar is not a food it's a poison and potentially even a weapon of mass control that keeps the pharmaceutical industry in business. It's probably a major reason why you woke up feeling like death and decided you hate your life in the first place. So don't go there. Don't go down that particular sweet death spiral.

(It ain't self-discipline. It's self-devotion. And you're worth that.)

Just about everything else though? Go ahead and enjoy yourself. Take time to slow down and savour, Tune into the sensations of taste (and indeed anything else) as you eat. Let the food dribble down your chin.

I have a teacher who regularly practices this through the winter season. He tells me that his whole family turn off the electricity, savour the quiet, natural balm of darkness, and live out their evenings by candlelight.

The result?

A beautiful sense of peace, contentment and harmony. Plus, he tells me, an early night and the best night's sleep imaginable.

A sure fire nurture for a frazzled nervous system. 

I love the idea of surrendering to deep winter like this.

Resist this one? I know. Me too. The trouble with gratitudes though - is that they work. So sometimes when we hate our lives, gratitude practice is like the ultimate brain state hack. 

It's like the reset switch to a mind that wants out.

We use gratitudes a lot in my family. Particularly when depression, blame or anger hits. Whenever one of us is in "it's not me it's you " mode, and the cortisol is raging through our bloodstreams like a pioneer of righteousness? That's when one of us will bring up the gratitudes exercise.

To begin with it feels like a sorry kind of hell. But here's the thing - within minutes you begin to feel better. Your inner biology changes completely and a new sense of perspective arises. 

Gratitudes don't bypass the problem in my experience. They just get you in an altogether better state of mind with which to deal with the initial problem.

Your body trusts you more when you move it. And a trusting body enjoys life more. 

You know the score - draw the curtains, turn up the tune and dance in a way that would embarrass the children.

My particular favourite for this at the moment is Sia's Elastic Heart. it has me ugly crying and pounding the floor.

What about you?

My coach once told me to go our everyday and look for small pieces of evidence that I belong. Right here. Right now. Not at some point in the future when I finally find an intentional community that will let me stay for more than a day (I'm not so good at intentional communities. Really, I am not. I put it down to being an Aries and somewhere deep down inside believing that war might actually be the answer.)

And so I tried this exercise and - within a week it had transformed my experience of life. I made some new friends. I drank in scores of smiles. I felt wanted and like I had a purpose here. Truly this is one of my best nourishments. Belonging can be found everywhere and anywhere when you look for it. 

You know all that deep breathing someone told you to do on a retreat because it would release old patterns? And it sure felt good because within five minutes you were wailing and undoutbedly that was a sign of something happening in your life at last, and at the very least it meant you were getting your money's worth because something big was happening? Just - stop that. Just stop it. 

If you live in the Western hemisphere like me, I can tell you that your breathing is probably stressed enough without the added huffing and puffing and screaming.

Try this instead - lie on your back and let your diaphragm breathe YOU. Let all control go. Breathe in a small, relaxed diaphragmatic breath, and then let the muscle collapse slowly slowly slowly. Pure heaven. 

You may be wondering why, as a sex and relationship coach, I did not put this at the top!

Well here's the deal - I like to save the best til (almost) last. 

Well this one is a no brainer. I have a friend - she's a single mum and she recently gave up her nice, secure, warm and dry two bedroomed house for a caravan. I mean, she gave up her house in the summer and so of course I was totally expecting her to be crying about the mud and the rain and the sheer work involved by December. Not so.

Julia, she told me recently. Every time I go outside to take a piss on the earth under the stars I feel reborn. Every time I light the fire that keeps us warm I am filled with gratitude. Every time I wash vegetables outside in the rain my hands are freezing, but I am struck with a kind of wonder that the earth produced this for me. 

I have never felt healthier, she said. It's like my sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems are just regulating and happening as they need too. I don't need to practice anything - my whole damn life is a meditation.

Okay you don't have to go so far as my friend (unless you want to of course.) But you could step outside in the rain. You could stop and cherish the wind on your face. Or find a few moments to sit on the earth under a tree. Give it a try.

Look around and find something you find truly miraculous or spectacular and place it in your home as a reminder. Life is still a thing of immense grace.