-
35. Forgiving Trump Supporters
View Column: 35. Forgiving Trump SupportersQ. I am so angry and disgusted by the people who follow Trump in our country. I know there is a right-wing trend around the world. How can we forgive these people? How can we ever forget the racism, misogyny, degradation of our rule of law and societal norms? It started with the MAGA’s hating…
-
34. My Anger, Your Annoyance
View Column: 34. My Anger, Your AnnoyanceQ. I am embarrassed to say that my FND (Functional Neurological Disorder) makes it hard for me to walk. I fall, sometimes I just crawl, sometimes I get so down about it. I can’t garden or bushwalk and I just was fired from my 19 year job. YET, here are you, probs wishing you could do…
-
33. Intuition
View Column: 33. IntuitionQ. I’m an intuitive person but really trust my inner voice relying mostly on logic. Although in hindsight I see that my inner voice was correct. What are your thoughts about intuition? Is it an illusion or something worth paying more attention to? A. Awesome, a woo woo question, thanks so much. This is stuff that…
-
32. A Friend’s Love Life
View Column: 32. A Friend’s Love LifeQ. I have a friend who tends to make wrong choices in her love life. Why do I think they are wrong? Well, her emotions, mostly frustration shows itself very clearly. Although I truly believe that everyone should be able to make their own choice and have their own experiences, it’s sometimes hard to be…
-
31. Disability Support Staff
View Column: 31. Disability Support StaffQ. I have worked in aged care, child protection, disability and I am currently in mental health. I’m a support worker, team leader and supported accommodation manager; then I do recruitment and training. My question is: what makes a great support worker? I have staff who are fabulous at the HOW to do the job…
Halfway Decent Advice
LIFE COACHING SORTA STUFF BY A COMPLEX QUADRIPLEGIC
I have never been particularly interested in allowing one chapter of my life to become the whole story. I have had to adapt, reinvent and reconsider what a meaningful life looks like more times than most people ever will, and somewhere along the way I developed a determination (um, stubbornness) not merely to endure my circumstances but to create things from it.
That’s what sits underneath so much of what I do.
Search advice column below or view all the archives.
ADVERSITY UNIVERSITY | ONLINE COURSES
Turn life’s toughest lessons into opportunities for growth.
Whether you’re facing a major life change, rebuilding after a difficult experience, or simply looking for a fresh perspective, Adversity University is being developed to help you take your personal healing journey to the next level. Because life doesn’t have to be perfect to be meaningful, and adversity doesn’t have to be the end of your story.
Online courses coming soon.
Sometimes, the most useful lessons in life come from people who have been through a few things themselves. After more than 20 years living with extreme adversity, I’ve learned that life rarely unfolds the way we expect, and that sometimes the best we can do is make sense of the mess, find a different perspective, and keep moving forward.
My experiences have taught me a great deal about loss, identity, independence, relationships, resilience, and the strange ways life can surprise us. I don’t write from the perspective of someone who has everything figured out, but as someone who understands that life can be complicated, uncomfortable, funny, unfair, and occasionally downright ridiculous.
APPROACH & PERSPECTIVE
I combine lived experience with intellectual curiosity – or, at least, I suppose you can say this is my point of difference. I’m not interested in simply telling people what I think; I want to understand why things work, why they don’t, and whether conventional thinking (or the status quo) deserves to be challenged.
I also have a strong instinct for communication and an appreciation for the power of a well-chosen word, but underneath the writing and creativity is something more fundamental: I want things to be useful. Whether I’m talking about adversity, disability, business, relationships, writing or personal development, haha or off on some wayward rant, I’m usually looking for a way to turn an observation into something another person can actually take away and use.
Keys to Overcoming Adversity
(Coaching sessions with agendas and storylines)
About Mark
25 Years of Overcoming
Writing as a Healing Tool
Sessions
Giving difficult thoughts somewhere to go.
Some experiences are difficult to explain out loud. Others are so familiar that we rarely stop to examine them. Writing offers a private space to explore frustration, grief, anger, uncertainty and the things left unsaid. There is no expectation to produce polished writing or find a lesson in everything.
Owning Your Story
Sessions
Making sense of what has happened without pretending it was all for the best.
This session explores the person’s experiences, current circumstances, losses, changes and unresolved questions. The aim isn’t to manufacture a positive narrative. It’s to develop an honest picture of where they are and how they got here.
Life Coaching Models/Tools
Sessions
Moving from a vague sense that something is wrong to a clearer understanding of the problem.
When you’re dealing with adversity, everything can become tangled together. This session introduces simple coaching frameworks to separate problems, clarify priorities, consider options and decide what deserves attention first. The tools should fit the person’s circumstances, rather than forcing their circumstances into a formula.
Being the Main Character
Sessions
Working out where you still have a say in your own life.
Adversity can leave people feeling as though life is happening to them. Dependence on others, changed abilities, financial pressure or circumstances outside their control can shrink their sense of influence. This session distinguishes between what cannot be changed and what might still be influenced.
Freestyle One-on-One Coaching
(Work with Me)
General advice can be useful, but adversity rarely arrives in a standard package. This session brings the person’s circumstances, priorities, relationships, resources and limitations together. It provides an opportunity to examine a specific challenge in detail and identify an achievable way forward.
Life as a Story
Sessions
Examining the assumptions you hold about your past, present and future.
We all develop ideas about how life should unfold. Adversity can make those expectations impossible to maintain. This session examines the difference between what actually happened and the conclusions we have drawn about ourselves, other people and the future.
Advice Column
Learning to examine problems from another person’s perspective and communicate useful advice.
These “blogs” explore how personal experience can inform advice without becoming a claim that everyone should follow the same path. It draws together the previous sessions by examining a real-world question, identifying assumptions, considering alternative perspectives and developing a thoughtful response.
FREE EBOOK
PHILOSOPHY & CURIOUSITY
There is also a seriousness behind the creativity, the ambition. My perspective has been shaped by more than two decades of living with circumstances that most people could barely imagine having to navigate – full blown quadriplegia.
Dependence, humiliation, loss, care staff (like I’m a business these days), physical restriction, mental trauma – I feel the weight.
This experience has given me a particularly nuanced understanding of adversity. I don’t romanticise it, I don’t belittle it, and I certainly don’t pretend that everything happens for a reason.
Instead, I have developed a fascination with what happens afterwards (after a catastrophic event) — how people reconstruct identity, purpose, relationships, ambition and meaning when the life they expected is no longer available to them. Oh boy, how I can relate. And, much of what I create these days is ultimately an attempt to explore that question – what happens afterwards?
Advice Column + Blog
My advice column and blog are about creating a space where people can ask questions, explore ideas, share their struggles, and perhaps see things a little differently. I enjoy tackling the serious stuff, the awkward stuff, and even the downright bizarre questions that people might hesitate to ask elsewhere. I’m not here to preach, judge, or pretend there’s a simple solution to every problem. Instead, I hope to offer an honest perspective, a little encouragement, a dash of humour, and the occasional thought that makes someone stop and think. Ultimately, I write because I believe our experiences become more meaningful when we share what we’ve learned, and that sometimes, knowing someone else understands can make all the difference.
Popular COLUMNS
About the Author
Waddup! So, after twenty years of chronic disability a lot of people have helped me on my path. From doctors to friends, from counsellors to support staff, everyone has been so kind. And, honestly, it’s not like I feel indebted, I mean much of the help I’ve received, there hasn’t been much choice in it. Still, I’ve always wanted to give back to the world in some way. Pay it forward as they say. And as such, here we find ourselves.. Read full bio.
About the Author
An advice column written by a complex quadriplegic. After a twenty year period of struggling with extreme disability, after losing everything and fighting to reaffirm his life, Mark now has a very unique take on the world. So, with this column, the hope is that he can apply this unique perspective to whatever queries you have about your life. Also, while his niche is adversity, seriously ask anything here. The more bizarre the better.
