The Question That Shook Me From Relational Complacency
It was the question that burrowed under my skin and wouldn't come out. And it did me good, shaking me from my complacency. It came a few years ago when Merryn and I were sitting in a seminar on fostering and adoption. As well as informing us of the joys that adoption can bring, our
Why Can’t Us Men Tell Each Other How We Feel?
In our Friendship Lab Survey, how and when to express affection to a friend came up as a common question, often by men. It wasn’t always difficult to do so, so where did we go wrong?
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Friendship is essential for our wellbeing, yet more people are reporting having few or even no friends. To help address this need, we at Friendship Lab are designing an evidence-based course to help us all form and deepen adult friendships. Three years of preparation have gone into its design, and pilots will soon be run.
How a Book Idea Became a Non-Profit. The Friendship Lab Story So Far
Something special is brewing - a new calling that's been years in the making and will take years to complete. And you're a part of it.
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The research is startling: friendship decreases anxiety and depression, increases our lifespan, buffers us against addictions, and raises our happiness levels. All those coffee dates, weekend hikes and late-night chats help us face our adversities, choose our best paths, and discover who we are. And yet 1-in-4 of us has no close friends, a rate
We Need to Rediscover the Power of Friendship. Here’s How to Do it
The research is startling. Friendship has been proven to boost our immune system, decrease anxiety and depression, increase our lifespan, and be a buffer against addictions, prejudice and extremism. And yet rates of it are declining in western countries. Why? In this keynote talk for Christian Schools Trust's educators conference, I unpack some of the
Your Resilient Relationships | Resilient Session 3
Join me for Session 3 of our Resilient video series where we turn our attention to relationships, why we need them, what destroys them, and how to make them flourish.
You’re Both So Different? That Could Be What Makes Your Marriage Work
After 21 years, I sometimes look at my wife Merryn and wonder how our marriage works. I’m a writer and speaker, Merryn is a statistician. I work with words, she works with numbers. I want beauty, she wants function. And that’s only the start of our differences! Here’s what’s helped us stick together…
Let’s Recover Friendship as a Holy Calling
Friends: they celebrate our birthdays, pop a cork over our new jobs, become bridesmaids and best men at our weddings. But fewer of us seem to have them. In the UK, a recent YouGov survey found that more than 1-in-10 Britons have no close friends and a further 1-in-10 have no friends at all. In the US, 35 percent
Time to Rethink Our Attitude to Singleness
More and more of us are single. In the United Kingdom, over a third of the adult population of England and Wales are single, more than half of 25–44 year olds, and singleness is increasing in every age group with 50–64 year olds growing the fastest. Some embrace the single life with joy, others don't,