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What is this website for? A Wellspring of Wellbeing.

Thanks for stopping by this website.

neilpaddock.com is a place to find Solutions for Success!

I am hopeful you will find your visit to be beneficial.

I am a Certified Practising Counsellor with PACFA and a Chartered Certified Acccountant with ACCA.

My dad was an engineer, and I too, initially trained in Mechanical and Electrical Engineering. We both liked to know how things work, and how to fix them when they don’t.

So I have developed a passion and an intellectual curiosity for systems, how they work, and why they don’t work; financial systems and business intelligence systems, psychological systems and social systems.

I am driven to look for practical solutions to problems that reside within systems, whether they are systems of thinking, emoting, relating, transacting, acting, reacting or simply processes that interfere with us surviving and thriving and living the best lives we possibly can.

I research and try out tools to create positive change, and to promote psychological wellbeing.

It is always worth considering the possibility that a small change in any one part of a system can cause changes in other parts of the system.

We may have to figure out how to disrupt established habit patterns and accepted ways of doing things. The challenge is to view them differently, which requires a different approach.

It could mean stepping back and looking at the bigger picture. It may mean speaking out, and challenging the status quo. This is not without risk.

We can stop providing supply (i.e. giving air) to a problem, and thus stop ourselves from maintaining it indefinitely. It requires creativity, patience, courage,  persistence, diligence and practice, and perhaps even a leap of faith.

But in my experience, it can be done, and it’s absolutely worth it.

Because, ultimately, you are worth it, and I believe the best things in life are available, if we resist and persist; if we resist our disempowering habits (and those of others) and persist in pursuing our aspirations, on purpose, in the present moment.

Welcome aboard!

The river of wellbeing awaits… Take a deep breath, and let’s dive in!

Or, you could just get in the boat… and come along for the ride.

Why should you listen to me?

“Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional.”

According to those people who created NLP, If I treat life like it’s a learning laboratory, then there are no mistakes, only feedback.

But here’s what I have learned;

Feedback can be wrong, and it can be brutal, undermining and malicious.

I have found out, through cold, hard life experience, that we have to be extremely careful what feedback we take on board, and the reliability, character and intentions of the source. 

When I retrained as a counsellor, I had an unexpected challenge.

Essentially, pressure was being applied on me to quit. To just give up. It seemed to come out of nowhere and slowly built over time. Slowly but surely, the temperature ramped up.

I felt like a frog in a pot, starting in a comfortably warm pond, only to realise I was being slowly boiled alive. 

Ultimately, I was faced with a choice;

To abandon all the work I had put my heart and soul into up until that point, or push through and emerge with the rewards I set out to gain.

It got tough for a while. A good while.

But at my lowest point, something wise and strong began to kick in. And I started to fight my way back. Bit by bit.

Out of a very strong sense of darkness, and faced with a slow, relentless crawl, I found a new strength and conviction to head back towards the light.

And ultimately, I made it through.

I really detest the idea of other people having to go through what I went through, but the sad reality is that the problems I faced then affect many, many people in all walks of life.

And it is said that what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.

I was forced to pursue my own truth, and that meant ignoring other people doing their best to present an alternative reality, which was an offensive, blatant lie.