About Penelope Overton

Penelope is a life coach helping people uncover their questions, find the answers and get back on track. Her professional experience as a lawyer, a small business owner, a mediator and writer, together with her fair share of life’s ups and downs, means that she brings a uniquely practical, empathic and acute listening to the intricacies of your particular situation. To find out more about Penelope, click here.

The joy of stating the obvious

One of the things I love about this time of year (aside from having got Christmas and my birthday out the way) is how the evenings get noticeably lighter as do the mornings. What a boring thing to say, I hear you mutter.  Obvious, dull, doh.  It is, and that’s the thing. I must have found myself in at least five conversations already this year about lighter mornings and longer evenings (none, I hasten to add, started by me).  Which leads me to observe that even though we know it’s [...]

2020-02-04T14:46:23+00:004 February 2020|brighton, change, coaching, dawn, Hope, meaning making, meaningfulness, optimism|0 Comments
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Six Reasons to buy Six Sessions

My best selling coaching package is a six pack.  This is why it works: 1  Compost Never underestimate the benefit of composting – yes the vegetable kind which worms and bacteria turn into dark crumbling nourishment and also the emotional and intellectual version.  When I’m writing, I often need to let a first, second, third draft settle, before its true meaning comes out.  In coaching, it’s critical to give time for an idea, a question, a revelation to hang around so you can feel into it and get a sense [...]

2020-04-06T10:53:04+01:0015 January 2020|business, coaching, packages|0 Comments
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You are a chest of drawers, handle yourself with care.

I’ve moved house (I might have said that before).  Three small words, one massive upheaval.  Replete with metaphors. I have an old chest of drawers, made of mahogany.  I bought it from Austen’s of Peckham which in the mid 80's was the best secondhand  furniture shop in the world.  It was arranged in layers, the higher you went up the more exotic and expensive the goods.  The top floor could have been a museum.  I used to shop on the ground floor, rummaging in the ordinary and cheap.  I picked [...]

2019-11-27T12:08:47+00:0027 November 2019|change, coaching, moving, self compassion|1 Comment
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How to solve the unsolvable using only half an onion

I know it’s blokes who are supposed to be unable to see the pint of milk on the second shelf of the fridge (it’s because they have the eye on the big picture, isn’t it – checking out the lion on the horizon the while we women worry about grubs and corn on the ground?). Let's be honest, it’s not just blokes. I made myself a stir fry yesterday and I knew I had half an onion. I was pretty sure it was in the fridge and certain I hadn’t [...]

2019-10-08T14:54:14+01:008 October 2019|coaching, Mediation, needs, optimism, positive outlook, solutions|2 Comments
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Trying + failure = success

I have recently moved to Brighton and while it's a novelty I've been taking my cup of tea (and occasionally my swimming stuff) to the beach, yes occasionally to swim, but mostly to watch the waves.  Okay - to watch people. A guy rocked up at the beginning of last week with a windsurf board on wheels.  He unhooked it, dragged it down to the water’s edge and went back for the sail. He climbed into his wetsuit and adjusted the braces.  He fixed the sail to the board and [...]

2019-09-25T10:46:41+01:0025 September 2019|coaching, defeat, defeat, goal, Hope, humiliation, optimism|0 Comments
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the power of coincidence

I was driving down the coast towards San Francisco in the summer, stopped for a sandwich in a little town, popped into a secondhand bookshop and bought this: As you can see, it came highly recommended, by the Dalai Lama (not just recommended, he actually wrote the preface) and several reputable writers. It turns out to be wonderful.  I have it by my bedside and the chapters are long enough to be interesting and short enough to get through before I fall asleep. Each chapter describes and reflects on a [...]

2019-01-17T17:44:24+00:0017 January 2019|Uncategorised|0 Comments
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A divorce is for life, not just for Christmas

I read in last Saturday’s Guardian that thirteen people filed for Divorce on Christmas Day. Christmas Day can be tough for a lot of people, but that’s a hell of a way to spend the afternoon. It’s my theory that these divorce petitions had little to do with wanting to end a marriage. They are more about hitting out from a place of pain; hurting someone who’s hurt you. And pretty effective, if that’s what you’re trying to do. That need to wound someone who’s hurt you – it’s an [...]

2019-01-10T12:59:25+00:009 January 2019|coaching, dispute resolution, divorce, nonviolent communication, Uncategorised|0 Comments
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Resolutions don’t solve anything

There is a flaw in the New Year Resolution system. It’s not just that the emphasis is on what you didn’t do very well last year – and that’s always going to be a bit negative; it’s not just that the commitments are unrealistic – if you haven't been reading a novel a week for the last 20 years, you’re probably not going to in 2019; it’s not just that you leave the list until a couple of days before (or after) January 1st, the one time of year you’ll [...]

2019-01-04T17:28:05+00:004 January 2019|coaching, goal, new year resolutions, optimism, positive outlook, Uncategorised|0 Comments
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Why I find it so hard to give money to homeless people

It’s not because they don’t need it, or because giving small bits of cash doesn’t deal with the problem of poverty.  It’s not because I worry it will be spent on drugs or alcohol.  It’s not because I believe the state should be tackling the problem through taxation (which of course it should).  None of these. It’s something much more basic. I find it physically hard to pause, get out my purse, find a couple of quid and put it in the paper cup. So much so that it’s not [...]

2018-11-27T18:22:21+00:0027 November 2018|charity, connection, homelessness, Hope, humiliation|0 Comments
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No such thing as a bully

Bullies have been on my mind lately.  A few weeks ago we had the headline in the Guardian about a ‘bullying culture’ in universities.  I work in this sector, so the story was both interesting and familiar and prompted me to a direct marketing campaign – I can help employers with this kind of problem. Next I conducted a mediation where both parties were complaining about being bullied by the other.  This isn’t as unusual as it sounds.  My job (successful in this case) was to help each party hear [...]

2018-11-14T15:40:07+00:003 October 2018|Byron Katie, coaching, dispute resolution, humiliation, mistake, misunderstanding, nonviolent communication, Uncategorised|0 Comments
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