Meaningful English

A fair few of you have very kindly let me know that you appreciated learning the selections for the Meaningful English Book Club further in advance over the last few months, so that you had more time to track down copies.

With that in mind, I've taken the liberty of selecting our next read.:

📖 The Correspondent by Virginia Evans 📖

I picked up this gem of a novel on a recent trip to the UK and devoured it in a single weekend. It's just been awarded the Women's Prize for Fiction, so I'm certainly not alone in my admiration.

📅 We'll start reading this book on 11 July and our get-together to discuss our impressions will take place on Saturday 12 September.

🔗Click the link to find out more about the club and to sign up for free: meaningful-english-x7ko7z.subscribepage.io

📚The next instalment of the Meaningful English Book Club is here!📚

Over the next two months, we're reading...

✨The Book of Hope by Jane Goodall and Douglas Abrams with Gail Hudson✨

Our get-together will take place on Google Meet at 16:00 CEST on Saturday, 4th July 2026.💻

❗Put the date and time in your diary now so that you don't miss out❗

🔗Click here to find out more about the club and to sign up for free: https://subscribepage.io/BnRgl7

If you have any questions, don't hesitate to get in touch via Direct Message or comment below.💬✍️

If you’ve been following me for a while, you’ll know I’m not a huge proponent of New Year’s resolutions. If you want to know why, you’ll need to sign up to my email newsletter. My reasoning is more nuanced than an Instagram caption allows for.

So rather than setting lofty New Year’s resolutions that never materialise, I’ve learned that I work much better with a word of the year: a direction to move towards throughout the year, rather than a final destination to tick off a list of goals.

Last year, I had no trouble landing on my word of the year: joy. After a few years of knuckling down, building my business and preparing for DELTA Module 1, I wanted to create more opportunities for lightness.

This year, I’m struggling more than usual to home in on the feeling I want to move towards.

Instead of berating myself for this struggle, I’m allowing myself extra space for reflection this week, using the questions in this post to guide me.

I might not land on the “perfect” word by the end of the week, but I know I’ll be a little closer to understanding what I want to move towards this year.

How about you? What feeling do you want to move towards in 2026?

Last week’s journal prompt was about the acts of kindness you witness around you. This week’s prompt is about the acts of kindness you offer yourself.

In Meaningfully Fluent, our topic has shifted from kindness towards others to self-compassion. This feels especially important at this time of year.

As we move towards the end of the year, life often speeds up.
There’s more to do, more to think about, and very little space to pause.

Self-kindness doesn’t have to look big or impressive. It might be resting when you usually push through, letting something be “good enough”, or speaking to yourself more gently than usual.

This week, use your journalling time to write about the moments you offer yourself kindness, no matter how small they may seem.

If you feel like it, share one in the comments 💛

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Are you ready to give journalling a go, but you could do with a helping hand getting started?

Download your free copy of the Meaningful English Language Learning Journal here: https://subscribepage.io/4hQQaO

Our current topic in Meaningfully Fluent is one my favourites: Kindness.

Did you know that as human beings, we're hardwired to spot the negative things that happen first?

If you think about it, it makes sense.

This is how the human race has evolved and flourished for millennia: as cavepeople, we were able to spot danger and remember what not to do to avoid being eaten by a saber-toothed tiger.

The bad news?

There's no saber-toothed tiger chasing us today, but our nervous system still acts as if there were.

This is why it's so crucial to take time out of our busy schedules to focus on and celebrate the good in the world -- especially at this current moment in history.

One way to do this is to make a special effort to notice the small acts of kindness that happen around us.

When was the last time you clocked a colleague holding the door open for another co-worker?

Or a pedestrian helping an older person to cross the road?

This week, use your journalling time to write about the acts of kindness that you witness as you go about your day, no matter how seemingly insignificant.

Why not get the ball rolling by sharing an idea in the comments? What was the last act of kindness that you witnessed?

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Are you ready to give journalling a go, but you could do with a helping hand getting started?

Download your free copy of the Meaningful English Language Learning Journal here: https://subscribepage.io/4hQQaO