The Mindful Migraine

Hello! If today is your first day visiting The Mindful Migraine Blog; welcome! If you’re a regular popper-inner, welcome back my lovely friend!

June is Migraine Awareness Month.

In the past, I haven’t made too much of a fuss about it, because I’ve been struggling too much with my health to promote much more than ‘breathe better and be kind to your mother’ as a rallying call.

The start of June is also the anniversary of my chronic migraine journey – so today means that I have had 4 YEARS of daily migraine pain.

Luckily, these days, my pain mostly resides at a level 1 on the Pain Scale (in my right eye (I call it my ‘migraine-eye’)). Better yet, I am having more and more days that are very close to a 0, which is an exciting (deliberately not too bright) light at the end of a long, dark tunnel.

I do, however, still occasionally have a full-on migraine-attack. Just last week, I visited my neurologist for my 31 Botox injections (and no, it’s nothing like plastic surgery Botox (read more here)). Maybe it was a coincidence, maybe not, but I spent the next 3 days after the visit in and out of bed with a migraine-shocker (no projectile vomiting, but plenty of the woozy-woobles and a thick blanket of brain fog that lingered long after the head-in-a-vice pain passed).

UGH.

Migraine sux.

It’s why I started this blog a couple of years ago – there was plenty of information online ABOUT people with migraines, but no warts-and-all accounts of migraine life BY people with migraines.

Enter me… and YOU.

I say it a lot, but really; thank you for being here and helping me through the grim years with your radiant kindness – you all mean the world to me!

OK – to expand the lovefest and circle back to Migraine Month, I have a couple of things to announce.

The first is to let you know I’m in a podcast interview where I discuss one of my favorite topics, metaphors for healing, with the fabulous Dr Michelle Greenwell (who just last week left a metaphoric comment on my post about how ‘time flies’ converting it into ‘time flows’: “Perhaps time has to do with expectations and goals. When we know where we are going everything flows, while not having our GPS set seems to have us weaving in and out of needless activities and ideas that moves us away from the things that matter most” – so good!).

Here’s the link – enjoy!: Migraine Awareness Month: Finding New Pathways to Healing – Greenwell Center for Holistic Health

The second is that I want to do a shoutout for some of the official Migraine Awareness Month initiatives so that you can get involved and show your support, or perhaps seek contact with others who are going through this sh!t-show with you. This list is NOT exhaustive, but it’s a good place to start:

1 June onwards: Move for Migraine (a Canadian initiative where everyone’s steps are added together to create a 20 million-step journey around Canada)

5 June – Australia’s “Burple Day” (wear burgundy-and/or-purple and upload a selfie with the hashtag BurpleDay to show you’re aware)

13-28 June – Flags for Headaches (where thousands of flags are placed in Washington DC, and each flag indicatively represents a thousand people living with head pain in the USA)

21 June – Shades for Migraines (wear sunglasses on the longest (sunniest (most annoying day for migraine people in the Northern Hemisphere)) as a sign of support)

Throughout June (and beyond) – Miles for Migraine (run or walk in local community events across the USA to put your feet where your heart is)

If you know of any others, drop them in the comment section below!

Lastly, in some bitter-sweet news, I have realized that a large part of my healing has come from reprioritizing how I spend my time, with a preference for doing a little less of everything. That includes spending less time on my computer, and more time outside. Whilst I LOVE being on this blog and talking to all of you in the comments, and then reading your own fascinating blog posts, publishing 3 articles a week takes a lot of time and energy that I don’t always have.

So, I’m going to go from posting Mon-Wed-Fri to just twice a week; Monday and Friday – at the same time as before (roughly 8am Sydney-time).

It was a hard decision, but I look forward to this new chapter in my online-offline-life.

All the best for the month of June and see you again in 4 days’ time (instead of 2!)

Take care taking care,

Linda xox

PS – in case I don’t get around to it this year, here’s some past posts for Migraine Month: Meet the Burples and Shades for Migraines