Category: Mindset
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Anxiety and migraines
Not too long ago I flicked through a self-discovery workbook that I found, titled “Wanting What You Have” (1998) by Timothy Miller (Ph.D.). The book had the feeling of a hybrid genre – part Cognitive Behavior Therapy (your thoughts influence your behavior which influences your thoughts) and part Buddhism (promoting…
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Whispers and screams
The other day I read a comment on the blog Thriving Chronicles – it immediately struck me as so simple and yet deeply profound: “I try to listen to my body when it whispers, so it doesn’t have to scream!” My goodness – why hadn’t I thought of that!?! This…
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Mo(u)rning
It is human to grieve. Necessary. We need to acknowledge loss, to make space for it, and time. You should give yourself full permission to feel deep, heart-breaking-sadness, and there should be no shame in having a good old cry… about whatever, or whoever it is that you’re missing… But…
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Frida Kahola’s pain
The painter Frida Kahola was born in Mexico in 1907. As a child she suffered a bout of polio which left her with a limp. Worse was to come however, and at the age of 18 she was involved in a bus accident so terrible, many onlookers thought she was…
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Find your WHY
You’ve probably heard the saying before – find your why – like all sayings, they tend to do the rounds for a while then fade away… for a while. When I thought about it the other day though, it seemed to take on a new resonance. I had been thinking…
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Pain + Fear = Chronic Pain
I often wonder why my occasional migraines switched over into a chronic migraine condition about three years ago. To try and understand what might have been the cause, I tried to remember what was happening in my life at about the time of the change. I realized that five significant…
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Are you a human being or a human doer?
Last Sunday, when I was ironing school uniforms and office shirts for the week ahead, I was listening to one of my mindfulness/migraine-related-podcasts. It’s something I started doing when I DJ-mixed-up my life’s playlist: do a not-so-favorite chore at the same time as another activity that you’re keen on; old…
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Why you might not be healing
As a person who was diagnosed with a chronic pain condition over two years ago, there is NOTHING that holds a greater priority in my head and heart than healing. I REALLY want to get better. Now, that might sound like I’m de-prioritizing my family, but that’s not true. They…
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Segment intending – or as I like to say: “chunking”
One of the difficulties of getting through a standard day when you’re feeling under the weather (whether it’s mood-wise, pain-wise, or motivation-wise), is that there is always a lot of things that need to get done AND whilst there might be a lot of time to get it done, that…
The Mindful Migraine 