Category: Resilience
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When mindfulness feels risky
It has become increasingly clear to me that there is no ONE SIZE FITS all approach to overcoming migraines. Migraine pain seems to come from an intensely personal, deep down, place within each of us, and as such, the causes, symptoms and treatment options will be equally individual. There are…
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How do you respond to pain-ignorance?
Living with chronic pain is painful… der… but I don’t mean just the pain-pain, I mean all the other stuff that goes with it. One of those “things” is the way that other people respond to your situation; the way they do (or don’t) accommodate our special needs, and the…
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‘Everyday’ trauma and your pain brain
The other day I was waiting to pick up my daughter from a nighttime school event. It was running late, and I was getting a bit huffy and puffy about having to sit around and wait. It wasn’t that I had to be anywhere else, more that I just didn’t…
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Bedroom basics for pain-isolation
When I get migraines, I become extremely sensitive to light and noise. ‘Normal’ sunlight suddenly seems way too bright, and people talking becomes amplified in my head, as if someone turned the volume up to 11 on the 1-10 dial. My traditional treatment was to go to the quietest, darkest…
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Purple reign
The first Friday in June is traditionally Migraine Awareness Day in Australia. That’s today! I can’t, however, bring myself to write “Happy Migraine Day” – instead, I thought I’d write a post about the color purple. Everywhere I looked on the fundraising sites, it was purple, purple, purple. The purple…
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Compassionate communication
As the mother of two teenage daughters, I feel like I am perpetually putting my foot in my mouth and messing things up. I love my children without measure and would never mean to hurt them… and yet… even I can say things that are less than all-loving. My eldest…
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Migraine jump-scares
OK – imagination time: pretend you’ve agreed to watch a horror movie with your friend. You’re not a huge fan of the horror genre, but your friend talked you into it because the movie is supposed to be ‘cerebral’ as well as ‘visceral’. So here you are, seated in the…
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The narrow road of healing
Many, many years ago I read “The Narrow Road to the Deep North”* (c. 1702) by the Japanese poet Basho. The way I remember it, it was a travel diary written in Haiku. It covered every part of his journey cross-country, from sore feet to squeaky bed frames, to the…
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Learning on the go
Yesterday was Mother’s Day in Australia, and I’m proud to say that amongst some other treats, I got a lovely beanie and scarf for the upcoming Winter season, (in my new favorite shade of mossy-green), as well as a heat pack… my girls know me so well! Although… I’m not…
The Mindful Migraine 