Category: Resilience
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“What the heck is water?”
In 2005, novelist David Foster Wallace gave the commencement address to Kenyon College. Titled “This is Water”, the speech was well received on the day but seemed to take on a life of its own for years afterwards, going on to be dubbed one of the best… even though it…
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Radical acceptance and pain
Many moons ago I wrote about the meditation teacher Tara Brach and her Compassion for Overwhelm in which she mentioned “radical compassion”. The ‘radical’ phrase reminded me of the notion of “radical acceptance”. It’s been floating around in my head for a while now, and I thought I should write…
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A new take on “ASAP”
When I was younger, I remember someone saying “ay-sap” and I had no idea what they meant. For what it’s worth, it was about the same time I read “LOL” on the bottom of an email and thought for a brief second the sender was sending me Lots Of Love.…
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Migraines, moods and a sad trombone…
My two teenage daughters have a habit of making the occasional “womp-womp” sound. It’s supposed to sound like a sad trombone, a “oh-no-you-lose” sound-bit from TV shows. It’s mostly entertaining when they do it, but sometimes, let’s be honest, it’s rude. The sound doesn’t change, just the context in which…
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1,000 days of pain
Today’s post is a bit of a downer I’m afraid, so if you’re not up to it, I won’t take offence if you come back tomorrow. I’ve had migraines for decades. My first migraine occurred when I was 11 on a school excursion, and my worst ever migraine happened a…
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My bloomin’ orchids
I love reading other blogs, and while I was out and about a while ago, I came across a post: Waiting for trees to bud is good because it is hard – Incense and Crayons. Towards the end of the post the author writes: “This practice of watching trees grow…
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3 little piggies (and a migraine)
A while ago I wrote about the blogger Diana and her site The Oake Raven. She wrote back to thank me for the shoutout and mentioned that the rune I had pulled (here) was akin to being a “house that withstands the storm” – and now I can actually see…
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Are you a crybaby?
Just after the 2024 Olympics, I read an article in a publication called ‘The Atlantic’ which was titled The Crybaby Olympics by Christopher Beam. I now can’t open it without a subscription, but I took a copy of the article’s tagline: “Sports have always had sore losers. But based on…
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Conditioning and pain
Ever heard of Ivan Petrovich Pavlov (1849–1936)? He was a physiologist who did experiments with dogs. Put simply, he would ring a bell each time he served the puppies their dinner. After repeating the routine often enough, he could ring a bell, and the dogs would salivate even if there…
The Mindful Migraine 