Hi all and welcome to a New Year! 2022 was a doozy: it saw us spend an extended period of time in the USA, so that P could spend time with his family; most importantly his Dad, before he passed away. It saw me job hunting (properly) for the first time in a long time. The last job I got via applications & interviews was back in 2012. Every job I’ve had since then has been through my...
Transitions are inevitable in life. From the moment we emerge squalling into the world to the moment we shuffle off this mortal coil, we are faced with times of growth and change. Some changes are sudden and devastating; the death of a close friend or loved one or the sudden loss of a job. These whip through our life with the force of a hurricane, leaving grief in its wake. Other transitions are...
The Lonely Century is a book that argues we are living in an age of extreme loneliness. Noreena Hertz has done her research. She points to colleges that are needing to teach students how to interact with other people face-to-face. Elderly Japanese women who are committing petty crimes in order to be sent to prison, in order to alleviate their loneliness. And single people who eat their meals...
I first started doing yoga some 15-20 years ago. I borrowed a (mostly text-based) book from the library, which gave me a guide to various poses as well as introduced me to some basic concepts around breathing (helpful) and Vastra Dhauti, in which a cloth is passed down the digestive tract to the stomach in order to cleanse impurities (this one appealed a lot less to teenage me!) Since then...
I recently read N.K. Jemsin’s Broken Earth trilogy*. An epic sci-fi/fantasy, it was gripping and fantastical. One of the points she makes is that apocalypses are happening all the time, somewhere. We talk about climate change (nuclear winter, over-population, etc.) as being the end of the world, but what we really mean is that it will be the end of us. It will, of course, be a shame if...
Today I got my second shot of the Pfizer vaccine. The whole thing was extremely efficient. I am expecting to feel a few side-effects later, but it’s worth it to know that I have vastly reduced my chances of being hospitalised with Covid-19, as well as generally reduced my chances of catching it and passing it on. It did occur to me that, in many ways, I got to experience the peak of human...
Today was a beautiful day. The sun was out, there was a gentle breeze, and my spouse and I set ourselves a rather arbitrary quest to go and buy bubble tea, which necessitated us walking some 3 miles down the river into town and then some 3 miles back. People often wonder why I don’t own a car. There is no doubt that cars are useful, and I do occasionally miss the ease of getting anywhere...
Let me start with the bad news. You can’t cure your depression by eating a stalk of broccoli. Sorry. And, as I talked about in my post about how clean eating fed my depression, trying to achieve a ‘perfect’ diet can make depression and anxiety worse, not better. Now for the good news! There is a lot of research about the link between diet and depression. Eating a nourishing and...
I thought I would add a self-care checklist for when you’re sick to my library of self-care checklists! I’ve written a couple before: there’s my self-care checklist for depression and my quick self-care checklist which is more general. However, the past couple of weeks I’ve had both a rotten cold that has gone to my chest (seriously, I cannot shake this irritating cough)...
A gratitude journal is, at heart, very simple. It’s the act of taking a few minutes to write down things that you are grateful for. In fact, in some ways, is is deceptively simple. The truth is that gratitude journaling carries a host of benefits, and that the act of ‘being thankful’ has been a part of philosophical and spiritual life for most of human history. Let us rise up and be thankful, for...
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