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Entries from January 2010

why people don’t talk about “mental illness”

January 31st, 2010 · 4 Comments

this is a guest post by one of my twitter friends, the barking unicorn. “the only normal people are the ones you don’t know very well,” said alfred adler, a colleague of sigmund freud. “most people live in a myth and grow violently angry if anyone dares to tell them the truth about themselves,” said [...]

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Tags: blogs of note · depression and mental illness · spirituality

stigmatization through silence

January 29th, 2010 · 9 Comments

you don’t have to spend a lot of time leafing through therese borchard’s beyond blue: surviving depression and anxiety and making the most of bad genes to find some mention of suicide. here, for example i understand why people who haven’t experienced severe depression believe that a mother who commits suicide is extremely selfish and totally [...]

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Tags: depression and mental illness · interesting books · news and events

smoke on a wordless wednesday

January 27th, 2010 · 2 Comments

image by linh ngan

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Tags: wordless wednesday

oh geez, the olympics

January 25th, 2010 · 2 Comments

here is something a friend of mine wrote. i’m reprinting it because, well, i’m not a big fan of the olympics here. (yet? maybe i’ll change my mind? there’s a few days yet to go …) right now the city is in the midst of preparations, and deep collective angst, for the games that will [...]

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Tags: news and events · peace, environment, social justice et al

suicide and … what? do words make sense here?

January 24th, 2010 · 4 Comments

i’m sitting here checking my email after a lovely weekend away. my daughter is doing the dishes to hedley’s “for the nights i can’t remember”. my husband is exercising on the Wii. and i just opened an email from an artists’ email list i belong to. norm tucker, a fellow vancouver artist and writer, committed [...]

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Tags: creativity: poetry, art, etc. · depression and mental illness

lily on a wordless wednesday

January 20th, 2010 · 4 Comments

image by conorwithonen

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Tags: wordless wednesday

i have a dream – about mental health

January 18th, 2010 · 8 Comments

therese borchard, who wrote the fabulous book beyond blue, has a dream about mental health.  i think dr. martin luther king would be totally okay with her being inspired by his famous words. i have a dream that one day i won’t hold my breath every time i tell a person that i suffer from [...]

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Tags: depression and mental illness · interesting books · news and events

understanding meaning

January 17th, 2010 · 13 Comments

recently, i have had numerous little conversation bits on twitter about meaning and meaning making. rather than expound on my ideas here, i’d like to invite you to reflect on the questions below and/or the words of others who have thought about the topic. maybe you’ll come up with your own questions. maybe we can [...]

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Tags: philosophy and education · spirituality · the "understanding" series

buddhist carnival, the first in 2010

January 15th, 2010 · 2 Comments

it’s january 15, and time to serve up this month’s buddhist carnival, a selection of posts from the buddhasphere.  here is this month’s poem: a first kensho when things abruptly shift like part of the body misaligned by a sharp move when the house goes, or the he or she, any room at once gets [...]

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Tags: blogs of note · spirituality

haiti on a wordless wednesday

January 13th, 2010 · 3 Comments

images by curiouslee and m. eriksson

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Tags: news and events · wordless wednesday

depression screening on blue monday, january 18

January 12th, 2010 · 5 Comments

the CMHA (vancouver-burnaby branch) will be holding a depression and anxiety screening the evening of monday, january 18th 2010, which they call ‘blue monday.’ blue monday is traditionally the third monday in january, a date chosen because it occurs after the holidays but when the days are still dark and dreary, new year’s resolutions may [...]

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Tags: depression and mental illness · therapy

a few good german words

January 10th, 2010 · 1 Comment

for many, many years, my aunt has been sending me the calendar of the german youth hostel association. for every two weeks, it has a little saying as well as a beautiful photograph (come to think of it, that’s where my love for wordless wednesdays may come from). the photograph can be separated from the [...]

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Tags: general

talking about spiritual experiences

January 9th, 2010 · 14 Comments

a while ago evan asked the question how do we talk about our spiritual experience? we had a little discussion about that here. what still remains to be done, however, is for me to actually tell you about my spiritual experiences. let me offer up two stories, and then perhaps you will contribute one of [...]

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Tags: Uncategorized · spirituality

feather on a wordless wednesday

January 6th, 2010 · No Comments

image by it’s life

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Tags: creativity: poetry, art, etc. · wordless wednesday

success in 2009 – 3rd and final post

January 4th, 2010 · 3 Comments

what was your biggest non-monetary success this year? i asked this question on twitter, LinkedIn and facebook. this is post #3 – the first instalment is here, and the second here. (the ones with the @ denote twitter names). @dorylanenter: new friendships i made joanna poppink: transforming my front garden into a gorgeous, free chi [...]

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Tags: general