Surreal vintage mental health posters from Japan

I found these amazing Japanese advertisements and vintage posters advertising Abilify, Zoloft, Ritalin, Serenase and other medications that are used for a variety of different mental health conditions. Despite me not knowing how to read Japanese, the storytelling here through design is evocative, straight-forward to understand and incredibly imaginative. It brings to mind Dali andContinue reading “Surreal vintage mental health posters from Japan”

The essence of trauma is that it is overwhelming, unbelievable and unbearable

Who can find a proper grave for such damaged mosaics of the mind, where they may rest in peices. Life goes on but in two different temporal directions at once. The future unable to escape the grip of a memory laden with grief. The essence of trauma is that it is overwhelming, unbelievable and unbearable.Continue reading “The essence of trauma is that it is overwhelming, unbelievable and unbearable”

Comforting Thought: Anxiety is a doorway

Carl Jung said that if you find the psychic wound in an individual or a people, there you also find their path to consciousness. For it is in the healing of our psychic wounds that we come to know ourselves…In the evolution of consciousness, our greatest problem is always our richest opportunity. ~ Robert Johnson

Comforting Thought: We pretend we aren’t vulnerable, but this is an illusion

We pretend we aren’t vulnerable, but this is an illusion. We are incarnated in a delicate body, intertwined in the community of life. Our senses have evolved to be exquisitely tuned to the ever-changing world of pleasure and pain, sweet and sour, gain and loss.

Comforting Thought: Try and sleep on it

If it ever becomes so bad, you will not see hope. Try to sleep on it. When you wake up, you might not feel better, but a little different. That sometimes, is worth hanging on to. Googie McCabe

Comforting Thought: We are in a tight spot

Anxiety is not optional in life.. It’s a part of life. We come into life through anxiety. We look at it and we remember it and say to ourselves: We made it. We got through it. In fact, the worst anxieties and the worst tight spots in our life, often, years later, when we lookContinue reading “Comforting Thought: We are in a tight spot”

Book Review: Standing At the Edge: Finding Freedom Where Fear and Courage Meet by Joan Halifax @jhalifax

Standing At the Edge is a once in a lifetime kind of book. I don’t say that lightly either. It’s a life-changing and life-affirming book that combines philosophy, Zen Buddhism, psychology, and much more and manages to be both personal and relevant for individuals as well as being vastly relevant to the entire human race.Continue reading “Book Review: Standing At the Edge: Finding Freedom Where Fear and Courage Meet by Joan Halifax @jhalifax”

Comforting Thought: Loneliness is a doorway to belonging

Loneliness is a place from which we pay real attention to the voices other than our own. Being alone allows us to find the healing power in the other. The shortest line of an email can heal, embolden, welcome home and enliven the most isolated identity. Lonely human beings are lonely because they are madeContinue reading “Comforting Thought: Loneliness is a doorway to belonging”

Comforting Thought: Disappointment is a measure of our courage

What we call disappointment may just be the first stage of our emancipation into the next great pattern of our existence. The measure of our courage is the measure of our willingness to embrace disappointment. To turn towards it rather than away from it. Disappointment is the understanding that every real conversation of life involvesContinue reading “Comforting Thought: Disappointment is a measure of our courage”

Kintsukuroi or why we are perfect in our imperfection

“There is a Japanese practice called Kintusukoroi or kintsugi which means ‘golden repair’. Kintsukuroi is the art of repairing broken pottery with powdered gold or platinum mixed with lacquer, so that the repair reflects the history of the breakage. “The repaired object mirrors the fragility and imperfection of life – and also its beauty andContinue reading “Kintsukuroi or why we are perfect in our imperfection”