I am in absolute awe of the humans who have come forward since the launch of my “unclinic” in the forest. DIA is not relaxing, feel-good acupuncture in the moment. It is deep and sometimes uncomfortable work. The feeling good part only comes after a bit of struggle and effort. And the people who have shown up to do this work haven’t had easy life experiences. They’ve had trauma, PTSD, anxiety, long-term chronic health conditions. They’ve been afraid, hesitant, concerned about

The effects of my experiences in the world of psychiatry were not initially apparent. After discharge from inpatient care, I was still mildly hypomanic - that is to say, I felt pretty good. I was embarrassed by what had happened, and worried about what people had heard about me, about who knew what. I was aware that some of my neighbors had probably witnessed me screaming and fighting police officers on my doorstep. There was shame, to be sure - no doubt about it, I had gone

I don’t know if severe clinical depression was an experience I ‘needed’ to have. Maybe it occurred in part because a crash, a low phase, was necessary to balance out the high of mania. Maybe I was processing the trauma of the whole experience. It’s likely there was a chemical component - perhaps I had used up a 6 month supply of all those happy brain chemicals in a matter of days or weeks and needed to rest and rebuild them. Or if psychiatry has it right, then I’m at the merc

The Void is the space in between. It is a space in consciousness, between objective and subjective realities. As we fall asleep at night, once our conscious minds slip away but before bodies sink into total slumber, there is a spaciousness. And in this space, energy moves easily. People might experience twitches, jumpiness, or restless legs as the body naturally discharges tension accumulated during the day. With the mind out of the way, we can better explore our pain and lea

** I wrote this nearly a month ago, and didn't feel right about publishing it until now. Something has since shifted and I'm feeling much more myself. Yay spring! Yay acupuncture and herbs! Big thanks to the amazing supportive humans in my life who help me through. xx mm Life is a journey. Life is a highway. Life is a river with a strong and insistent current. Mostly, I've been lucky - able to float with that current, to be carried forward in a way that's felt safe and secur

“I’m just getting tired of the pain. First it was in one place, now it’s another… and I just want it to GO AWAY. I’m getting frustrated and angry and depressed and I can’t think about anything else because it’s always there and I’ve tried everything and nothing helps!!” I hear some variation of this desperation every single week, and it's always a little heartbreaking. Yes, we all have pain from time to time – a sore lower back, a kink in the neck, a headache or migraine - a

Sometimes you just have a sad day. And sometimes it lingers. Sometimes for a week, sometimes for endless awful months. Sometimes you push away the people that you like the most, just because you can't bear to bring them down. Sometimes you feel like an alien, like you belong to another species, one that hides away and watches endless hours of Netflix in an attempt to distract yourself from the isolation, the monotony of depression, the feelings that you are unable to look at

Sometimes all you can do is sigh and start again. I did a Vipassana meditation retreat - it was over a year and a half ago now- and this is the one thing that comes back to me over and over and over again... Goenka's groaning voice at the beginning of each and every excruciatingly long sit, imploring us to: "Starrrrt Againnnn. Starrrrt Againnnn. With a calm and quiet mind..." And so now, after my sketchy Indian internet access has just caused an hour's worth of blogging to

I have a confession to make. I think about dying. I think about it quite a bit. Probably more than is normal for a healthy, privileged, 26-year-old. In November 2012 I witnessed someone's death. A week later my uncle died suddenly in a car accident. And I was not one of those people who grew up never having experienced a funeral - coming from a Catholic farming family is synonymous with having a large extended family (it's that magical combination of not condoning birth contr

Some of us have studied the human body- anatomy and physiology, the structure of internal organs and their respective functions. And to some degree, most of us are aware of our outer bodies- whether our hands are moving when we talk, feeling our sore feet after a strenuous day. But how many of us- even if we have an intellectual understanding of the processes that occur inside our bodies- are actually aware of those activities as they are happening? At any given moment our he