sharings from Pauline O'Shea, Patient Advocate, Public speaker, Media spokesperson & Writer on the challenges & healing that life has to offer
Back in my student days, I lived in a house where an art therapist also resided. Art therapy wasn't a big thing in those days. He was viewed with a mixture of fascination and pity... pity for how little demand there was for his business and how 'broke' he always seemed to be, fascination for… Continue reading Could your CREATIVE talent become your healing therapy?
In the lead up to Christmas this year, a beautiful person in my life and the lives of so many of my extended family died and so, just days before life was supposed to turn festive, came a funeral. Christmas, with its traditions based on the Christian belief in the birth of Christ, seems at… Continue reading LOST & FOUND… how sharing a loss, helped find some healing
With patients, ‘that place’ can refer to the venue where they received their diagnosis and/or treatment, or 'that place' where they were when they first noticed the lump, or experienced the sudden pain that would change their lives utterly. For others, it can be more of an experience, 'that place' in memory that holds the… Continue reading “I JUST CAN’T GO THERE!” But what if going to ‘that place’ is key to helping you heal?
I recently got a message from a lady in the US. She had read a blogpost I had previously written on the impact of SCAD, heart failure, and open-heart surgery, (see '10 years on...') and having experienced all three of these herself, only a few months prior, wanted to know what my medical results were… Continue reading Could SHARING YOUR STORY be the purpose of your pain?
On this month, 10 years ago, my life changed forever. On the very day I brought my beautiful baby daughter home from the hospital, I suffered a condition called SCAD, where a tear occurred in one of my coronary arteries, causing a heart attack. I was 38 years old. A trip to A+E, a medical… Continue reading 10 YEARS on from a SCAD & HEART FAILURE diagnosis … here are some of the things I’ve learned…
As I lay in my bed in a large cardiac ward some years ago after open heart surgery, I became somewhat fixated on a tiny window on the opposite side of the ward. It wasn’t even showing a great view, unless you count a metal fire escape as ‘artistic’. If I was asked at the… Continue reading NATURE’S HEALING… science shows that connecting with nature can improve our physical health… so is it time Doctors prescribed ‘Nature’ to patients?
Love is in the air this week, in case you've missed the card and chocolate stands emblazoned with reminders of February 14th being Valentine's Day. We have been commercially encouraged everywhere it seems to deliver our love in the form of chocolates, flowers, cards and well, whatever else we might be willing to stretch to… Continue reading To LOVE regardless… how St. Valentine’s message can help our wellbeing & healing
It happens to us all. We have the blazing row with someone, or take offence to what they said, or choose to ignore the one who has hurt us, certain that our hostility is the right and only course of action to take. Fueled by pride and anger in the aftermath of the 'offence', we… Continue reading “Finding grace”… how healing can become a beautiful thing… by Pauline O’Shea
I hope you all had a good Christmas or at least the comfort of some good love and kindness if you didn't. Today I am feeling more poetic... hope you enjoy this, my latest poem... wishing all who read it, all the good wishes it professes... and that you all may experience the jewels of… Continue reading ‘This New Year’, by Pauline O’Shea
In his books about the physiological effects of love, hope, positivity, and joy, on his patient’s recoveries, American oncologist, Dr. Bernie Siegel , leaves the reader in no doubt that these elements are important medicines for the human body. Having read his classics, Love, Medicine and Miracles and Peace, love and healing, I found his… Continue reading The medicine of JOY…
We’ve all heard the message, ‘It’s OK to not be OK’, to reach out, to tell someone how you feel… but the response to such a statement can perhaps be as vital as the admission itself, for the one who is seeking healing. I recently watched a documentary called ‘The Weight of Gold’ narrated by… Continue reading “It’s OK to not be OK,”… but is the RESPONSE to that admission causing more hurt than healing?
Last week I had the pleasure of being part of a presentation and discussion on the psychological impact of diagnosis. It’s a topic close to my heart, having experienced all manner of psychological fallout to my own misdiagnosis, eventual diagnosis and horrendous legacy of both, from stress and anxiety, to lows and PTSD (more on… Continue reading The PSYCHOLOGICAL impact of illness… why we need to HEAL OUR MINDS, as well as our BODIES!
As I write this week, I am sitting on a couch recovering. I’ve not been sick as much as I have hit a wall in terms of my health, that large metal wall, unbendable and unmerciful, that allows no progress forward bar breathing and if you are lucky the use of your digits. In the… Continue reading FATIGUE… a battle best shared than hidden…
But for this blog, many of you would be unaware that I live with heart failure, or that my marriage ended. To the regular person on the street, the other school parents, the people in my community, I look ‘normal’. How do I know I look ‘normal’? Because when people eventually heard/hear about my… Continue reading “But you look so ‘NORMAL’!!!”… the need to redefine ‘NORMAL’ to bring HEALING.
She had no idea there was a mountain to climb before she was brought to its base. Even then she didn’t know much about it, but felt the journey begin amidst the firm but gentle clasp of the adult hands on either side of her, holding her two small soft hands, with dimpled knuckles, in… Continue reading “The Mountain Climbers” in APPRECIATION for ALL those who accompany us on the journey
You know how it is, your life turns upside down, while everyone else’s looks rosier than ever. Your Facebook feed is full of smiling family pics from the latest staycation hotspot (is it Donegal this week, or has it moved back to Kerry?). You even notice the odd ‘Playa de something or other’ creeping into… Continue reading ‘CLICK & CONNECT’… why finding your tribe, is a UNIQUE and VITAL lifeline in a struggle…
I have just spent a week in my hometown. It’s been the first holiday here since Covid hit and since my marriage separation, so a lot of firsts. I have often said marriage breakdown is like a death without a body, and that, just like death, and the grief that comes with it, there can… Continue reading When ‘FAMILIARITY’ breeds HEALING and not contempt!
When you’ve been through great pain, there is something within, that wants to help prevent that pain for another, or at least help them get through it, if indeed they have to bear it. It is hard to explain that feeling, or why it is there, but throughout the world, we hear this reaction from… Continue reading HEALING through HELPING… and how it sows seeds for the better
When I was lying in the high dependency unit, post emergency open heart surgery, several years ago, grieving for my life that was, my children that I couldn’t see, and a future life that seemed, back then, so unlikely, I craved, more than anything, human connection. In the long, lonely hours of night, behind the… Continue reading COMPASSION, a vital medicine for the wounded…
It wouldn’t be quite correct to say that I bought my house because of a tree, but it wouldn’t be far off either. It's a large eucalyptus tree, God knows how old, but very mature. The first day I saw it was an exciting day. We were house hunting for a while, when we came… Continue reading THE HEALING TREE…
I thought I was rescuing a dog, turned out the dog had arrived in my life to rescue me. I didn’t notice it for a while of course, didn’t spot that every time I came home from dropping the kids to school, that he led me straight to fun, rather than the dishwasher, his squeaky,… Continue reading The power of HAIRY MEDICINE…
I won’t lie, there were lots of nerves, pressing the publish button on my blog. What if’s were rampaging through my head… most of them accompanied by some vision of a catastrophic outcome… ultimately all being about whether baring my soul, my struggles, my wounds and revealing how I try to overcome them would become… Continue reading Feeling the FEAR but doing it anyway
A few years ago I got a sudden illness and nearly died. With a new diagnosis, it was time to investigate everything that could help me get well. My journey led me to doctors and hospitals and afterwards to all kinds of advice and therapies. But healing, I discovered, wasn’t all about taking enough pills,… Continue reading I now know that LIFE IS MEDICINE…
The healing of life 