machado: have we tossed aside the idea of dignity?
the last year has been fraught with sadness and anxiety, but we need to remember the dignity of the vulnerable
even though the bloated skin around her waist was uncharacteristic — “she really liked ginger snaps,” my friend said — it wasn’t until months later, when rose saw her doctor about a yellow fever vaccine for an upcoming trip to thailand, that she became concerned. she had laughingly made an off-the-cuff comment about her increasing pant size and gnawing back pain, and it set off a series of urgent tests.
p said that everything about where she lived brought back painful memories of her mother — the spare bedroom where she slept when she came to help with the kids, the red velvet chair she curled up in to watch coronation street and her preferred bench on the patio for bird-watching. she would stretch out there in the early morning, and the rays of the sun would fall just right so she could watch the birds jostle each other in the birdfeeder that hung from the tall maple tree above her.
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how we choose to cope with our emotions in response to difficult situations — whether that’s physically distancing ourselves from triggers, trying to prevent them or “sitting with them” — is known in the psychology world as emotional regulation strategies. and according to research , we unconsciously use them many times throughout the day in order to adapt to the demands of our environment and prevent emotional breakdowns and burnout.
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in a study that she authored with her husband, florin, on whether or not we can control the sting of bad memories, the dolcos’ found that by thinking contextually you can actually train your brain to reduce the impact of unwanted memories and increase the positive impact of the good ones.
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