Sarah Wilson

how to own your cliches (in writing and in life)

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Seth Godin, the maestro of idea generation, posted this musing this morning about using cliches to your advantage.

be your own bridge over troubled waters
be your own bridge over troubled waters

He starts with the wiki definition:

In printing, a cliché was a printing plate cast from movable type. This is also called a stereotype. When letters were set one at a time, it made sense to cast a phrase used repeatedly as a single slug of metal. “Cliché” came to mean such a ready-made phrase. The French word “cliché” comes from the sound made when the matrix is dropped into molten metal to make a printing plate.

To save time and money, then, printers took common phrases and re-used the type.

Along the way, they trained us to understand the image, the analogy, the story. Hear it often enough and you remember it. That training has a useful purpose….

The effective way to use a cliché is to point to it and then do precisely the opposite.

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Guest post: how to heal auto-immune disease (anti-inflammatory foods) #4

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If you’ve got auto-immune disease, you probably have some bloody annoying issues with inflammation  – swollen feet or hands, skin breakouts, sore joints etc. I do (see the rest of my rundown on my crazy wrestling with Hashimoto’s here). I put up with it for ages. Actually, I whinged about it. But did nothing. 48425_6_468

Only recently I’ve realised that I can actually eat my way back from the angry, red, swollen brink. And so it happened – as it does when you start thinking along a certain path – the info I was after jumped out at me. Chelsea Hunter, one of the editors at WellBeing magazine contacted me with the spiel below. She’s kindly let me share her love with all of you.

Chelsea says:

Food is a joy. Food can heal.

I was reminded of this when I read Sarah’s earlier post about how her body often felt inflamed as a result of Hashimoto’s. Only a few weeks earlier I had read an article written by naturopath Saskia Brown about the foods that can help to ease inflammation in the body – a lovely bit of synchronicity I thought. We both wanted to share Saskia’s wisdom with you. Soo…

Anti-inflammatory foods

There are many foods you can include in your diet to help combat inflammation. Including the right types of fats and carbohydrates in your diet is integral to controlling pain and inflammation. Omega-3 essential fatty acids are very powerful anti-inflammatory agents and are found in large amounts in cold-water oily fish, walnuts, flaxseeds, canola oil and pumpkin seeds.

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where would you like to wake up?Fifty People, One Question

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I watched this a while back. But decided to dig it up again because it’s so sweet. 50 People, one question: Where would you like to wake up? ] Fifty People, One Question: Brooklyn from Fifty People, One Question on Vimeo. Everyone yearns, don’t they. Although, it’s amazing how many people, when pressed, say they’d … Read more

try this: write serenely

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no need for a caption, really....

My philosophy right now: small, nice, gentle changes to the way you do things can drag you from the biggest of ruts and bored sludges. Little creaky movements to the left or right. Do-able shifts.  Like, sometimes I part my hair on the other side. Or write in a different location (yesterday I hung out at the Surry Hills library). Small, gentle shifts make life feel fresh. But keep it small, otherwise they don’t happen.

If you feel the same way,  you might want to give this little app a crack. Omm Writer is a beautiful, FREE!! download

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guest post: how to heal auto-immune disease (the soy debate) #3

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Confused about soy?

A number of you have asked about soy products, and how they affect thyroid issues, especially in the wake of the whole Bonsoy debacle. And especially because everyone seems to have an opinion on it these days.126164015 60bc33de8b guest post: how to heal auto-immune disease (the soy debate) #3

Naturopath Angela Hywood from Tonic (you can read her first contribution here) posted the below as a comment, but I thought I’d drag it out for everyone to read.

PS. These are her thoughts. Me, I’m still working through what my body feels about it. I love soy chai. It warms cockles.

Angela says:

I’m not anti-soy for most people. However, I do suggest soy be eaten in moderation in a wholefood diet and in traditionally fermented forms (which include miso, tempah, soy sauce and tofu).

However here are a few issues about soy from a reliable, credible whole foods research associated in USA, The Weston A Price Foundation.

•High levels of phytic acid in soy reduce assimilation of calcium, magnesium, copper, iron and zinc. Phytic acid in soy is not neutralized by ordinary preparation methods such as soaking, sprouting and long, slow cooking. High phytate diets have caused growth problems in children.

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declutterer: a vexing perve into lindsay lohan’s wardrobe

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Have you seen this? Somehow a reporter from Insider got to go into LL’s house and rummage through a wardrobe that’s taken over the apartment. There are not enough days left in that girl’s life to wear all those clothes. It’s actually gross. Not the clutter, but the mindless consumption of so much stuff. It … Read more

Sunday life: in which I try a new technique for making good decisions (in love)

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This week I try out “satisfycing” for size.

valentines day

The inspiration for this week’s reflection is the release of Lori Gottlieb’s Marry Him: The Case for Settling for Mr Good Enough, the latest tome to tell women how to score a bloke. Gosh, and there we all were living life according to the 2004 self-help gospel He’s Just Not Into You (the premise: don’t settle for Mr Not Sure Enough).  How wrong can a girl be!

(As a bracketed aside, I wonder if the Mr Not Sure Enoughs can be lured back from the dating scrapheap to become Mr Good Enoughs? They might need to be!)

If you missed Gottlieb’s controversial 2008 article in Atlantic magazine, on which the book is based, her throw-in-the-towel theory is this: women who get to 30 and haven’t found Mr Right should choose a guy who’ll simply “do the job”. Single and now in her 40s, Gottlieb says she wished she’d settled for a “perfectly acceptable but uninspiring” man herself.  How, um, inspiring. Apparently Tobey Maguire thought so; he’s bought the film rights.

Now, I’ll say no more on the topic (if you can’t say something nice and all that jazz). Except to say that this week it inspired me to revisit decision-making.

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be inspired: the “special problem” of strong women looking for love

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Strong Women contribute to the world in many ways, not all of which are fully appreciated
Strong Women contribute to the world in many ways, not all of which are fully appreciated

The scene: green tea this morning with my hung-over friend Sally

The topic: a quote from a review of Antonia Fraser’s biography in which she outlines her life as the wife of writer Harold Pinter. It neatly sums up what Women of Strong Character know to be true:

The Special Problem

Early on, just after their affair had got under way in 1975, Antonia was warned by her brother, Thomas: “You have a special problem. You are a woman and a strong character­ yet you want your husband to be stronger. Women with strong characters who want to dominate are always fine because there are plenty of weak men around. Also plenty of strong men for weak women. But yours is a special problem.” Actually, Antonia concludes, “He’s quite right in a maddening way.”

Strong women wanting stronger men? How do strong women feel about this? In many case, fine, I reckon.

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just let it go (an anthem for you this morning!)

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This is my anthem right now: Let it Go, This Too Shall Pass. Watch and listen and start your day kindly! [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJKythlXAIY[/youtube] OK Go! (the kids who brought us that crazy  Youtube dancing treadmill dance) are back with this new clip. Filmed in a grim-looking swamp with little swamp men playing xylophones. Very perfect. Let … Read more