trauma

Burned Again? Lean Closer with Nietzsche – Episode 268

In this episode, and not for the first time, Dara is reckoning with old wounds. Life has a great knack for shocking you out of your complacency, but what do you do when you are reminded of stuff you thought you had long since put to bed? Some things just refuse to stay down, and maybe the harder you push the more likely they are to push back.

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Feeling It In Your Guts! Connection vs Fracture – Episode 260

In this episode, Dara is apologising for going missing last week, but he has a good excuse – he was in hospital! Struck down with a level of pain he had never previously experienced, he had to abandon his journey to get help and have an ambulance come to the rescue. It turned out it was just a little old kidney stone! The disruption to his normally rude good health gives reason for pause. What is it to be well? And what does care look like?

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Do the Right Thing! Healing the Sins of the Past – Episode 258

In this episode, Dara is feeling as angry as many others about the controversy around Bessborough House, the former mother and baby home that has one of the darkest legacies of any of the institutions that had Catholic Ireland in a stranglehold for much of the twentieth century. He tries to understand the indescribable moral failure of the Irish government to do the right thing and the importance of public acts of reparation to heal psychic wounds of such generational magnitude.

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The One Good Idea Episode! – Episode 246

Is there one good idea in this episode? Dara admits he is all over the place at the moment. He is not burnt out, just a bit overwhelmed. Between ageing parents in need of comprehensive care, trying to find work, doing a masters, and just keeping up with the normal day-to-day demands, it feels like a lot. So he sits down at the mic without a plan and decides to see if anything comes to him.

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Reaching for the Tourniquet, or How to Stop the Bleeding – Episode 218

In this episode, Dara admits to being a bit exhausted after moving house for the fifth time since the pandemic. It is not the most fun he has ever had and the ongoing grief ripples over Pepper the dog are adding to the load. However, the glass is (probably) half-full and at least the nickname for the new home has come very quickly and easily.

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Have You Done Your Homework? Oppression, Conflict, and the Pursuit of Truth – Episode 203

In this episode Dara tries to thread the needle between domestic and personal crises and those of a much larger, humanitarian nature. Taking in current events in Gaza as well as historic instances of grievous abuse by Catholic institutions in Ireland, the question of truth seems to be of primary importance when a larger power treats others with such callous impunity and indifference to the consequences.

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Assembling the Broke Existentialist Army, or Who I Am is Who my Child Is! – Episode 170

In this episode, prompted by his cat and dog, Dara is considering the idea of essentialism. He talks about core dispositions and the perennial pitching of nature against nurture. He argues that there is very little that is not in the mix when it comes to how our identities emerge. He shares his thoughts about his daughter on this stage of her journey and wonders about her essential leaning.

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