Author: Overcoming Adversity | Buteau’s Odyssey

Many of the nonhuman animals (animals) with whom we share our homes and other landscapes are often mistakenly written off as being unimportant and disposable “pests” or “trash” animals.1 However, they deserve more respect, we kill them far too often, and writing them off says more about us than them. These sentient animals have sophisticated cognitive and emotional lives and also are very important neighbors with important ecological roles. I recently posted an interview with Dr. Marlene Zuk about these amazing marginalized beings and was thrilled to learn of a new highly acclaimed book by Dr. Jo Wimpenny titled Beauty…

“If you’re going through hell, keep going.” –Winston Churchill Shockingly, suicide is the second leading cause of death for people between the ages of 18 and 29 years. For friends and family, it is heartbreaking. These days, we’re highly connected yet lonely, our jobs are being stolen by artificial intelligence (AI) and robots, climate change is clouding our future, and pandemics are no longer theoretical. Stressors abound. But there is another factor hidden inside our bodies that may also be a threat to our mental state: microbes. An exploratory study in 2021 from the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston…

Gray divorce refers to marriages that end after age 50. Currently, 36% of U.S. adults getting divorced are 50 or older. Kathleen, 60, has been divorced for nine years and struggles with loneliness, lingering sadness, and mild depression. As I watched her interact with my therapy dog, Friede, I noticed she seemed more energized, and her mood was more positive than in our previous sessions. She even giggled when Friede entertained us briefly with her zoomies before we began. “Can you believe that this isn’t the first time I have smiled since we met in our last session?” she asked…

If I asked you to describe your most important traits, what would you say? Do you see yourself as hard-working, high-achieving, or good with people? Chances are, you have some beliefs about what characteristics are at your core. Perhaps surprisingly, this question has not been a focus of much work in psychology. Instead, researchers have focused on understanding a variety of personality traits. For example, the Big Five traits (openness to experience, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism) reflect the most significant ways that people’s behavior and motivation differ from each other. Do the elements of the Big Five also define…

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Part 2 of a two-part series. In Part 1, I introduced Gabriel Marcel’s concept of disponibilité — an openness to the beloved as they are — balanced by creative fidelity, the ongoing renewal of that openness. It is a beautiful framework, but it has a blind spot. When Grace Is Not Enough: Ricœur and Attestation Marcel writes from within situations of mutual goodwill. He is thinking of the beloved who ages, the friend who fails us once, the child who does not become what we imagined. He is not thinking carefully enough about the beloved whose limitations do not merely…

World Cup host Vancouver is at risk of losing its Major League Soccer club to another city.MLS said late Monday it “will evaluate all options” for the future of the Vancouver Whitecaps, including moving out of the city. The club was put on sale 16 months ago by an ownership group that includes former NBA star Steve Nash.Uncertainty around the team is fueled by limited revenue options and a short-term lease at BC Place stadium that will host seven World Cup games in June and July, including Canada playing Qatar and Switzerland.”It’s reaching a critical point,” MLS Commissioner Don Garber…

There are moments in history when emotional life cannot be understood at the level of the individual alone. We often ask, “What’s going on with me?” but a more accurate question might be: “What am I responding to?” Because right now, many people are not just dealing with personal stress. They are living inside a world that is moving faster, expanding further, and destabilizing at the same time. We are witnessing extraordinary advancements. Artificial intelligence is transforming medicine, research, and daily life, accelerating discoveries that once took years into months. Weight-loss medications are reshaping how we understand the body, even…

If you’ve spent any time on ADHD corners of social media lately, you’ve likely been barraged by posts about “low dopamine,” “dopamine-seeking,” and “dopamine detoxes” in ADHD. While these seem to be everywhere and come across as scientific and helpful, there is one big problem: They simply aren’t based in science and are not truthful. What Is ADHD, Really? ADHD (attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder) is a neurodevelopmental condition that affects how the brain develops and functions. The diagnosis is clinical—based on patterns of thinking and behavior, specifically inattention, hyperactivity, and impulsivity, that occur with enough frequency and severity to interfere with development…

At its core, Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is a disorder of attention dysregulation, hyperactivity, and impulsivity. People with ADHD tend to experience more pronounced symptoms in environments that are monotonous, predictable, or have low levels of stimulation—aka, the routines of everyday life. For the ADHD brain, low-demand, low-intensity tasks such as shipping back a return or calling to make a doctor’s appointment can feel mentally harder than climbing a mountain. And yet, many individuals with ADHD find themselves most at peace in the mountains, even in the midst of high-adrenaline, higher-risk activities such as long-distance trail running, mountaineering, rock climbing, mountain…