Weekly Round-Up
Welcome, dear readers, to the weekly round-up of blogs. As the year draws to a close, many voices in the blogosphere are pausing to look back with honesty and forward with intention.
Philippa opens the conversation by reflecting on how her 2024 mantra — Contrive, Preserve, Glow — quietly shaped a year rooted in creativity, connection, and wellbeing. As she looks ahead to 2025, she introduces a new trio of guiding words — Orchestration, Horizon, Constellation — offering them as a way to hold purpose, expansion, and interconnectedness in view as the year unfolds.
That sense of intentional living continues in Terri‘s reflection, where she names kindness, gratitude, and courage as the values she wants to carry with her into the year ahead. Rather than lofty resolutions, these words serve as a steady compass for navigating both uncertainty and everyday life.
Barbara also turns her attention to renewal, sharing how her website has evolved to better reflect her own growth and spiritual focus. For her, the new year is less about reinvention and more about creating spaces that offer encouragement, faith, and support in meaningful ways.
Connie weaves the sacred and the everyday, drawing on a Christmas Eve worship service and the angelic message to “fear not.” She connects this ancient reassurance to the very modern vulnerability of online dating, reminding us that courage often shows up when we step into the unknown.
In her latest Substack essay, Beth takes us back to a moment that changed everything — the December mammogram that led to her breast cancer diagnosis in her 30s. With vivid detail and emotional honesty, she traces fear, shock, and grief, while also
Carolyn closes the round-up by reflecting on the early days of online patient support communities and the irreplaceable empathy found in human connection. As AI increasingly enters digital health spaces, she raises thoughtful questions about what technology can — and cannot — offer, reminding us that lived experience and genuine understanding still matter deeply.
Finally, as we come to the end of the year, I’d love to invite you to share your own favourite blog post from the year just past. Perhaps it’s a piece that resonated widely, or maybe it’s a quieter post that didn’t make the top list but still feels especially meaningful to you and deserves a wider audience. This is your chance to bring it back into the light.
Any post is welcome — it doesn’t have to be health-related or cancer-related. And if you don’t have a blog of your own, you’re very welcome to join in by sharing a post you loved from someone else.
May the year ahead offer strength where it’s needed, kindness toward yourself and others, and a deeper trust in the small, daily practices that support wellbeing.
Much love always
Marie xxx
