Archives for the month of: September, 2015
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With Practice Comes…

September 21, 2015 //
1

…More practice. You knew I was going there, right? I suspect I am fairly predictable about this topic. There’s just one hitch; it’s all a bit like a game, in some respects, and we’re dealt some cards, given some pieces, or exist with some details of who we are/what’s going on, and the practice is what we do ‘on our turn’. We still each start somewhere. I’ve been a fan (and Hero) playing SuperBetter for awhile. Jane McGonigal’s book, just published, arrived last week. Like any tool, or any practice, there are verbs involved – but it is a fantastically fun, helpful, and supporting way to build a practice, and take a journey toward a goal. Better still, however many times I set one practice or another aside, it’s there for me to resume when I choose to; I can begin again.

I can’t quite pinpoint the ‘true starting point’ of this journey, anymore. Did it begin with a game at the dinner table with my traveling partner, and the many tears that followed that moment? Not really – I was already going somewhere with myself. Maybe it started with the break up of the previous 15-year-long relationship? No, I definitely felt I was ‘on a journey’ before that moment, too. It wasn’t when I turned 40…but it may have been shortly afterward…or shortly before… it matters what I count as revealing, and instructive. It matters what I choose to include as being worthy of the journey I am now on. Any starting point I choose from the past tends to look worthy of calling ‘the beginning of this journey’ if I open my heart to accepting that have I faltered many times along the way… and when I do that, I have to wonder if perhaps I have always been on this journey, and perhaps it is so much less significant and grandiose than I want such a profound thing to be – Is it simply that I am living my life? Starting moments, ending moments, moments of great change, moments of ennui or confusion… one being, one woman, one journey, continuous change on a journey of self-discovery?

Is there any need to deny myself the experienced profundity of the journey I am on in this time, to accept that the journey is, and has been, ongoing “all along”? Thoughts over coffee, on a lovely morning; every day starts somewhere.

With autumn comes pain.

With autumn comes pain.

This morning, the journey of this one day of many begins with pain, rather a lot of it, and I’ve done what I can to put my attention on other things, having taken steps to ease the pain, itself. Giving it a lot of direct attention makes it more prominent in my experience, and although turning my consciousness to other things doesn’t reduce, eliminate, or ease the pain in any direct way, it at least distracts me from it in some moments. Not this moment. This moment I am writing about pain, because pain is where I am. Do me just one favor today? When you find yourself confronted with elders moving slowly, or awkwardly, take just a moment to understand that they do so because they are in pain – the sort of every moment of every day pain that if you ask them about it they may answer that they are not in pain – not because they don’t hurt at all, but because they don’t hurt more than that. It sucks, and I find myself reluctantly facing far greater awareness of all those moments in all those younger years when my impatience with the slow movement of elders frustrated me excessively, and wishing I could go back in time and if not be helpful, at least not be such an impatient dick about it.

I’d like very much to move quickly through my morning, myself, with easy efficient movement – and that isn’t an option on my menu this morning. “Choosing not to hurt” amounts to taking carefully timed pain medication, practicing yoga, and yes – just being patient with myself early in the morning, before the yoga, and before the medication kicks in. Right now? I can barely move without grabbing something else to give me leverage, pulling myself upright, supporting myself for balance if I have to lean over or down, and all of it hurts. Mornings like this one are best when I think to slow way down first thing, and be extra patient with myself, letting yoga begin with the natural movements needed to get out of bed in the first place, and stretching my muscles slowly, unfolding my spine from unknown sleep postures into something more vertical and aligned before I even take a step…my bladder does not always cooperate with that idealized version of getting up in the morning…sometimes my lack of executive function on waking results in nothing at all like a morning ‘routine’ and I lurch around the apartment awkwardly before I remember to slow down and take care of this fragile vessel.  This morning I am getting a taste of what my old age might really hold for me, at least with regard to my arthritis, my mobility, and my experience of pain and movement. Taking care of me and practicing good practices to nurture the wellness of this fragile vessel seem incredibly important – a time machine would be nice right about now; I would try to persuade a younger me to take better care, sooner.

Would I really go back in time and risk changing who I am now? That’s an interesting question for another day.

Today is a good day to practice the very best self-care. Today is a good day to be aware that the people ‘in my way’ are indeed people, and they are having their own experience; kindness is free, and I can’t know someone else’s pain. Today is a good day to change the world.

 

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Categories autumn, Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, The Art of Being, The Big 5

Don’t Feed the Trolls

September 20, 2015 //
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On the internet, and in life, there are trolls waiting for us all. Sometimes their attacks feel very personal. Experience suggests these attacks are rarely truly personal – how could they be without connection, and shared knowledge, and mutual understanding? Sometimes they definitely feel personal, though, and that’s where I get tripped up, myself.

I watched a couple of videos recently that are on point with the direction I am headed on this topic, this morning. One, from the vlogbrothers on YouTube. The other from School of Life, also on YouTube. Both have some relevant observations regarding that experience of succumbing to troll attacks – whether online, or in life. The mechanism is so simple: we are presented with information to which we object, or take exception to, or find offending in some way – and we react to it. It might be a comment on Facebook (as happened this morning, in my own experience) – someone reads the comment, objects to the comment in some way; it becomes an exchange. I enjoy such exchanges when they are reasoned, thoughtful, thought-provoking, and add to the dialogue of the world on important topics. That’s far more rare than it could be, and often it turns out to be comment > offense taken > bait offered > bait taken > loss of adherence to rules of logical discourse and finally the whole thing is wrapped up with an exchange of hostilities and elevated negative emotions. How suck is that? In my own experience this morning, some faceless unknown other citizen of the world took an observation about a system as a direct personal attack on her own actions, being, and place in the world, and returned those feelings as a very specific personal attack on me. Not necessary, and foolishly I responded – which wasn’t necessary, either.

Seriously. Just don't. :-)

Seriously. Just don’t. 🙂

We are each so very human. Taking something as a personal attack happens – I find myself mired in that bullshit too easily, too often, relative to the enjoyment in life I am seeking. (To be fair, ‘at all‘ is ‘too often’.) Once I recognize the pattern, I set clear boundaries and halt to the exchange and move on. It’s not personal – it’s can’t actually be personal between strangers, unless we choose to buy in, and accept that ourselves; we each have absolute control over whether we take something as a personal attack. I don’t have the time in this limited mortal life to feed trolls. (Are you nodding along?)

What if I am the troll? What if you are? If the dialogue is allowed to continue, it quickly becomes less clear who was the chicken, and who was the egg. With this in mind, I work to ensure I’m not out there baiting others on issues that are close to home, emotionally relevant, and potentially… personal.  As an individual, I tend to look at things – often – from the perspective of systems, rules, trends, and generalizations; this is one way I maintain perspective (not everything is actually about me). I sometimes forget that many people around me read every word from the perspective of “I, me, mine”. I am at risk of not recognizing that some small point I am making may feel very personal to someone else, perhaps because their perspective differs – or simply because they, themselves, as a practice take things very personally [by choice – because yeah, even here, there are verbs involved]. There is OPD around every corner – and some people dive into that pile with real enthusiasm; it is a choice. I can choose differently.

I am reminded this morning that there’s no need to feed the trolls. It is enough to be kind, to be clear about my thoughts and ideas, to be very specific and reasoned in presenting them, and to refrain from taking someone else’s words personally, or attacking their perspective (they are on their own journey). Listening deeply requires practice, and verbs, and a commitment to consideration and respect – if consideration and respect are not reciprocated, there is no need for further communication beyond a pleasant and polite word or two by way of departure. Argument achieves little, beyond stoking negative emotion. Civility is a lovely thing, and it goes beyond ‘please’ and ‘thank you’, and carries the potential to allow us to be clearly heard – and to clearly hear others.

Realistically, being civil offers no assurance others will be civil in return, and that can feel scary sometimes; in a world that values and fosters violence over reason, being civil can feel a little bit like laying down one’s arms. That’s actually part of the point; it is necessary to choose whether we are building a culture of civility, or a culture of violence. Still more questions than answers here, but I definitely prefer a culture of civility, myself, wherein human beings are valued, treated with kindness, compassion and respect, and one in which individuals think critically, and behave encouragingly – one in which growth is favored, nurtured, invested in – and appreciated. A culture of authenticity, comfortable personal accountability, and good-natured vulnerability. Am I dreaming? I don’t think so, myself – there are verbs involved, sure, and clear expectation-setting, and open communication is necessary – and practice. I practice every day. We become what we practice. The world we create is based on our choices, our actions – and our practices. If ‘practice makes perfect’, what are you choosing to perfect?

Today is a good day to choose civility. Today is a good day to walk away from hostility. Today is a good day to avoid taking things personally. Today is a good day to hear the hurt in another person’s anger, and to recognize how human they also are. Today is a good day for being and becoming, and offering an encouraging word to someone struggling. We’ve only got this one world to share, today is a good day to be civil about it.

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Categories Brain Injury, Free Will, Logic & Reason, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, The Art of Being, The Big 5, Words

Undefined and Uncertain

September 19, 2015 //
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I woke this morning, but I’m not actually sure when. I checked the clock at 2:38 am, but didn’t get up. I may have slept more, I don’t recall being wakeful, but I recall many moments of being awake. I don’t know whether they are consecutive (and I was awake until I got up) or separated by sleep (resulting in sleep, however restless it may have been). I got up at 6:38, 4 hour later, when I next checked the clock. If it had been, say, 3:11 am, I’d have gotten up to pee and gone back to bed afterward – and perhaps that would have been a good choice at 2:38 am. 🙂

I see signs of autumn everywhere on my walks lately.

I see signs of autumn everywhere on my walks lately; time to get back out on the trails.

I’m not sure what sort of morning this one is, so far. I’m still sore from more than usual miles of walking yesterday (a reminder to get back on the trail). I woke in pain, stiff from my arthritis, and since that’s primarily in my spine, it affects most movement, even breathing feels subtly impaired, as I fight the pain to find posture that allows deeper breaths. (Many of my headaches source with a damaged cervical vertebra (C7) and its adjacent arthritic siblings, rather than with my TBI.) I put on music first thing this morning, even before I turned on the aquarium lights, which is unusual. More unusual still, I didn’t do so with deliberate purpose and awareness, it was the action of someone just being and doing, action following impulse without intent. I’m not unhappy with the choice, but the ebb and flow of my emotions seems more connected this morning to the music than to my experience. Highs and lows come and go with the changing tracks on my playlist. I made my coffee, and forgot about it on the counter in the kitchen. My memory seems very clear on details that are often sort of vague and challenging – but I am peculiarly inattentive to other sorts of things I generally track well. And… Yesterday there was this moment when it was entirely and rather publicly clear that I had entirely lost any ability to manage simple math – I couldn’t calculate 44 days from the current date for a simple forecasting scenario, even using a calendar, and the calculator on my computer was beyond me (cognitively), at that moment. It could have been an embarassing moment – it wasn’t; I was frightened, and felt very vulnerable and insecure. The feelings passed, the concern did not. I’m sort of … following myself around observing myself in the background today, with concern and curiosity.

I write awhile. I retrieve my forgotten coffee. I change the playlist when I find myself feeling some borrowed emotion that doesn’t fit the circumstances of the day. And I wonder. I try to avoid worrying, but find myself thinking of things like “Flowers for Algernon”, and the neuroscience of cognition, and the progress on A.I., and how fragile this meat vessel really is, and how many people in my family have died of strokes… and my injury. Suddenly my fears become liquid and the tears are quietly slipping down my face, and I weep to face my mortality so starkly. 52 isn’t old. Neither am I a child. I carry enough damage to this fragile vessel from years of punishing circumstances, trauma, casual thoughtlessness, and mischance that I probably ought not expect it to be without consequence where longevity is concerned. It’s a good call to take care of myself if I earnestly want to stay around – but, realistically, so much of whether I stay around isn’t actually up to me in the moment, at all. Strokes do happen. Will I know, when the time comes? Will it be like some of the TIAs I’ve had, looking out through my eyes as windows, aware but unable to say – but for longer than a moment? What’s next? Will everything just… end?

I didn’t understand yesterday how profoundly affected I was in that moment, with a colleague, utterly unable to do the simplest math, looking up from my desk so helplessly – and asking for help. That was hard. I didn’t lose face, and the moment passed. I’m open about my issues, and learning to ask for help when I need it has had a lot of value. I’m frightened, though, and that’s harder to be open about. I let myself cry, and face the fear. I am okay right now. My coffee is hot, well-made, and tastes just right. The morning is a pleasant one. The music is all music I like very much. I live well, comfortably, and meet most of my day-to-day needs easily. I am human; emotions like fear and uncertainty are part of the experience. I guess I’m just not ready to go now, and the fear hits that yearning for more time – now that I seem to be sorting some things out. It’s a complicated feeling.  Tears and more tears, no sobbing or hysterics, just this momentarily ceaseless flow of tears, blurring my vision. And this fear. I have so much more love to give…

The tears slow, and eventually stop. My head aches from the crying… or…was the headache already there? I’m not sure this morning. This morning I lack certainty about a great many things. Will I see my traveling partner, or is he still sick? Will my housewarming later today be fun and relaxed, or will I mess with my head foolishly getting overly worked up over small things and stress myself out? Will I continue to find, over the course of the day, that other things ‘aren’t working’ as I expect them to, in my ability to think, to do math, to spell, to write,  to reason, to recall, to plan, to communicate, to feel…? Will I rise above the small challenges to engage this lovely moment, or find myself faltering and failing to find any secure emotional foothold? Will I take care of me, quite tenderly, and recognize that at any age being reminded of one’s mortality can be ‘a tough  moment’, or will I treat myself callously, with disregard, self-deprecation, and mockery? Will I “be okay”, or can I find sufficiency in being okay right now? I momentarily feel as though I might trade actual death from whatever nasty virus my traveling partner picked up for 15 minutes in his arms, feeling comforted, cared for, and alive. Fear sucks.

My playlist comes through for me in the most amazing way some times. My heavy heart starts lifting listening to Atmosphere remind me how human life is. I remember, again, that I am okay right now, and that – truly – there is nothing in this moment right here that warrants these tears. I start letting it go, and gently finding my way; mortality isn’t really something we can fight skillfully (yet) as human beings. I may not live to see us achieve near-immortality through the advances of science. I have ‘now’, and it can’t be taken from me. Today isn’t a bad one. The morning isn’t difficult. I didn’t sleep badly. My coffee didn’t disappoint me. I am not out in the cold, or without nutritious groceries in my pantry. I am not lacking in love. I don’t have to go into the office today. I am, in fact, okay right now. “All is well” is approximately accurate – at least as far as any details I can be clearly aware of in my own experience, myself, in this moment.

As suddenly as they came, the tears – and my fear and uncertainty – dissipate. I am okay, right now. It’s enough, isn’t it? 🙂

I clean my salt-spattered glasses, sip my remaining now cold coffee, and notice again the lovely morning ahead of me, requiring only that I take care of me, practice good practices, and live well and mindfully in this moment, on this day. Now.

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Categories Anxiety, autumn, Brain Injury, Free Will, grief, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, The Art of Being, The Big 5

Nightmares

September 18, 2015 //
1

I woke during the night, in a panic. Drenched in sweat, shaking, heart pounding, sobbing – a nightmare. I still have them, although they are far less frequent. I am immobilized while I get my bearings; my bedroom is hung with paintings that remind me I am safe, and are characterized by the use of glow-in-the-dark paints, too, so that in the literal ‘darkest moment’, I am still illuminated softly by love, by hope, by inspiration, and all manner of gentle reminders that life is quite a separate experience happening outside The Nightmare City. I remember to take deep breaths, and fold myself into a comfortable cross-legged position (I can’t quite manage Lotus posture unless I have been doing yoga for some minutes). I meditate for a few minutes until my heart slows, and the trembling stops. I check the clock – I managed only about 90 minutes of sleep before the nightmares hit. It happens. It used to herald hours, or days of nightmares to come.

How will I

How will I “find my way home”?
“Daytime in The Nightmare City” 10″ x 14″ acrylic on canvas with glow, glitter and micaceous oxide. Indoor light, charged. 2014

I got up long enough to get a drink of water – a childhood ritual of wakefulness that still soothes me – and walk calmly through my small home; there are no places for monsters hide, here. I am quite safe, even within this fragile vessel if I allow myself to be aware of how much of content of my conscious mind is chosen, and created. I am not empowering my nightmares by considering them in detail after I wake, and they slowly dissipate. (Seriously, they do. It does require literally letting go of thinking ‘about’ them; thinking about them in the moments after waking only gives them significance and power.) I think of my traveling partner, sick at home, hopefully sleeping. This, too, helps calm me. I don’t focus on the distance, or that I can’t just crawl into his arms for comfort – I breathe, and consider him sleeping comfortably, himself, safe and undisturbed, and allow my own feeling of security and safety to continue to build on the awareness that much is right in the world, in the quiet of night, here, now. I am okay in this moment.

I stand in the twilight of my kitchen, lit by the walkway light just outside my window, filtered by the closed blinds, and finish a second glass of water and smiling, thinking it would be likely to wake me later needing to pee. I don’t give that another thought, instead feeling the cool water in my mouth, and enjoying the awareness of indoor plumbing and running water, and being in the moment. That’s another thing I find very calming after bad nightmares; savoring the awareness of the comforts of life, whatever they may be. Don’t they have more real substance than a nightmare? 🙂

I returned to bed, filling my thoughts with things that feel good, but perhaps not intensely so…things that would be gentle on my consciousness: clouds drifting across a blue sky, soft autumn breezes, the sound of peeping frogs, memories of fireflies… I woke at the sound of my alarm, feeling rested and undisturbed.

It has been rare for me to have just one nightmare, and follow that with restful sleep. Incremental change over time is a thing – and  yes, there are practices to practice and verbs involved. I expect my results will vary. Hey, my results do vary and there are verbs involved; living in the midst of stress, drama, and turmoil resulted in nightmares almost nightly, and weeks of disturbed sleep at a time, and terrifying isolation because there was no safe outlet for discussion, with no particular emotional support available, interrupted by just days of restful sleep. Yes, the choices matter – and they are not always easy ones. I now live alone, because at least for now even living with other people presents enough additional stress for me that I find managing my symptoms more challenging, and they are far more likely to flare up (much of my PTSD is related to trauma in the context of relationships, and domestic violence). (And no, I’m not saying everyone with PTSD should live alone – that’s ludicrous; I’m just one person, making my own choices, and following my own path. This is what I need for me. I don’t even know that this is what I will ‘always’ need – since ‘always’ is incredibly unlikely, ever.)

Even though I am having my own experience, I'm not really alone in this; music reminds me how much of this experience is really shared.

Even though I am having my own experience, I am not alone.

Turns out to be a lovely morning. I’ve got my favorite playlist on, because sometimes the demons need to be reminded that I’m going to bounce back, and I need to remind them they don’t tell me. lol Yep – the songs on my playlist aren’t just catchy tracks that I enjoy dancing to – they tell me stories, remind me of truths, and help me drive my demons back. Mornings after nightmares are best with music. 🙂 [Your results may vary.]

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Categories Anxiety, art and the artist, autumn, Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Metaphors, Mindfulness, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, The Art of Being, The Big 5, War and News of War

Waiting for Coffee

September 17, 2015 //
0

I am awake. Showered. I’ve meditated. I’ve done some yoga. It is morning, and the start of a new day. I am waiting for coffee, listening to the ticks, pings, and pops of the electric burner heating the goose-neck kettle, and the water within. There is nothing much else going on in this moment right here. I hear a freight train, some distance away, and the woosh of traffic on the main road, nearer by, and the percussive chiming of raindrops on the chimney cover – sounds of morning. I am here, listening, and waiting for coffee.

Sometimes it's a metaphor - sometimes it is just a cup of coffee. :-)

Sometimes it’s a metaphor – sometimes it is just a cup of coffee. 🙂

My coffee this morning is hot, still to hot to drink. The cup warms my hands – I type a few words, stop and hold the cup awhile, and return to this page, fingers poised over the keyboard…still this feeling of waiting… I am also waiting to see my traveling partner, a thread of loving woven into the fabric of my experience, even when we are separated by distance and a head cold. I am also gently waiting for new ideas and changed thinking to settled into all the corners of my consciousness; the meditation, study, and reading over the weekend, and the conversation with my therapist yesterday, are now all mixed together. I know that waiting will end, in each one of these cases, with time – it is the only thing that ends waiting, besides choosing not to wait.

I am pleased that the rain has returned. I enjoy rain. My walk to work is temporarily detoured along the main thoroughfare while a bridge across the creek that runs through the park is replaced. It is no great inconvenience to make the change, but the result is a far less naturally lovely walk. The current commute takes me through a parking lot, then down a long length of sidewalk between commuter traffic, and signs of humankind’s careless (I am puzzled that people litter, honestly), then I turn back to the remainder of the usual walk through the business park, with landscaped beauty that changes with the seasons thanks to the labors of a vast crew of landscapers who rip out all the flowers in the flower beds 2 times a  year to replace them with other ones. It strikes me as both cruel and wasteful – but the flower beds are always lovely and well-kept. I’m sure there’s a metaphor there, among the flowers or the between the raindrops. I realize it would serve me well to get my raincoat out today, for the walk to work, and wonder if the traffic will be close enough to risk being splashed as I walk along.

On chilly mornings I see bumblebees sleeping among the flowers.

On chilly mornings I see bumblebees sleeping among the flowers.

This morning is a quiet pleasant morning. I am entirely okay with that; it is enough.

Today is a good day to enjoy each moment as is it is. Today is a good day to savor the beauty in the ordinary, and savor even those moments that seem wholly unremarkable. Today is a good day to share a smile and be uplifted by those simple things I love the most – even if only a good cup of coffee, on a rainy morning.

 

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Categories autumn, Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, The Art of Being
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