Archives for the month of: February, 2021
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The Calm of Choice

February 11, 2021 //
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Choosing change can bring such tremendous calm. Choices made become contemplation of next steps, a plan develops, new choices, other actions, and with care and consideration, momentum toward a chosen change begins to build. Plans begin to become outcomes. Through all of it, chaos is managed through practices chosen for their proven success at managing chaos. Meditation. Good self-care. Self-compassion. Non-attachment.

I’m walking my own path. I am my own cartographer.

Sure, I already know my results will vary. I understand that the map is not the world. I embrace the new beginnings life offers. I continue to practice, and work toward becoming the woman I most want to be. So far, it’s enough; incremental change over time seems to be something I can count on.

For now, I’m sipping my coffee contentedly. I’ve chosen change, and made a plan, and each step forward takes me a step further down my path. Where does it lead? I don’t really know that; the future, at least how I am able to experience it, is not yet written. There are changes that occur around me, some chosen by others, some simply turns of circumstance, and perhaps those will become the sorts of things that change something in my own experience, too. Change is.

I stare out at a gray wintry sky. It hints at rain. There is snow in the forecast. It’s a gray rather uneventful day. I think about baking coffee cake to snack on later. I smile recalling my Traveling Partner’s request for specific flavors, winter spices. Vanilla glaze on that, I think, sipping my coffee. It’s a lovely partnership to share, and I take a moment for gratitude as he walks away after standing close, rubbing my shoulders as I write. Hot coffee, cold day, and the warmth of being loved… nice moment.

“This too shall pass”, my brain rather grimly reminds me. I laugh back, because, sure, yeah, that’s true… but I have memories of love and partnership for a lifetime, and an enduring relationship to enjoy now, whatever the future may hold. That’s enough. More than enough. It’s honestly pretty splendid compared to a lot of the options in the vastness of human experience, right? 🙂

I look at the time. My break is over, and it’s time to begin again. 🙂

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Categories Allegories, Brain Injury, Free Will, gratitude, Healthy Living, inspiration, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Oregon Trails, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, The Art of Being, winter

Choose Your Adventure

February 9, 2021 //
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Pandemic life… is still life. Appointments get made. Some get rescheduled. Most get attended. Projects get started, some even get finished. There are decisions to make, and decisions to delay. Change is. Change always is. I mean… for most values of “always”. 🙂

I’m taking a breathe, and a break, and contemplating changes, and choosing change. The details matter, but eventually it comes down to the choice to be made, and subsequent follow-through. Life, love, or work… we have opportunities, and choices. Am I where I most want to be? Can I choose differently and get closer to the goal? Does this path even go there? The questions are ways to reconsider the choices with care.

I find myself reflecting on times in my life when I felt as if I “had no choice”. Times when I felt trapped by my circumstances were far more often a matter of being trapped by my own decision-making (or lack of willingness to choose differently). I’m not living that life now. It’s very freeing to have choices – and to choose.

Some decisions are harder than others. The decision to walk carefully over dangerous terrain is probably pretty obvious. It may feel much more difficult to choose a flavor of ice cream from a case with many flavors, or to select “just the right earrings”. Importance matters too; a disappointing choice of ice cream flavor does not have much lasting impact on life – or the moment. There’s all that messy bit about how a choice is executed, and what the outcome may look like, when it is happening in the moment… a concern for another day. This morning I’m just thinking about choices. 🙂 I had a choice to make, and having it made it, I anticipate the requirement to make another. Once that’s made, and the outcome begins to unfold, only then will I have a real sense of the success or failure of my decision-making.

…Here’s a really cool thing about decisions; wisely made decisions lead to useful or favorable outcomes. Nice. Poorly made decisions? Here’s where it gets awesome; poorly made decisions lead to growth – and wisdom – that improves later decision-making. Incremental change over time is “about” choices and practices.

…And it’s time to begin again.

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Categories Allegories, Brain Injury, Free Will, gratitude, inspiration, Logic & Reason, Mindfulness, Moments, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, The Art of Being, winter

So Tired

February 7, 2021 //
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I slept poorly last night. I managed one good nap, and spent the remainder of the night restlessly drifting in and out of a half-waking, half-dreaming state. Most of the dreams were unpleasant. I woke and started the day. My Traveling Partner woke me, unaware I hadn’t slept well, or deeply, or enough. I couldn’t fall asleep again, and even later, when I could have napped, I felt “sleep-averse” and unwilling to do so. I did try…

…Later, I walked the forested trails at Airport Park. The pictures I took seem more real than my recollection of the hike, which is a tiny bit sad; I had the park entirely to myself today, and it was even a quiet day at the nearby airfield. I heard nothing but birdsong and breezes. I saw woodpeckers, and robins. I spotted chipmunks darting away in the underbrush, and bunnies bounding across the path ahead. I listened to the creek chuckle at my fatigue as I crossed the bridge with great care. It’s slippery from the rain and the generally slickness of the various molds and mosses and whatnot that make the bridge so treacherous in winter, nothing unusual in that. The humor would only be in seeing the silly human lose her careful balance.

Watch your step… or at least pay attention.

…Losing my balance came later in the day, while attempting to bake biscuits. LOL Thankfully, with good human, and the patience of a loving partner, it was only a moment. The moment passes. It was brief.

…I’m so tired. I’m not good for much this evening. It’s too early to go to bed, and as tired as I am I don’t feel “sleepy”, yet. I’ll find something else to do. A video game, maybe? Read? Plan the garden? I can at least begin again. 🙂

Perspective can make so much difference in how I experience the moment.
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Categories Allegories, Brain Injury, forgiveness, Free Will, Frustration, Healthy Living, Mindfulness, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, Oregon Trails, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, Sleepless Nights, solo hiking, The Art of Being, winter

Life & Art

February 5, 2021 //
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I’m sipping my second coffee this morning, letting my mind take a break from work by looking over newly prepared canvases waiting for further attention, and a couple small half-finished pieces that I am working on a bit at a time. It’s a new approach. It reflects the feeling of permanence in this place. I sigh contentedly and sip my coffee, smiling.

…It’s not permanent. Very little, if anything, is. I sip my coffee staring into the colors on canvases, and lose myself in my thoughts…

Sometimes beginnings are untidy. It’s rare that an intention is effortlessly achieved. Things seem always to be “becoming”.

It’s a pleasant day to reflect on an unwalked path, an incomplete painting, or a dream as-yet-unfulfilled. I sip my coffee and try to do so in the context of impermanence, and a sort of accepting non-attachment… the future does not exist in my present. It’s up ahead, somewhere, waiting to become a moment all its own. I think about my notion that a cottage garden would be lovely out front… and the patience involved in seeing that become, first, a plan, then, over time, with some luck and persistence and any number of new beginnings… a garden worth lingering in. No certainty that it will be a “cottage garden”, really… That’s how things go; differently than planned. Often. 🙂 My results vary. lol

Still… I can begin again.

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Categories Allegories, Art, art and the artist, Brain Injury, Free Will, gardening, gratitude, inspiration, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, The Art of Being, winter

If I Had It All

February 3, 2021 //
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Sipping my coffee and listening to the rain fall. Artificial rain…although… it is raining outside this morning. This particular video also has the sound of a crackling fire, a river flowing nearby…and honestly, sounds rather like a rainy day here, in my own living room, on a day when the creek is flooding. It’s a relaxing soundscape, and tends to push distractions out of my immediate awareness very well.

…The relaxing, soothing, comforting, background soundscape tends to be very helpful with managing my anxiety, which has been coming and going rather a lot the past week or so. I could have expected it, I suppose. When my values and my circumstances feel as though they are in opposition to each other, or somehow at odds, I don’t feel “comfortable”, and the longer it goes on, the more my anxiety increases in intensity, and the frequency with which it surges into the forefront of my consciousness also increases. It’s an “early warning system” that there may be a decision-making point coming up very quickly, or that the time to reflect on things and make other choices may be upon me. I could “fight it” with soothing sounds and do nothing more. I could meditate regularly, “accept my lot in life”, and struggle with the anxiety and discomfort – or attempt to medicate it away – and settle for quiet misery.

…Or I can acknowledge that I am unhappy, seek to determine what the primary cause of that discontent may be, and consider other options… this is particular effective if, after all that, I’m prepared to choose change. I mean… maybe the options aren’t really an improvement? That’s certainly a scenario that comes up now and again. I’ve often found that getting to that place where I can critically consider and factually determine that the present options don’t result in a clear likely improvement also serves to reduce my anxiety – it’s more about giving the matter real thought, and allowing myself the consideration and respect required to resolve my discontent with action, where action would do so.

I would use the example of working a job that isn’t ideal. Maybe it really is a poor fit, and making a change would be an improvement? Maybe the available options would not actually present a legitimate shot at the desired specific improvement at all, and would therefore be of no real use? Maybe the options are “more of the same” and “more of the same-r-er”, and time would be better spent in improving skills, and investing time in other endeavors during leisure hours? Maybe it really is time to move on to some other thing? I’m not a fan of reacting in the moment with drastic action built on an emotional moment. Personally? I like self-reflection. I value introspection. I seek self-awareness. I’d ideally prefer all of my decision-making be built on those qualities, and a hearty helping of perspective, self-respect, and non-attachment, besides! 🙂

“Having it all” comes in many forms. What do I really want? What matters most? Where does lifelong fulfillment lie on this path? Am I headed down a path that even leads me in the direction I hope to go? No map.

I’m sipping my coffee and listening to the rain fall. It’s not relevant that the sound of it “isn’t real”, particular when I’m seeing the rain fall beyond the window. What I see and what I hear are well-aligned. Isn’t there real value in also having my circumstances and professional values also aligned? I’m just saying; I have choices. There are verbs involved. My results may vary…

…And I also get to begin again. 🙂

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Categories Allegories, Anxiety, Brain Injury, Free Will, Frustration, gratitude, Healthy Living, inspiration, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, The Art of Being, winter
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