Archives for category: Anxiety

Sometimes Shit Gets Real

January 4, 2019 //

About that… it’s unavoidable. I’m human. You’re human (well, probably). Life is an extraordinary experience, but one which, for most of us, has quite a few ups and downs, and is a tad more rollercoaster-y than paved level walking path with convenient markers and a map. It’s just not always that easy. Sometimes shit goes very very wrong.

Do you panic? I’ve sure been known to. Life can be scary. I’m fortunate to have a better idea how to handle it than I once did, but… I’ll be honest; I still, now and then, stumble into a circumstance that leaves me feeling more than a little panicked and unprepared.

There are things to do. Steps. Practices. Start with one you know you can rely upon, and go from there. Breathe. First, generally, and most often of greatest value for me, personally; breathe, let it go for a moment, find that stable “observer” that exists within the emotional maelstrom. That’s you. Really you. The rest is window dressing and let’s pretend. Lead with your calm.

That sounds so easy. It’s not always easy. Yesterday I was reminded how not fucking easy that actually is. Having a supportive partner, I was fortunate to have someone to reach out to, to talk things over, to get my bearings. Things turn out fine, generally, and the panic is not helpful or necessary. Still. There was a bit of panic, and indeed, not helpful. lol Hours later, and even after a restful night’s sleep, I still feel the warmth of my partner’s love. I’m grateful to experience a love like this.

I spent the rest of the evening sorting myself out and ensuring my planning account for new circumstances and information. It ends up being a lovely quiet evening, and somehow a new start to a new year, already. Looks like it’ll be a year a new beginnings. I’m okay with that. I’m pretty familiar with beginning again. 😉

I finish my rather crappy cup of coffee with a sheepish smile; it’s enough, and I’m okay with that. It’s time to move on to changes, and practices, and beginnings. 🙂

Where does this path lead?

Tags anxiety, be here now, be the change, begin again, breathe, choose wisely, do over, do something different, emotional self sufficiency, experience, frank and open, good self-care, I am my own cartographer, partnership, perspective, practicing the practices, ptsd, relationships, TBI, The Art of Being, The Big 5, there are verbs involved, try again, walking my own path

Categories Anxiety, Brain Injury, Despair, forgiveness, Free Will, Frustration, grief, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Love, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, The Art of Being, The Big 5, winter

Take a Break Now and Then

December 20, 2018 //

However stress-filled, however chaotic, however angst-ridden, and horrible-seeming life may be right now, it’s possible to get the occasional breather from all that, even if it is just a walk, or an hour immersed in a good book, or a favorite video game… or a few minutes of meditation…

…Take a break, now and then. 🙂

There’s even the very real chance that taking healthy breaks from stress could… reduce your stress. 😀 (That sounds like a fine idea!)

I woke this morning without the anxiety that has been plaguing me for weeks, now. It was a nice departure from what had threatened to become routine. Feels good. I sip my coffee and enjoy it, and think about the handful of days off ahead of me. That feels good, too. I smile, and feel my relaxed posture, and contentment in my own skin.

I spend a moment or two musing about life’s changes; small ones, over time, that sometimes become, quite a lot later, very significant… and other’s that seem to loom large in the moment, and amount to nothing, looking back on them. Weird how that works.

It’s the people and relationships that matter most. Life seems so much less about other facets of our circumstances, as I sit quietly on a weekday morning before a holiday weekend, sipping my coffee.

I notice the time, and realize there is time yet to tidy up, and for meditation. A good time to begin again. 🙂

Tags anxiety, be here now, be the change, begin again, being and becoming, breathe, choose wisely, emotional self sufficiency, experience, good self-care, I am my own cartographer, MBSR, meditation, mindful living, mindfulness, mindfulness for beginners, mindfulness matters, perspective, practicing the practices, ptsd, relationships, sufficiency, TBI, The Art of Being, The Big 5, walking my own path, what matters most?

Categories Anxiety, Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, The Art of Being, The Big 5, winter

Handle With (Self)Care

December 16, 2018 //

Yesterday got off to a lovely start, wobbled a bit with a moment of consequence stemming, most likely, from a miscommunication or misunderstanding. I got past it, but the day built on that with small details, snatches of over-heard conversations that had nothing to do with me, and a few interactions with strangers, that amounted to a busy, fairly purposeful, intended to be very fun day that turned out to be just filled with anxiety, and triggers. Well, shit.

By the time I crossed town to spend time with a dear friend I hadn’t hung out with in while, catch up, and see his “new place” (he’s been there a year), my hands were… sort of torn up. Yeah. I pick at my cuticles when stressed, and don’t realize I’m doing it, generally. “Nervous habit” doesn’t cover it, and managing it is impaired by my fucking TBI. So, by the end of the afternoon, my finger tips were bleeding in places, from torn cuticles, tugged at hang nails, and I was feeling both uncomfortable and self-conscious, on top of the anxiety.

I was also early. Shit.

I was sitting in a parking lot, just a shopping center away from my friend’s address, in a neighborhood I once called home. Familiar territory. I strolled through a couple specialty shops with Giftmas on my mind. I kept catching myself still tearing at my poor suffering innocent cuticles. I finally had a “fuck this dumb shit” moment, when I spotted the cheery neon “Open” sign of a nail salon right there. I looked at the time. We’d been firm, in our plans, on “not earlier than”, and even so, I had plenty of time yet ahead of me – I’d been planning to grab a bite. I was not at all hungry, though, and every ounce of my being was yearning for actual self-care. So… Nails? Nails. I mean… if they turned out to have a walk in opening, at all. It’s the weekend before the weekend of Giftmas! (What was I thinking??)

It had been awhile since I’d been to this nail salon. Could I do a ten minute wait, the receptionist asks me politely, glancing at my hands with a frown. The place was packed. She called one of the manicurists over, who asked to also see my hands. She looked at me sternly, and spoke to the receptionist in Vietnamese, and briskly returned to the sea of manicurists’ stations. The receptionist said, firmly, “please take a seat, 10 minutes” and hands me a quantity of color samples, “choose color”. She returns to the phone. Two or three women were waiting ahead of me, another came in with a scheduled appointment. All the stations were entirely full. No way this is going to be 10 minutes, I thought, rather stoically. Still, I felt that I was in the place I needed to be in the moment, taking care of an important bit of self-care; the worse my fingers were chewed on, ragged, and picked at, the worse they were going to become; it’s the snags that grab my attention in the background, when I’m “not looking”. It was becoming actually painful at that point.

I sat quietly, breathing the fumes commonplace in nail salons and amused myself with thoughts of the Oracle of Delphi. Time passes.

A customer leaves. Then another. And another. 10 minutes passes quickly, and it really was all I had to wait. The next 45 minutes passed so gently, and I felt so cared for. Hell… I relaxed and allowed experiences – new experiences – I would not have known how to actually ask for, because I simply put myself (and my hands) in the care of someone expert.

On my way to be seated, I managed to actually break a nail – into the quick – but did not allow myself to tear it off. She fixed that. (I did not know that was a thing.) She put tiny tips on my chronically bitten to the quick pinky nails, making them appear utterly ordinary alongside the others. She looked carefully at where the worst damage was and as she trimmed and removed damaged bits, reminded me to moisturize my hands to limit snags and keep my cuticles supple. “More moisture.” She repeated it several times, over the course of the work she was doing, pointing out exactly where it matters most. Tense? She used a lavender massage lotion for the hand massage. I felt my stress melting away. I walked away with nearly indestructible (gel) nails for the holiday ahead, and feeling far more relaxed and comfortable with my body.

I had a great time hanging out with my friend. The day was, although busy, well-spent. I feel ready for the holiday ahead, and eager to spend that time with my Traveling Partner. Today, I’ve got a gentle day of housekeeping, and gift-wrapping, and a trip to the market planned. A nice Sunday. Laundry and cartoons? I think so. A good beginning on a new week.

I’ll go get started on that. 🙂 I won’t be changing the world in any noteworthy way, but maintaining the kindness, order, contentment, and sanity in my own wee corner at least serves to help, in some very small way. 🙂

Tags choose wisely, emotional self sufficiency, good self-care, Handle with Care, heal, I am my own cartographer, let go of the small stuff, manage your stress, OPD, practicing the practices, ptsd, stress management, sufficiency, take good care of yourself, taking care of me, TBI, The Art of Being, The Big 5, the map is not the world, there are verbs involved, walking my own path, what matters most?

Categories Allegories, Anxiety, Brain Injury, forgiveness, Free Will, Frustration, Healthy Living, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, The Art of Being, The Big 5, winter

Swerve

December 9, 2018 //

I like a smooth, well-mapped, route when I travel from place to pace, it’s true. I don’t at all mind “a road less traveled” – I just prefer to use a map. lol The enormous emotional relief, for me, in beginning down the path of mindfulness, of improved self-awareness, of improved emotional self-sufficiency, has been largely due to the increased sensation that this journey can make some sense, can seem to follow some sort of map. Sort of. 🙂 It’s a feeling of “safe travels” on life’s journey, for me.

…I’m less than ideally well-suited to unexpected drama, profound losses of perspective or resilience, or that emotional teeter-totter that gets slyly labeled “reactivity”. I falter. I panic. I want to run. Doesn’t matter if it’s my mess, or someone else’s. I really just don’t want to be part of it, and I begin to do a lot of emotional dog-paddling in life’s choppy waters, just trying to stay ahead of things, or smooth things over. I’d often rather just yield to whatever the chaos brings with it, accept and reject it, and fucking walk on. So often, it’s either my own mess to clean up and manage, or it belongs to someone dear to me, who has… for fuck’s sake… reached out to me (of all people) for help and support.

It was late last night before I’d self-soothed and medicated sufficiently to stop by brain spinning out of control on details that didn’t really belong directly to me, but touched my experience enough to be aggravating. I slept fitfully, once I was able to sleep at all, and my nightmares were not all that helpful toward sorting shit out. I was fairly grateful for the loud crashing noise on the roof over my bed, which woke me abruptly at 1:49 am. Heavy winds all day and into the night, really making a loud rushing and roaring noise, had been tossing the treetops back and forth for hours. Seconds after 1:48 am, I guess, a largish tree beyond the back fence couldn’t take it any longer and snapped just a couple feet up from the base. It hit the house and broke again, the top sliding down the roof into the neighbor’s yard, the mid-section crashing into the fence, and destroying a section of that, breaking again, and that piece falling sort of into my yard.

Well…shit. That’s not good…

Minutes later, we were all standing out there in the wind and rain, faces wearing looks of astonishment and relief. It could have been worse. In the darkness, the wind carried off any real sense of fear or anxiety, leaving behind only words of surprise, and cautious optimism. It would be hours before day light gave us a better look. Still, it was easy to tell it could have been much worse.

I went back to bed with that reminder in my mind; it could have been worse. So often in life this is true. lol

I woke to a lovely note from my Traveling Partner. I woke to no drama. I woke to peace and contentment. I woke to a large tree broken in pieces spread across the back yards, and a displaced squirrel looking up at me with a recognizable “wtf??” look. I smiled. I get it. I put out peanuts for the squirrels and made a cup of coffee for myself – and began again. 🙂

Tags be love, be the change, begin again, breathe, choose wisely, emotional self sufficiency, good self-care, I am my own cartographer, it's a metaphor, love and lovers, MBSR, meditation, OPD, p.s. I love you, perspective, practicing the practices, ptsd, relationships, stormy weather, sufficiency, taking care of me, TBI, the map is not the world, there are verbs involved, walking my own path, watch out for that tree!, wind and rain, winter is coming

Categories Anxiety, autumn, Brain Injury, Free Will, gardening, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, winter, Words

Okay, Sure, but How?

December 8, 2018 //

It’s a Saturday morning. I am awake early. I make a delicious cup of coffee, and later a couple of eggs, prepared simply, with a bit of olive oil and some salt and pepper. I feel content and satisfied. I scroll through my feeds; too many memes and shares, not enough original content. I move on. I do some self-study on topics currently most interesting to me. I take time to meditate.

I feel good.

I think about these things before I sit down to write. I consider how routinely I “begin again” and how often I suggest it as a great practice, recognizing what I’m really saying is something as elementary as “don’t beat yourself up over that, just start over”, which is less succinct, and less likely to become clear programming. I find myself wondering if that’s really enough to be at all helpful for friends or readers who haven’t yet tried a new beginning in that sense that I mean, and don’t quite know what to do with that moment of transition between the end/consequence of the one moment, and the fresh-start newness of the next.

I drink my coffee and mull that over. Is it a complicated question? “How to Begin Again” doesn’t seem the sort of thing that would, generally, require explicit instruction… but… I already know I’m wrong about that, a lot. So…

Step one, well, I guess something’s gotta end, or be completed, or fail horribly leaving us feeling wretched and lost, or at loose ends, or puzzled, or discontent, or… Yeah. I guess step one has to be the end of something or other. Let’s start there. 🙂
Now begin again.

Okay, okay. I’m being a smart ass, and a bit flippant, and maybe that’s not appropriate for you, in your circumstances, right at the moment? Got it. I’ll… begin again.

Let’s go ahead and still start with something that ends. 🙂 A circumstance, a moment, an experience – and hey, maybe that’s your “now”, right now, and it hasn’t ended yet, and you’re really quite unhappy and miserable and feeling beat down by life, or overcome by ennui or sorrow, or frustration… damn. That sucks. Let’s step 2 the hell out of that, shall we?
Breathe. No kidding. Take a moment and just get some wholesome cleansing deep breaths. Let that other shit go, just for a moment or two at least? Surely that’s fine? It’s a choice. Take a moment for you, and just breathe.
Even while allowing yourself to consider what has passed, whether success or failure, however miserable, worried, or anxious, please also work on letting go of your attachment to the specific outcome, and let go of any expectations you were holding on to. Let yourself have a clean slate on this – it’ll be okay to do that, I assure you. 🙂 The map is not the world, and clinging to an understanding of an experience or circumstance can definitely color your future experience and decision-making.
Go ahead and feel your feelings. Yep. Feel ’em. Emotions are not the bad guys here, and we can develop a less reactive, more awareness-based approach to our emotional life. Finding balance between emotion and reason is a very nice bonus to all this practicing. 🙂
Still breathing? You’ll want to keep that going, generally. 🙂
If you are wanting to literally re-start whatever you just failed at, now’s the time, perhaps, to consider what success really looks like – and maybe also ask yourself some questions about why you view it that way? Is that your own legitimate authentic honest assessment, or have you borrowed someone else’s opinion’s or values there? Please consider using your own. 🙂 (Much easier to succeed in life when you are pursuing your own goals.)
Make a plan. Oh, I know – an ever-loving fuck-ton of you, out there, are not planners at all. I’m not saying a word about whether or not you execute a specific plan. I am most definitely suggesting that you still sketch out some sort of loose notion of what you want to get done, even if it’s only in your head, and even if you follow through completely differently. When we feel prepared, our stress level in life is generally lower. Just saying. Think it through. Consider your next steps, and your goal. Consider alternate outcomes – a lot of them. Be okay with as many of those as you are able to allow yourself to be. Consider how those alternate outcomes may also be quite okay, maybe in totally different ways. (Some people might call this “daydreaming”, but it can be done very productively.)
Allow yourself to acknowledge what is and has gone well. Contemplate for some moments all manner of similar experiences or circumstances or events or relationships that have turned out quite well, based on your choices in the past. Consider them. Savor these memories of success and sort of “fill up your consciousness” with the things in life that you appreciate, and have turned out quite nicely.
Still breathing? Don’t forget to breathe.
Now’s the time. Whatever it is, take another lovely deep relaxed breath, recognize and enjoy your humanity, and be aware that through our challenges is our path to growth; we don’t learn much from our successes, or the easy wins in life. We don’t become stronger by way of experiences that don’t test our strength. We can’t fathom the depths of our capacity for joy or love without also experiencing the weight of our pain and sorrow.
Ready? Do the thing. ❤ (All sorts of different steps and verbs go with this one, obviously. You get to choose those; that’s on you.)

I still think it’s fine to just… start with step 1 and finish with a step 2… but… I’ve been practicing for a while, and at this point, it does feel pretty natural to sort of cram all the rest of that between them. LOL

I smile and think about this journey of mine, and how far I’ve come from that hurt creature uncertain life is worth living… that was only… 5 years ago. The world isn’t really a “better place” than it was then, in most regards, and actually, it seems a bit worse, in a number of ways. Still… I feel better, about the world, about myself, about my life, about my ability to love and to heal and to nurture, and to make wise choices. I treat myself, generally, reliably well. I treat others better than I was ever able to before – or knew how to do. Strange to consider how all this progress has been built on so many small beginnings.

Tags ACT, be here now, be love, be the change, Beginning Again, being and becoming, breathe, choose wisely, emotional self sufficiency, first steps, good self-care, how to begin again, how to consider the past, how to plan for the future, how to start over, I am my own cartographer, MBSR, meditation, mindful living, mindful loving, mindfulness, mindfulness for beginners, mindfulness matters, new beginnings, perspective, practicing the practices, ptsd, sufficiency, taking care of me, TBI, The Art of Being, The Big 5, the map is not the world, there are verbs involved, what matters most?

Categories Anxiety, autumn, Brain Injury, Despair, Free Will, Frustration, Healthy Living, inspiration, Logic & Reason, loneliness, Mindfulness, Moments, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, The Art of Being, The Big 5, weight loss secrets, winter

Sometimes Shit Gets Real

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Take a Break Now and Then

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Handle With (Self)Care

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Swerve

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Okay, Sure, but How?

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