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And Then There’s Love

March 25, 2015 //
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Seriously, love is a thing. I didn’t always think so, and now that I do, well… it isn’t always a perfect Barbie Dream World experience, at all, and requires substantially more actual effort than I understood when I only dreamed of love. I’m speaking specifically of romantic sexual love – Eros. Nothing feels quite as ridiculously amazing as being loved, loved well, and adored romantically by an attentive affectionate lover with shared values, good communication skills, and the will to put reciprocal effort and time into the art of love.

Sometimes this is the face of love.

Sometimes this is the face of love.

Now, I’m no expert on love, frankly – I may well make more mistakes in this area than is commonplace – but I have been a devoted student for some time, and I’ve learned one or two things I am happy to share:

1. We are each having our own experience, which may feel very shared in a given moment, but are quite distinctly separate; however much in love, we are individuals.

2. Good treatment begins with treating myself well, by setting explicit boundaries, knowing my limits, communicating clearly and simply and remaining aware of the fundamental humanity of all involved – mistakes will be made, feelings will be hurt, boundaries may be trampled, and promises may be broken. At the end of the day, love is, and people are capable of change and growth.

3.  It’s not truly possible to force change on love; people change with their choices, their circumstances, and by way of their will. See items 1 and 2. If you are finding that love ‘needs’ a lot of change… that may not be love.

4. Criticism is a poor way of expressing a request, but commonplace; taking criticism personally generally prevents hearing the request, and failing to set boundaries about being criticized in lieu of being asked for an action or a change undermines love over time. Use your words wisely; love is listening.

5. Love really enjoys encouragement, kind words, emotional openness that also respects boundaries, consent, gentle frankness, laughter, and touch. Love enjoys being heard.

6. Love is undermined when we take it for granted, treat it as an entitlement or guarantee, speak harshly, violate boundaries, demean or diminish with our words or actions, speak with derision or contempt, disrespect it, or fail to treat it with consideration and importance, or… hey wait – honestly, if you’re doing these things, how is that love at all? Seriously. If you are treating another human being this way, maybe stop calling that love.

7. Emotions are very nuanced, and people have a very personalized experience of their experience (see item 1); making assumptions about someone else’s feelings or understanding of circumstances is a first-rate way to improve one’s rate of learning – the number of times you’ll be wrong will definitely result in plentiful opportunities to learn a lot – but it is a poor way to treat love.

8. Expectations are not ‘real’, and they don’t count as ‘plans’; mismatched expectations are a poor fit for love. Fortunately, this is an easy win with explicit, clear communication – as with assumptions, we can simply choose not to take this path. Trust me that building ‘love’ on expectations and assumptions is like trying to walk the average cat on a leash.

9. However challenging, getting love right is… beyond words, really, which is likely why so very many people write so very many words on the qualities of love; it’s worth communicating, and damned difficult. It’s worth the effort to invest in love every day – and that doesn’t require a partner! We invest in love when we are not in a relationship, too, with good self-care, enjoying what matters most to us as people, taking our own heart for a joy ride, solo, and savoring the small joys of life – when we do, love finds us so much more easily, than when we slog through our experience tragically grieving the lack of love.

10. Calling it love doesn’t change what it is.

...with what matters most. "You Always Have My Heart" 8" x 10" acrylic on canvas with glow.

…with what matters most.
“You Always Have My Heart” 8″ x 10″ acrylic on canvas with glow.

Today is a good day to love.

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Categories art and the artist, Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Love, Mindfulness, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Spring, The Big 5, Words

Quality and Quantity

March 15, 2015 //
2

I’ve got my dark moments, and certainly I have occasional doubts that ‘it’ is ‘worth it’ at all; it is the struggle that still fuels so much of my writing. Emotions can be intense, unexpected, and they cover a grand spectrum of human experience, so having a few that are unpleasant seems a given. While those things are what they are, I appreciate life, generally, and actually hope to live a very long time; I’ve often said I’d like to be around for 2083…I’d be 120. That’s a lot of living. Years and years of living in fact, surely qualifying as ‘a long time’. It seems doable, given ideal conditions; the oldest person living today is getting pretty close to that 120 mark, herself, and reportedly people have lived longer. As goals go, it’s hard to beat ‘live a long time’.

With potentially another 70 or so years to go, it changes the face of my perspective on living…I spent about a decade as a child, and another 10 years honing my skills to be recognizably adult (although lacking in life experience)…finally reaching 21, which wasn’t of particular value or legitimate significance; I was already a soldier, already unhappily married, already able to drink, already owned a car and a house, already voting – and still just as likely to be discouraged from using, or prohibited from having, the decision-making power of autonomy over reproduction and sexual values – because that’s how women are often treated, regardless of age, but most especially as young adult women. I spent my 20s rather wastefully racking up experiences of a variety of sorts without any particular reflection or personal growth. I took a lot of damage. I inflicted some of it on myself.

"Broken" 14" x 18" acrylic and mixed media with glow.

“Broken” 14″ x 18″ acrylic and mixed media with glow.

I entered my 30s exiting a violent marriage, without much to show for it besides a small number of very special possessions I would cling to with great care for decades to come, only to see some of the most precious of those rare positive mementos lost to the destructive force, or disregard, of others farther along on life’s journey. (Attachment is a losing game.)

I fell in love for the first time in my 30s, and although I recognized the experience as being significant, it didn’t last. It likely wouldn’t have lasted even if I had had the skills to nurture it at the time, it was built on a shaky foundation.

Time passes. I’ve grown. Changed. Built on what seems to be working. Torn down a lot of what wasn’t working at all. I’m in a very different place than I once was…and still the journey continues.  I have a lot less to show for 52 years than many people do (and more than others). I don’t own a home of my own. I don’t own a car of my own. I am not prepared for retirement in any adequate fashion. 100% of everything I own at this point in my life will fit in a modest sized bedroom – what isn’t furniture fits in a closet, if the art is hanging on the walls. Most of my possessions are paintings, or books, and a few boxes of precious crystal and porcelain breakables that are for now put away for safety. It hasn’t always been this way, and when I am not mindful of the risk of ‘second dart suffering’ related to attachment and loss, contemplating the losses over time carries quite an emotional punch. My brain is willing to attack me on this tender spot; I have sometimes chosen poorly, and I am living the outcome of those choices.

I am walking my own path; sometimes it seems clear, sometimes less so.

I am walking my own path; sometimes it seems clear, sometimes less so.

I am not where I want to be in life. On the other hand… I’ve got 70 years or so to get there, and I’m in a better place from which to move forward. 70 years to understand what matters most to me. 70 years to be fitter, wiser, healthier, calmer. 70 years to learn to love more skillfully, and to invest in growth. 70 years to make better choices. 70 years to build, to grow, to change… 70 years to practice. The saying is ‘practice makes perfect’ – what am I perfecting? What do I want of my life? This is not a question anyone can answer for me, and it has been a grave mistake in judgment in past moments of ennui, hurt, or chaos, to abdicate my role, or to compromise, in making the choices about what that desired life looks like for me.

Building the path as I walk it.

Building the path as I walk it; how else? No one knows my journey like I do…

I’m feeling some better this morning, though I slept badly. I’ll nap later, perhaps. I’ll spend the day doing laundry, preparing for my camping trip – if I go, the ‘last minute’ preparations [for me] happen today. If I find I am too sick to go, I will have spent a chill fun day playing with my camping gear – I don’t see that it is really any different from if I were a kid playing with any other sort of toys, housebound with a head cold on a rainy day. 🙂  I am hopeful that I’ll still be going camping – it’s the Vernal Equinox, missing out is kind of … well… missing out; there’s only one each year. This camping trip is a bit more than a weekend; 4 nights, 4 days, and a chance to meditate at length and at leisure, and to consider what I want of my life. (The future is here, and it’s always a good time to choose more wisely about the future than I did in the past.)

More questions than answers, and seeking illumination with a beginner's mind...

More questions than answers, and seeking illumination with a beginner’s mind…

This is the basic question I will be considering on this trip – in case you want to take it for a test drive, yourself: – If I could know with certainty that I will be living another 70 years, am I content with the life I am living right now? If not, what will I change to live the life I most want to live? What qualities of my day-to-day experience are precious to me? What do I change to experience more of those things? Yep. Fundamentally it the same question I have been asking throughout 2015; what do I want of my life? It is one question that simply isn’t ever about anyone but me. Life isn’t a bus ride, it’s more like a solo hike. The will, the direction, the motive power, and the resources over time, are mine. The choices? Also mine. I enjoy sharing my life with love and lovers…this, though, is my journey; I am the cartographer, the map is of my own making, the destination, too, must be of my choosing, sharing some portion of the journey does not change that.

The map is not the world...but the journey may be the destination.

The map is not the world…but the journey may be the destination.

Today is a very good day to live my life on my own terms. Isn’t it always? Today is a good day to treat the world well, while finding my own way. Today is a good day for good-natured acceptance of the humanity of others, and to be content that their decision-making is likely to differ from my own. Today is a good day for good self-care, and healthy indulgence of things that feel good – and do no harm to others. Today is a good day to be the person I most want to be – when I can – and to dust off my knees when I stumble, and keep going. Today is a good day to choose my own path, and to walk it. Today is a good day to change my world.

Is enlightenment found in embracing contentment in this precious moment?

Seeking illumination, I am content to find lightness of being.

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Categories art and the artist, Brain Injury, Free Will, grief, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Oregon Trails, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, solo hiking, Spring, The Big 5, Uncategorized, women, Words

Me First

March 14, 2015 //
0

I’m still sick. I’m taking advantage of the weekend to take care of my health. I have no other plans today. I am still hopeful that I’ll be over this in time for my camping trip in a few days…if not, I’ll have to decide whether to cancel or just go and tough it out – maybe find out just exactly what I’m made of under even more trying conditions.

I giggle at myself thinking about my middle-aged, suburbanite, white-collar self considering a few days of camping in a state park very near to home to anything like ‘trying conditions’ or a test of endurance of any sort. Somewhere in the distance of time long past, a much younger, more rugged me looks on with some measure of friendly disdain – not meaning to be mean, but me then was just not that patient with people’s notions. lol

Not quite wilderness close to home.

Not quite wilderness close to home.

So sure, today I am putting me first, but that’s not the point of the title at all. “Me First” is a practice, and it’s one that I am currently turning over in my head to add to my SuperBetter  game; I haven’t decided if it serves best as a ‘Quest’ or a ‘Power Up’. Over my morning coffee, I answer some basic questions for myself, such as ‘is this something I do for a course correction, or an emotional boost, or is it something I need to practice, reach for as a goal, and strive to achieve?’ and ‘is this an experience?’ and ‘can I put a face to it?’ Most of my ‘Bad Guys’ are issues and challenges (personal demons) that I can easily ‘face’ more effectively if they wear actual faces. lol

“Anxiety” 10″ x 14″ acrylic on canvas w/ceramic 2011

“Anxiety” 10″ x 14″ acrylic on canvas w/ceramic 2011

My “Me First” practice is a cognitive tool to improve emotional resilience by building a sense of perspective, improving my ability to respond to others with compassion, and to foster quick recognition of shared human experience, when I may be inclined to react in a judgmental way, or feeling resentful. “Me First” is simply the practice of observing the judgment or resentment with a high level of honesty and acceptance, and mindful awareness of how I, myself, experience a similar circumstance ‘if the shoe were on the other foot’. I put myself in the other person’s experience very deliberately, and challenge myself to understand how it may be something we have in common, and how human it is. Before I start emotionally or intellectually ‘stoning’ someone, I practice looking to myself – is there really room to criticize? (There rarely is.) Is there room for compassion, encouragement, a moment of humor or Schadenfreude? (There usually is.) Instead of being critical – and understanding that criticism is generally a poorly worded request for change – is there something I can do meet my own needs more simply (like making a clear and gentle request for change)? Can I apply that understanding and perspective to this other human being and possibly do something to meet their needs? That’s the lovely thing about my “Me First” practice – it’s not ‘me first over and above whatever you need, and go fuck yourself for your trouble’, not at all; it’s ‘let me take care of me first, work out some of these issues I’ve obviously got, get my head right and see what we can do together, to meet shared needs, and understand each other’.  Before I criticize someone else, I launch this practice and I check myself – and use the object lesson to work on me, first – because realistically, I don’t actually get to work on anyone else. None of us do. Not really – and attempting to take that power of self management, and autonomy away from someone with criticism, judgmental remarks, or intimidation and controlling behaviors is in a category of ‘bad acts’ I consider emotionally abusive. I definitely don’t want to be doing something to other people that I consider abuse.

What a wonderful thing – you get to make all your own choices about these things, yourself, and my notions of what is or is not abusive doesn’t dictate your choices! Fantastic! Ideally, it’s all sort of self-adjusting, isn’t it? If we treat someone poorly, or abuse them (physically or emotionally), surely they don’t stick around for that, and we find ourselves bereft and alone, as we would surely deserve for our bad acts…right? Well, not always, and sometimes tragically so. Learning not to stick around for more abuse is one of the things I work on, myself. It’s not always easy. My sense of loyalty is far more well-developed than my sense of when I may be over-compromising my values, or allowing myself to be mistreated emotionally. As a younger woman, some portion of my identity was wrapped up in whether my relationships ‘succeeded’, but the definition of success wasn’t my own, and I stuck around for some heinous shit. We are each having our own experience, too. What injures me, or hits damaged bits related to my PTSD, or may be of more concern because of my TBI, may not at all be what hurts you as an individual. (Clearly there are some experiences that could universally be recognized as abuse, but this is not about that.)

Learning good self-care, for me, also means learning to recognize when I am treated well, when I am treated poorly – and what amount of poor treatment is unacceptable, rather than an incidental and unintended by product of someone’s humanity. So I practice treating myself well, and I also practice treating others well; because I am not a blameless victim in my experience of life – I am living it, and I too make poor choices, or fall short of ideals, or ‘drop the ball in the big game’. I’m very human. I honestly don’t find it acceptable to criticize someone for issues I have myself, things I am also prone to do, or stuff that’s just shared human experience needing to be managed or learned from; so I am practicing doing something differently, and walking my own path to be the woman I most want to be, myself, on my own terms.

We each walk our own path, paved with our own choices.

We each walk our own path, paved with our own choices.

I’m also not smug about this stuff, and I struggle. These are my challenges, more than my triumphs, and I have more questions than answers. You’re welcome to take whatever value you find in my words; your results may vary. There are verbs involved. 🙂

I tried learning to treat others well, without taking care of me, without addressing my own needs first, without really putting in the time to learn what treating others well really meant. It was not an effective effort.  I don’t find attempting to care for me to the exclusion of treating others well to be a good fit; it nearly always feels like I am treating people poorly as a default decision. Balance wins again, and perspective; treating myself well matters a lot, and treating others well isn’t even truly possible to do with skill if I don’t start with me…but putting myself first by taking good treatment away from others turns out not to be very good self-care at all. It’s quite an interesting puzzle.  I found the realization that ‘good treatment’ is defined by the person experiencing it, rather than the person taking the action being experienced, very valuable; it’s not about the intention of the person delivering the words or behaviors at all, and that’s important to understand.

Endure the journey, or embrace it, this choice, too, is yours.

Endure the journey, or embrace it, this choice, too, is yours.

I am sick today, and it’s raining; today is a good day for puzzles. Today is a good day for first-rate self-care. Today is a good day to treat the hearts of others just as well as I treat my own – knowing that I treat my own heart very well indeed, well… practicing the practices, at least. There’s still a journey ahead. 🙂

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Categories Anxiety, art and the artist, Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Oregon Trails, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, solo hiking, Spring, The Big 5, Words

You Know What I Like

February 28, 2015 //
0

Well, or maybe not – especially if you haven’t asked, or I haven’t told you, or we don’t spend much time together…right? Assumptions tend to result in people having relationships and interactions with rather different people than the people involved are thinking they are, themselves. Like a lot of thinking, it isn’t ‘real’; it’s all completely made up. When I approached turning 50, I made a choice to take a much more genuine approach to my experience, generally, and I’m glad I did. It hasn’t been the easiest change to make; I can adjust my own thinking, and refrain from making assumptions, but I can’t do a damned thing about the thinking, or assumptions, of others – not even to wake them up to the rather significant changes in my approach to my own life and experience. I will be taking The Four Agreements with me out into the trees. It seems a good time to reread it.

Pop songs make so much of life, love, and sex sound incredibly easy. I don’t even find ‘being easy’ particularly easy in practice. It’s fortunately more amusing and bewildering than anything else, most of the time.

Do you know what I like? Even if you know me personally (and some of you do), even if you are an intimate associate or partner, what chance is there that you actually know me sufficiently well that you know what I like – right now, after a couple of years of intense growth and change, without actually asking me? Experience tells me that it is quite rare to be so well-known as a human being, even by the most connected and intimate associates, even after years of interacting, without at least some exchange of explicit communication.  To expect to be known so well in the midst of change, or at the end of a period of profound growth, doesn’t sound likely at all, and seems likely to cause all kinds of suffering.

I also notice that it is very uncommon for people who already know each other to make much effort to update their knowledge and expectations of their friends, lovers, or partners identities, preferences, aesthetic; the details that express the heart of soul of who we are. That seems very strange. I know assumptions have survival value – or we probably wouldn’t have developed to make so many of them – but they are not a particularly useful intimacy building tool… and yet, we cling to them, argue to defend our assumptions – even in the face of actual information.

Do you know what I like? More to the point – that person walking beside you in life, how about that person – do you know what they like? Do you listen when they talk about it? Are you interested? Does it matter to you? And you – do you feel heard? Recognized? Valued? Encouraged in your endeavors? Do you face holidays and gift occasions eager, and content in the knowledge that you are known, and understood? That what matters to you is significant in their experience because it does matter to you? Do you still look love in the eyes eagerly wanting to know more?

Oh, Baby, you knoooow what I like!

Oh, Baby, you knoooow what I like!

It’s a lovely gentle Saturday, spent on art, lattes, meditation, and some words – and questions. Today is a good day for questions. Today is a good day for presence. Today is a good day to be genuinely this woman I am; who else could do it better than I can? Today is a good day to change the world.

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Categories art and the artist, Brain Injury, Free Will, Logic & Reason, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Perspective, Relationships, The Big 5, Words

The Time Comes

February 16, 2015 //
0

The time comes when practices and tools and new skills aren’t just convenient, or a nice quality of life improvement, or appreciated growth and self-improvement; they aren’t about that, and never were. The time comes, sooner or later, almost inevitably, when practices, tools, and skills are what I am counting on to maintain not just balance, or contentment, or comfort dealing with others – they save me from myself, they put boundaries on a surreal recurring waking nightmare that is the result of my PTSD flaring up. Over time, when the time comes, they become something I can (hopefully) count on to give me a moment to change a reaction to a response, when my PTSD and my disinhibiting brain injury cross paths in a moment of stress.

The time will come…does come…when I will find myself facing me, facing a challenge – that much I know, from a lifetime of experience; “this too shall pass” applies equally to the moments of calm and joy, as it applies to the moments of panic, and terror.

These practices I write so much about, talk so much about, and frankly practice so much for many minutes of this finite mortal life are not just conveniences or cool things to do – they saved my life. This morning they proved their worth, and I proved that I am not wasting my time learning to practice the practices.

There’s not much more to say about this morning, in any specific way. I have PTSD. My symptoms are sometimes triggered by very specific domestic scenarios; one of the lasting effects of domestic violence decades ago (so don’t act violently toward people you say you love, okay?). I also have a brain injury that severely limits the ‘inhibiting’ and regulatory executive functions that most people can count on to avoid saying the wrong thing, or acting on impulse – or releasing the full visceral power of their emotional experience in the moment. This morning I found myself disadvantaged by those characteristics of my experience, and leaning heavily on new practices, new understandings of mind and practical emotional neuroscience, and the love and good-heartedness of my traveling partner, who handled things – and me – so tenderly. This morning, it was enough. (Huge win there, frankly.) The hours of study, meditation, practicing good self-care, more meditation, getting more exercise, taking better care of my physical health, and still more meditation, the hiking, the talk therapy, learning cognitive practices that improve implicit memory, more meditation still…and the miles and miles of walking, and being; every bit of it is worth the effort, the life-force spent, the time taken just to have it pay off this one time, this morning.

You know, it isn’t even about ‘proof of concept’ in any especially grown up way – it’s more like the scene in Harry Potter “Prisoner of Azkaban” when Harry realizes he can cast the Patronus charm – because he already had (nothing like time travel to get a leg up on the future, I guess…). I am hopeful I can go forward more easily able to take advantage of new practices to manage my PTSD and my TBI…because this morning, I did. Oh, wait…That’s exactly what ‘proof of concept’ actually is. LOL Go, Brain. Proof of concept…but ‘in a Harry Potter way’; I may never actually be a proper grown up. 🙂

Sometimes this can feel a very lonely journey; we are not alone. <3 Detail of "Communion" 24" x 36" acrylic on canvas w/ceramic, 2011

Sometimes this can feel a very lonely journey; we are not alone. ❤
Detail of “Communion” 24″ x 36″ acrylic on canvas w/ceramic, 2011

So…it’s another day to treat myself and others well, and a good day to stay aware of how easily a comfortable seeming recovery from a bad moment can go awry without continuing to practice the practices. Today is a good day for self-compassion, and acceptance that these are called ‘invisible injuries’ for a reason. Today is a good day to trust love. Today is a good day to enjoy a better outcome, and to say ‘thank you’ – because better outcomes are rarely a solo endeavor.

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Categories Anxiety, Art, art and the artist, Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Love, Mindfulness, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, The Big 5
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