Archives for category: Free Will
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Managing the Pain

September 15, 2020 //
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I’m in pain this morning. Routine morning in most respects, in spite of the pain. Maybe the pain itself has become fairly routine after all this time? I’ve lived with the arthritis pain in my spine for a pretty long time… about… 30 years. 30 years? Wow. It has been a long time. This morning I manage it as well as I know how to do with the tools available. Yoga and stretching, first. Meditation (it does help). An OTC pain reliever (it doesn’t help much, but it’s a “next step” that sits somewhere between the yoga and the Rx relief on the path of escalating steps).

My first cup of coffee is long gone. I drink water for some while before I move to make the second cup. My Traveling Partner joined me for coffee a little while ago. That moment is behind us, already, and the work day begins to unfold. The sky is a bit less horrifically altered by smoke, and the air a bit less foul. Progress. Still… the day manages to feel entirely routine, in general.

I drag my mind away from the physical pain I am in, and back to the work in front of me. I do that two or three times before I finally just take a break to deal with it properly. Probably a day of it ahead of me. I sigh out loud in the quiet room, reminding myself to be patient with people, and kind; we can’t see what that other person is going through, and often make fairly poor assumptions from a casual glance. I resolve to be “the nicest person in the room”, if I can…

…Sounds like a lot of new beginnings ahead of me today.

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Categories Brain Injury, Free Will, health, Healthy Living, Mindfulness, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, pain, Perspective, Practices, Summer, The Art of Being

It Certainly Is Foggy

September 14, 2020 //
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Fog is weird stuff. We pass through it easily, still, it blinds us and alters what we see of the world around us. Try to shine a bright light directly into fog, and it becomes more difficult to see, rather than easier. So weird. So… metaphorical.

Sure is foggy… am I really so certain I know what’s hidden out there?

How many times have I driven a familiar road, blinded by fog? Or walked some foggy trail listening to muffled steps through the mist, with only my thoughts for company? Or just sat quietly, in the dense damp of morning fog, imagining whimsically that the fog held more meaning than mere droplets of water densely dispersed in the air?

Fog is a pretty good metaphor for the various thinking errors I find myself prone to, and even the “obscuring mist” of misleading assumptions that can so easily crowd out any perception of my reality in the moment. I think about that, on and off, from that first moment standing outside, early this morning, wondering if the mist were properly fog, or more likely the smoke of distant wildfires. Both, maybe. The stench of it suggested at least a considerable portion was – is – smoke. Blech.

…Maybe rain tomorrow? The weather hints at the potential. So does my arthritic back. Fingers crossed! We could use some rain. We could use a way out of the fog.

Yes, of course, it’s a metaphor. 😉

Begin again.

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Categories Allegories, anger, Anxiety, Brain Injury, Despair, forgiveness, Free Will, Frustration, gratitude, grief, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, Summer, Uncategorized

You Get to Choose

September 13, 2020 //
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My coffee is a memory. By the time I got to actually drinking it, it was already rather tepid. It lingers, cold, and bitter, in my recollection. My day is off to a rather poor start for no good reason. At some point, the quality of my experience becomes up to me…

I reflect on things quietly, thinking perhaps I’ll gain perspective through writing, then find myself stalled, unwilling to tackle the “harder questions” this morning, in spite of knowing they would do well to be asked, and where possible, answered. Instead, I make an ambitious list of household chores and resolve to complete those. It’s easier.  Today is, in most respects, an ordinary enough Sunday.

…Order from chaos… sometimes I find it helps with other challenges troubling me in the background…It helps to have a list.

Same view, different day. Perspective matters, but we each have to walk our own hard mile.

I remind myself to make room for other perspectives, to listen deeply, to be open to change…

A slight change in point of view can make a difference in understanding our circumstances.

…I wander off to get started on my list. Another new beginning… the day may improve, if I can stay open to that potential. I can always begin again…

…

…

…Sometimes this shit is hard. Seems so, I mean. Subjectively. I remind myself “one practice at a time, one step at a time, one task at a time; it all adds up”… I feel unconvinced and blue. Some days suck. I make a mental note that change is – even the most miserable moment is just a moment, and it’ll pass. I have choices. I have practices that I know I can count on to be uplifting. Yeah, not super convincing that time, either. I’ll “get over it” and “move past this”. For now, this is the experience I seem to be having. I try not to take it personally, and stay with both this actual moment, and these feelings; the moment, which is frankly fine, is my anchor, my point of “safety” that gives me a firm foundation to consider the feelings without becoming mired in them (that’s the intention, anyway). I’m okay right now. That’s real. The emotions are emotions. I make a point to refrain from conflating the feelings with actual experiences.

…I make a point to consider the experience separately from the emotions I feel during or about the experience, itself…

…Uncomfortable or unpleasant experiences are something I can learn and grow from. Fighting that isn’t particularly helpful. Getting mired in unresolved emotions isn’t particularly helpful (or comfortable) either. I take a breath and turn towards my discomfort, seeking growth… and begin again, again. I eye my “baggage” and personal demons with some distaste and impatience, and snarl to myself “bitches, I can do this “begin again” shit all fucking day, just go ahead and fucking bring it“. That at least gets a laugh out of me.

I check my list, and yeah, I even check it twice. There’s more to do… and it all begins with a beginning.

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Categories Allegories, anger, Anxiety, Brain Injury, Despair, forgiveness, Free Will, Frustration, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, Summer, Uncategorized

I Had Something for This

September 10, 2020 //
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The end of a work day. “Fire season” is upon us, on the west coast (and, um, why is that a thing, ffs?). The sky is a sick orange, has been for a couple days, now. The other-worldly impression already seems to extend itself in my sense of scale, such that it feels, subjectively, like… normal. It isn’t. Not at all.

…There’s quite a lot in life that seems to work that way; the grotesquely abnormal, over time, becoming almost routine, and definitely expected… I try not to allow myself to forget bluer skies.

I take a breath. Today I’m exceedingly grateful for air. Right now it’s tainted with the smell of smoke, and particles of ash that continue to fall from the summer’s wildfires. My throat is sore, and my voice is hoarse, but I feel safe at home, so far. I embrace the gratitude, and let go of the complaints. I’ve got much to be grateful for…

…And I’ve got time to begin again.

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Categories Allegories, Anxiety, Brain Injury, Free Will, gratitude, Healthy Living, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Summer

A Matter of Perspective

September 8, 2020 //
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I’m drinking cold fizzy water. My work day is over. My Traveling Partner is in his shop, making something specific of nothing-much components – tools and knowledge make a lot of things possible. I reflect on small irritants, and things for which I am grateful, too. Sometimes the irritating things in life feel damn near inescapable. I often find that taking time to savor the things in life I cherish, and to reflect gratefully on the many many things in life that don’t irritate me, is time well-spent and a helpful anodyne to the plentiful aggravations life may throw my way.

Perspective matters.

Yesterday began well. A lovely day.

One very cool thing about perspective is that it can change. It can be willfully, deliberately, altered – by choice, if you’ve a will to choose to do so.

A strange haze began to develop, later in the morning… or was it just a trick of the light?

It’s tempting to see perspective as a single point, just one way of looking at something, or one position from which to consider things. Is it, though?

There’s definitely a haze, later in the day, and a high wind storm warning to go with it.

There’s often more than one “right answer”, more than one solution to a problem challenge, more than one way that “things go together”. On and off I keep contemplating perspective, and how best to make use of it to understand the country I live in, my own circumstances, or the strange times I find myself in. We’ve only got this one planet, and these all-too-brief mortal lives…

The otherworldly result of smoke from distant fires.

…somewhere, communities and forests and fields are burning. Fire season. Cities, too, for other reasons. It’s a very good time to contemplate perspective – and to broaden it. There’s more to understand than I can even grasp. I have another drink of water. I’m grateful for cold clean drinking water. I’m grateful for this place I call “home”. Even that sick strange orange sky – I’m grateful to be able to see the sky, and to breath the air. I read some of the news. It’s bad in some places. I put it down – it’s not new news, just words about things I’ve read before.

What are you “for”? What are you “against”? Why do you feel that way? What have you done to test your assumptions? (I’m betting you’ve made more than a few assumptions, without testing them; it’s very human.) Would you refuse to test drive a change of perspective if you knew doing so might change your thinking? What does your answer tell you about the person in the mirror?

Too many questions, and my water bottle is empty. The sky is still a crazy sort of orange that fascinates and alarms me. One way or another, we’ve got to begin again.

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Categories Allegories, art and the artist, autumn, Brain Injury, Free Will, gratitude, Healthy Living, inspiration, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, Summer, The Art of Being, Words
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