Archives for category: Free Will
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Ready? It’s Time to Begin Again

January 4, 2016 //
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I am sipping my first Monday morning coffee on the first work day of the new year. Getting up on time was no challenge; the alarm was set. As is so often the case the night before I return to work after a break, though, I slept restlessly and lightly, waking often. I used the hot shower to ease the stiffness in my joints, and put on a lively playlist to start my morning, dancing to the Kongos as I made my coffee.

The night stayed cold, and the snow remains from yesterday; the walk to work will be icy. I am unconcerned. I will stay comfortable today with a hiking base layer under my work clothes, good boots, and my handy “Yaktrax” for the icy walk. I’m not enthusiastic about getting back to work, honestly, and I am at risk of being highly distracted by exciting things going on for me outside the office – a good practice today will be basic mindfulness applied to work tasks; being fully engaged in each work task results in improved efficiency, better quality output, and less likelihood of daydreaming or my mind wandering. I’ll have to balance that with basic good self-care practices to ensure I take appropriate breaks, get calories and medication on time, and set clear expectations with myself and others about working hours. It can be so tempting to work long hours ‘getting caught up’ – but it is a poor way to treat the woman in the mirror, and there is no assurance that such an effort matters in the slightest to anyone else.

I sip my coffee and think ahead to the work day, distracting myself from my morning without meaning to. I let it go and come back to this moment, to the music, to the morning. I look around and see a couple of things that I’d rather not see when I get home from work and smile; there is still time to do some chores before I leave for work.

Today is a good day to take care of the woman in the mirror, she certainly does a lot for me.

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Categories Anxiety, Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Mindfulness, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, The Big 5, Words

Small Changes Matter, Too

January 3, 2016 //
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At some point in during the wee hours, I surfaced sufficiently from a sound sleep to notice how incredibly peculiarly strangely quiet the world seemed, and then returned to sleep. When I woke fully, some hours later, I noticed the apartment was chillier than usual and went to check the thermostat and whether I had closed the flue the night before. The faint glow of morning slipped past the vertical blinds of the patio door near me, and I opened them to see the dawn unfold (we’ve had a couple sunny days back to back) – but there is no sunshine this morning; it’s snowing! I smile – to myself, at the snow, at the thought of coffee, at how good it is to be warm and safe instead of out there, in the cold and the snow, and head to the kitchen to make coffee.

Some snow. (Don't laugh, it's still snowing.)

Some snow. (Don’t laugh, it’s still snowing.)

I put all the Giftmas decor into storage yesterday. Waking up this morning to neither a lavishly decorated tree covered in tiny lights nor a tower of boxes needing to be put away was strange; my wee apartment feels quite spacious for the moment. Today I will take time to put the household entirely in order, an easier commitment with the weather outside likely to encourage me to stay indoors. The small details matter, and one thing I learned when I moved into my own place and a solitary lifestyle is that those small details matter most (for me) when I wake, and when I arrive home from elsewhere. That ‘first impression’ in the moment, when I step into my apartment, or into my living room first thing in the morning, set the tone of my experience and how well-cared for I feel by the woman in the mirror.

An example of how much the small details matter; I generally leave the house having tidied up such that when I return home, it is to a well-cared-for tidy living space that supports my emotional need for order, and my desire to relax at the end of the day – I do much of my housework in the mornings, for that reason (after coffee, but before I leave for wherever). Yesterday, I rushed off on my morning errand, having gotten a tad behind schedule, and did so without starting the dishwasher (or frankly, loading it) – and when I returned home, it was to dirty dishes in the sink. Holy cow I was irked with myself! The dishes don’t get less gross, or in any way more appealing, sitting there longer – so of course, I immediately put away the groceries I had arrived with, and did the dishes straight away. The result? My return home did not feel relaxed and easy – it felt a bit rushed and busy. (Since this isn’t my preference, I don’t generally do things this way. 🙂 )

It’s rare to see dishes in my sink at all. Of course, the one day over the holidays that there are dishes in my sink is a day when my traveling partner and I arrive at my place at about the same time. Yep. I found myself feeling mildly ashamed of the state of my apartment, which contributed to the speed with which I made things right upon my arrival. He offered no criticism. I make a reflex apology nonetheless, although my apartment stays generally quite tidy, and I am obligated only to myself regardless. This morning, I smile when I step into the very tidy little kitchen. I totally made things right with the woman in the mirror yesterday, and today I find myself content with things as they are.

Maintaining a state of ongoing contentment requires the generous (and skillful) use of verbs, and a good measure of self-awareness. Maybe it’s not the dishes that bug you – maybe it’s the trash? Or unmade beds? Or a dirty toilet or shower? Or carpets that need to be vacuumed?  Me, personally, I enjoy a certain overall state of ‘order’ – so all those things matter. Being easily distracted, impulsive, and a tad disinclined to perform manual labor during leisure hours, it’s easy for me to lose track and suddenly my place is a mess, which definitely correlates to my state of mind becoming disordered, too. It’s a mental health connection that is a known thing – there’s science on that. Taking care of me definitely involves some verbs quite specifically related to general housekeeping, and while it’s not my preferred way to pass time, I so love the way it feels to live in an orderly well-kept space it is both in my best interests and very much worth the investment in will, energy, and time to do the verbs.  I’ve been very pleased with how well I have managed this area of my life, generally, living alone. “Being messy” just hasn’t been an issue, although I had had concerns that it might be when I moved into my apartment. 🙂 I take a moment to appreciate how far I’ve come – making time to savor successes is another ‘small detail’ that is a very big deal.

Something to look forward on the other side of the work to be done.

Something to look forward on the other side of the work to be done.

The snow continues to fall. Later there will be a fire in the fireplace…sometime after chores are finished. In the meantime, I will enjoy my second coffee and a bite of breakfast, plan my day, and enjoy the falling snow. 🙂

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

Just Past This Headache

January 2, 2016 //
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I am having a very good day. It’s wintry and quite cold – literally freezing – and I built my day around a practical sort of errand that didn’t turn out as planned, and another that turned out quite precisely as planned, and in between I hung out with my traveling partner for a little while. A very good day, indeed.

What matters most?

What matters most?

The afternoon sunshine streams through the patio door, heating my wee apartment nicely; it’s a wasted effort if I forget to close the vertical blinds as the sun begins to dip low, because the heat gained is quickly lost through the glass on a cold day, once the sunshine is gone. There is a luxurious quality to the passive heat of sunshine on glass that my senses tell me differs from the heat of the heater, although I have no way to confirm that very subjective perception. I just enjoy the feeling of the sunshine reaching through the glass, across the room, and bathing me in light and warmth. It’s a lovely moment, in spite of this headache, which developed some short time ago, while I stood in the cold waiting for a bus. I suspect it will dissipate with continued comfort, warmth, and a nice cup of tea or coffee… It’s a bit late for coffee; I decide on tea and put on the kettle and some classical music. Baroque – light on the ears, gentle on the soul, it fills out the background with something more pleasant that the sound of the dishwasher.

What does this new year hold, I wonder? Beyond changes in healthcare, beyond moving into a somewhat bigger apartment very soon, beyond replanting the vegetable garden in spring or pruning the roses next fall, beyond the days and weeks of everyday chores and everyday fun, I know the year holds surprises and changes that I have not anticipated or planned for. I wonder what those will be? How convenient if I really could plan for those, too! I can’t plan for the unknown as fully as I might for what I deliberately undertake, but there are a lot of little ways I can keep myself ready, generally, for all manner of changes. Taking care of me is a pursuit with a lot of layers, and a lot of potential to support me through periods of change, or a real crisis. I took time to think over a lot of that yesterday, meditating on what demands on my resources and time the move will make, and how best to prepare for it without throwing my current quality of life into the trash. Ideally, no matter what changes come my way I will stay focused on my longer term goals, and my everyday taking-care-of-me needs by maintaining the good practices I have worked so hard to build.

Again and again, I find value in the concepts of ‘perspective’ and ‘sufficiency’; I can’t know everything another person is going through, but I can listen deeply and be compassionate, and there is little chance I can ‘have it all’ in life – the vast amount of wealth required remains out of reach for me – but ‘having‘ has proven to be rather irrelevant once basic needs are met. There is so much more to a rich life than expensive goods or exotic services. “Enough” matters more than ‘more’. My understanding of ‘quality of life’ has changed. The smile on my face matters more than ‘being right’, and contentment has proven easily achievable once I let go of expectations and assumptions about life’s entitlements, and stopped letting experiences other than my own have any weight in determining my path.

There are a lot of questions still to ask. The best answers I find tend to involve kindness, compassion, treating myself and others truly well, and being engaged and present in this moment right here, with the human being(s) physically in my company ‘in real life’ – and getting enough sleep. It’s probably not a coincidence that when I began taking a closer look at how I treated people and making changes in favor of treating people better (including me), people began to treat me better, too. It’s worth noticing. It doesn’t hurt to mention that when people do treat me poorly, I no longer internalize that experience, making it about me; people who treat others badly are making a statement about themselves, and although it is an unpleasant experience to have, it isn’t ‘about me’ at all. These are small things, each taken individually – but they have mattered so much! The Four Agreements was a good starting point on this journey. I smile, recalling the day my traveling partner recommended it to me, back in 2010. We have come so far together!

Soft music, the warmth of a fire, a pleasantly fragrant cup of tea, and quiet time in which to write...enough? So much more than enough.

Soft music, the warmth of a fire, a pleasantly fragrant cup of tea, and quiet time in which to write. Some of life’s riches don’t have a dollar value.

It’s another winter day. I have a headache, but so far it’s not affecting my mood. There is a fire crackling in the fireplace now, and an early dinner in the oven. I have no special plans, and no need for entertainment or distraction; the day is fine as it is. Quiet. I am content. This is enough. 🙂

 

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Categories art and the artist, Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, The Art of Being, The Big 5, winter, women, Words

New Year’s Resolutions Don’t Work…

December 31, 2015 //
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…Unless you are ready to choose change…unless you use verbs…unless you begin again. And again. And yet again…until the thing about which you propose to be resolved becomes a quality about who you actually are. Just saying. It’s said better here, perhaps. Or here. Or here.  All of them are fairly easily summarized – you can choose change, it does require verbs. There are no shortcuts, and there are no excuses.

Sometimes it feels like an uphill climb.

Sometimes it feels like an uphill climb. There are unexpected obstacles. 

The most frustrating thing about ‘New Year’s resolutions’ is that they so rarely result in real change (for many people – your results may vary). The ‘why’ of that is so simple; there are verbs involved, and a requirement that our intention, our will, and our actions align to result in change. No verbs? No change. I can want to lose weight, intend to lose weight, and make a good plan to reach a reasonable goal; if I do not practice the practices that get the desired result, I will not lose weight – and the frustration and disappointment of personal failure can so easily (and thoughtlessly) be transmuted to emotion-driven over-consumption of unneeded calories. Bummer. A lot of things work that way; feelings of futility and frustration easily result in a level of ‘giving up’ that results in not only not making the desired change, but even over-indulging the undesirable behavior. Huge bummer.

It’s not easy to stick with a commitment to change, whether the change involved is quitting smoking, losing weight, or giving up being a colossal psychotic raging bitch 24/7 to people you say you love; the nature of the change itself is almost irrelevant to the success or failure of the endeavor. How much you want it doesn’t have much to do with whether you will succeed or fail, either; the most earnest heartfelt desire for change is still simply an emotional experience (although one that can be leveraged for motivation, still just a feeling). Add to that the discouragement of loved ones in our support system being less than ideally encouraging – or frankly skeptical of success – and it can seem an insurmountable roadblock to change, just having emotions at all! Harsh – we’re so human! How do we get past all that? I don’t actually have an easy answer there; I begin again when I ‘fail’, and use the opportunity to learn and grow. There may be an easier answer, but I haven’t found it – and at this point, I’m not looking for easy answers. I’m content with questions… and verbs.

Go ahead. Choose change. Make a resolution. Be the person you most want to be in 2016! It may not be ‘easy’. You may fail – you may fail a lot. Incremental change over time is a real thing, though, and we do become what we practice – no kidding, that’s real, too (and true of behaviors both nurturing and damaging). Begin again. Start over. And again after that. Use a verb – use a lot of verbs – exert effort fearlessly; all you have in this lifetime is this lifetime, itself. Spending an entire lifetime not even making the attempt to be all you most want to be (as a human being) seems pretty… empty. Pointless? Wasted. So…later in January? February? Whenever you find you’ve quit, given up, or stalled – begin again. That’s actually ‘all it takes’ – begin again. Did you fail again? Okay – begin again. Again. And again. It’s the nature of practice to require repetition. 😉

One last bit on this, from a different perspective… Some of you out there could stand to treat your fellow human beings better than you do. (You know who you are, and your neighbors do indeed hear you; the world sees you in action pretty much every day and very few people are actually deceived.) Are you relying on rationalizations and excuses to get a pass for the mistreatment you heap upon your fellow human being? (Hormones, fatigue, alcohol, pain, illness…) Maybe you just feel righteous and justified or entitled. You can choose change, too. You can also refuse to choose change, but you don’t get to choose to avoid responsibility or accountability for your damaging behavior from that moment that your loved ones wake up to the awareness that you are in fact choosing who you are, and choosing to behave in a damaging ways to your loved ones (whether you call it abuse or not). If you have been told that your behavior or language is hurtful and you continue it, you are choosing and your behavior is no longer easily defined as ‘unintended’; it is not an accident, and you did indeed ‘mean to’.  2016 could so easily be the year you choose differently, learn to love, and learn to treat other human beings well. 2016 could also be the year that you don’t choose to behave any differently (sadly this is more likely)… but 2016 could also be the year your loved ones finally wake up to their value as human beings and that they don’t deserve to be mistreated, and don’t have to take it anymore – and walk on, to a life in which they are valued, loved, and treated well. (They are free to choose change, themselves, instead of enduring your abusive vile shifty behavior or mistreatment. 🙂 Just saying; it’s a system that works nicely with adequate use of verbs.)

Practice the practices that take you closer to being the human being you most want to be.

Practice the practices that take you closer to being the human being you most want to be.

So…here it is… the cusp of a new year. As arbitrary as that really is, it is a moment – and you can choose change. Will this be the year you become the person you most want to be? Will you change the world? Will humankind’s global experience improve in your hands? Will you love well? Will you speak kindly? If practice makes perfect, what kind of world are we perfecting in 2016?

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Categories Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Love, Mindfulness, Oregon Trails, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, solo hiking, The Art of Being, The Big 5, winter, Words

One Now of Many

December 30, 2015 //
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I am content. Today has been peculiarly productive with all manner of adulthood-related commitments and tasks. In spite of pain I’ve managed it all quite efficiently and will reasonable skill. I am seriously hurting today. The weather is quite wintry, and I spent an amount of it outdoors. The cold seeped into my arthritic bones, and I am stiff almost to rigidity from my waist to my shoulders – and I hurt. Still…I am mostly fairly merry, and lack any shred of irritability or ire today. I have taken care of me in so many ways today, big and small. It’s definitely a bit beyond ‘enough’.

When conditions are right, growth.

When conditions are right, growth.

I have an opportunity to move into a somewhat larger apartment in the community, one that is directly adjacent to the park, and has all the nice features of this unit. That’s exciting for a number of reasons. It is an unexpected and delightful recent development; the associated practices will be mostly to do with feeling the excitement and anticipation of a move I want to make, without becoming invested in the outcome before the lease is signed. I’ll make the observation that life tends to be much easier, and less about drama, having turned my attention toward cultivating an experience of sustainable contentment, rather than chronically chasing happiness and feeling mired in sorrow. Not only has life tended to be ‘easier’ – I’m also actually happy more often. (Your results may vary.) (Oh – and there are verbs involved.) (Ooh – Dude – don’t forget about the choices! You have choices.)

It’s a time of year I spend a lot of leisure time reflecting on what has been working, what hasn’t worked out so well, what I am yearning for and not finding, what I may be stuck chasing that I don’t even want, where I am headed – every journey begins somewhere, so I am also reflecting on where I am right now. My traveling partner was so right; he observed years ago, when we were first becoming friends, that I would benefit greatly from living alone awhile – his thinking was based on my fairly chronic complaint that I did not ‘feel heard’. He suggested, and he wasn’t the last to do so, that the person not listening just might be me. I dismissed that notion out of hand, and went on to fill out the narrative with some understandable, more or less, feminist grievances that seemed to hold up to scrutiny. They may or may not have real substance. He was correct, though; I wasn’t listening. Whether anyone else was is almost irrelevant where I stand in life now. I am hearing me, and it was my own attention I needed most – or at least first. It has been an important experience living alone. I discovered something quite nice; I like living alone. It works for me.

I also discovered some things that are less comfortable. Feeling lonely sucks. Coming home to a cold darkened apartment feels empty. Those are uncomfortable. I greatly miss living with my traveling partner… generally. That’s not uncomfortable. It’s not even uncomfortable that sometimes I don’t miss living with him. Nope. What’s uncomfortable is how incredibly unskilled I am at simply having the experience of feeling the feelings. It takes practice to allow myself some compassion for complex or intense emotions, and to treat myself kindly; I keep practicing. What is uncomfortable is the sensation of missing him alongside the awareness that I also very much enjoy living alone. What’s uncomfortable is that these things really do co-exist – and as it turns out, I have no reason at all to consider the experience one that comes with a comfort guarantee. There is likely to be more to be learned from my discomfort than from my joy. Life’s curriculum being delivered right on time.

Today is a good day for reflection, for choices, and for contentment. Enough really is enough – that’s why it gets called that. 🙂

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