Archives for category: Free Will
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The Return of the Future

January 28, 2015 //
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I hadn’t really noticed I’d lost sight of ‘the future’ until I was inspired to plan on something a bit further along on my calendar – more than a year away. I’d been bouncing between past and present, working to hold myself firmly in the moment…and forgot about the future, more or less completely, which seemed odd once I noticed it.

I’m sipping my coffee this morning, feeling something sort of anxiety-ish, and recognized that I am actually excited, which is quite a different feeling. I find it hard to focus on things that matter less than this idea that hovers in the distance, still just a plan, and an intention. I am planning a solo hike in the Olympic National Park. I was inspired by a recent article about the quietest places that remain within reach, places where one can stand in stillness and not hear the sounds of humanity’s machines in the background. The Hoh Rainforest is one of them, apparently. I’m not sure the ‘where’ really matters at all. I could as easily be planning a solo hike in the Grand Canyon, or Death Valley, or the high desert of southern Oregon, or the Yukon wilderness…all remarkable places, all with wilderness within reach, all having that ‘remote’ quality that so often accompanies a sense of stillness. It is, rather obviously at the moment, the planning that matters most.

One detail of this fragile 'now'.

One detail of this fragile ‘now’.

There are actually quite a lot of places of beauty and wonder to see in the world. Seeing them before they are gone seems like a good idea. I’m not ready to do 2 weeks in the wilderness alone, quite yet, though – thus the valuable planning time, equipment testing time on shorter hikes and camping trips nearby, and study. Yes, I’ll actually be studying the trail, the history of the area, the local flora and fauna, reading trail reports from other hikers, looking at maps with great care, reading FAQs from the Forest Service… and daydreaming of a long long walk with a big big smile.

The map is not the world...

The map is not the world…

There’s a lot to consider. I enjoy the planning, and the anticipation, and the focal point on the horizon of my future…more than a year away. 15 miles down the trail would be a poor time to discover I forgot my bee sting kit… or didn’t break in my boots… or really can’t carry enough food for the trip… I’d rather get all of it worked out beforehand, as much as possible – to do literally my best planning to enjoy a great experience is the goal.

Small details sometimes have big impact.

Small details sometimes have big impact.

I had a notion to check on something small that matters to my self-care, and happily report that SuperBetter now has an Android app! I’ve been waiting for this – I’m not at my workstation at the best times/places to use SuperBetter most effectively. The Android app is a delightful upgrade there.

It’s funny that although all these things are important, something else that I finally understood more clearly soaked into my consciousness about communication, following a really enlightening conversation with my traveling partner yesterday morning before work. I hadn’t previously understood a basic concept of hierarchy in delivery of information that can be applied easily to spoken word, and although after-the-fact it seems odd that I hadn’t understood it (to the point of being vaguely embarrassing after more thought), it is an idea with power and value; deliver the highest level summary first. Answer the yes/no question with ‘yes’ or ‘no’. K.I.S.S. (Keep It Simple, Stupid). It’s the listener’s opportunity to engage, and that is the fundamental starting point of conversation, shared interest, and connection. I have long tended toward verbosity. You probably already know that. 😉 I am eager to see where this new understanding may take me, and how it may affect my relationships.

Today is a good day to arrive at a new starting point, and begin again. Today is a good day to consider the future, too. Today is a good day to plan a journey – don’t forget to bring a map! Today is a good day to remember that the map, however detailed, however lovely, however accurate it may seem, is not the world.

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Categories Anxiety, Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, solo hiking, Washington Trails, Words

Walking in Fog

January 27, 2015 //
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Some of these winter mornings – and evenings – are quite foggy here. I don’t mind. I love the mystery of it, and the sense that with each step I am crafting the very fabric of existence from my thoughts and imagination. I know that’s not a practical sort of perspective on existence, but it’s a fun one, and on foggy days I enjoy it greatly.

Walking in fog; it's a metaphor.

Walking in fog; it’s a metaphor.

Each day is another step on a very peculiar journey. I’ve made some progress along the way – and some mistakes. I practice appreciating the progress, and learning from the mistakes. They seem worthwhile practices.

I slept well last night, and my coffee is hot and tasty. I am in pain. Simple observations of my experience seem sufficient this morning. I look at the day ahead without expectations and prepare to accept, moment-to-moment, how human I am…mistakes, harsh words, moods, awkward moments, and all. I do not know where life’s journey leads, but I keep heading down my path, eyes wide with wonder, and present in the moment.

Today is a good day to be the cartographer on this strange journey. Today is a good day to take a better look at my map. Today is a good day to remember that the map is not the world.

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Categories Brain Injury, Free Will, Logic & Reason, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress

I Didn’t Expect That

January 19, 2015 //
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I’ve gotten some decent sleep this weekend, even ‘slept in’ two days in row. This morning I slept until nearly 9:00 am. I woke abruptly, some noise most likely, but truly I was well-rested and returning to sleep was neither likely, nor would it be a healthy choice; the day had begun. I woke in considerable physical pain, and moments into the morning it was clear that I was not yet sufficiently able to maintain emotional balance to be casually interacting with people – I was genuinely hurt by the initial interaction with one member of the household, this morning, and it was not worth all that; it was a just moment of insensitivity and callousness common to people before they are completely awake, first thing in the morning, and I myself was also just waking up and prone to taking things excessively personally. It wasn’t personal, but I was – and perhaps still am – unprepared to deal with it appropriately, although I think I did okay with it. Pain management is a very big deal for good emotional resilience; if my pain is not well-managed I tend to take things more personally, and also struggle with being very emotionally needy. I chose a wiser path, and took my coffee with me into a quieter space, to take time for meditation, then catch up on email…and now, here I am.

Choose your experience; we're live and unscripted.

Choose your experience; we’re live and unscripted.

Good sleep. Appropriate pain management. Taking medication on time. Taking time to meditate. Recognizing and distinguishing between internal and external stressors. Calories. Exercise. There are a lot of pieces to the self-care puzzle, and they all matter. The challenge is practicing good self-care even when I am in a crappy mood, in pain, feeling ill, or distressed with PTSD symptoms. Today shouldn’t be that difficult…the major challenge today is ‘merely’ physical pain. I hurt, but I hurt pretty much all winter long, every year, and have for many years. I’m not bitching; other people hurt more often, and hurt worse than I do. I have a lot to be grateful for, and I don’t take those things for granted these days; they really matter, and taking care to appreciate the good things, and be grateful for what I have, and what works, and what feels good is a practice that is tending to ‘adjust’ my implicit memory, and my ‘default settings’ regarding how I experience my life in a more positive direction. I’ve made a lot of progress down this path – I both enjoy a better experience, generally, than I used to most days – and I can tell that my experience is improved, too.  (It’s not much help when things get objectively better, but do so in the absence of being able to recognize that improvement!)

It’s an interesting puzzle that what I want in life, the things I yearn for most fervently, can so easily sap me of my emotional resilience and self-sufficiency, and undermine a good experience I have by drawing my attention away from what is good right now, and putting the focus on some moment of discontent – that in some cases actually only exists in my thinking, without any anchor in some element of my experience in life.

Discontent joins the emotions on the short list of ’emotions I just don’t enjoy or find value in’…worry, guilt, jealousy, disappointment, and discontent amount to a lot of dark days for a lot of human primates. I don’t put anger or fear on that list – they both serve obvious purposes ‘used in moderation’; they are legitimate warning klaxons to improve my chances of survival. Moving away from what frightens me may mean my surviving some dangerous moment in the world. Being moved to anger tends to keep my awareness aligned to my values, but for now I can’t do much more to describe anger’s potentially helpful qualities; it’s an area of weakness for me, and I struggle with it to this day. The thing about those other emotions? They are all pinned to expectations and expectations are so often the ruin of a good time. I love to plan, and I like the comfort and security of having done so…but becoming attached to an expectation is a different thing. Clear and explicit expectation-setting has its place in day-to-day life, absolutely true. It’s the implicit, unverified, un-validated, unconfirmed, “I thought we…” sorts of expectations that fuck us all up. It occurred to me this morning, sipping coffee that is unexpectedly ‘bitter’…if I could entirely let go of implicit expectations, I would likely also be letting go of worry, guilt, jealousy, disappointment, discontent…and possibly other subtle negative emotions that can potentially mess with another otherwise great day. It’s a practical thing, and probably worth the effort involved. I won’t miss even a moment of discontent, worry, guilt, disappointment, or jealousy if I never feel those emotions ever again.

Today? Yes, I’m contemplating expectations and discontent, because I woke first with one, and then trending toward developing the other. I happened to take notice of the trajectory of my emotions, and put myself on pause to give it some thought. Had I allowed the moment to overwhelm me, and gotten caught up in ruminating about the drivers of my discontent, and begun wallowing in my disappointment that ‘my expectations’ failed me, I’d be in a very different place right now. I think the constant practicing of better practices proved itself this morning; I found perspective over my unexpectedly bitter coffee, and a tiny bit of unexpectedly positive news.

Today is unscripted. Ideally, I hold no expectations that I haven’t set explicitly, and even then I understand that change is. Today is a good day to live life engaged in the moment, present in my interactions, and open to the possibilities I hadn’t considered exploring. Today is a good day to change my experience of the world.

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Categories Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Mindfulness, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, The Big 5, Uncategorized

Weapons of Mass Distraction

January 16, 2015 //
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Global superpowers have weapons of such indescribable destructive power they are referred to as weapons of mass destruction, or ‘WMD’. Very few people approve of the use of such weapons. WMDs are indiscriminate killers, laying waste to large populations at the point of impact, and involving sometimes a tremendously large area – and a lot of people. These are weapons so deadly that there are numerous treaties and rules by which people have agreed to play nicely, in order not to use WMDs. Very scary.

"Oil Fires" oil on stretched silk, 24" x 65" 1992

“Oil Fires” oil on stretched silk, 24″ x 65″ 1992

I find that in relationships there are also WMDs…but they’re different. They’re ‘weapons of mass distraction’ – behaviors, and language that undermine relationships with no positive outcome, not used for any constructive purpose, that hurt the person they are launched at without any other likely outcome being possible – and highly likely to hurt anyone in the immediate vicinity, too, through the sudden escalation of ‘OPD’ (Other People’s Drama), resulting symptoms ranging from discomfort, to emotional trauma. Make no mistake; weapons of mass distraction serve no obvious positive purpose, and in my own experience appear to be chosen for maximum damage (whether people who practice such damaging behaviors are doing so willfully, or with any real understanding of the damage they do, is a very different question, and I have no answers there). Human beings are capable of causing each other real harm – we’re very fancy primates, and we’re by far the most violent of the primate species.

I’ve been in relationships that would be easy to call ‘abusive’, one of which was quite dangerously physically violent, and I’m lucky to have gotten out alive. One was peculiarly emotionally painful, and did me lasting and nuanced damage over years of manipulation, gas-lighting, and financial abuse. I can’t honestly say at this point that one was truly worse than the other, in some respects; they both left scars, and they both affected the way I understand my fellow-man. Being treated badly by someone who says they ‘love’ you is one of the most horrifically sucking unpleasant experiences, ever. Along the way I discovered that I could choose to be changed, becoming what hurt me so badly, lashing out at the world with similar behavior, and hostility – or I could allow myself the greater challenge of learning, growing, and continuing to become the woman I most want to be, taking care to heal my heart over time, and making better choices, myself. It hasn’t always been easy.

I find that it can be tough to be certain that an emotionally abusive relationship is actually what it is – I never want to recognize that I have chosen so poorly for myself. I have learned to accept that some behavior just isn’t part of the set of Behaviors Common to Love, and I now accept them as clear warning signs of potential abuse. You likely have a few of your own, learned over time. I find that there are 3 behaviors that come up frequently in abusive relationships I’ve been in, that rarely show themselves in good relationships at all: contempt, a practice of continuous criticism, and controlling behavior.

Contempt hasn’t got anything whatever to do with love. There’s not a moment of contempt that ever whispered ‘I love you’ to someone being treated that way, and the damage of being treated with contempt lingers. It’s hard to find more to say about this one; relationships with a lot of it definitely aren’t loving. It’s a nasty way to treat someone under the guise of love, and the damage done lingers.

Controlling behaviors are commonplace in dysfunctional relationships of all kinds. Feeling controlled is definitely a hallmark of abuse in my own experience, and the resulting frustration and feeling of helplessness, and diminishment in personal worth can easily result in reactive acting-out, in a spirally see-saw of love-killing behaviors in which ‘good guys’ and ‘bad guys’ becomes very unclear. Vulnerability, genuineness, and intimacy are critical to love – and not possible in a controlling relationship. Controlling relationships often outlast love, long before they are finally over. I wonder what point there really is for very controlling people to be in romantic relationships at all; from my perspective it often appears they’d be happiest without the complications of the free will of others, or the requirement to treat them well, and respect and consider their humanity.

Criticism is another thing I find common to abusive relationships. I don’t mean constructive feedback about best practices, or supportive dialogue about personal growth. I am talking about the constant negativity, constant complaining, and chronic assumptions of errors in action or judgment that only a person well-practiced in the hostile art of criticism truly understands. I am specifically pointing to ‘blame statements’ based on unvalidated assumptions, and commonly any attempt to refute the underlying assumption is met with further criticism – generally that I am being ‘defensive’. Personally, I find that in principle it’s acceptable to defend myself when attacked – and there’s the thing; in a loving conversation why would we attack each other in the first place? “ABBAB” (Always Be Belittling and Berating) has no place in love. It can be a balancing act; taking care of me certainly requires that I speak up when something unpleasant becomes a household practice I don’t care for… right? Well, but here’s the thing – can’t it be communicated without an attack? Without tearing someone down or hurting their feelings? Without resulting in disrespect, hostility, or questioning the worth of the other person as a human being? Yes, it sure can. (I highly recommend it, however it requires considerable practice for some of us, and a lifetime commitment to being kind.)

Love doesn’t thrive in relationships built on a foundation of contempt, control, and criticism, and it won’t be particularly relevant how long it ‘lasts’ – that shit’s not love.

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

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

It seems unkind to point all this out and then not say something positive… so, here’s something amazing, and simple, and lovely that I recently read, that seems the simplest possible rulebook for building love.  Maybe you think there’s more to it? Well, okay, I recently read this, too, and it is very practical worthy advice. Considering the wealth of information on how to build love, how to make love last, how to invest well in love and loving… what excuse does any person have to continue to treat people poorly, especially those they claim to love? Hell, two strangers can meet, talk, and fall in love in hours – tell me how it is acceptable for a moment to treat someone you love with contempt, or to criticize or control them? None of us need that. It sure isn’t love.

Try love sometime; it’s quite wonderful.

Are you finding yourself in disagreement with what I’m saying about love? Are you defending yourself in the moment? Already setting up the argument in your head, and not really hearing what I’m saying? Could be a nice place to start for some handy self-exploration; a character quality of ‘being disagreeable’ is another way to kill love, and generally unproductive and unpleasant to live or work around…although not really a ‘WMD’.  “Agreeableness” is an extraordinary character quality in a human being – and one of my most favorites to cultivate, myself, and to seek out in others. “The nicest person in the room” is nearly always someone who has a character quality of being very agreeable, and it isn’t at all about whether or not they agree with some one opinion, or whether they do or don’t dispute factual errors. It’s more about being cooperative, sympathetic, kind, considerate – being ‘a good sort’, basically. Agreeable people are marvelous to be around, warm and supportive in times of difficulty, and agreeable people know intimacy on a whole different level. Seriously. Try it out sometime.

Your results may vary. There are verbs involved.

Today is a good day for love, and a good day to be the nicest person in the room. Today is a good day to build someone up, instead of tearing them down. Today is a good day to respect boundaries, and be compassionate about limitations. Today is a good day to recognize that saying ‘I love you’ doesn’t say I love you half as well as loving will. Today is a good day to change the world.

 

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Categories Free Will, Healthy Living, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Perspective, Relationships, The Big 5, Uncategorized, Words

Filling the Blank Page

January 14, 2015 //
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I’ve had some inspired moments that left me urgently wanting to write, recently, but the timing was poor and the moment was not at hand; the ideas have since slipped away. Some mornings I wake feeling inspired to write, other mornings it is my morning meditation that inspires me…still others, I face a blank page for an eternity of minutes, until making an observation about that experience, itself, is what remains. (Guess what sort this morning has turned out to be? lol)

I keep a journal. My most private, uncensored, unfiltered, uninvestigated, unverified, stream-of-consciousness reflections on my experience are written there, ideally where they do no harm. I have many dozens of bound volumes reflecting on various details of my life over time, and at one point they were displayed on bookcases as a singular body of written work; there was something strangely powerful about standing midst the many varied volumes, understanding that even so many were only a small slice of my individual experience in a mortal lifetime. Change happens. Most of those volumes are now locked away, for space-saving and aesthetic reasons, and changes in what I need to hold on to as I have changed, myself. In high school I wrote with structure and discipline, in the evening, once daily, at the end of the day. Later, I wrote in a somewhat irregular way, because the Army didn’t make it an easy thing to find time to write. Domestic violence drove my writing ‘underground’; my journal was secured in a safe deposit box at a nearby bank that I felt reasonably certain my husband-at-the-time did not frequent. Opportunities to write freely, then, were very rare, and the writing seemed fairly desperate.

After my first marriage ended, and I moved into my own place, my writing (in my journal) exploded into a very large part of my experience, and the many dozens of volumes began piling up. I was going through blank books every 6 weeks or so, and writing about everything I could think to. Since then, on and off I’ve gone through periods of near-continuous writing that don’t exactly seem ‘inspired’ as much as … driven. Then I stopped. Just…stopped. For a long while I didn’t write at all, almost two years, I think. Eventually, I’d write one day, say nothing,  then it would be days, weeks, months before I ‘tried again’. I had ‘lost my voice’. It pained me. I was ‘stuck’ and uninspired, and also feeling that I urgently needed to say something. I was in a very bad place. Life continued to go on around me, and certainly I continued to reflect on it…but I’d lost a powerful ally on a lonely journey: myself. Words matter. Mine matter to me. I read what I write. I had stopped writing. I had stopped listening. There seemed no other choice to me, then; what I was saying on those pages wasn’t helpful. I considered burning them all, every volume, every page, every word. I’m still not sure why…and I’m still not sure it’s a bad idea.

The closer I got to turning 50, the more it hurt me to feel so silenced. I wasn’t painting, either. I felt shutdown, diminished, and impaired. I ended many days thinking “well, this has likely run its course then, hasn’t it?” about my life, and wondering what to do about that feeling.

...and usually with a cup of coffee.

…and usually with a cup of coffee.

Here I am on the other side of all that. I write most days, here, and less regularly in my journal – and it’s digital these days. Mindfulness practices, meditation, and improving my understanding of the neuroscience of emotion has taken me a long way from that dark place. I’ve been finding life worth living for a long while, now, without any requirement that it be ‘perfect’. I feel disappointed less often. The rare days I really struggle with anxiety, fearfulness, or that bleak feeling of utter futility, are those when my PTSD is clearly causing me problems, or when I’m fatigued and having more challenges with my head injury than I do when I am well-rested.

The writing is a metaphor inasmuch as there are characteristics of that experience that point out how varied the human experience can be: driven, broken, emotional, stoic, programmed, helpless…and also loving, compassionate, supportive, adventurous, romantic, exciting… mindful. It’s been these new practices of mindfulness that have benefited me most, and the rest of life’s lessons tend to build on that, these days, by improving my experience day-to-day, or highlighting missed practices, or needful changes, using less favorable outcomes to show the way. I’ve learned that living is not about filling the blank page, as much as choosing what to write with care, and that writing is one of the things I do to take care of me.

Today is a good day to write words about writing. Today is a good day to smile, and enjoy who I am – who we each are. Today is a good day to be kind, to be considerate, and to value my most private joys as highly as those I share.

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Categories Free Will, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Perspective, The Big 5, Turning 50, Words
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