Archives for category: Free Will

On the Solstice

December 23, 2013 //

I took a long walk on the Winter Solstice again this year. Most years I have, it definitely counts as a ‘ritual’. This year I took a camera – and I think it is the first year I have taken pictures along my Solstice journey.

Last year’s Solstice walk was spent fretting aimless and sorrowfully, mostly about my brain injury – an event something like 30 years in the past, but last year it was new information for me. I was also deeply, and profoundly struck by the heinous gang rape in Delhi just days before – an event so powerfully traumatizing that the whole world paused to take notice, and rape became an everyday topic of conversation for a lot of people. My post-traumatic stress symptoms had flared up, and my sense of self, and all the bits and pieces that are ‘who I am’ started to unravel. It was a painful and very lonely time in my life; even surrounded by people who love me, I felt isolated and alone. For me, on that Solstice, it was simply an uncomfortable walk ruminating fretfully and unproductively. I did not write in my journal. I hadn’t started my blog. I was silent; words had failed me.

This year’s Solstice walk was very different. I eagerly ventured forth, feeling hopeful, content, and satisfied to take my time with my journey. I brought my camera, a smile, and a serene heart. I went to a favorite small forest near where I live. I grinned happily at a little girl in the parking lot who noticed me removing my shoes. I take my walk bare footed (or for as much of the journey as I can, weather and fitness permitting), it’s been my practice as long as I can recall, and has a certain sacred feeling to it, for me.

I walked about 5 miles. 5 miles of soft winter sunlight. 5 miles of sodden mossy paths dripping small sparkling gems of recent rainfall from leaf tips and branches. 5 miles of birdsong and frogs peeping. 5 miles of oak, maple, and pine. 5 miles of fern and lichen. 5 miles of squirrels playfully managing their affairs. 5 miles of sweet-scented breezes, and the regular beat of my own footsteps. I walked 5 miles and managed a handful of pictures, a couple of hours of quiet observation, and a few minutes of meditation wrapped in forest. I’d share all of it, if I could. As it is, I can really only share the pictures, and some handful of words that don’t really do the experience justice.

I enter the forest, shortly before noon.

The path as metaphor was a common theme.

Beautiful details, up close.

So much dripping moss.

Ferns nestled between tree trunks.

Gazing skyward.

A miniature world.

‘The distance’ is trees. I consider the living depth of field.

A lot of lichen, visible in all directions.

Several sorts of lichen in this forest.

A soggy path lit by soft winter light.

Sun filtering through the trees.

Near to noon, and at the edge of the forest.

The noon solstice sun.

5 miles is a lot of path…

…more to see around every bend…

There are ferns.

So many ferns.

A mossy tree hung with pine needles.

A little festive…

More paths to walk.

Some paths are darker.

Small wonders.

…And more ferns.

More paths, and I keep walking.

The hustle and noise of humans being is silent here.

Crossing a creek.

There are, of course, more ferns.

The sun breaks through the trees, reminding me time is passing.

A spider’s hammock.

Up close, sparkling rain drops like jewels.

Reflected sky, and a metaphor for reflection.

My companion while I meditate.

The end of the journey.

By 2 pm the sun was already beginning to drop lower in the sky. I finished my walk with a smile, and a few deep breaths, and returned home to love and holiday spirit, home and hearth, and mindful service. 😀

Tags A winter's walk, ACT, following the sun, MBSR, mindfulness matters, ptsd, reflections, TBI, walking my own path, Winter Solstice

Categories Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships

Sometimes It’s Like This…

December 22, 2013 //

This morning I woke up with pain. Some sort of weirdness yesterday afternoon with a nasty cramp in my right calf, after a long Solstice walk in the forest, that lingers this morning as unexpected pain associated with some specific movements. It hurts in the background as a dull ache until I do something ‘just the wrong way’ and it reminds me with a moment of acute agony that it doesn’t plan to be so easily dismissed. Still, I woke in a good mood and I was pleased to find that walking on a flat surface is one of the more comfortable things I can be doing – which made making coffee this morning relatively easy and not particularly painful. So…good mood…good coffee… time for a good morning. Right? Oh. Wait – there’s more!

I had an irksome moment with technology this morning when I sat down with my laptop (note to self – please, PLEASE, do take time to meditate every day before anything else, it does make that much difference!). My mouse wasn’t working. I did the troubleshooting, rebooted the laptop, still no mouse. I replaced the mouse battery, no mouse. Rebooted again – finally, I have a living mouse. But… for some reason using it ‘feels weird’. Sluggish. Like the buttons are not as responsive. I become aggravated, I fight it. I struggle to set aside my frustration – and the background irritability that stems from a loving partner pointing out just last night that I’m due for a better mouse – one that doesn’t shine a laser in his eyes every time I thoughtlessly lift the mouse while pointed in his general direction. At that moment, I was really liking my mouse – it’s a pretty one. Right now I’m just frustrated with it and wanting to smash things… but the wanting to smash things is not solely the fault of the mouse. There’s more.

I use online services. Many people do, these days. Some services require strict authentication and identity verification – like banks – and while I value that they do, and appreciate the good security, I also find that during the holiday season, it can be a huge irritating bit of inconvenient bullshit. Yep. Total bullshit. I managed to ‘lock up’ an account on such a service by starting and then canceling a transaction. Yep. I just wanted to see if there would be a fee – and the fee structure is not easily available to view, making it easier to start the transaction, get to that point to see if there is a fee (and what it is) and then cancel the transaction if it is not worth paying that fee… generally not an issue. Today, it locked up my account and generated a dismally polite email advising me that ‘all’ I have to do is re-verify ‘a few’ ‘simple’ account details – by snail mail. I call this ‘a service I am unlikely to use again’. The amount of frustration generated, and the resulting emotional volatility and rage are actually just not worth dealing with at all. My immediate reaction is ‘I won’t use this service anymore’. My strategy for getting my morning back on track is ‘take a few deep breaths and meditate’.

I am easily frustrated by dealing with banking, with frustration, with technology failures, with deviations from simple routines – they hit me hard, and momentarily disable me with a sudden increase in emotional volatility and a sudden loss of cognitive skill (or a perception of it). I very much doubt that online businesses, or application developers, spend much time thinking about how changes to their products affect the small number of people who do have challenges with brain injuries or cognitive challenges. Something as simple as changing the authentication process can be frustrating for anyone, but for me that bit of frustration can set off an avalanche of anger, confusion, and emotion that turn the simplest task into something almost unachievable in seconds. It sucks.

I’ll take a pleasant moment for gratitude – it is surprisingly comforting to remember how much worse an experience like this used to feel when I didn’t know why I reacted the way I did, or why it seemed so much more challenging for me than it seemed for ‘other people’. I’m grateful that I found out about my brain injury. It’s easier now – at least, it is easier to ‘find my way home’ to a place of balance and calm, again. More like a storm, less like climate change. 🙂

It’s actually a pretty good morning, now that the irksome bit is behind me. My coffee is cold, and my leg hurts, but… it’s only pain and cold coffee. Nothing to cry about. Certainly no need to smash things over it. Wow. What a difference mindfulness makes! Yep, still human – but I am human; I use tools.

This guy is mindful, and living in his moment.

Tags ACT, finding my way home, helpless rage, it only works if you do it, MBSR, meditate first, mindfulness matters, pain, ptsd, TBI, the humble mouse

Categories Anxiety, Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Menopause, Mindfulness, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, winter

This Is Entirely Different

December 21, 2013 //

Well, or maybe it isn’t.

Actually, it is. I’ve written ‘this post’ six times, now. Each very different, written on a different theme, a different emotional voice, a different perspective, expressing very different needs, or understandings of the world around me, or my own life. It’s an odd morning that way. I’ve been up since 6 am, and after some meditation and a bit of yoga, I have been sipping my coffee and writing. This post is entirely different from the previous versions. It’s a strange morning and while I feel moved to communicate…I’m not sure what I want, or need, to say.

There’s a meme trapped in my thoughts. It drifts around Facebook regularly, it comes from somewhere…unknown to me in the moment. Words over a picture, the usual thing…the 3 questions meme – quote? “Does this need to be said? Does this need to be said by me? Does this need to be said by me, now?” I do love some good questions. I woke with these words in my head, but juxtaposed over a troubling dream that seemed very unrelated to the words.

I dreamt I was dangling from the Burnside Bridge, holding on by my hands, everything slick from a drenching rain that was falling. I pleaded with a man on the bridge to pull me up – I felt fear and desperation, and a panicked certainty that falling would be the end.

The Burnside Bridge

The man in my dream was a lover, or husband, or father…someone dear to me, someone I could count on, someone I expected to assist and support me. My pleading went nowhere helpful. My potential rescuer seemed unaware of the urgency of my situation, looking vaguely thoughtful and caught up in his own thoughts, his own moment. I repeated my plea, my hands were wet with both rain and sweat, and it was so hard to hold on. The man above me looked down on me and politely said he would be happy to help, of course, but first he wanted to give me some feedback…

I woke to that ‘feeling of falling’ that dreams sometimes end with, feeling quite terrified, heart pounding, short of breath to the point of panting – and very very happy to be quite alive and not actually falling to my death in the icy December waters of the Willamette River.

I meditated. I let the dream go. I wrote. It came back. I wrote different words and dispelled my demons. They returned moments later. I wrote more different words, changed my thoughts (alright, Brain, nothing to see here, move along…), and continued to write, erase, rewrite – again the dream returned. I decided, finally, fuck it. Write about the weird dream and see where it goes. It doesn’t go anywhere, really, why would it? It was a dream. One of those intense, not-quite-a-nightmare sort of dreams that I generally accept as my sleeping mind attempting to communicate something to my waking mind – it is an endeavor of limited successfulness, and largely due to the difficulties with words. This particular attempt seems to be pointing me toward considering emotions, words, and what matters most in the present moment. Differences between ‘urgent’ and ‘important’, perhaps, or a reminder that we each have our own needs in the moment, in life, in love… or… perhaps something entirely different.

Now it is morning, the household begins to wake. The day is all potential from this vantage point, and dreams are behind me, lost in the night. Today is a good day to love gently. Today is a good day to be compassionate with myself, and with others. Today is a good day to experience joy, and contentment, and to accept struggle with compassion. Today is a good day to change the world.

Tags ACT, be here now, be the change, Daddy I had a bad dream, emotions, MBSR, meditation and a good latte, mindfulness matters, ptsd, TBI, words words words

Categories Anxiety, Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Sleepless Nights, Turning 50, winter, women, Words

Just One Thing

December 19, 2013 //

Yesterday I spent the day gently, most of it, on mindful service to the small creatures in my life. I spent hours on aquatic gardening: doing a water change in my community tank, some pruning, planting, tidying things up, acclimating the new tetras that have been in quarantine, and generally spending the larger part of the day with the fish. It was soothing and serene, and I definitely needed to support my inner stillness after a morning of unexpected turmoil. Tending the aquarium was a good choice to get back on track and feeling calm and balanced.

The secret life of shrimp.

It was a moment of shared humor to find myself discussing the aqua gardening, and commenting that I doubted there were any shrimp surviving, since I simply never see them…I gestured to the tank and…there’s a shrimp, right up front! LOL I took a moment to snap a picture, because I wanted to be sure later that I didn’t doubt my recollection of having seen him. 😀 All that cleaning and moving things around must have disturbed any shrimp in the community. I found several more lurking quietly in the Java fern. 🙂

What made yesterday sort itself out in such a wonderful way wasn’t heartfelt apologies, or emotional ‘laying down of arms’, or occupying time in spaces away from conflict, although those things generally help. For me, it was more about taking time to be deeply engaged in a favored activity, a needful task of some complexity, that I gave my entire attention to for a while to a ‘greater good’. Mindful service. In this case, mindful service to my own needs, and my aquarium. Simple gardening on some level, and gardening is something I know puts my heart and head right, when I take the time to allow it, to pursue it, and to invest in the good in it. (Experience tells me I could pay lip service to the idea of ‘mindful service’ and just go through some motions, and perform tasks to completion, while investing in being hurt and angry, and get nothing in return but a sense of futility and resentment – will and intent matter; results also require action.)

The day was a good one, morning challenges passed quickly, comfortably, and were quickly forgotten. That’s more progress, and it feels like something I can begin to count on. 🙂 I admittedly enjoy tallying up the improvements in emotional resilience, reductions in volatility, new tools, new skills, new experiences of living in a general state of contentment, and comfort within myself…it’s been a year (368 days) since my sense of self began to unravel in a terrible way, a process that took weeks, consumed the holiday experience, and ultimately found me as only a shell of myself, considering choosing to end my own life… What a difference a year can make! I don’t discuss those dark days in any detail with people, even people I love very much; too much pain to share, too few words to express it without sharing the pain more than the understanding. I feel hopeful that those days are well behind me now, and nothing more than a memory.

The mindfulness thing was the key. Still is. There are so many times I wish I could convincingly say “no, really, try this“, to friends and loved ones with their own challenges, their own suffering… but generally, as with my own experience in my own life, there is a state of readiness needed to even hear the suggestion in a usable way. I was once someone willing to say, with conviction and based on my own experience, that I had ‘tried meditation and it didn’t do anything for me’. “I tried meditation…” No, no I had not. Not like this. I had always been focused on focus, focused on concentration, focused on clarity – focused on thought. I did not understand ‘awareness’, ‘stillness’, or observation. I did not understand the importance of breathing. I’m not sure what I ‘understand’ now…but I practice. 🙂 It is enough.

A lot more is ‘enough’, now. I hope to more deeply explore ‘sufficiency’ in 2014, to be more deeply and mindfully in service to home, hearth, and to myself, to ask more questions, and be more comfortable with uncertainty, to continue my studies of life and love, and to connect more deeply and more intimately with my loves, with my friends, with my family. I’ll get started today – it’s a lovely day to change the world.

Tags a few of my favorite things, a worthy journey, ACT, aquarium life, aquatic gardening, awareness, be the change, buddhist boot camp, celebrate love, freshwater community, MBSR, meditation, mindfulness matters, ptsd, TBI, the smallest things, what matters most?, yoga

Categories Anxiety, Brain Injury, Free Will, gardening, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Turning 50, winter

Somewhere Between

December 14, 2013 //

This morning I am somewhere between things. I’m between giving thanks and Yule gifting. I’m between the dark of night and the light of day, sitting in the pre-dawn gloom. I’m relaxing in a strange place somewhere between calm and pain, not quite in a great mood, not quite cross from being uncomfortable. The pain is what it is – it, too, is somewhere in between – between ‘as bad as it’s ever been’ and ‘really not so bad’. The morning is quiet, and there is nothing to move me from being between things to any extreme – and I am comfortable with that.

I am up early. Without the inflexible requirement to be up at a point early enough to prepare for a specific work schedule, I find I am waking just a bit later. 6 am isn’t exactly ‘sleeping in’, but it feels more relaxed than feeling my eyelids snap open sometime between 4 am and 4:55 am for an alarm that is set to go off at 5 am. I still set my alarm – for 7 am. It has yet to actually go off. I wake at 6 am. It feels like sleeping in. I am content with feeling like I slept in and waking at 6 am. There is some quiet morning to time to explore my thoughts, to exist in silence, to tread lightly where the angst-y bits might find foothold, to meditate, to chill… to be.

Strange handful of days since I left the workforce. Some snow. Some fog. Some rain. Some twinkling holiday lights – more of that than much of anything else, happily, and the neighborhood is alight with holiday splendor. Time at home with family has been relaxed, gentle, easy… so little turmoil, so little of the everyday push-pull of grown people all ‘working on their shit’ and finding their way in their personal darkness. It’s chill and good and filled with the qualities that define ‘family’ and ‘love’ in the best ways. Happy Holidays, indeed.

Some snow.

Another view of the snowy day outside my window.

Another view of a snowy day outside my window.

Snow, gone. Fog follows.

I haven’t had a ‘Christmas vacation’ for years. I had reached a point, years ago, where ‘the win’ as a professional was to work partial days, or perhaps a handful of work-from-home days, through the holidays rather than take real time off… I short-changed myself there. I didn’t understand ‘what really matters’ (at least to me). So. I am home for the holidays. It’s lovely.

Taking time to savor holiday memories.

I often find myself sifting through scraps of holiday memories of childhood with great delight and wonder. My parents made some major holiday magic over the years, and every year I find myself astonished by the feats of Yule merriment and celebration they managed on such limited resources. I enjoy celebrating the winter holidays, myself, and over the years I have also learned to make some holiday magic. This year, it is wonderful to also really relax, take a few deep breaths, and simply enjoy the days.

Today is a good day to be merry, and a good day to love. Today is a good day to be joyful. Today I will share smiles and words of encouragement. Today I will appreciate what I have. Today I will embrace contentment and sufficiency. Today I will change the world. 😀

Tags a word from our sponsors, ACT, buddhist boot camp, do you hear what I hear? Joy to the World, home for the holidays, I'll be home for Christmas, making memories, MBSR, meditate on this, mindful holiday fun, ptsd, Santa Baby, TBI, the magic of Christmas, yuletide gaiety

Categories Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Love, Mindfulness, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, winter

On the Solstice

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Sometimes It’s Like This…

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This Is Entirely Different

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Just One Thing

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Somewhere Between

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