Archives for category: Free Will

I, Me, Mine

September 2, 2013 //

It is a pretty morning, and Dave Matthews sings songs of love and life while I sip my morning coffee. My loved ones are home from their weekend getaway, and returning with them, the tension and stress of everyday life, notably absent while they were away. I am considering that, and perspective, this morning.

Much of my PTSD is related to family and romantic relationships, and associated with trauma over time, and small ‘inconsequential’ things that somehow destroy my sense of balance and calm very suddenly. Fears that overcome me are often based on some historical detail that results in my utter uncertainty about whether or not I am still ‘rational’, whether my here-and-now experience is ‘real’. The rapid swings between paralyzing panic and trapped-animal rage result in wildly unpredictable behavior – most of it unpleasant. One of my highest priorities right now is really getting that under control. Strangely…’getting it under control’ is turning out to mean ‘accepting myself’, and my feelings, and not exerting so much control; giving up on forcing myself to comply with some arbitrary standard of performance in the face of my own suffering. In the past, the ferocity applied to ‘forcing myself to be okay’ resulted in splitting headaches, problems with my blood pressure, anxiety and panic attacks, and fits of uncontrollable crying that would sweep up out of nowhere, leaving me feeling like I had, on top of everything else, failed to ‘control myself’.

“Myself”. My self. My self. My self. Damn. Who am I? Where does my experience begin, where does it end? What is the boundary between what is me, and what is someone else? You’d think an adult would have this one mastered by 50. Well, sometimes the answers to my questions, the understanding I seek, the resolution to a challenging problem, are inconveniently buried in the basics. So, this weekend, in addition to being about ‘perspective’, is about applying an understanding of perspective, an experience of perspective, to the question ‘who am I?’

Sorting out the difference between what stresses me, and me stressing over other people’s stress, turns out to be more complicated than I expect. I’m learning to ‘make room’ for my feelings, and learning to accept myself. I’m also having to learn to take those new tools, and accept my loved ones, and ‘make room’ for them to have their experience, without that urgent need to intervene, ‘make it right’, ‘force it to work’, or ‘fix things’ sweeping aside the very things that make us individuals sharing a relationship – our unique and individual experiences that we are having, and choosing.

Sometimes words by themselves are not enough for me to gain real clarity. Maybe I don’t have the right words, or enough words, or maybe I don’t choose them well, or define them with sufficient clarity. I have painted a number of self-portraits over the years, and studies of my state of being in the abstract. This morning it occurred to me to take a look at them all, as a body of work with a story to tell – a story to tell me.

“Portrait of the Artist’s Tears” 1984?

My shoddy bookkeeping tends to indicate this is my oldest surviving self-portrait. A small work on watercolor, my recollection is that I was hesitant to make my unhappiness with life too obvious, for fear of making it a great deal worse. The cries for help just kept coming…

“All I Am” 1985

Slipped between sheets of rice paper, stored in a box, shoved into the back of a closet for many years, “All I Am” stayed quietly hidden, along with my truths. i struggled with myself, with my experience, with my PTSD – although I didn’t know then, what I struggled with. I knew I wanted something else, and I knew my relationships were a core concern…

unfinished “Brownie” 1986

I clung fiercely to the illusions I loved most, hoping that somehow wishing hard enough would be enough…

“Waiting for Morning” 1986

It wasn’t enough, and I didn’t yet have the tools I needed to find peace, or clarity, and my cynicism and ancient pain overwhelmed me. Futility became an everyday experience, and romantic love did not exist in my experience in any recognizable form…

“Marriage” 1987

Grim, bleak landscapes figured prominently in much of my work by 1987, and expansive vistas of far away places. I wanted to get away, but I lacked certainty about what I was running from, or to. It wasn’t all tears and trauma, and even our worst trials may be interrupted by some wonderful moments. Marriage didn’t treat me well, and love was pure fiction as far as I could tell, then, but…

“Lovers” 1991

I found love for the first time, later on. It, too, was a momentary interruption on a very scary ride through life, then. It was something to hold onto for later, and that would mean so much…

“Joy” 1995

“Joy” is still my singular favorite self-portrait, because it speaks to me of that moment of wondrous realization that love exists. It was a mundane enough moment, at the dining table, watercolors out, painting simple sketches of moments and feelings, and suddenly… joy, desire, love, passion, and a feeling of being filled with something powerful, something beyond me, and something that was – and is – profoundly positive and transcendent of pain, and chaos and damage. If I had any thought I could ‘take it with me’, this is a painting I’d want buried with me – it is the best of all that I have within me.

Life is complicated stuff, and I have rarely been able to ‘hang on to’ the best bits. I struggled for years, and did what I could to ‘keep it to myself’, even suppressing as much pain as I could through Rx psych meds. The next self-portrait I painted was from within an altered state so profound that I got lost, all the pieces of me separating as mists and fogs, dissipating and leaving me alone, and naked with who I had become…

“Separated from Self” 2010

I began making profound changes to, well, almost everything, shortly after that point. Life as it was couldn’t be borne much longer, and it was obvious, even to me. I can’t take credit for being a willful adult being making reasoned changes… I’ve got to be as honest as I can on that one. I began grabbing any foothold and laying waste to my moment, to my status quo, hanging on to what felt like a change for the better with real ferocity, and discarding anything that hurt… and of course, circumstances, life, and the free will of others in my life threw assorted changes into the mix, too.

“Communion” 2010

I experienced profound love – that magical, amazing, wondrous sort of love often promised, rarely found. Of course, life rarely limits our unexpected circumstances to the ‘magical, wondrous’ variety…

“A Ratio of 13 to 1” 2011

A sudden, unexpected, unsought career change resulted in anger, insecurity, and… freedom. I was suddenly free to make radical new choices about that pesky ‘who am I?’ question, free to redefine myself, willfully, as I came off the psych meds and regained my soul, and my intellect, and began to develop a sense of self that didn’t rely on any evaluation but my own. Damn, that sounds awesome when I read it. Actually, it sucked. It sucked a lot, and it was one of the most difficult things I’ve undertaken, and more than 2 years later I am still working on it – although it is now as much a joy and delight, as a challenge. There will never be enough ‘thank you’s’ to give to the dear ones who have been there for me throughout this incredible period of growth.

“Taking Another Look at Me” 2011

I have re-examined myself from a number of angles since then…

“His Bitch II” 2012

Who am I as a lover? As a partner? What is sex to me, now? Can I put my demons to rest?

“Agent of Chaos” 2012

Can I ‘get it under control’? Can I ‘figure it all out’? What’s wrong with me? I continued to struggle, and somehow the things I expected would help me… data… analysis… writing in my journal… seemed to be making it all so much worse. I was ‘spinning my wheels’ and not getting anywhere… I stopped writing. I stopped painting. My soul seemed to be stalled. Hormones. Relationship challenges. Choices and actions that didn’t align to values I thought I had. The chaos and damage were taking over, the wreckage in my head was becoming the experience in my life… I felt utterly lost.

“Broken” 2012

At the end of 2012 I painted “Broken”. I was trying to say… something. Trying to explain what it felt like on the inside, to communicate something I couldn’t quite seem to put my finger on… and as 2012 became 2013, I found out about the brain injury I had received as a tween. (I still don’t remember it in any concrete ‘this is my experience’ sort of way… but the crack in my forehead refutes any desire to wish it away now.) The new information, and beginning therapy more appropriate to my experiences and needs, kick started 2013 as a year of growth – and real healing.

These are who I have been. I am somewhere new, now, getting to know this amazing being that i am… facing my world, my life, my experience with real hope, and real healing… I look at these self-portraits now, and it is tempting to be frustrated that I wasn’t listening to me, but I am done punishing myself for what has been, and waltzing endlessly with my demons.

I painted “Perspective” this weekend. It isn’t as much a self-portrait as a meditation, a reflection on a bigger picture, a useful skill, a necessary step in the process of ‘knowing’ – or unknowing – what is, and what is not, and what may be. I am 50 this year, and there is a lot to celebrate, to observe, to experience. Soon… a new self-portrait.

I am learning that ‘who I am?’ is not a question to be answered with words. 🙂

Tags Art, art imitating life, be the change, listen to a story, love, mindfulness, ptsd, self-portraits, TBI, tell me of your home world, who am I?

Categories Art, Brain Injury, Free Will, Logic & Reason, Love, Menopause, Metaphors, Mindfulness, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Turning 50, Uncategorized

Another Perspective

August 31, 2013 //

Multi-tasking personal growth…

It’s been many days since I had enough ‘bandwidth’ to write… the world is, as is so often the case, teetering on the brink… of something. Again and again I find War on my mind, conflict, emotion…and growth. Because I am so prone to metaphors, even War reflects back onto my ‘right now’ experience. Learning to stay ‘in the moment’ is not as simple to master as it is to take on as a practice. So I continue to practice. “Taking care of me” is a more complicated puzzle of choices and observations than I’d like it to be, and there too, I get plenty of opportunities to give it another try. I still make choices that don’t serve me well, more often than I’d like. I still struggle to be fully who I am, and feel accepted and understood by people who matter to me…and by myself, too. Change requires effort and, oddly, perspective.

…another perspective.

Today I am working on “Perspective” from another angle. Art.

I’ll talk about the inspiration, first. My life felt like it was unraveling quickly at the start of the year. The upheaval of moving mingled with my chaos and damage (that I’d managed to avoid dealing with in any notably successful way). I had spent decades allowing myself to be heavily medicated, out of desperation, but against any potential ‘better judgement’ – and went off them one by one, but without any real understanding of how that experience would go, after so many years. I found out I’d had a pretty serious traumatic brain injury as a ‘tween’, that I’d never been told about, didn’t remember, but had always had evidence of… and it explained a lot of lifetime weirdness, and odd impairments and eccentricities. My PTSD flared up, and news articles about the high rate of suicide among military veterans over 50 started looking like suggestions… and I was approaching 50, fast. It was a very bleak bit of my life… (If I had had a different perspective, perhaps that would not have been the experience I had?)

I was at a place in my journey where my perception was that my life was entirely filled with pain, that the chaos and damage could not be overcome, that I ‘couldn’t do any better’ and that failure was inevitable, and a permanent state of being. I still had lucid moments, and I still existed alongside people who love me. In better moments it seemed obvious that things ‘couldn’t be that bad’. I wanted more data. I wanted to change my perspective, to know something different, and to ‘see for myself’ without the complications of the wreckage in my head. I was inspired to measure my experience in some way; “Perspective”- in acrylic, on canvas, with 3D mixed media, and of course – it would glow.

It became, over time, more than an art project – and it spoke to me. Now it is time to finish it.

Every journey has a starting point.

I had chosen the move to our new home, all of us together, as a not-entirely-random starting point – it was a big event that caused me a lot of stress and interrupted pretty much every routine imaginable, and it was in the context of struggling with that fairly every day sort of change that I found out about my TBI, and started to understand what a big deal that had actually been for me all along. My basic concept was simple enough: I would use two glass canisters, and add items to each, representative of events and experiences, day by day from that point until I turned 50. I would watch my life unfold as data points in a visual display – positive events, happy moments, exciting and fun experienced, powerful epiphanies, and positive developments all in one canister – the other would hold the hard times, the angry moments, the pain, the tears, romantic spats, discord, confrontation, PTSD freak outs, stress, grief – and there too, epiphanies and growth, because those come sometimes from what hurts us. I didn’t want to be bleak, but I figured, at best, the outcome would be a draw – pretty nearly balanced between the tough times and the good times. It was already February when I started – so I carefully went over my journals, notes, and emails to friends, looking for documentation of the details, and ‘building the foundation’ of “Perspective”. I was more confused than surprised to see that even from where I was standing in that moment, the wonders and joys, the good bits, seemed the larger part of life, and it wasn’t a small matter – it was obvious. That sat rather uncomfortably in my consciousness for many weeks as I added to one or the other canister… because, the good times were still a much bigger piece of my experience than it felt like. I started questioning a lot of things about my understanding of the world around me, about my ability to understand my own experience, about what the hell was really holding the chaos and damage in place, after all this time… and I kept adding to each canister, day after day… and I kept observing… and I kept meditating.

My intention was to meditate on the progress of events in these canisters, until my 50th birthday, then use the elements on canvas to finish the project. That’s where you find me now, considering my life, and my “Perspective”.

202 days of my life in “Perspective”

There’s certainly more to say about perspective, in general. The pictures don’t lie – I may be in pain, my PTSD isn’t behind me, yet, and hormone hell is often just one misunderstanding away from seemingly unprovoked tears or anger – but I enjoy life, and life has a lot of joy and wonder to share with me. My anger, the wreckage in my head, my struggles with chaos and damage are actually a pretty small part of my experience – so much so that it all has to be placed in a single canister to be visible at all. I have the suspicion, untested as yet, that if I combined the contents of both canisters into one, it would be tough to pay much attention to the dark bits at all, because there is so much light. Light is a powerful metaphor; illumination, gnosis, clarity…

Canvas is waiting.

Tags an artist's perspective, art as a tool for analysis, falling apart, fragile vessels, gnosis, hormone hell, humpty dumpty's shell, illumination, learn to swim, life and art, meditation, menopause, mindfulness, perspective, picking up the pieces, ptsd, TBI, tears and tantrums

Categories Allegories, Art, Brain Injury, Free Will, Logic & Reason, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, pain, Parables, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Turning 50

Choice and Change

August 22, 2013 //

Have a cookie…let’s talk.

coffee or milk?

Today I woke up to a world filled with haters and trolls, and people who think there are acceptable reasons for violence or that there are excuses that mitigate treating other people badly. I woke to a world where human beings employed in productive work for a business are treated as a commodity or a ‘necessary business expense’ to be minimized at any cost, and to a government that sees killing as a more worthy expense than feeding the hungry, healing the sick, and housing the homeless. I woke to a world that treats women and people of color as having less value than the rapidly dwindling pasty white ‘majority’. I woke to a world where rape victims are treated as having some blame in the crime committed against them, and people are taught to take with force what isn’t given freely. I woke to a world where objecting to what is objectionable and demanding change can get a person a prison sentence, and one where people in uniforms can lawfully commit murder. I woke to a world where the concept of a living wage is sneered at by a lot of people who don’t have to worry about covering their bills. I woke to a world where telling the truth is a criminal act, and kindness can get someone killed.

Funny, in a not-so-funny way, this is what we choose. Every day. It’s a big culture, a big world, and there are a lot of ideas about living life. Choices are made, and often more poor choices than great choices are made in the name of ideology, dogma, tradition, religion, precedent, futility, frustration…but they are choices, made by people, and in some cases made by people who actually have the potential to do more, better, and who choose not to.

I have sometimes been that person who could have done more, better, had I chosen differently.

We each have greatness within us, however humble our beginnings.

The individual commitment to doing it differently changes a very small piece of our world – but it does change that very small piece. So…today I will change the world. A very small piece. Will you?

What will the world be like tomorrow, if we choose wisely today?

Tags be the change, carpe diem, compassion, do more better, life and love, love not war, mindfulness, OPD, peace on earth, pick your battles, ptsd, TBI, The Big 5

Categories Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Roses, Summer, Words

Mean and Meaning

August 14, 2013 //

I feel rather like I am approaching a mostly-closed door, and ought to open it with care, in case someone unseen is unaware, and vulnerable, on the other side. I would avoid sneaking up on you so early in the morning. 🙂

Morning…

Things are ‘new’ and ‘different’… house guests gone, dawn coming a very different time, a new laptop in front of me, and a number of other small changes each gently altering each other’s relevance to me. Life is rich, busy, complex – often more stressful than necessary, sometimes so much so that more bigger change seems imminent or needful. I breath, and relax, and observe, and hope not to overreact.

The world seems just filled with mean people… I think some people may have found me among them at other points in time, although more accurately a loving friend suggested that rather than ‘mean’ i was ‘callous’, and that maybe that’s worse. I think the difference between ‘callous’ and ‘mean’ is critical… it seems to be a matter of will, and intent. Meanness is, from my perspective, a willful attack that is deliberate, and not necessarily ‘righteous’ – mean people often know they are being mean, and the aim is to hurt, or inflict pain at the expense of that person, sometimes for the amusement of others. Callousness often seems associated with a certain ‘sense of righteousness’ in that a callous person generally doesn’t understand that their approach is hurting another – or may not understand that the hurt is relevant at all. 😦 I suspect that both meanness and callousness are incredibly difficult to dissuade someone from taking on, for different reasons. Both are quite ugly characteristics, and neither leave room for compassion.

Mean, though… well, how is it even justified? Mean people don’t actually care that they are hurting someone – they are making a point, having some fun, entertaining someone else, or ‘seeing what happens if’. Ugly. I don’t like it, and I don’t choose to foster it in myself or accept it in my lovers. I don’t like callous, but I understand it more, and I am willing to educate, discuss, coach, share, build rapport, learn, grow together…because it seems worthwhile. So…for me, they are different.

Meaning is what we make it – literally. Our thoughts are our own, and language functions by agreement – but that means learning to collaborate in conversation and sharing definitions of terms, and both listening and hearing – they are not the same. We are not only having our own experience… we are communicating with each other in language that is only partially shared. Complicated.

It’s a lovely morning… and somehow I am feeling quite calm and extraordinarily balanced.

A good morning for “Sheer Bliss”

Tags callousness, dealing with bullshit, listen to your heart beat, love and lovers, mean people, OPD, ptsd, somebody told me, TBI

Categories Brain Injury, Free Will, gardening, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Love, Menopause, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Summer

Do You Have Any Change?

August 10, 2013 //

It’s a quiet Saturday morning, following on the heels of many busy days, rich with family and conversation and planning, doing, and being. Busy. I am delighted, amused, and inspired, hanging out with my 20-year-old stepson and his love. Yesterday we three explored a small piece of the world together.

One small piece of our amazing world: The International Rose Test Garden in Portland, Oregon.

It was a lovely good time and we headed for home quite exhausted from the day’s adventures. I ended the day satisfied and happy, and slept deeply through the night. (Maybe a good night’s sleep is about really exerting myself during the preceding day? lol)

I woke unexpectedly, just after 5 am, from realistic dreaming about very surreal things (a neon green talking coffee can arguing gender politics with a painted porcelain thimble can’t be a real thing, right?). I woke feeling okay, I think, but as I attempted to return to sleep, I found myself becoming progressively more discontent, even angry. It began to build. I tossed and turned frustratedly. I wept a handful of pointless tears. Around six I gave up on sleep and got up for coffee. A good latte, a beautiful sunrise, and some quiet time with my thoughts really made a difference, too, for a change. I find myself, now, in a pretty good place. The core notion that was driving my anger is based on a real need – and I am still learning about dealing with my needs well, and simply. My challenges in that area sometimes result in a tiny window of opportunity to understand myself being missed in the storm of developing emotions. It’s a nice change for me that this morning went differently – that I made different choices, and am experiencing a more satisfactory outcome. (Yay me!)

Interestingly, having identified the need, I am also having to face the inconvenient present-day reality that for now, there isn’t much in the way of a solution. Time is what it is. Schedules are what they are. There simply are not enough hours in the day, or good opportunities, for me to enjoy predictable regular whole days one on one with either of my partners. Ever. It’s painful for me, and saddens me, because I also don’t have predictable regular whole days of time to myself, either. I want and need both. This isn’t really a type of need where compromise proves wholly satisfying, for me – I mean, I say ‘whole days’, for instance, and I’d likely find even 4-6 hours enough to meet most needs… and there just aren’t many opportunities for such, and when they come up, they are often last minute, unplanned, and in no way regular or predictable. lol. Sometimes being a grown up sucks. Having a tantrum over time doesn’t actually meet real needs or provide long-term satisfaction, nor does it increase the amount of available time in a day – quite the contrary. So…there are still 24 hours in a day (and I still try to sleep for about 8 of those when I can), I still spend 45 of them (or a more) away from home, and when the weekend comes around, we all want to be chilling at home, together. It is what it is. I am 50 though, and life has put a lot of curriculum in front of me for contemplation – and one thing I have learned is that circumstances change, and what feels like ‘always’, ‘never’, or ‘forever’ right now, may be as rare and ephemeral as a soap bubble a few days, weeks or months down the road. So… I think I’ll have another excellent latte, and consider the painting-in-progress – next steps to plan – and the sweet inspiration to spend the rest of the summer painting roses, and simply enjoy the loveliness of a beautiful day. 😀

I do love a quiet morning. 😀

So much beauty…so little time.

Tags daydreams and nightmares, I'll be in the garden, life and art, life love and roses, mindfulness, ptsd, roses, TBI, time

Categories Anxiety, Brain Injury, Free Will, gardening, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Roses, Summer

I, Me, Mine

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Another Perspective

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Choice and Change

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Mean and Meaning

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Do You Have Any Change?

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