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Rainy Day Contentment

April 9, 2023 //
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Some days “enough” really is enough. Today is like that. It’s an ordinary Sunday. I slept well and deeply and woke to my Traveling Partner’s gentle touch. My coffee is good, and the morning is pleasant. It’s a rainy day, and I still managed to spend some short time in the garden, planting early germinating cooler-weather seeds. Nice morning for it.

I hear the washing machine in the background, and the steady whir of the computer fan, even over this video of rain sounds I have on in the background. It is raining, today, but I rarely hear that from inside the house unless there are open windows, or it’s rainy wickedly hard. In the bathroom, the rain falls hard enough to sound like a small steel drum perched on the roof, or a distant wind chime. Pretty.

I breathe, exhale, and relax. It’s a good day for relaxing. I mean… Easter Sunday, you know? I’m for sure not planning to go to any retail spaces; the few that open will likely be quite crowded. Why bother with all that? Home is cozy and warm, and the companionship is genial. No stress, today, just quiet joy.

Shrubs removed, blueberries planted – but still so small they are barely visible against the fresh compost.

I spent yesterday in the garden. I got a lot done – like, everything on my list for the weekend, really. 😀 My Traveling Partner cut down the shrubbery I disliked, and even dug out the roots. I feel very cared for and supported; it’s a busy week for him in the shop and he still has time for me. I loosened the soil in the bed, pulled out what remaining tangled shrub roots that I could, mixed in generous amounts of well-aged compost and good quality soil and planted the blueberries I’ve been planning for since we moved in. So exciting! It feels like a milestone. I’ve got roses (8). I’ve got blueberries (6 bushes, 2 each of 3 varieties). I’ve got a raised bed veggie garden. I’ve got a plan. It feels good.

My wee balcony garden, in 2011.

I think back to my Traveling Partner and I moving in together. Our apartment had a balcony, no yard. I had a handful of roses in containers. He helped me build my garden, there, surprising me with deck-rail pots, and soil, and then too… I felt so thoroughly loved. Love can endure. Like a thriving garden, it needs care, attention, effort, and good quality “seeds” and “soil”. I smile thinking about my many small container gardens over the years, and my one previous, long ago, “garden at my own home” – a garden built in the midst of terror and chaos, stressed by Texas heat and lack of skilled care. It didn’t do very well. I wanted to force it to thrive but that’s not how gardening – or love – works, at all. I learned a lot… sometimes that’s the most we can get from an experience.

I’ve got a long-ish list of things to do today. Chores. Laundry, dishes, vacuuming, that sort of thing – nothing at all fancy, just routine shit I need to get done to prepare well for the upcoming week. All good. I’m not vexed over it. Not fighting the necessity. It’s just the day ahead of me, and I’m enjoying it as it is. That feels pretty wonderful.

I smile thinking about my rainy day garden, and the robins out there enjoying the freshly turned up earth and easy-to-reach worms. I wonder if this is their favorite time of year, and whether they have any sense of our human “seasons”. Things I think about over coffee on a rainy pleasant Sunday, before I begin again.

…I’ve got a list…

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Categories Allegories, Brain Injury, breathe, Free Will, gardening, gratitude, Healthy Living, inspiration, Love, meditation, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, Roses, Spring, The Art of Being

Where Are You Finding Your Joy?

April 6, 2023 //
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Sluggish start to a new day, in spite of this good cup of coffee. I’d very much rather be sleeping. lol My reminder to take morning medication goes off, startling me; I’ve usually taken it and silenced the alarm before now. I chuckle quietly to myself – that’s the whole point of having an alarm, these days when I’m sluggish and not super alert. Purpose fulfilled.

I am musing contentedly about “things that bring joy”. Pretty subjective notion, there, but I am … entertained? Satisfied. It’s a reasonable bit of reflection for a slow morning. What brings you joy? It may be quite different in some regards to what brings me joy… although… human primates being what we are, there’s surely a lot of overlap? I think about it. While I reflect on what brings me joy, I also contemplate how to deliver that kind of joyful experience to someone else. What could be more delightful than the joy someone experiences through some little thing I may have done? I love that feeling. 😀

…The joy itself is a pretty splendid feeling all on its own, too, is it not?

I smile to myself and remember to update the budget to reflect changes, and feel a bit of background anxiety melt away. The anxiety wasn’t over the expenses themselves, or even the budgeting or the spreadsheet; it was the loose end, the awareness that the budget was not up-to-date. That’s the kind of shit that so easily can wreck a moment, a day, or an experience, so I pause my writing, hop over to Sheets and update my budget to reflect changes my Traveling Partner and I had discussed. Feels good that doing so doesn’t provoke any anxiety at all – it only eases it. That feel new(ish). I savor the moment with a contented sigh, and a sip of coffee.

I let the clock tick away without giving it much attention. I glance at my hands. I’ve torn them up lately, mostly over background anxiety and bullshit, wholly unnecessary and mostly completely unrelated to any real thing in my day-to-day experience. I’m okay… but my torn cuticles tell their own story. The other night, my Traveling Partner quietly, without prompting, and with a very serious concerned look on his face stepped over to where I was sitting and just handed me a bottle of lotion for my poor hands. lol I got the hint. So… I’m working on focusing more on joy than stress, and doing my mindful best to keep from tearing at my cuticles or biting my nails. It’s super hard. I keep practicing. It’s gotten so much better than it once was – still not where I’d like to be. I’ll just keep at it, patiently, building discipline through diligence and practice. We become what we practice.

…Sometimes it’s quite difficult to practice not doing something…

I breathe, exhale, relax. I find myself thinking about far away friends and “once upon a time” long ago moments of shared joy.

My eye lands on the clock. It’s already time to begin again…

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Categories Allegories, Anxiety, Brain Injury, breathe, Free Will, gratitude, Healthy Living, inspiration, meditation, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, Spring, The Art of Being

Breathe, Exhale, Relax

April 4, 2023 //
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I’m sipping my coffee, which is going cold faster than I am drinking it. The sky is slowly shifting from night through the dawn-shades of blue and soon it will be daylight. I breathe, exhale, relax, and sit quietly and contentedly in the early morning stillness for some minutes before my fingers ever touch the keyboard. I spend a few minutes just enjoying the quiet time.

Yesterday evening was lovely. Not fancy. We didn’t have anything planned and didn’t do anything noteworthy, it was just a lovely evening at home together. I’m just making a point of reflecting on it, and enjoying that recollection.

One of the most challenging details of emotional wellness, mental health, and building resilience, is simply the essentials of day-to-day practice. Meditation only “works” if I do it. Regularly. Reliably. Same with the breathing. With the self-reflection, acceptance, and non-attachment. As with physical fitness, so much of these shit is “use it or lose it” – if I stop meditating, I lose the resilience that comes of it. If I stop practicing “being calm”, I slowly descend into emotional chaos over time. If I stop taking long (looooong) walks? I slowly lose endurance, fitness, and even the appetite for the endeavor at all. So much depends on taking a first step, then another, and developing a practice.

Discipline. Not the “discipline” of punished wrongdoings – the real discipline of sticking with a plan, of following a path, of staying the course with a practice – even over a lifetime. Discipline. I don’t have that much of it, honestly, thus the need to practice. When I practice with great reliability, I build my discipline and yes, become disciplined – and it’s a transferrable skill! If I am disciplined with regard to my meditation practice, it’s far more likely that I’ll also be disciplined about self-care, household chores, and deep listening, and the dominoes begin to fall into place in an orderly way. Discipline keeps me on the path to becoming the person I most want to be. 😀

It starts with a breath.

It starts with a practice.

It starts with a step.

It starts with a new beginning.

Are you ready to begin again? Where will this path lead you?

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Categories Allegories, Brain Injury, breathe, Free Will, gratitude, Healthy Living, inspiration, meditation, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Spring, The Art of Being

The Clock is Ticking

March 30, 2023 //
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The sound of a ticking clock used to really cause me stress, for a younger me that was most especially true of the steady thunk of grandfather clocks during the wee hours, when I could not sleep. I would lay awake painfully aware that the minutes of my life were… passing. It was a poor choice to focus on the sound of the ticking of clocks when plagued by insomnia, but that’s who I was then, and there seemed to be ticking clocks nearly everywhere. I’m not so hung up on time, these days, and the sound of a ticking clock doesn’t bother me at all. Progress can be measured in some very peculiar ways. lol

My coffee is good. The day is off to an excellent start. My Traveling Partner was already up when I got up this morning, and we enjoyed our first cup of coffee together, which was lovely. I arrived at the co-work space at about the usual time, which made the choice to slow down and have coffee together ideal; it didn’t change the rest of my routine or plan for the day at all. 😀

I feel good. I sit with that for a few minutes… It’s not that I don’t have any physical pain, it’s more that it just doesn’t matter right now. I feel calm and centered. I feel infused with a certain soft contented joy. I feel… relaxed. It’s very pleasant. I find that it isn’t necessarily a useful mindset for writing; I am content with sitting here watching my thoughts drift by. lol So… I do that for a little while, without concern or shame. It’s a short enough life already – I think I’ll enjoy it the way I enjoy it, and be okay with that. 😀

Spring is definitely here. The morning is mild, and in the mid-40s about 6 degrees Celsius. I am thinking eagerly about getting the new blueberry bushes into the ground.

Waiting to be planted.

There’s preparatory work to do, to get the beds ready for the new shrubs. I’m okay with that – a lot of life works that way; we benefit from planning, and also from preparation. Those are both useful for getting the best possible outcome.

I think over the morning, and the day ahead. I remind myself of a couple of errands I plan to run later, and take a look at my calendar for lunch timing – looks like a good day go home for lunch with my Traveling Partner. 😀 What a splendid day so far… I smile and sip my coffee, and get ready to begin again.

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Categories Allegories, Brain Injury, breathe, Free Will, gardening, gratitude, Healthy Living, meditation, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Spring

How to Prepare for Change

March 29, 2023 //
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I sip my morning coffee thinking about “change”, as I anticipate changes to come that may or may not be “what I want”. I’m okay with uncertainty these days, more than I’ve ever previously been as far as I can recall. Change is. I can prepare for it, embrace it when it arrives (or seek further, other, changes), and see where it takes me, or I can… not do that, and struggle with it instead. There is very little potential that I can avoid change. I sip my coffee and think about the conversation I had with my boss yesterday. Promising. No, I’m not going to be more specific – I don’t know what the future holds. I’m open to it, though, and ready to gently comply with circumstances, or seek further change – depends on the outcomes, I suppose. I’m certainly not expecting to “stand still” in life. lol

How do I “prepare for change”, though? Depends on the changes, I guess, but I usually start with envisioning life as it may be following the change(s) I anticipate (or have chosen). I take time to read and study details or ideas that are new for me, or present challenges – what can I learn before the change is upon me? Do I have questions? Concerns? I look into those details. I probably make a list of things I’d want done before the change comes – or will want to do to meet the challenge as it comes.

If my anxiety is vexing me with regard to some particular anticipated change, I spend time reflecting on successful other experiences of change in my life, generally. This reminds me that it’s do-able, and that I’m capable.

From there, the last bit of “change prep” I find reliably helpful is to be kind to myself, and alert for any potential self-sabotage that I’d do well to … not do.

None of us are truly alone on this journey that is one mortal life, yet we’re each walking our own path, and having our own experience. It’s a strange puzzle. With my boss’s words lingering in my thoughts, I contemplate where I can develop new connections, build new bridges, shore up incomplete knowledge, explore new learning relevant to the change we had discussed. It’s exciting to feel the process of growth and progress. One thing I enjoy about all this is that I get to keep everything I learn along the way – whether the change that comes is what I anticipated, or something completely different. I continue to grow. Exciting.

I sip my coffee thoughtfully. I breathe. Exhale. Relax. It’s a pleasant (quiet) Wednesday morning. It’s a good time to prepare for change. It’s a good time to begin again.

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Categories Allegories, Brain Injury, breathe, Free Will, gratitude, Healthy Living, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, Spring, The Art of Being
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