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Seriously? You Could Do Better

March 16, 2018 //
1

Couldn’t we all do better? A bit? Give that some thought. Are you really the person you most want to be? Every day?

I am feeling frustrated with humanity, generally, and it pivots on competing memes, the willful stupidity of human beings defending pet ideologies, and the unavoidable truth that every damned one of us has some pretty fucking hateful moments, and lugs around some pretty vile baggage. I’m mostly quite done with every damned body pointing at the other guy with criticism about hate, seemingly unaware that they, themselves, have some similarly hateful moments.

Fuck, people, look in the god damned mirror.

I’m not making this point unaware that I am, myself, quite human. On the contrary, I am frustrated and puzzled by some basic confounds in my own thinking. I am concerned about implicit biases I am likely wandering around with, that may inform my decision-making in a fairly stupid way. I worry that things I think I “know” are not well-grounded in fact, to the point that I am regularly seeking proof that I am wrong. (Because, frankly, finding out I am wrong is the only shot at correcting poor quality reasoning – I don’t give fuck-all for being right, and it isn’t helpful to “know” that I am, when it comes up.)

What’s specifically giving me metaphysical indigestion this morning is the head-on conflict between posts/memes/commentary suggesting that “gun control is not the answer –  be kind to lonely kids!” is The One True Way, and the other batch retorting “don’t suggest anyone else is responsible for violence except the sociopaths committing it – you could be encouraging vulnerable kids to become entangled with sociopaths!” because setting good boundaries is The One True Way. Fucking hell – are we all really that stupid? Is it not 100% entirely obvious that this is a false dichotomy? That the jigsaw puzzle of American violence is a tad more nuanced than that? Fuck your overly simplistic idiocy. So done with that kind of simple-minded horse-shit.

It matters how we treat people. It matters what we accept, as a culture, with regard to how people treat each other. It matters when we frame the discussion in terms of the value of one group of lives or another, or the worth of one individual or another. It matters how we talk about – and how we prosecute – violence. Yes, when we let domestic violence crimes go unnoticed, undiscussed, and unprosecuted, we build a culture in which some children grow up thinking their anger (an emotion, nothing more) has more value than the actual lives of others. We created that scenario as a culture, as a society. We deepen it when we devalue women, people of color, and other vulnerable populations. When we foster rape culture, and suggest in our institutions and laws, that how women dress or behave is somehow righteous justification for another human being’s lack of self-control over their use of sexual behaviors, we defend violence over “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”. We are at fault for the culture that exists.

Does that mean we are also accountable, individually, for the individual acts of violence of other individuals? Nope. We are each responsible for our own actions… including those actions that foster a culture of violence. So. Yeah. It’s not us vs. them. It’s not as simple as a single choice between two clear options. It’s about actually fucking being aware of the consequences of our actions, and of our institutions and laws, and we are responsible for the society we create. We built this. Stop acting fucking surprised. Fucking fix it.

Fuck, I am so angry about this. Just do better, damn. How fucking hard is that?

What are you going to do to make this a better country to live in for everyone who lives in it? (Yes, including people who are incarcerated, people who are poor, people who are undocumented – have you read some of what they are put through? Every.Damned.Day. “Inhumane” doesn’t begin to describe it, and that’s really not okay.)

I know what I’m going to do. I’m going to do better. Just that. Something. Each day, today too, I am going to put my will and my actions toward being a somewhat better human being than I was yesterday. And again tomorrow. Then again the day after that. I will spend a lifetime working towards being the woman I most want to be, building the world I most want to live in. Tearing down the bullshit and baggage I learned growing up, or later on, or built myself. No excuses. I can do better.

It’s time to begin again.

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Categories anger, Free Will, Frustration, grief, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, loneliness, Love, Mindfulness, more than a little bit of bitching, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Rape, Relationships, The Art of Being, The Big 5, War and News of War, Words

Sipping Coffee, Waking Up

March 14, 2018 //
2

This morning, my pain, my tinnitus, the white noise of the furnace blowing through the vents, and the subtle anxiety in the background (as I begin “waiting around” for time to leave for yet another doctor’s appointment), are competing for my attention. My cognitive space feels very busy, but the quality of the content is poor. I sip my very excellent cup of coffee and stare forward into the void, more groggy than calm. There is no action to take in this specific moment aside from sipping coffee, and waking up.

I don’t think I did anything much last night. I’m fairly certain of it, since my recollection seems largely without content. Am I forgetting, or was it that completely uneventful? I wonder for a moment, then my attention wanders to more practical matters. I remind myself to take out the garbage. I consider whether I remembered to take my medication this morning. I notice that I am thirsty. I don’t do anything about any of those, I just sit quietly, sipping my coffee. Later, I’ll head to my appointment, then to the office, and I hope to just sort of slide comfortably into a very routine day from there… and I’d like to wake up. 🙂

The mountain as a metaphor for love; always there in the background, even when I don’t see it. Endlessly beautiful when I am in its presence.

…As I wake, I write a love note to my Traveling Partner, reminiscing fondly about morning coffees together. Another time, perhaps. 🙂 My brain immediately sneak attacks me from behind the calendar reminder about my appointment, and I am forced to face my mortality as tears spill down. What if the news at this appointment is… bad? I let the tears come. It would be hard to say good-bye to a life I am finally starting to learn to live truly well, to value, to appreciate, to experience fully. I’ll have to eventually though, as will we all. We don’t yet have the technology to stop mortality in its tracks. I sip my coffee, eyes stinging with tears, and a weird smile on my face. It’s not a happy one. I feel it from inside. I don’t know this smile. Bitter. Resolved. Hurting. Still standing. Still walking on. Still beginning again.

It was neither sunny nor warm, yesterday evening, but Spring doesn’t seem to care much about that.

…I’ll say this, with great conviction; if I have the opportunity, ever, to know with certainty that the end is imminent? I won’t be spending my last days, weeks, months in a fucking office.

I make a point to breathe, relax, and let that painfully poignant moment go. Emotional weather. I let the small storm pass like a spring shower. Brief and drenching, relieving in some hard to describe way, and I move on somehow refreshed. I’m certainly awake. I sip my… oh, shit. My coffee’s gone.

I can choose to embrace the dawn, or dwell in the evening light.

…It’s a good morning for a second coffee, and a second chance. It’s a good morning to begin again. I may not be able, in this one moment, to save the world… but I can save this one moment in my experience. 🙂 I get up and head for my meditation cushion, on my way to a second coffee. 🙂

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Categories Allegories, Anxiety, Brain Injury, Free Will, grief, health, loneliness, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Spring, The Art of Being

Stand Down

February 25, 2018 //
0

Sometimes “OPD” (Other Peoples’ Drama) wafts miles and oozes into my consciousness by clinging to the thoughts of faraway loved ones. It is what it is. Sometimes, against my own better judgement and choices supporting my own mental health self-care, the people involved matter more than my particular “no drama” boundary. That’s just real. We are social creatures, us human primates. We matter to each other. How could I turn away from loved ones who need me? (Slippery slope there; see step 1. below for more details!)

It was interesting to me, yesterday, how much of the OPD I was gently dealing with was a byproduct of a very commonplace behavioral loop built on poor self-care and some handy errors in thinking…

  1. Give too much of ourself, unreservedly, and ignore personal boundaries (reliable first step toward drama).
  2. Allow resentment to build up over time. (and it’s gonna)
  3. Have a profound emotional moment, possibly resulting from 1. and 2., but also maybe just due to poor self-care in general, over time.
  4. Reach out for support for 3. but without being observant of the needs or boundaries of others in the moment.
  5. Be rejected in the moment by way of individual (or group) boundary-setting; they are having their own experience, and also have choices and needs.
  6. Lose our shit in an emotional firestorm of weaponized emotion, catalyzing a really bad time – for everyone. (why do people keep thinking this behavior is okay?)
  7. Demand, quite reasonably, respect for our individual emotional experience, while projecting it forcibly into the conscious space of other (non-consenting) adults – without respecting their emotional experience equally.
  8. Storm off, reliably ensuring everyone is invested in our drama, but can’t resolve it without chasing us… or…
  9. Refuse to honor boundary-setting intended to provide recovery space and quiet time for drama-survivors, by continuously, spontaneously, returning to the scene to unleash more weapons of mass distraction at people we say we have affection for.
  10. Maybe both 8. and 9. keeping things really chaotic and focused on us.

I wasn’t directly involved. I didn’t hear/see the original salvo of emotional weaponry get fired down range. I don’t have all the details. It wasn’t my drama. Not my issue to solve. These  steps, however, are pretty reliably a thing human beings do, and it’s highly likely that they played out approximately this way, in basically that order. I don’t find any of it either necessary – though I’ve done it myself – nor do I see it as being at all healthy or productive. It gets to be a cycle, for people who follow the steps regularly; we become what we practice.

We can do better. We can practice another way. It starts with better self-care. It starts, very much, with being aware of that person in the mirror, and what we need over time for ourselves, and healthy boundary-setting, that we, ourselves, respect. It starts with being aware of each other in the moment, observing each other, and asking clarifying questions – and seeking consent. Clear communication, explicit, non-accusatory, emotionally neutral, and built on “I statements” is a huge piece of that. If I’m having a shit time, and you ask me about it, my answer still needs to account for what you are up for, yourself. You are likely not my therapist – so a deep dive into my fucking consciousness, and unpacking all my chaos and damage is probably not something I should dive into, if I respect your space and your emotional needs as I do my own. I’d ask first. Sure, I could honestly say “I’m having a shit time” – giving you a chance to say “tell me about it…”, or instead, perhaps, “that sucks”. Notice how “that sucks” doesn’t directly invite you to tell me more? Yep. If you wanted to talk more, I might like you to make sure that’s cool with me. Maybe I don’t feel up to listening for hours and holding you while you cry? Or maintaining a calm exterior while you rage about things that feel a bit directed toward me? Maybe you need to get a fucking therapist? Maybe I can feel those things and still love you? 🙂

We are each having our own experience. Knowing that, ideally, allows us to respect our own needs – and also be aware that those may not be shared by others.

If you’re following along, we’re about to step 5. and 6. already. Yep. We fired that weaponized emotion down range, but our loved ones, friends, or associates of any sort in the moment have done what we did not; they set clear boundaries based on their own needs, and have attempted to (probably gently, the first time) let us know they are not up for supporting us through our emotional storm at this time. They have their own thing going. Failing to respect that is an emotional attack. Rejection, though, actually does hurt – and if I’m in a super shitty emotional place and already not respecting my own boundaries, I may not be easily able to respect the boundaries of others – and worse, may not be allowing myself to be aware of it. This is generally when shit really gets ugly, somewhere around step 5. or 6. Because – hurt feelings added to existing powerful emotion just makes everything feel much worse. It’s hard not to take whatever – or whoever – hurt us quite personally, and most human beings I’ve met react to hurt feelings with more of whatever got them that result in the first place – so more anger, or more tears, or more sadness, or more arguing – definitely more boundary-violating shenanigans. You read that right, I said “shenanigans” – because we have a choice there. We are absolutely entitled to our feelings – our emotions are not subject to argument, ever! Having said that, our behavior is a choice. Generally, a choice we’ve practiced over time because the results have served us in some way. Get over all that. Do better. (Yep. There are verbs involved. Nope. It’s not as easy as it sounds. Yep. It does take actual real practice. Fuck yeah, your results may vary. Practice more.)

Stop taking shit personally. Be kind to each other (inclusive of being kind to yourself, by the way). Respect boundaries. Yours too. And not just yours, respect the boundaries of others. Deep emotional conversation about your heartfelt pain may be something you really need, something we all really need. There is an entire industry built of human beings who make this their specialty, and even they require consent to undertake it – hell, they insist you make an appointment and fucking pay them. It isn’t unreasonable to recognize that one reason for this is that it is simply a bit much to ask of others – particularly loved ones. 🙂

Steps 8., 9. and 10. are practices. They aren’t particularly efficient or useful practices, and seem to me to be rather under-handed, self-serving, and unhealthy practices. Emotionally manipulative practices. Disrespectful practices. Practices that stem from reactivity that can be eased – with other practices, carefully chosen, and practiced repeatedly over time. We become what we practice.

This morning I woke up still here, in this quiet space, in this drama-free zone. Still, also, wondering how things are “there” and wishing people dear to me well from afar. I’m definitely better at drama from afar. LOL

It’s a good morning to begin again, with better practices, and better self-care. I look around my place, here, and smile; I can do better, too. 🙂

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Categories anger, Anxiety, Free Will, Frustration, grief, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, loneliness, Love, Mindfulness, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, The Big 5

Let All That Go for a Minute

February 23, 2018 //
0

I woke up angry this morning. I’m feeling pretty raw and bombarded by violent media imagery (recent school shooting, remember?), and omg, yet another round of craptacular memes masquerading as “truth” – that’s propaganda, folks. Memes aren’t cited, they aren’t fact-checked (and how would you know?), they aren’t held to any standard whatsoever of accuracy – do not get your fucking news (or your opinions, holy hell, seriously??) from god damned memes. lol Seriously. Read a fucking book. Read a bunch of books. Listen deeply, instead of waiting for your turn to talk.

Understand that your experience of life is not defining of life itself for all around you; they are also having their own experience.

It was my dreams. The world slid to shit and mayhem on the backs of pro and anti gun memes. lol It’s too much for me and I need a break. It’s literally a “problem” with a known and obvious solution (several of those) that we simply will not put in motion. It’s grim, terrifying, and fairly stupid of us as a society. Yep. Straight up saying it; we’re fucking dumb as dirt on the topic of firearms in America. I don’t need to say more than that; that is my opinion. Americans are not rational about firearms. Go ahead. Prove me wrong by being that rational American. Please. Definitely do that.

…And to the proud rebels out there concerned they may be unable to overthrow the government if they allow the government to take their guns, I have just one more thing to point out; that’s not how it’s done these days. Vote. Just fucking vote – and vote for people who will actually provide the nation with the legitimate necessary legislative support required, instead of a bunch of parasites making themselves wealthy on special interest handouts and stock tips. Maybe elect some folks who are not lawyers. Who are not rich. Who do not have a college education. Who are not white, not male. Not directly financially invested in the outcome of their decision-making. Damn. LOL How hard is that? Elect a government that looks like America – all of America. That’s how “representative” government works. Actually educate yourselves and learn to reason well and clearly, and have actual conversations about what you actually think, without relying on memes, labels, slogans, or name-calling. How many governments have been toppled in the past handful of decades without a citizen militia? More than one. Read a book.

Be kind to each other. It’s such a short mortal lifetime we live. There is no time for hate; it robs of us time we could spend enjoying love.

Begin again. (I sure need to…)

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Categories anger, Anxiety, Brain Injury, Free Will, Frustration, grief, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Love, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Sleepless Nights, The Big 5, War and News of War

Sometimes You Gotta Do Both

February 15, 2018 //
0

Eat less or exercise? Personally, I have to do both. It’s non-negotiable. If I get less exercise, still keep my caloric intake well-managed (and low) and eat healthy food, I gain weight anyway. If I get plenty of exercise, but make poor nutritional choices, I also gain weight. If I eat a poor quality diet, don’t manage my calories closely, and also don’t get sufficient exercise, I not only gain weight, I gain a lot of weight, and I pack on the pounds fast. Some medications cause me to gain weight, too; that’s something I reliably find out the hard way. So… eat less or exercise? I don’t get to choose, I’ve got to do both. 🙂

There are quite a few things in life that we sometimes get snared viewing as a choice between options, when, actually, it’s a choice to change, or not to change; all the options involving change may be required to make change occur in the direction we’d specifically like to see. Real-life doesn’t tend to negotiate with our whims.

Emotion, and the skillful management and expression of strong emotion, specifically, has some things in common here, with a twist; incremental change over time is super slow, but our emotions jump to the head of any queue, lead every moment, and arrive to every party too early. So sure, it’s reasonable, and true, for someone mid-freak out to have the recognition and understanding that their experience is based on “irresistible” internal forces beyond their immediate control; strong emotion, particularly powerful emotions like rage, frustration, and sorrow, can erupt from within us, sweeping over us, taking away our sense of control, and eventually leading to regrettable words and actions. The “I’m sorry”s begin to pile up (if you are that decent sort who regrets treating others badly). So do the rationalizations (about hormones, childhoods, provocation, circumstances…).

It’s also quite true that our behavior is a choice. Yes, all of it. Yes, pretty much all the time, every time. The first time someone lashes out with an act of violence, they might get by with “I didn’t know” or an expression of astonishment that they could be provoked to that point, but second times? Third times? Times that occur after someone – anyone – has pointed out that’s not okay? Yeah, those are choices. Yielding to strong emotion and relinquishing control over behavior is a choice (unless maybe you are profoundly mentally ill and urgently in need of inpatient treatment). Well, if that’s also true, is everyone who ever treated a loved one poorly, or punched a wall, or lashed out with horrible words deeply mentally ill and urgently in need of treatment? Some of them probably are! Most of them likely are not. That they are choosing such behaviors is still a choice, and they could choose differently, and no you can’t “make them” change, and omg – if they decide to change themselves, that is a process that can be infernally slow, fraught will failures, and varying results.

…And before we can change ourselves through our willful choices in the direction of being our best selves, we actually need to 1. be aware that we would like to be other than we are, and 2. understand that change is possible, chosen, and must be practiced. It’s a lot to hold onto. It’s a lot of work. The practice has to come ahead of the need to be changed. It’s necessary both to feel, and to practice our best behavior under the stress of an “emotional load”. We’ve got to do both. It’s work that will have to be done in the face of real-time failures, disappointed frustrated loved ones, relationships that don’t make it through the process, friendships that end because it turns out some of them were invested in what is being changed. It’s work that is continuous and ongoing. Change is a verb – and you have choices.

Another school shooting. I read about it and can’t help but wonder where so many people have gotten the idea that their anger, disappointment, frustration, or any other emotional experience, entitles them to take a life – any life. Where did that come from? How long has this toxic seed been part of our culture? Did the shooter understand this is unacceptable behavior? If he did understand that, and chose to do it anyway, where did he get the idea that this is a course of action appropriate to his emotional experience? Why do so few people understand what poison their “righteous anger” actually is? Even otherwise good-hearted people can be drawn into making the most outrageously hateful statements about the value of another life (don’t read the comments on the internet, People, I’m just saying there’s an astonishing amount of rationalized hate out there), given the opportunity to frame that other human being as a bad guy of some kind. We most commonly succumb to hate due to a lack of empathy… I don’t know how to fix that for the world, or my nation. I’m still working on it for me – one practice at a time. Changing myself is within my control; I have choices.

Time to begin again.

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Categories anger, Anxiety, Brain Injury, Free Will, Frustration, grief, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, The Art of Being, The Big 5, War and News of War, weight loss secrets, women, Words
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