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Welcoming the Day

May 12, 2020 //
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I slept badly. Restless dreams. Woke ahead of the alarm, feeling… alarmed. I turned over and got comfortable again, just in time to hear the alarm go off. I felt stiff and sore getting up, which has persisted beyond a few minutes of yoga. I made my coffee in the dim ambient lighting of various household indicator lights, and a small lamp left on. The morning feels chilly, and my bones ache. The pain in my neck is a pain in the neck, slowly becoming a headache. I remind myself to take something for that, before the work day begins. I sit quietly, for awhile, wondering what’s missing from my experience of the morning, this morning. Something feels missing…

…At some point, after some reflection, I accept that I just “don’t feel into it” today… like… disengaged from my experience, and generally… uninterested. I try to tempt my consciousness to be a tad more joyful… or at least minimally appreciative to have another shot at living life… Minecraft? I shrug silently. “Whatever.” How’s the coffee? Fine, I guess. No enthusiasm. I’m in pain, and I slept badly, and this entire day ahead of me, from the vantage point of right here, right now, can just… yeah, I’m not so into it, this morning. I at least manage to avoid feeling altogether bleak.

So…okay. New day, old practices. I breathe deeply, and sit more upright. I exhale and feel my aching cramped shoulder, perpetually twisted in an impression of being a rock of some kind, relax just a bit. Another breath. Another exhalation. I let thoughts drift in, and I let each one go. The pain in my shoulder is connected to the pain in my neck, that becomes the headache at the base of my skull – and just on the left side, leaving the right side taunting me with what life could feel like if I didn’t hurt like this. I tear up a bit. Breathe. Exhale. Relax. I let that go, too. These honest tears that threaten to fall aren’t shameful in anyway, I’m just… also not into that. lol

Time spent on meditation helps me gain some perspective. I know this is only “emotional weather”, and may source with unremembered dreams and poor quality sleep. It’ll pass. I remind myself to be kind – to myself, too – and give myself some support and consideration. The sky beyond my window reveals a gray rainy-looking day ahead. No wonder I hurt so much, I think to myself. Damn, …this headache, though…

I sip my coffee, and half-listen to a video I only half-wanted to watch, anyway. It doesn’t seem to matter. I find myself rather earnestly wanting to simply fold up into a pile of warm heavy blankets and just… cry. Or sleep. There is a work day ahead of me, and much adulting to do, on an utterly ordinary routine day in this life in the time of pandemic, and it’s not going to wait on a headache. I sigh quietly, and breathe. Exhale. Relax. Let that shit go… again. Feels like it may be a long day, today. I remind myself to let the moments unfold without pre-loading them with expectations and assumptions, and to give the day a chance to be more than this moment is, right now.

Practicing healthy practices that support emotional wellness day-to-day doesn’t mitigate my fundamental humanity, or erase the challenges I have – and my results vary. There is no “perfect” to get to, no “finish line” to cross with a champion’s raised arms, triumphant in victory. The journey is the destination… and sometimes the path is rough going, and poorly illuminated. This too will pass. It’s a moment. Like other moments, it is finite, and of limited consequence taken all on its own. I make a half-assed attempt at shrug. One day of many – sooner or later there will be one that isn’t characterized by contentment and joy. That’s just real. I let that go, too.

Another deep cleansing breath. I exhale. I relax. I think about a second coffee. It’s time to begin again.

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Categories Allegories, Anxiety, Brain Injury, Free Will, health, Healthy Living, Mindfulness, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Spring

Morning Comes

May 11, 2020 //
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Lovely long weekend finally ended. It’s back to work this morning, somewhat reluctantly, maybe, or just a bit disengaged… It’s Monday. I’ll get through this. More coffee? More coffee.

After meditation and yoga, I sit down with my coffee, mulling over the cost of vanity. There’s even YouTube content that’s relevant. Well, generally speaking – it may not be the ideal fit to all circumstances, but it tends to lend itself to general thoughts on the cost of vanity. lol Vanity is expensive. I mean, well… more expensive than being wholly practical. That seems obvious. Aesthetics matter, though; we each have an idea of what we find “beautiful”, and a lot of different things go into that.

…There are more urgent matters. Life in the time of pandemic affects a lot of things we don’t necessarily experience directly, ourselves.

I sip my coffee and my thoughts move on. My mind wanders, seeking any reasonable distraction from the work day ahead. It’s an important day (for my team and I), and a major project moves another step forward. It’s also the busiest day of the week. So much going on! I face the day feeling fairly prepared… but I don’t really want to deal with it yet. Part of the push-pull of my attention here and now is my mind trying to reach for that “work stuff” now, when I have an hour or so still available for me. I breathe, exhale, relax, and let that work stuff go – again.

Good coffee this morning…

I open up my “to do list”, which is entirely focused on things I want (or need) to do (for me, or here at home, but definitely not employment related).  This list has definitely gotten smaller, even though I add to it almost every day; I do more than I add, every week. I look over the list with a certain feeling of satisfaction and accomplishment. A lot has gotten done since mid-March, when the pandemic “shelter in place” advisement came for us, here. I eye those “least approachable tasks” with some reluctance. I’m running out of other shit to get done. LOL I give some thought to each remaining task, and consider what about each one has that task still sitting on this list after weeks of doing things here at home. There are things to learn about myself hinted at (shouted?), and it’s worth learning those things.

Another Monday. Another chance to begin again.

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Categories Free Will, gratitude, health, Healthy Living, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Practices, Relationships, Spring, The Art of Being

Humans Being Human

April 29, 2020 //
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It’s early. Some yoga. Some exercise. Some coffee. The day begins slowly. I watch a video that illustrates human failures; it doesn’t matter which one. Humans being human. Humans pointing out failures. Humans reacting badly to having failures pointed out. Fail sauce just everywhere. So human. This coffee is good. I pause a moment and ponder good coffee vs dreadful coffee, and how often the only obvious difference in getting one or the other is a matter of human effort, and the success or failure of that effort. Humans being human, sometimes the coffee is… not good, at all. 🙂

Yesterday was a strange day. I mean, pretty normal in most respects, until a hastily, carelessly, place canister of fuel (for camping) dropped from a high shelf and whacked my Traveling Partner in the head. His day was disrupted, just as my work day was ending. There was definitely some bleeding involved, and our evening was spent nursing each other’s individual discomfort (he was injured, and the stress and anxiety of his injury resulted in an unexpected wholly unnecessary headache of migraine proportions for me), and we spent our shared time hanging out quietly. Pretty sure we had something for dinner… I don’t recall what. It wasn’t an important detail. What is important is how well we cared for each other. That really matters.

I woke ahead of the alarm, listening to my partner’s breathing for a few minutes before I got up, feeling safe and loved. That matters, too. It’s a nice way to begin a new day… although I could so easily just go back to sleep, this morning. I yawn, and laugh quietly.

Another day begins. I’ll be delighted for it to be utterly routine in all respects, no excitement required or sought. lol It’s still so early… I finish this coffee, and consider making another. It already feels like time to begin again.

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Categories Allegories, gratitude, health, Healthy Living, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Practices, Relationships, Spring, The Art of Being, The Big 5

Another Monday, So Far, So Good

April 27, 2020 //
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My first coffee is almost gone, and what’s left is almost cold. Another work week begins. Another Monday unfolds ahead of me. Life in the time of pandemic remains fairly constrained, and a little surreal, sometimes. It is what it is. Is it helping? Probably.

Fish swim in the aquariums. Over the weekend, my Traveling Partner added the skimmer I ordered to my 29 gallon peaceful community tank. I watched fish swim. Friday afternoon, the remaining new inhabitants of my shrimp tank arrived, were acclimated, and got to move in to their new home. I got some tidying up tasks handled. We spent happy hours talking over computer builds, and re-organizing this-or-that to improve our quality of life. It was a nice weekend. No drama. Good company. 🙂

Improving my meditation practice has been paying off in improved emotional resilience and reduced reactivity. Win. 😀 Getting more exercise has been improving my general fitness (and wellness), which is an exciting quality of life improvement, itself. So far so good, right? 🙂

Yeah, that’s it. Nothing to complain about, really. That, itself, points to a favorite practice; savoring the good moments. I know, it can be super satisfying in some way to linger over painful moments, challenges, petty aggravations – a bit like scratching a mosquito bite. It’s hard to leave it alone. It doesn’t really do any good, though, to scratch at it, dig at it, pick at it – and doing so causes real damage. So… as comparisons go, it’s so accurate it’s not a metaphor anymore. When we invest, emotionally, our time and attention and focus on some painful moment, or challenge, or bit of irritation or inconvenience, it gets bigger and more important in our thinking. It becomes a larger part of our implicit experience and the very nature of our character can be influenced by such things over time.

“We become what we practice” – spend enough time angry about shit, and anger becomes who we are, generally, and over time it will seem that there are many more things “to be angry about”. Letting shit go, letting small shit stay small, and refraining from taking things personally, over time, results in changes in “who we are”, too. It’s a choice. What experiences do you make time for? What emotional states do you linger in? What are you focused on, in life?

I don’t know that changes to my experience are the true drivers of the changes to how I experience my life, as much as changes to what I make a point of focusing on, and spending time with, emotionally. I do know things are far better than they were in 2013. I also know that if I were in a state of despair, right now, and someone told me “it’ll only take 7 years to change how you feel about life!” I might not have been sufficiently encouraged to make the changes I needed, then, to make… hard to say. There’s been a lot of work involved. Study. Practicing of practices. Self-reflection. More study. More practice… and repeat. Again.

…Here’s the thing, though; it’s worked wonderfully well. It’s been a profoundly successful journey. It is a journey still in progress, and one which I embrace with real enthusiasm. So much has changed…

…Every new beginning has lead me here. Each step along the way has had value. My results have varied. It has been necessary to growth through some uncomfortable experiences. So worth it. I smile, finish my coffee, and glance at the time… Already time to begin again. 🙂

…Where does your journey start? Are you ready to begin?

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Categories Allegories, Brain Injury, Despair, Free Will, gratitude, health, Healthy Living, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, Spring, The Art of Being, The Big 5

Making a List

April 22, 2020 //
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I’m sipping my coffee and making a list of things I want to get done this week. Tasks large and small make it to the list. I leave off those tasks that I easily and reliably remember to do. The list is a smattering of things my Traveling Partner asked me to take care of, the bulk of this list is tasks I want to get done, myself. Some of the things on my list could be considered “self-care” of some kind, others are basic housekeeping tasks that I’m not fond of. Writing that last sentence reminds me of yet another of those; I add it to the list. The list is not in any particular order. The list is not some kind of free-will depleting dictator or petty time-management despot. It’s just a list. The needs, and the list, are mine.

…I could ignore all of it, if I chose to…

No urgency this morning, just a quiet Wednesday morning in the time of pandemic. Restless human primates grow more restless the longer they are asked to practice self-isolation and social distancing. Grown human beings start throwing loosely organized tantrums because saving humanity may require some effort or impose some inconvenience on them, personally. It’s fairly comical, if viewed with some emotional distance. I’m stunned by how many “working class” Americans “drink the poison” offered to them by the business community and leisure class, though; the cries to be permitted to get back to normal are profit driven, in the background, and not tied to the real concerns about controlling the spread of this deadly pandemic. No, the economy (and profits of major businesses, and shareholders) does not matter more than human life. It just doesn’t. We may not yet be “grown up enough” to understand the value of life; we’re busy chasing shiny things.

I’m in a cheerful mood this morning. I am “not ready” for the day ahead, though. I hurt. It’s just physical pain. Yoga helps. Not enough, but some. I think this cup of coffee helps as much. lol I sip my coffee contentedly. No shot at boredom today; once work is over, I’ve got this list. 🙂 Any moment of boredom, however brief, brings me to the list. I do a task, I check it off. I feel like I’ve gotten something needful done. It’s enough. It keeps me busy and organized.

I finish my coffee feeling fairly grateful for the situation in which I find myself. I’m in a good partnership, sharing the national lockdown with a human being I truly adore, and whose love for me is apparent, every day. Reading the news, I find myself wondering how significant the spike in divorces will be following the return to “business as usual”? How big will the baby boom in December and January be? How difficult will it be to get workers who appreciate and enjoy working from home to return to their offices? How will the business and retail landscape change? How will K-12 students fare next year, and later on, compared to kids whose educations were not interrupted by a pandemic? What about college and trade school students whose educations were “finished” early to get them into the workforce to help out do compared to colleagues who got the full measure of their planned education, as time goes on? What will the long-term impacts actually be?

I swallow the last of my now-cold coffee. It’s time to begin again. 🙂

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Categories gratitude, health, Healthy Living, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Relationships, Spring, The Art of Being, Uncategorized
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