Archives for category: Healthy Living
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Consider This, Too

December 14, 2014 //
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I woke earlier than I wanted to, again this morning. I found myself, moments later, musing over a tasty latte my traveling partner made for me how strange it is that not so long ago I was reliably the first person awake every morning, even on weekend days. There were hours of quiet solo time on weekend mornings, rarely seeing anyone else awake before 8:00 am; time during which I could not easily get started on chores, and music would be ‘headphones only’, while the household slept, quiet time for reading, for meditation, for creative thought. Things changed at some point, though I am unsure quite when, or why. Now, I’m not only not the first person up on weekend mornings, I am seemingly utterly unable to ‘sleep in’. It just isn’t there for me, right now; the common sounds of movement, conversation, cupboards, doors, drawers, and conversation just don’t permit it. (I’d have to be heavily drugged to sleep through all of it, and I don’t take those sorts of drugs these days; the side effects and consequences are not worth it, long-term.)

I woke feeling reasonably rested, though, and not excessively discontent at the lack of languorous sensuous waking up time – it’s been so long since I enjoyed that experience I have begun to doubt it exists in reality. I dragged myself out of bed, and managed to refrain from bitching about being awakened, again. Meditation, and a few still calm minutes matter, and make a difference; I managed to keep from bitching aloud about the unsatisfying experience. The morning’s irritating wake up was behind me pretty quickly, and I sat sipping my latte after meditating, and enjoying the charm and delight of the holiday decor, the tree and the lights, and the quiet beauty of a pearly sunrise.

I’m enjoying my second coffee of the morning, an ordinary Americano, an ordinary morning. The laundry is started. The dishes are put away, and the dishwasher set up for the day’s coffee cups, plates, and flatware. I took my time with my morning yoga sequence, and because although I woke with a nasty headache, and a measure of arthritis pain, I didn’t feel quite as stiff as I often do, I tried a fairly simple arm-balance, my first such attempt. I happily toppled over a couple of times, trying again, until I was certain of two things: this will be easier when I’ve lost a few more pounds, and this is also something that requires patience with myself, and more practice. I feel satisfied with the attempt, and proud of myself to have come so far at all.

A holiday scene, for lack of a better segue.

A holiday scene, for lack of a better segue.

This morning I am thinking about contentment and consideration. It is mere coincidence that they both begin with ‘C’, but having noticed that, I’m finding it hard to let go of it, wondering what other related things I can add to the list that also begin with ‘C’. (My thinking brain is jumping into the morning with real enthusiasm – and full of distractions. lol) The point of today’s exercise is not lists of words that begin with the letter ‘C’, however. Today I am taking time to carefully consider which of my actions and choices are genuinely considerate of the needs and experience of others, and which are being rationalized as ‘considerate’, when in fact they are actions and choices that are specifically intended to meet needs of my own, any consideration involved being a byproduct, not an intention, or matter of will. It’s an important distinction, I think, because I am making choices; it seems necessary that my intention be entirely clear, at least to me.

Most inconsiderate behavior I observe – whether my own, or someone else’s – seems pretty consistently, and fairly literally, ‘thoughtless’. That makes sense considering the very definition of ‘considerate’. Do I have the will – and ability – to make each choice a thoughtful one? To make each action intentional? To truly consider the potential outcomes of each choice, each action, in advance? How much potential for joy, delight, and nurturing do I lose each time I take an action, or say words, thoughtlessly? Mindlessly?

Mindfully treating the world well, really being a considerate human being, is a very big deal; much of what is amiss in the world, regardless of the cause, could potentially be mitigated, if not entirely resolved, if each of us were truly, sincerely, wholeheartedly mindful and considerate. I don’t think I’m wrong about this one…but I don’t know that I have words enough, or the intellect, to deliver to you inarguable logical proofs. I look out into the world, though, and I can’t help but wonder… Would kidnapping and raping as a tool of warfare be a choice a considerate human being could make? Could a mindful, considerate law enforcement officer choke an unarmed man to death by willful intent, and aware of the deliberate nature of that choice? Could protesters become looters, or nihilists, in the passion of the moment – if they were considering the outcomes of their actions with willful intent, and consideration of their fellow human beings who would be affected? Could business leaders still justify forcing employees to involuntary labor on Thanksgiving Day, if they were making those choices with full consideration of the needs of others, and the impact on the hearts, souls, and experiences of their colleagues were in the forefront of their intent? Could a healthy young woman getting on a train shove an older lady using a walker out of her way and take the last available seat, if she acted mindfully, with consideration, and intent? Somehow…I keep finding my way back to the thought that simple consideration could solve a lot of the petty ills of the world with great ease – and potentially also ease some very major nastiness besides.

Help me prove it? Today is a good day to be mindfully considerate of the consequences of choices and actions, of will and intent, and of the needs of both self and others. Today is a good day to change the world.

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Categories Free Will, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Love, Mindfulness, more than a little bit of bitching, Perspective, Relationships, The Big 5, winter, Words

Possessed

December 13, 2014 //
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Possession is an interesting idea, with some nuance in its meaning. I mention it because I can often use the state of disarray among my possessions as a barometer of my emotional well-being. Bottom-line, the less tidy and organized my personal space is, the more likely I am feeling anxious, overwhelmed, unhappy, disordered, or just losing my grip on my affairs somewhat; it’s utterly reliable. I keep very orderly surroundings for myself when I feel balanced, content, and well. When my room is a mess, untidy, or ‘stuff’ is piling up (however neatly), I am likely also feeling ‘possessed’ – overcome and controlled by my experience, my possessions, my ‘to do list’, my calendar, and losing my sense of perspective and order. The choices I make with regard to my surroundings tend to reflect the conditions of my inner experience.

Morning coffee...contemplating order and disorder.

Morning coffee…contemplating order and disorder.

My room is a mess. I noticed days ago that ‘things are getting out of hand’. Clean laundry hasn’t been put away; it was neatly folded in the basket at the start of the week, but days of rummaging through it for something to wear has resulted in chaos. Paperwork is stacking in less-than-neat piles of this and that, once organized based on urgency, type of action needed, or some other shared characteristic; it’s not especially orderly now. My bookshelf tends to be very neat, and limited to things I’m likely to really want to ‘live with’ and have at hand; it’s now packed with the miscellany of everyday life, with no particular semblance of order, or aesthetic sense of perspective. My bed is usually carefully made up, sometime shortly after I’m up, dressed, and getting on with the day; lately, the bed-clothes remain in disarray long after I’m dressed, and often remaining so until nightfall returns for another bit of sleep.  I’m aware of these things, and dissatisfied with the lack of order, which compounds the anxiety and sense of being out of control. The solution is easy, and readily at hand any time – I can clean this shit up. It’s not a difficult thing, and if I were to tackle the project this weekend, it would not take very long; it’s not that bad, yet. The things that are the source of the disorder externally, are the also the source of the malaise, ennui, and lack of attention to details that are generally important to me, and I am stalled until I take care of me.

Another moment, some other coffee...

Another moment, some other coffee…

That’s the thing, isn’t it? Taking care of me is important…only…I’m not sure where to begin, since I’m not sure what’s up – or don’t want to face it. It could just be hormones. That always feels like something to face, something ‘wrong’, something that needs to be fixed – and it really isn’t. It’s just hormones and waiting it out until they change course is generally the simplest action, most reliably effective. Self-compassion becomes more effective than troubleshooting things in a more active way. If something more significant were amiss, I could expect it would reveal itself more honestly, I think. So, I wait it out, take care of me on other fronts, and hope that doing so will see enough energy restored, and will, and heart, and focus to want to tidy things up. I could use a good night’s sleep, too. It’s been weeks since even one weekend day found me sleeping in. I do well with 7 hours of sleep…I enjoy 8 very much, although I rarely sleep that long…lately I’m averaging just 5 hours a night, and often interrupted. I don’t feel sleep deprived quite yet, generally, but I yearn for a long night of deep recuperative sleep, and count on weekend days to be able to sleep as long as I care to, and wake when I wake. The world doesn’t help out much; I am too noise sensitive to easily sleep through common sounds of morning, and I’m often awakened by car doors, cupboards, footsteps, conversation in the hallway…all manner of small things that are too every day to avoid. It sucks. I sometimes find myself feeling angry, and wishing the world would do what I do, when people are sleeping nearby: nothing, and that done very quietly indeed. My behavior when other members of the household are sleeping is actually disordered, itself, and I don’t much talk about it – I definitely don’t insist other people do as I do. It’s a remnant of living with domestic violence; when someone else is sleeping, I find something very quiet and still to do, and do only that until they wake. I stopped wondering why no one else seems ‘willing’ to do that for me when I realized I wasn’t doing it to be considerate – I was doing it out of fear of waking someone scary. Baggage. Chaos and damage. Ancient pain.

Each time for the first time, each moment, the only moment...

Each time for the first time, each moment, the only moment…

I’m feeling cross and emotional today. Hormones. I’m also finding myself wasting bandwidth feeling resentful of having to deal with it at this point in my life experience – ‘menopause’ gave me hope that this bullshit would be finite, and have an end point. I’ve little tolerance for the frustrations of others today, and I don’t feel very social. Experience and intellect tell me these are very human experiences pretty common to the ebb and flow of hormones. The feeling of disconnection, too, and the anger about feeling that – all part of the hormone thing. I yearn for connection – and trying to get that feeling back mostly results in small moments of discord, emotional volatility, and exposure of communication challenges I am presently fairly helpless to resolve. It’s easier to keep to myself…maybe if I sit here long enough looking mad my face will stick this way? Is that where ‘resting bitch face’ comes from? Maybe if I sit here long enough I’ll want to make my bed, put away my clean laundry, and tidy up? That would be a nice change… right now I mostly want to hit things with a stick, or shout angry words, or throw stuff. I don’t permit myself behaviors of that sort – and yes, sometimes it requires will, alone. I’m very human.

I found myself wondering this morning if tales of demonic possession of old are nothing more than someone trying to make sense of some woman’s hormones…

A different coffee, on a different day, in another place; memories of love are sometimes captured in pictures of coffee.

A different coffee, on a different day, in another place; memories of love are sometimes captured in pictures of coffee.

Today is a good day to behave well, and treat others with great kindness. Today is a good day to keep my worst bits in check to improve my own experience, and to care for others. Today is a good day to linger on the pleasant moments, and accept that some of the bad bits aren’t ‘because of’ anything significant beyond my subjective experience. Today is a good day to recognize the subtle boundary between my own experience, and the world.

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Categories Anxiety, Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Hormone Hell, Menopause, Metaphors, Mindfulness, more than a little bit of bitching, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Sleepless Nights, The Big 5, women, Words

Fuss and Bother

December 9, 2014 //
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I’m feeling a bit unsocial this morning. The disrupted sleep and short nights are becoming an aggravation. I woke this morning thinking I’d slept enough…until sounds of life and the world at daybreak began to encroach upon my fragile consciousness. It’s not that bad, it’s been worse and I’ll get by just fine once I’m awake, my medication has kicked in for real, and I’ve had my coffee. Saying that, and really meaning it, I recognize for a fleeting moment how far I’ve come and what a big deal self-acceptance and self-compassion can be.

I’m enjoying evenings sharing favorite animation with my family. Some of them, one or the other of us as seen at some point before, and like so many things there is tremendous joy and fun in sharing them. Cowboy Bebop, Code Geass, and TriGun are on the menu lately, and I enjoy them all – and rarely find myself particularly aware of other lives, other experiences, and other people with whom I watched them until some quiet moment to reflect reminds me of them, and of then.

My traveling partner interrupts ever so briefly with a frothy cup full of love a tasty latte. There’s something extra wonderful and yummy about unexpected treats, trinkets, and gifts. Yesterday, shortly after arriving home, I was playfully advised that a package at the door for me was really for me, and please don’t wait to open it… It turned out to be a really neat fun cookie tray for baking sugar cookies and such into holiday shapes! (It is clear the holiday baking of the weekend was very well received. lol) I love the holiday season. It often seems that at this time of year everyone tries just a little bit harder to be more like the best person they imagine themselves to be, really putting their best qualities out there for the world. It’s lovely.

A latte. A quiet morning. I am content in this precious moment. What the next holds for me is yet unknown, and that, too, is quite okay. Small details matter, and cherishing these lovely moments, however insignificant they may seem, is by far the best gift I am giving myself this year.

Love is my lighthouse.

Love is my lighthouse.

Today is a good day to embrace each pleasant moment long enough to truly value it, to savor it, to make it memorable. Today is a good day to recognize the simple beauty of small joys. Today is a good day to be content. Today is a good day to help when I can. Today is a good day to change the world.

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Categories Brain Injury, Healthy Living, Love, Mindfulness, Perspective, Relationships, The Big 5

The Will to Practice

December 6, 2014 //
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I woke earlier than I wanted to this morning. I fell asleep later than I wanted to last night. The sleep in between those points was filled with distressing dreams that were neither pleasant, nor were they nightmares; they were instead rich in content, symbolism, and implication without being over-obvious, as if daring me to overlook what matters most in the storm of surrealism. I woke feeling stiff and twisted, with a headache that sources down low in my spine, and makes it way to my skull, a dull unrelenting ache that pulsates when I walk. It’s about as dreadful as it sounds…only…I also woke warm and dry, safe from physical harm, indoor plumbing near at hand, and clean drinking water besides. I woke to birdsong outside my window and a not-too-very-rainy morning, and the sound of Dave Matthews Band on the stereo; my traveling partner already awake, playing chess quietly. I woke to an offer of a hot latte made just the way I like it. I woke to a warm hug, and a loving smile. This is my very human experience; it’s not good sometimes and bad other times as much as it is generally a mix of details of a variety of sorts.

Over the past two years I’ve read a lot of words written by several people whose working lives are spent studying the neuroscience of emotion and consciousness. I’ve read about negativity bias, and have a very elementary understanding that the most intense experiences tend to be most memorable, and that we tend to prioritize negative experiences more highly on an implicit level as a survival trait. Sounds damning, sometimes. I’ve also read more than a little bit about a number of practices that can be put to use to minimize or mitigate our negativity bias – resulting in a more implicitly pleasant experience overall; they do work, I’ve tried them. I’ve read about (and tried) practices for calming my storming heart when my PTSD catches me unawares, or I find myself so fatigued that I am unexpectedly volatile. I have explored practices that have tended to take me from a very negative, bitter, chronically irritated and dissatisfied state of being, to a day-to-day state sense of self that tends to be rather calm, generally content, and mostly pretty joyful.

I hope I’ve never led you to believe it’s “easy” every day. I work at ‘happy’ and ‘content’ by practicing an assortment of practices that tend to take me that direction over time. There are verbs involved. A commitment to wake up every day and actually practice them – because they are only effective when I do them. Thinking about them doesn’t quite change anything. When I consider moments over the past two years when things just didn’t seem quite as good as they could be – speaking just of my own experience, subjectively – it seems significant that there’s often some days preceding during which I was less committed than usual to some key practice or another. (That’s often how I figure out which ones are ‘key’ for me personally! lol) I don’t feel any shame over that, and I don’t feel like a failure. (I hear my traveling partner’s voice in my thoughts asking in a humorous tone “Well, how do you feel?”) I do feel very human; encouraged by the bits that go well, and a little beat down by the things that don’t.

Like it or not, there are verbs involved. Real actions to take, that require some small effort of will – a decision, a choice, an intention followed through on with a behavior of some appropriate sort. There’s just no getting out from under the action-reaction thing. The actions I choose aren’t always ideal; that’s the next challenge, isn’t it? Once my will is firmly in place, and I’ve made a choice, and taken an action, then experience unfolds the next lesson like a map, and I see where my choices take me. Then the whole thing again, for some other circumstance. Life. I am learning to be more aware of the puzzle pieces themselves in this jigsaw puzzle, rather than straining to see the finished picture while I piece it together.

It’s hard to overstate the value I’ve been finding in the ‘taking in the good’ exercises in Hardwiring Happiness. I haven’t ‘finished’ the book yet, because I keep re-reading it, and meditating on pieces of the content that are most relevant to my own experience. The practice, particularly, of lingering over pleasant moments for a considerable time rather than allowing them to be so fleeting, and also of refraining from lingering over unpleasant moments and treating them fairly casually after-the-fact, is a current favorite; it really does seem to be altering my implicit emotional bias for the better. I recently started a simple practice for improving my perspective with regard to positive and negative interactions, intended to prevent me from taking such things personally, particularly when they are not (and they mostly aren’t). It’s a simple reality-check; if I am feeling very picked on and emotionally beat down, I make a list of the specific complaints, or negative feedback, directed specifically to me, about my actions – no other negative content is listed, because it ‘isn’t about me’. The first time I did it, I quickly recognized that I’d only actually been offered a single point of negative feedback – and the rest of the discussion wasn’t about me at all, however negative it sounded in my thoughts. A negative bias functions on a lot of levels, it seems. This simple practice has seriously improved my relationships with other people; in one case I was able to recognize that new boundaries needed to be explicitly set in a work relationship, without things blowing up, when my list made it clear that 1. the relationship was profoundly negative and critical, and 2. there was a legitimate issue surfacing as a theme that could be easily addressed.

Illumination, or artificial lighting?

Illumination, or artificial lighting?

Meditation does take a commitment. Practicing is action. Choices are necessary. Verbs are involved. The results, for me, so far, are entirely worth it. I sure don’t have ‘the answers’. I am finding it worthwhile to consider some of the questions carefully. Will… that’s the thing, isn’t it? The Will to Practice. How do I build Will? Practicing.

Today is a good day to experience the birdsong, the music, the laughter, and the love. Today is a good day to change the world.

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Categories autumn, Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Metaphors, Mindfulness, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Sleepless Nights, The Big 5, women, Words

Well, Here’s a Thought…

December 2, 2014 //
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Yesterday was cold – winter-cold, as in to say ‘it’s winter’. Yep. It’s generally the time of year for winter holidays in the northern hemisphere. I went to work bundled up in weather appropriate garb, and still felt stiff and cold by the time I got to the office. By the end of the day, I was in a nearly unmanageable amount of pain, and chose to bring my evening to an early close after a hot shower. I didn’t get to sleep any earlier, really, but I also didn’t treat anyone poorly. This morning I wake, stiff and hurting. Winter often brings more pain, and I find myself aware that my own awareness of that isn’t helping…I set that thought aside and reach for another, and my coffee.

On my way in to the office yesterday, I explored the recent significant increase in my anxiety level (work related), and used a variety of new tools and skills to take a look at more closely than I have. I used perspective to give myself an improved sense of scale and recognized it isn’t actually as severe as it once was. I used walking meditation to remain engaged in the moment, and aware of my emotional experience without judgement, and the seeming profundity of the feelings diminished considerably. I used body scan practices to sort out the emotions from the sensations, which tends to change the sense of an emotion from being very significant, to simply being, further alleviating the anxiety. I used cognitive practices I learned using SuperBetter – like a ‘reality check’ – to decrease my tendency to escalate internally based on untested assumptions, and each practice I practiced took me a step further from being anxious. The root cause was clear and obvious as soon as my heart was calm and my thinking was clear; it’s really just work anxiety. Hardly noteworthy; I’m sure everyone has occasional anxiety about work, career, employment…something in that area.

Work anxiety isn’t pleasant, and it does keep me up at night and messes with my sleep…but…what if my messed up sleep is actually causing the anxiety? What if it isn’t ‘real’ at all? Thoughts…emotions…both rather astonishingly lacking in substance…maybe I shouldn’t be so ready to attribute cause and effect, or be haphazard about assigning relative importance? As I walked I allowed myself to consider the extreme…what if ‘the worst’ happened? I startled myself to laugh out loud when I realized I was – even now – holding on to ‘losing my job’ as some  pinnacle of misery, some worst case scenario. It isn’t. My employment, what I do for a living, may well be the very least important, significant, or defining quality about me as a human being; its damned near irrelevant…particularly because of the person I am, and the values I hold, and what I hold most dear about myself, and life. Work? It’s a characteristic, and changeable. I’m a human primate; I’m adaptable. The loss of any one job doesn’t have more significance than any other change – unless I allow it to.  I felt a bit of vertigo as my values kicked my anxiety in the nuts. The work day was just fine – other than the pain I’m in.

It's all about perspective. What we choose to look at changes what we see.

It’s all about perspective. What we choose to look at changes what we see.

I woke this morning, stiff, and with a headache. The air feels too dry. I’m a bit cross. I do what I can to set clear expectations and boundaries with regard to mornings; it takes about an hour for my medication to be fully effective, for my brain to really come back online, and for my stiff joints to regain some mobility.  I take active steps to avoid interacting with people until I can more easily and reliably treat them well. Funny how often – even in the face of that very clear, very specific expectation and boundary setting – some human primate or another will crowd me, or try to have reasoned dialogue about…well, damned near anything. I’m just not ready. My traveling partner knows me well. He too is a human primate, and the recipient of some of my boundary and expectation setting. Tip for other free-range human primates: if you are going to step across that line, arriving with a hot tasty latte is an excellent success strategy. LOL My Americano was tasty, and hot… but there’s nothing ‘creamy’ about an Americano. As it turns out, I find ‘creamy’ an extraordinary delight in the morning. I still hurt. I still have this headache. Now I also have this tasty latte, and a really charming funny guy to hang out with before work!

Today is a good day to take things as they come. Today is a good day to be adaptable, flexible, and to make the best assumptions of others, where assumptions must be made at all. Today is a good day to change the world.

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Categories Anxiety, Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Love, Mindfulness, pain, Perspective, Relationships, Turning 50, winter
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