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It’s Time

April 26, 2018 //
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This morning, I got up, did some yoga, showered, dressed, made coffee, and sat down to write. Half an hour later, I found myself watching this video. Omg – I laughed and laughed. Then I made a frowny face at myself, because I’d been noodling around mindlessly on the internet for half an hour before video content provoked me to take yet another still closer look at what I am doing with my time.

Well, shit. Fuck you, Internet. We’ve got to come to an understanding. I have shit to do, and Adam Conover is right. Thanks, Adam. Clearly, I needed another reminder.

It’s not really the Internet that’s to blame, though. We’ve begun carrying a computer literally everywhere (so handy!) and rely on it for all sorts of communication and task management. Super useful, no doubt, but… I don’t know about you, but I do literally rely on my device these days. Perhaps “too much” (that’s pretty subjective). There are things about connectivity that I really appreciate, cherish, enjoy, and which enhance my quality of life… then there’s the time drain of mindless scrolling, checking, and clicking. That’s where the problem lies, for me. Content providers know it, too, and since their purpose is to engage me (repeatedly) and keep me engaged (as nearly continuously as possible) for profit (or data)… well… it’s on. I’ve got to take my time back.

Shit. More practices. More practicing. lol

I already do some things to limit mindless internet time-losses, but clearly not enough. It’s not the Internet that is “at fault” and the content providers are not “to blame” for my lack of attention span these days; it’s the mindlessness.

Here’s a question; is mindful internet use a thing? Can I learn to do that? I don’t have an answer to that question (yet), but it seems one worth asking. I’d certainly like to have my time, attention, and focus, back. I’d like to more skillfully curate the content that seeps into my brain through my faces holes. (Fuck, how much less angry would we all be if we a) didn’t continuously pump outrageous stimulus into our consciousness and b) gave our fucking brains a real rest now and then?)

My job is “connected”; much of what I do during a work day requires both basic connectivity and also browser-based tools. I’m skillful at remaining focused on work-tasks (and tools) on the clock. That’s a start. Discipline. Practice. Boundaries. Okay, I can do this, right? But… do what exactly? First I guess I need to have a clearer picture of which specific behaviors, moments, or circumstances are problematic, and address those quite directly…

Today I head back to the office with a question in my head. A purposeful undercurrent in my thinking that has the potential to offer me vast improvements in quality of life and available time for the things that matter most. By itself, this energizes me and fills me with purpose. These are feelings I enjoy. I pause to appreciate them, because savoring this moments is a worthy way to enjoy my time. (Far more so than scrolling through Facebook yet again!)

I’m concerned that “the damage is already done”, but aware that we become what we practice. This isn’t a hopeless scenario. I can craft so much of my consciousness – with practice, and incremental change over time. Today, I’ll go to work and return home, and make a point of being very mindful about my internet use – just today, very specifically seeking to understand more clearly the magnitude of the challenge ahead. 🙂 Every journey needs a starting point. This path looks promising…

It’s time to begin again. 🙂

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Categories Anxiety, Brain Injury, Free Will, Frustration, Healthy Living, inspiration, Logic & Reason, Mindfulness, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, Perspective, Relationships, Spring, The Art of Being

I Can’t Fix You

April 24, 2018 //
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Oh hey, good morning. 🙂

It’s true, by the way. I can’t “fix” you. (Maybe you aren’t even actually “broken” in the first place, however “broken” you may sometimes feel…) Similarly, you can’t fix that person who is dear to you, or even that yearning stranger seeking support. We are not machinery. What is entirely possible and totally within reach is to change our experience. We can change our choices, change our reactivity, change our potential for resilience, change our actions, change our words, and even change our thinking – which, as it turns out, is a very big deal. We each (all) have choices.

“Be Like Water” 11″ x 14″ acrylic on canvas w/glow and India ink. 2018

Pro-tip: If you regularly feel like you are spinning out of control and “have no choices” or “lack options”, taking some time to explore potential choices and options you have previously set aside as “impossible” or in some fashion unworthy, may be really worthwhile. If you’ve narrowed down the vast list of potential choices and options to just some small handful that from your present vantage point “all suck”, you’ve made at least one choice already; the choice to disregard some possible choices. I’m sure you have your reasons. Maybe handle that differently? Be open to more than what you, yourself, think is “obvious”.

Sometimes we need to step back to see things in context, or to gain perspective.

I spent the weekend delightfully, mostly painting and hanging out with friends. I provided comfort and support where it seemed needed. I felt valued and appreciated for “being there”. Realistically, I also know that I didn’t “fix” anything at all; I simply took time to allow friends to be fully heard, and supported their good hearts. Where helpful, I shared the practices that support me most, myself, hoping that these would be similarly helpful for my friends. I am aware, because this is how I roll these days, that very few of my friends will adopt practices that require real accountability, self-awareness, reflection, and… verbs. A lot of verbs, and slow incremental change over time, don’t sound nearly as enticing as a fad diet, or a horoscope, or a quick fix, or someone willing to tell us it’s “not our fault”. In a moment of emotional crisis, anything at all that helps calm the storm is welcomed. When the storm passes? Well… few people really want to do a lot work, though, right?

“So Deep” 11″ x 14″ acrylic on canvas w/glow, glitter, and India ink. 2018

I’m not mad. I already knew I couldn’t fix you. I just want you to be well, and to be whole, and to care for yourself. 🙂

I maintain a certain healthy distance from OPD (Other People’s Drama) as much as possible. This works for me. It doesn’t make me less sad, when I see a friend in tears, to maintain such boundaries – it does tend to make me less frustrated that I was not able to “fix them”, by allowing me to remain mindful that honestly I never could, and also, there are verbs involved – not all of those are mine. 🙂 We each have to walk our own hard mile. We each have to face our own dark night. We each “hit bottom” our own way, in our own time, over the things that hold most meaning for us individually – our dearest loves can not save us from ourselves… But we can. No kidding. It’s just those damned verbs, and the slow passage of time, and the lies in our heads that tell us any differently. It’s just one more bit of resistance (within ourselves) to overcome when we undertake healing and change.

“Down by the River” 11″ x 14″ acrylic on canvas w/glow, glow glitter, and India ink. 2018

Over the weekend, I also received the rest of my art work back. My Traveling Partner picked it up for me. I felt very relieved to have them returned to me. I find myself wondering about my attachment to them. It’s something for me to think over; it may be less than ideally healthy to treat them as literal pieces of myself.

“Because…Love” 11″ x 14″ acrylic on canvas w/glow and gold leaf. 2018

Here it is, time to begin again. Working from home, still sick, but I am at least sufficiently improved to work. That’s progress. 🙂 What about you? What will you choose to do differently to improve your experience? What will you change to become the person you most want to be? What practices will you commence to become, over time, someone other than you are? Are you ready to become the person you most want to be? There are verbs involved… I can’t do them for you.

Here’s a great place to begin again. You’ll still need to practice. 🙂

 

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Categories Allegories, anger, Anxiety, Art, art and the artist, Brain Injury, Free Will, Frustration, grief, health, Healthy Living, inspiration, Logic & Reason, loneliness, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, pain, Parables, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, Spring, The Art of Being, Words

Take a Different Route

April 19, 2018 //
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I’ll head out this morning, and in a relatively short time (hours) I’ll catch up with my Traveling Partner for the weekend. Friends. Music. Goings on. The weekend. Lovely – and I am so looking forward to it! I’ve missed him greatly.

I plan my route with care this morning. See, there’s this particular experience I have pretty much every time I make this trip, and it’s not pleasant. There’s rather a long stretch of “highway” that is almost always gridlocked, aggravating, and populated with frustrated aggressive drivers, a handful of unskilled ones, and lurking in the mix, one or two people who are actually straight up “up to no good” – you know the ones; folks that get angry, take shit personally, and then act out their anger in real life putting everyone else at great risk. Drivers who “brake check” someone following them uncomfortably closely, or who is simply driving faster than they are. Drivers who deliberately cut other drivers off – and then “brake check” them, to “make a point” or otherwise demonstrate dominance. Drivers who “match speeds” with a car in an adjacent lane specifically to prevent another driver from passing them. It’s dumb – and it’s dangerous. Fuck, people, just drive your god damned car, and do it safely. Focus on what you’re doing in the world, yourself. Shit.

See? I’m already caught up in a moment that hasn’t even happened yet. I don’t enjoy that, and I would prefer not to just hand over the keys to my emotional experience to some rando fuckknob in a car. lol So. I am replanning my route with greater understanding of what I want from my experience in life, instead of letting my gps direct me down the same road everyone else is taking.

I have the time to enjoy the drive. I shoot for making it enjoyable, instead of “efficient”. Can I literally not even travel that stretch of highway at all, perhaps? Looks like I can – on a smaller rural road. My gps would not ever even consider this route; it’s a bit too close to the interstate highway, and the gps doesn’t really understand why I would choose anything else. In miles, it’s a bit more distance to drive, but in estimated time it’s very nearly the same. Speed matters, and the section of interstate I won’t be driving rarely moves faster than a residential street as it is. Do I mind not driving freeway speeds? Not at all. Not a thing with me, it’s more about a comfortable experience of  being neither rushed nor crowded. I plan my route down this rural “state highway”, and find that it avoids basically the entire stretch of the freeway that aggravates me. Nice. What will the experience be like? I don’t know – I haven’t had it yet. I do know it won’t be “the same” – because I have chosen differently. 🙂

It’s a metaphor. You have choices. Begin again. ❤

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Categories Allegories, anger, Anxiety, Brain Injury, Free Will, Frustration, Healthy Living, inspiration, Logic & Reason, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, Spring, The Art of Being, The Big 5

Well, Shit…

April 17, 2018 //
1

…This morning I woke with an idea worth writing down, worth contemplating, worth saying more about… and… I let my brain touch Facebook first. The thought? Gone. It lives no more. It has been erased, or sent wherever forgotten ideas go. That’s a thing. It totally happens. Sometimes it’s the commute… great tidbit to fuel creative thinking, a fragment of really neat poetry, a thing I’d really like to do, or consider, or… I get in the house, I reach for a device, Facebook touches my brain… brain buffer is immediately emptied of all valued content and replaced with… nothing much. Just a sense that I was thinking about something “important”, but it’s gone. lol Worse? I’m often left with the sensation of “having been interrupted” in the middle of “something important” when I am distracted by all things internet… and I wander around searching for that interrupted moment of conversation or… and it turns out to just be… Facebook.

Fuck you, Facebook. lol You’re a damned nightmare. A drama generator. A perpetual lie machine. An outrage escalator. You are best suited for staying in touch with distant friends I’d have otherwise completely lost touch with – and famous for dumbing down an entire global population (or, you know, whatever you can reach).  Omg, you are such a wreck. You’ve gone from keeping us all connected to manipulating our emotions and our understanding of reality, and spilling all our secrets – like a sociopathic ex. It’s time to set better boundaries with you – and your buddy “television”, too. Yeah, I haven’t forgotten that jerk.

Just a heads up I’ll be taking a digital break over this coming long weekend. 🙂 You heard it here; I’ll be logging out of social media accounts, and even turning off my phone, a lot. 😀 I’m so excited. lol So, Thursday morning will be my last post of the week (I don’t want you to worry).

It’s a worthwhile choice to make. I’m not objecting to the technology (yet) or connectivity, generally (it’s a utility in the 21st world), I’m just saying I don’t intend to let it control me; it is my will and intention that it be a tool in my service. It’s a choice. There are verbs involved. It’s going to take some practice. 😀

I’ll be back, though, probably late Sunday evening, with pictures, and thoughts, and scraps of poetry I have not forgotten. We’ll begin again. 😀

 

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Categories Brain Injury, Free Will, Frustration, Healthy Living, inspiration, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, Perspective, Practices, Spring, The Art of Being

Human Means a Lot of Things

April 15, 2018 //
0

I woke during the night with an unsteady tummy. I took steps to be prepared for being sick if things were to turn for the worse; I left the light on in the hall bathroom and a hair tie on the counter. It’s not the closest bathroom of the two in this place, but it is bigger, and more suited somehow to being ill. It’s near enough. Easy to get to, too. So. I was prepared, and I went to back sleep.

I woke sometime shortly past day break. 6:30-ish. I slept in. 😀 Well… that’s my idea of sleeping in. I’m usually up by 4:30 am. I woke to a tidy home, a clean kitchen, and a smile on my face. Nice. There are a few things to do today, to face the short work week ready to travel: some tidying up, laundry, vacuuming, empty the dishwasher of clean dishes… basic household care. It’s a good day for it. I feel rested. The gray featureless sky doesn’t tempt me to the trail – or to the studio. I have brunch plans, and a partially read book. Brunch and housework sounds like a fine when to spend the day, and winding things down with a quiet evening reading sounds lovely, too.

As I sip my coffee, first one brunch friend, then another, lets me know they can’t make it today. I hear from my Traveling Partner as we cross paths in the digital world, as I wake up, and he winds down from a long night. By the time I finish my coffee, brunch “with…” has become “brunch solo?”. I barely register any disappointment – and perhaps this sets me apart from some sorts of people; I genuinely value and enjoy time spent with myself (particularly now that I’ve learned to treat myself well, generally).

I pause for a moment to consider, seemingly rather randomly, that “genuinely” and “generally” positioned so close to each other in a sentence seem a tad repetitive, even though they are totally different words. Then I find cause to be irked with the frequency of -ly endings. I notice my coffee is finished. I feel irked by that and slightly irritable. I take a deep breath, relax, and allow myself to recognize that I am, actually, a bit disappointed about brunch falling through. Acknowledging the feeling, however fleeting, prevents it from becoming festering discontent. The moment needed nothing more than awareness, respect, and acknowledgement, and the feeling dissipates. Emotions are funny that way. Fight them, they fight back. Embrace them, feed them, they deepen, and sometimes take over. Resist them completely, they flare up in the background, influencing our experience of other circumstances in sometimes subtle ways, and altering our understanding of other moments. Acknowledge them with awareness, respecting the experience without fueling the fire, and they become a sign post on a journey, a reminder, and a moment observed; that tends to be what I’m going for these days.

I find myself still a bit irritable, and not finding anything in my immediate environment or experience to explain that, I pause my writing and do a quick “self inventory”. I take a moment to simply breathe and feel my feelings, both those of my physical experience (sensations) and those of my cognitive experience (emotions). Emotionally, I feel pretty at ease, and content. Physically, I find myself having to take note of a substantial amount of fairly ordinary arthritis pain in my thoracic spine. Well shit. Okay. That’d be enough to feel sort of grumpy and out of sorts “for no reason” – only, there’s clearly quite an obvious reason to it, once I am aware of it. Awareness is such an amazing tool! I continue checking in with myself, and notice that in spite of the arthritis pain, no headache. Hey, that’s pretty nice. Uncommon these days. I enjoy that experience, and allow myself to sit with the awareness of “no headache” awhile, while I decide on the morning, and what to do about the pain.

I think over the day ahead. I’ve got what I need, generally speaking. Maybe a bite of brunch and a stop for art supplies somewhere? I head to a search tab to look up my options…

It’s a great day to begin again. 😀

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Categories art and the artist, Brain Injury, Free Will, health, Healthy Living, inspiration, Logic & Reason, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, solo hiking, Spring, The Art of Being, The Big 5
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