Archives for category: Logic & Reason
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Potential, Expectations, and Going With the Moment

January 30, 2013 //
1

I am having a very good day, so far. I feel well-rested, balanced, and happy. Contented. I slept last night.  I often wonder if this particular feeling is something that some large population of ‘other people’ take for granted because it is their everyday state of affairs… or if that is a notion based on wishful thinking and a lifetime of thinking ‘happily ever after’ is a reasonable goal? Today, and for some weeks now, I am not striving for, struggling with, or stressing over ‘happily ever after’. I’m working on skill building instead, and learning to accept and value my experience – all of it.

I sometimes deliver myself some pretty terrible hurts because any moment is potentially quite horrible (or to be fair, quite wonderful, or quite dull…), and while I generally expect to survive, whatever it is, I rarely allow myself to build expectations of wonder or delight.  When I have allowed myself the thrill of merry anticipation of a great experience, it seems I am often just destroyed by hurt and frustration when some little thing goes awry. I create a horrific see-saw of expectations and reactions based on a huge variety of potential experiences. I hurt with it. I have cried for hours bereft of a pleasure there was no guarantee of having in the first place. It seems pretty silly, from my vantage point of this last however-many-days… letting go of guessing at the potential outcomes, letting go of fearful what-ifs, letting go of implicit expectations of the extraordinary, delightful, or disastrous… and just being in the moment, and hearing and feeling and seeing. I wonder if I will get good at this? I still have to commit to it very specifically moment by moment, day by day, for now. I’m stunned at how much is going on around me that I routinely miss, or misunderstand.

Tangentially, I’ve begun walking to work regularly, again. It feels good to get back on track with my health and fitness goals. I had been commuting to work on foot regularly as part of my fitness routine, until a fall in the summer of 2011 injured me badly enough that walking any distance was both difficult and painful. Sometimes walking still is painful, but so far the 2.2 miles from home to work in the morning, when my ankle is rested and strongest, is comfortable and allows me to hit my 5-miles-a-day goal pretty easily.  I’m no fitness guru, I just want to be as healthy as I can be, and live a long, fit life. I’ve got some work to do, but I think calorie management, balanced nutrition, and regular exercise are good places to start.  I also find when I am walking my mind is free to wander in a very productive way on complex subjects, artistic whimsy, or highly emotional topics that need my attention. Walking meditation is a good fit for me as a being. Even when I’m agitated or very angry, walking is the thing I feel driven to do more than any other thing, and although I suspect that is more about ‘walking away’ or even ‘running away from home’ sensations than a healthy break from conflict or stress, I am generally able to put that time to good use gaining perspective and balance. Adding strength training back to my routine is next…maybe this weekend? I have an idea of ‘beauty’ in my head (that seems healthy and achievable) and I’d like to be that while I am still young enough to do so…which is to say, before I’m old enough to want to embrace a new idea of beauty for the woman I will become, then.

It was a quiet morning, this morning, and the feeling of safety and contentment linger. I hope it lasts the day, and if it doesn’t I will try to remember that because it exists right now, it has existed and will exist again. I’m enjoying the experience of feeling happy, and contented – and feeling safe to have those feelings.  I haven’t always had that feeling of emotional safety, and it is a wonderful feeling. It’s the relationships that matter on that one, but the relationship I have with myself didn’t offer much potential for a feeling of emotional safety until recently. Working on having a better relationship with myself, understanding myself, and accepting myself seem to be paying off in ways I didn’t expect – like smiling all through an ordinary Wednesday morning, even though there’s nothing spectacularly awesome going on. Right now it feels easy to treat people around me well, including me.

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Categories Anxiety, Brain Injury, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Menopause, Perspective, Relationships

Bliss, Confusion, Fatigue, and ‘Real Life’

January 29, 2013 //
5

I had a great evening, yesterday, but a poor night’s sleep last night. I woke restless and anxious in the wee hours, and couldn’t put it to rest with meditation, yoga, or having a quiet contemplative smoke in the dark. I knew what I was anxious about – I’m just about finished moving, but there’s just a thing or two more to do, and I feel a noticeable and probably appropriate ‘performance pressure’ to manage the remaining tasks well.  Even at 49, I sometimes find myself inappropriately ‘eager to please’, like the small girl ‘helping Daddy with projects’ that I once was.  Is that ‘something to fix’? I often wonder; I’m rarely certain.

I’m tired. Four hours or so of sleep isn’t enough for my best emotional balance or cognition. I already know this about me. I want to learn to deliver my very best in spite of limited sleep – because sleep disturbances, nightmares, and insomnia are all part of my experience on a pretty frequent basis. I want to master treating people well, even on bad days.

Now I have MC Frontalot ‘Your Friend Wil’ stuck in my head.  I’m not surprised. I find hope for the world in the existence of Wheaton’s Law, in general.  I find dismay in the number of news articles published every single day wherein the subject matter is really not much more, or less, than someone being a dick to someone else. Seriously. What’s up with people being mean, or inconsiderate, the most common definition of ‘being a dick’, and what makes any one of us think it is ok when we, ourselves, are being dicks? I had considered linking to some of those very articles… discovered so many exceptional examples that doing so quickly looked like some sort of thesis research and less a blog post.  I challenge you to go directly to your favorite news source of a current events type and not find at least one article on the ‘front page’ that details someone being inconsiderate, rude, abrasive, insensitive, or mean at the heart of it.

I’m tired, I haven’t had enough sleep – but I am resolved to get through today without being a dick to anyone, especially my loving partners. I mean – wow – how ungracious would it be of me to celebrate the wonderful evening we shared last night by being a dick today? So, ok… back to that ‘mindfulness’ thing, I’m guessing.

I’m rambling, and feeling vaguely that I ‘owe you an apology’ for it… my focus and cognition suffer when I’m fatigued. I guess that’s true for everyone, but I know that with my starting point today I will want to be extra cautious with my behavior later, when I’m more tired, or risk irrational mood swings or tantrums. I wish I understood more clearly which pieces of my puzzle are my brain injury, my hormones, or my PTSD…although…I don’t know that the information, if I had it, would change my experience.

I really want to get completely settled in to my new home and paint. I am struggling to express certain things – to myself, I suppose, more than to someone else, and I know I hear me so clearly in texture and color.

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Categories Anxiety, Art, Brain Injury, Logic & Reason, Menopause, Perspective, Relationships, Sleepless Nights

Madness, Menopause, Magnesium

January 28, 2013 //
2

I’ve been told by more than one professional of one sort or another that I would “probably calm down after menopause”.  Glossing over how that observation always seemed to trivialize my experience, diminish me as a free will adult, and offer little present-day hope, it was also something I’ve held onto for a long time… it will be all be better…eventually… like magic… without effort.  Just a simple biological, chemical change in my reproductive functionality and I will be well and whole and somehow saner and more balanced.  Let’s be real – that sounds too good to be true, and even if it is true, wouldn’t it be a ludicrous failure to manage my affairs in an adult way to simply sit around throwing random tantrums and waiting for menopause? My hormones and I have put my loved ones through hell, more than once.  I’ve even dared to say, out loud, that I am ‘not high maintenance’ and even ‘not especially moody’. Wow.

I am… high maintenance, and then some. In spite of myself.  I’m moody, too – especially moody, and rather often.  I have indulged in tantrums that go so far beyond what could be considered acceptable from an adult I’m lucky I still get invited to parties by proper grown ups.  I can do better than this – can’t I?  I’ve read my share of ‘self help’ books, and mostly they haven’t done much in the way of help, because… ready for it? They’re just books. In spite of the lack of action on their part, and mine, a few outstanding books have stood out… and I go back to them again and again, to learn more than the words on the pages. Brain injury, PTSD, the slow march toward menopause… I still choose my actions, don’t I? Well, I guess I don’t always – but it sounds like a good starting point. (Do I get a ‘starting point’ at 49? Extraordinary!)

So, thoughtful, mindful, well-chosen action, considerate of my loved ones and associates and fellow-man – and doing my best to ‘take care of me’, too… it seems a good approach. It’s easy on paper – that’s what makes the ‘self help’ industry thrive. The ideas are so simple, so effective – and like fad diets, they probably all work.  If I do them.  That reminds me, a healthy diet, a good fitness plan, managed and adequate rest, harmonious healthy relationships all add up to thriving, don’t they? Does it even take money? Is a book even necessary? (Not always; this weekend I enjoyed the opportunity to share how helpful regular baths in Epsom salts have been for stabilizing my mood and helping me sleep. A man in line with me at the store could not resist asking what I needed all the Epsom salts for, and it was clearly on the order of a lifeline to hear something as simple and inexpensive as Epsom salts have given me so much relief; it was clear from our exchange that both he and his wife are suffering through her change.)

I did my best this weekend to choose my words and actions well, to nurture my loved ones and not take their experiences personally, to take care of my own basic needs, and where I could to assist my loved ones in meeting theirs, too. It was a pretty great weekend.  I suspect it makes for a dull blog post, but I feel pretty good today.

Happy Monday! Being nicer today feels easy…

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Categories Brain Injury, Epsom salts, Logic & Reason, Menopause, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Turning 50, Words

My Eyes, My Camera, A Sunrise

January 22, 2013 //
8

I am having a very nice morning. I was musing about just how nice, and the feelings that gives me, and watching the sun rise, as I waited for my bus to work. The colors were amazing; crimson and scarlet and magenta and orange, pale streaks of mauve and a hint of lavender off to the edges, and in the foreground the contrasting darkness of the trees, bared branches of winter, reaching across those bold colors. I was struck by it and eagerly pulled out my camera (phone) to capture the amazing vista…but my camera will not photograph a sunrise. A little frustrating, but not a big deal. I keep hearing the phrase in my thoughts, though,  as I wait for the bus… “My camera will not photograph a sunrise.” I have the vague sense that as sentences go, it wants to tell me more, but I don’t find more there to know.

My brain injury is a frontal lobe injury. It effects memory and executive function, and likely has for the entirety of my adult life. I contemplate that a lot lately, and how that may have changed my experience of life, and how well/poorly I handle relationships and social interactions or make decisions. I have a lot to learn… having found out about my brain injury doesn’t change past behaviors or experiences, but it has serious potential to change my understanding of how my behaviors and experiences have evolved, what has driven my choices and decision-making, and why some things frustrate me so much (and I hope, also what I can do to improve on how I cope with those things).  I spent the solitary portion of my morning reading about memory over coffee.  I moved on to reading about executive functions while I rode in to work, and during my morning break, a short article about the frontal lobe. I read a lot. (Words work for me, mostly, although I have to read things more than once, take notes, cross reference bits I’m not sure about, and talk things through to gain an in depth understanding of a subject.) This morning I am a little awed at how easily the ‘issues’ I’ve had, challenges, bad behavior, and weirdness line up so cleanly with the information in my reading regarding frontal lobe damage and potential consequences to executive function and memory. I keep staring at the words and wondering why, if I can see these connections so easily here and now, no one looked at the list of shit I’ve been working through for so long and made the connection in the other direction? (You know… “Damn, considering X, Y, and Z, I have to wonder if you are suffering from some sort of damage that effects executive function?” I mean, seriously Medical Science, it actually seems that obvious in hindsight.)

It’s a lot to think about. I vacillate between feeling beat down to the point I can’t go on, overwhelmed to the point of giving up, and feeling like I do today; hopeful, and armed with new knowledge about how and why I am who I am, and where I can go from here with more appropriate tools.  I am hoping that gaining a deeper, more profound understanding of how my injury effects cognition, decision-making, and memory, that I can develop a better set of coping skills – more effective, more reliable, and less ‘guess work’. How do I change how I cope with my brain injury so that I am able to treat people consistently well? How do I make good decisions, and take care of me? How do I reduce the level of agitation and turmoil in my every day experience knowing now that much of it is born of simple frustration, fatigue, or challenges that are a by product of my injury? As is so often my experience, I have more questions than answers.

I need to paint – there are things I need to say that I don’t have words for; a sunrise, a memory I can’t quite remember, a portrait of a fracture I can’t see… I need to feel heard.

Categories Art, Brain Injury, Logic & Reason, Relationships, Words

Tear Down Your Idols

January 20, 2013 //
0

A Sunday evening before a Monday workday and I am contemplating what has been a very productive and pleasant weekend spent in the company of people I love, and thinking about the immense damage we do to ourselves over time, and how it becomes damage we do to others. Of course, a lot of the damage we do to ourselves has its origins in the damage done to us in life, and there’s that whole ‘choice piece’ to contend with, because once the damage is done, the choices are still our own, and then there’s the ‘accountability piece’ too, because whether we willfully choose an action or not, the ownership of the things we choose to do falls to us regardless of our choice, in all but what is forced upon us. It’s complicated to think about, sometimes, and recently I think about the logic of choice a lot. Choice works best when you know as many of the available options as possible, and for years I just didn’t understand how wide open the vista of choice really is. That has limited me more than I understood.

I’ve been searching all my life for ‘happily ever after’ – a fairy tale ending, more or less, I guess. Not reality; reality hasn’t always been good to me. Something hit me this week, sometime in the midst of tears, pain, emotion, and turmoil, both internal and external… maybe ‘happily ever after’ misses the point as goals go? Would I be more productive, more satisfied, and even happier if I turned my attention away from the goal of ‘happy’ and focused more on ‘meaning’? A mindful, meaningful, life… it’s a different idea for me. I’ve tended a bit more toward easy gratification of obvious desires, or needs that don’t infringe on other priorities (or do so in a way I can overlook).  I don’t have a lot more to say about that from the vantage point I have this evening, as I watch the sun sink low, and listen to the contented sounds of life at home; I just have hope.  Hope feels pretty good, and for the moment, good choices don’t seem out of reach.

I’ll admit that one thing that has been big for me lately has been ‘tearing down my idols’ – finding the bits and pieces of nasty leftovers in my basic learning of things that simply are not true, don’t actually reflect my values, or are remnants of assumptions, premises, and teachings that have been long over-turned but not corrected in my thinking and decision-making. It’s a slow process and sometimes quite sad; the discovery that some long held notion is a ghost in my machine, or worse still some malicious booby trap left over from some earlier time, place, and relationship…well, saying ‘it hurts sometimes’ doesn’t even begin to describe the quantity of tears or magnitude of disappointment.  It is worth it to make the slow steps to being who I most want to be.

Categories Logic & Reason, Perspective, Relationships
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