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30 minutes & a Snapshot of the World

January 6, 2016 //
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I am sipping my coffee quietly this morning, and scrolling through my Facebook feed. This morning I am aware that in about 30 minutes (the time it took me to ‘catch up’ since last time I looked at Facebook) I have built ‘a snapshot of the world’, complete with outrage, disapproval, offense, defense, humor, ire, and an occasional ‘what the fuck?’ moment. Well, it gives the appearance of being ‘complete’ – and it comes to me ‘endorsed’ by my friends, so it must be accurate, too? Right? Hardly.

Some time ago I made a point of cutting way back on media consumption, primarily because revenue-driven sensationalized media reporting of current events was actually doing me emotional damage and preventing me from finding contentment and joy by keeping me emotionally aroused and my PTSD symptoms simmering in the background all the time – no rest. The ‘easy’ part – and it isn’t easy – has been turning away from obvious ‘news’ media outlets; I have no cable connection, no network television access (by choice), and I stay away from ‘news’ sources most of the time (and when I do read news, I seek out the sources that are most strictly vetted, and often from foreign sources for an outside perspective). Still… there’s Facebook. I maintain a lot of distant connections with family and long-time friends through Facebook. It’s harder to avoid being exposed to the outrage machinery as I scroll through my feed – and I’m still so vulnerable; these are people who matter to me, what matters to them must also therefore matter to me… right? Ouch.

I’m learning. It takes time and practice to refrain from reading the articles. Many times the headlines are sufficient to determine whether there is implicit – or even explicit – bias in the source material, or the writing (sometimes just checking where the article came from is enough). I practice applying the same rules to items linked through Facebook that I do any article I might happen upon online. If a topic or event looks noteworthy, or of sufficient interest to read further – I leave Facebook, Google it, and read about it from the least biased most vetted best cited sources I can identify – instead of the linked article (reading the linked article only if I intend to comment on it). It’s time-consuming – and I don’t always have time for that. I will note that not once have I ever actually regretted not reading about some tragedy, or some political maneuver, or some socialite’s faux pas, or… you get my point, I’m sure; living life is far more engaging than reading about the latest outrage.

Outrage is profitable. Outrage generates a lot of revenue, and a lot of voter interest. Outrage is also damaging to the person experiencing it in the moment, and long-term lingering outrage takes a long-term lingering toll on our contentment and quality of life; it colors our entire experience. I’m just saying – when you allow your heart and mind to be taken over by outrage, whose interests are you actually serving? It’s a worthy question. I am answering for myself by walking on – I don’t need it. Your needs (and results) may vary. 🙂

In 30 minutes on Facebook I am easily able to form an impression of the world – the whole world, colored by the opinions of my friends list. I like my friends – else why would they be there in my friends list, right? Even so, I don’t think there’s much value in seeing the world only as it is limited and filtered through their impressions, their outrage, their filters and biases and then calling that ‘the world’. It’s a rather narrow view. A proper snapshot of ‘the world’ would be complete – and random, and messy, and unexpectedly exotic – and mundane – and quite probably with very little outrage going on at all, in any one moment or place, generally. My traveling partner has made similar observations recently, and it’s on my mind; how do I best make use of this awareness to increase my quality of life day-to-day?

There is power in perspective, and in choice.

There is power in perspective, and in choice.

I think I will start the new year a new way; I will refrain from linking news articles in Facebook (knowing that topics of interest will reach my friends in other ways from other sources). I will refrain from reading them there, too, since there are other better sources for news when I wish to ‘get caught up’. I will make more time to connect with people directly about things that matter to us in a positive way, instead – real conversations with human beings. I can’t shut down the global media outrage machine, but I can sure refuse to be a cog. 🙂

Today is a good day to be the change I would like to see. Today is a good day to use some verbs. 🙂

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Categories Anxiety, Brain Injury, Fiction, Free Will, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Mindfulness, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, The Art of Being, War and News of War, Words

No Sign of Perfection

January 5, 2016 //
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This morning I woke from a deep sleep to the strident beeping of the alarm. It was some seconds before I puzzled out what that rather irritating sound actually was. I got up. Did some yoga. Showered. Dressed. Brain still sort of fuzzy, sort of foggy… I sat down at my desk, feeling half-aware ‘something is missing’ and uncertain what that might be…

For awhile I sat here, at my desk, browser open, sort of ‘wandering around the internet’ without purpose or intent. After some while it finally seeps through my consciousness… coffee. I had somehow entirely overlooked making coffee! I started that process and managed to complete it without hysterical laughter – or maddening frustration – and also managed to make very nearly every possible mistake along the way toward the singularly worst cup of coffee I have ever made for myself, possibly in a lifetime (no, that’s an exaggeration – I’ve made coffee that was much worse). This cup of coffee is somewhat bitter, and both somehow too strong and also somewhat insipid – ‘thin’ tasting. Did I remember to empty the hot water from rinsing the paper filter and warming the mug? I suspect not. I definitely ground too many beans – no idea how I managed that, and since I suspected about half what was ground may have been left from yesterday (?), I started over…but didn’t start with a new filter, also… I mean – seriously? Have I ever made coffee before this?

I start completely fresh, once more, and the result is an acceptable cup of coffee, and a clean pair of jeans. Wait – what? Yeah. This is a better cup of coffee, but while I took the first couple sips I was thinking over the earlier attempt(s), and started giggling…which I attempted to stifle, causing me to somehow… sneeze coffee into my lap (avoiding sneezing it into my keyboard). I stop to look at the calendar and wonder ‘how is this not a Monday?’. Followed quickly by some amusement that human beings can take themselves at all seriously, ever.

I consider myself pretty decent at making a cup of coffee…and yet…today. I smile at how messy being human can be, just about the same time I notice I’ve left the burner on… (I find myself wondering how it is no one has designed a safety feature for stoves that shuts off a burner if there is no weight on it for longer than x seconds or minutes… that would be pretty convenient.) What I’m not enduring this morning is any additional stress coming from me, myself, directed at me in frustration or annoyance over this morning’s… challenges. Self-directed ire over such small things doesn’t have much positive value – it doesn’t improve the situation, or effectively cope with it, and tends to complicate matters by putting my heightened potential for frustration or anger between me and any other human being I may interact with later.  Giving myself a break and having a little humor about such things seems so much less likely to push me in the direction of having a crappy experience for an entire day. Bad cup of coffee? That’s just one cup of coffee, one moment of many, and such a small thing that it is literally possible to ‘do it over’ – what would be the point of becoming irate over it? Who would that serve?

More than an hour after waking, my brain finally seems to be coming on-line. I am beginning to feel alert – and it isn’t really the coffee. A few sips of coffee are not really so magical as to provide instant alertness, awareness, and presence – it’s just taking me awhile to wake up completely this morning, most probably due in part to changes in how I manage my medication and my pain on work days. Effective self-care is a complicated puzzle, and timing matters. Change is a thing, and it may take me a couple of groggy mornings to get back to a comfortable work routine. I take a minute to be patient with myself, and to consider the morning; are there steps I can take to be more comfortable, sooner? Is it a matter of patience, and practice? Are there some tweaks to my timing on pain medication that will prevent me being so groggy first thing?

A helpful reminder; I apply it equally to how I speak to myself these days.

A helpful reminder; I apply it equally to how I speak to myself these days.

Being human has its complicated bits and challenging moments. I’m not fighting it or looking for shortcuts. This isn’t a bad morning and, aside from a bad cup of coffee already replaced with a better cup of coffee, the day begins well. I will approach the rest of it one task at a time, one moment at a time, and enjoy the journey – the journey is going to happen either way, enjoying it just makes sense.

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Categories Anxiety, Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Metaphors, Mindfulness, pain, Parables, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, The Art of Being, The Big 5, winter, Words

Ready? It’s Time to Begin Again

January 4, 2016 //
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I am sipping my first Monday morning coffee on the first work day of the new year. Getting up on time was no challenge; the alarm was set. As is so often the case the night before I return to work after a break, though, I slept restlessly and lightly, waking often. I used the hot shower to ease the stiffness in my joints, and put on a lively playlist to start my morning, dancing to the Kongos as I made my coffee.

The night stayed cold, and the snow remains from yesterday; the walk to work will be icy. I am unconcerned. I will stay comfortable today with a hiking base layer under my work clothes, good boots, and my handy “Yaktrax” for the icy walk. I’m not enthusiastic about getting back to work, honestly, and I am at risk of being highly distracted by exciting things going on for me outside the office – a good practice today will be basic mindfulness applied to work tasks; being fully engaged in each work task results in improved efficiency, better quality output, and less likelihood of daydreaming or my mind wandering. I’ll have to balance that with basic good self-care practices to ensure I take appropriate breaks, get calories and medication on time, and set clear expectations with myself and others about working hours. It can be so tempting to work long hours ‘getting caught up’ – but it is a poor way to treat the woman in the mirror, and there is no assurance that such an effort matters in the slightest to anyone else.

I sip my coffee and think ahead to the work day, distracting myself from my morning without meaning to. I let it go and come back to this moment, to the music, to the morning. I look around and see a couple of things that I’d rather not see when I get home from work and smile; there is still time to do some chores before I leave for work.

Today is a good day to take care of the woman in the mirror, she certainly does a lot for me.

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Categories Anxiety, Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Mindfulness, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, The Big 5, Words

Just Past This Headache

January 2, 2016 //
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I am having a very good day. It’s wintry and quite cold – literally freezing – and I built my day around a practical sort of errand that didn’t turn out as planned, and another that turned out quite precisely as planned, and in between I hung out with my traveling partner for a little while. A very good day, indeed.

What matters most?

What matters most?

The afternoon sunshine streams through the patio door, heating my wee apartment nicely; it’s a wasted effort if I forget to close the vertical blinds as the sun begins to dip low, because the heat gained is quickly lost through the glass on a cold day, once the sunshine is gone. There is a luxurious quality to the passive heat of sunshine on glass that my senses tell me differs from the heat of the heater, although I have no way to confirm that very subjective perception. I just enjoy the feeling of the sunshine reaching through the glass, across the room, and bathing me in light and warmth. It’s a lovely moment, in spite of this headache, which developed some short time ago, while I stood in the cold waiting for a bus. I suspect it will dissipate with continued comfort, warmth, and a nice cup of tea or coffee… It’s a bit late for coffee; I decide on tea and put on the kettle and some classical music. Baroque – light on the ears, gentle on the soul, it fills out the background with something more pleasant that the sound of the dishwasher.

What does this new year hold, I wonder? Beyond changes in healthcare, beyond moving into a somewhat bigger apartment very soon, beyond replanting the vegetable garden in spring or pruning the roses next fall, beyond the days and weeks of everyday chores and everyday fun, I know the year holds surprises and changes that I have not anticipated or planned for. I wonder what those will be? How convenient if I really could plan for those, too! I can’t plan for the unknown as fully as I might for what I deliberately undertake, but there are a lot of little ways I can keep myself ready, generally, for all manner of changes. Taking care of me is a pursuit with a lot of layers, and a lot of potential to support me through periods of change, or a real crisis. I took time to think over a lot of that yesterday, meditating on what demands on my resources and time the move will make, and how best to prepare for it without throwing my current quality of life into the trash. Ideally, no matter what changes come my way I will stay focused on my longer term goals, and my everyday taking-care-of-me needs by maintaining the good practices I have worked so hard to build.

Again and again, I find value in the concepts of ‘perspective’ and ‘sufficiency’; I can’t know everything another person is going through, but I can listen deeply and be compassionate, and there is little chance I can ‘have it all’ in life – the vast amount of wealth required remains out of reach for me – but ‘having‘ has proven to be rather irrelevant once basic needs are met. There is so much more to a rich life than expensive goods or exotic services. “Enough” matters more than ‘more’. My understanding of ‘quality of life’ has changed. The smile on my face matters more than ‘being right’, and contentment has proven easily achievable once I let go of expectations and assumptions about life’s entitlements, and stopped letting experiences other than my own have any weight in determining my path.

There are a lot of questions still to ask. The best answers I find tend to involve kindness, compassion, treating myself and others truly well, and being engaged and present in this moment right here, with the human being(s) physically in my company ‘in real life’ – and getting enough sleep. It’s probably not a coincidence that when I began taking a closer look at how I treated people and making changes in favor of treating people better (including me), people began to treat me better, too. It’s worth noticing. It doesn’t hurt to mention that when people do treat me poorly, I no longer internalize that experience, making it about me; people who treat others badly are making a statement about themselves, and although it is an unpleasant experience to have, it isn’t ‘about me’ at all. These are small things, each taken individually – but they have mattered so much! The Four Agreements was a good starting point on this journey. I smile, recalling the day my traveling partner recommended it to me, back in 2010. We have come so far together!

Soft music, the warmth of a fire, a pleasantly fragrant cup of tea, and quiet time in which to write...enough? So much more than enough.

Soft music, the warmth of a fire, a pleasantly fragrant cup of tea, and quiet time in which to write. Some of life’s riches don’t have a dollar value.

It’s another winter day. I have a headache, but so far it’s not affecting my mood. There is a fire crackling in the fireplace now, and an early dinner in the oven. I have no special plans, and no need for entertainment or distraction; the day is fine as it is. Quiet. I am content. This is enough. 🙂

 

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Categories art and the artist, Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, The Art of Being, The Big 5, winter, women, Words

There Is Sunshine

January 1, 2016 //
0

A new year begins today. The winter sun hits the glass of the patio door and fills the room with light and warmth. My feet are extended into the rays of sunshine spreading across the carpet. I wiggle my toes, feeling them warmed in the filtered winter sunlight. The remainder of my second cup of coffee has grown cold; I continue to sip it, content with the exceptional flavor which is undiminished by the cooling. I am smiling.

New beginnings are quite variable, every experience, each perspective, just a bit different from another. I am not the woman I was on the first day of 2015. That woman was stressed to a breaking point, yet again, mistreated in one relationship, insecure in another, restlessly contemplating where a third might take her, given the difficult circumstances generally.

The path ahead wasn't obvious sometimes.

The path ahead wasn’t obvious.

It was a complicated year. An abusive relationship was creating roadblocks to progress in therapy through behaviors that seemed willful or deliberate at times – it would prove irrelevant whether they were deliberate; the outcome was damaging. The future of my relationship with my traveling partner seemed insecure, and despair crept into my experience a number of times. I felt frustrated, held back, and uncertain where my path would lead me, but committed to continuing the journey. I continued to practice new practices that were definitely doing good things for my resilience, improving my ability to maintain a neutral, honest, and healthy perspective, and helping me manage stress. I wasn’t sure it would be enough to thrive on…and I wasn’t sure that the positive changes I could see developing would be enough, soon enough, to hold on to what I valued most in life – or love.

When 2015 began, I was struggling with attachment, afraid to let go and just be. I struggled with blaming myself for things going on that weren’t about me at all, and I struggled with feeling responsible for making a relationship work, in which it had become clear the other didn’t actually want things to work and was not invested in building a functional relationship with me. Accepting that was painful (rejection hurts) and it was hard to just breathe and let it go without ‘closure’, or honest communication, or even basic civility. The pain diminished in the instant I remembered that the character and behavior of that other human being is no reflection on me whatsoever; she is her own human being, and all the consequences of her choices are entirely her own (as mine belong entirely to me).  That was an important lesson and turning point.

It has been a year full of important lessons in taking care of myself, in emotional self-sufficiency, and in learning to love well, and without unhealthy attachment – with the result that my relationship with my traveling partner has grown and deepened wonderfully, and I am so much more able to love well, generally, and to listen deeply. I ended the other, abusive, relationship (keeping a promise I made to myself long ago), and I declined to pursue a relationship with characteristics suggesting high risk in a number of areas of life in which I’m not inclined to compromise. I’ve stopped trying to meet needs for connection and intimacy through sex, with result that sex is improved; I have sex only in relationships in which there is already intimacy and connection. 2015 taught me a lot about who I am, and what I really need to thrive. In 2015, I learned a lot about ‘enough’, and began investing in lasting contentment, instead of chasing more/better.

2016 begins well. I could stop there. I have, a number of times already. No map. I don’t really know where this new year will take me, what I may learn, gain, or lose. I don’t know what’s up ahead on this journey, and I am feeling tranquil and unconcerned about that – making it hard to write, honestly. 🙂

Today, though, is a good one for contemplation. I will take time to consider the year-to-come, to wonder, to dream, to plan, to question – it’s the questioning that is perhaps most relevant to where I may find myself a year from today. I’ll think it over, and  make some notes; I find it helpful to look back with some context. I’ll write in my private journal, and send myself an email ‘from the past’, as I did last year – it was a special moment this morning when I got that email from myself. Being able to read my own stern warning to end an abusive relationship with the comfortable knowledge that it was done months ago was validating; I am learning to take better care of myself, and my heart.

The view of 2015 is very different from this perspective. The path ahead seems a bit more clear, now.

The view of 2016; the path ahead seems a bit more clear, now.

Today is a good day to take care of me. Today is a good day to begin again. Today is a good day to be my own cartographer, on this journey of my own making. Happy New Year! Are you ready? Let’s change the world!

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Categories Brain Injury, gardening, grief, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Oregon Trails, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, solo hiking, The Art of Being, The Big 5, winter, women, Words
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