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Investing the Best

January 20, 2016 //
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There was a time in my life when I was pretty certain that I was so entirely broken, in some fashion or another, that any contribution I could possibly make in my relationships would be a material one – or sex. That was the limit of what I thought I had to offer the world, or a partner; if I couldn’t buy it, or provide the manual labor, or do the sex thing, what else was there, really? Well, art. There was art. I am hopeful that I don’t have to point out what an incredibly limiting – and self-fulfilling – perspective that was.

Be love.

Be love.

I say “be love” as though what I mean is obvious. Perhaps it isn’t, and maybe a gentle morning over a good coffee is a nice time to clarify? It isn’t as if “be love” is something I came up with – because, if  it were…first, what a tragic state for the world to discover love so late, and second… well, damn, what about all those love songs? So, yeah, not my original thoughts, and surely there are other people who have written more better words with greater clarity on the subject of love, generally. So…if you’re after more better words with great clarity about love, I suggest Thich Nhat Hanh, Leo Buscaglia, or, if you’re ‘not there yet’ any of a number of books on loving the person in the mirror, which does have to come first, as it turns out, to love another with any real skill…have you checked out my reading list? 😉

The love thing is a big deal. It drives a lot of marketing, and therefore a great deal of profit-making goes on associated with love (I’m looking your way Valentine’s Day!). It’s clearly something human primates favor. Are you ‘getting your share’? Are you still thinking of it in those terms? I spent a lot of years stuck on the idea that if love were ‘real’ – and I wasn’t convinced it might be until well past 30, and couldn’t seem to figure out ‘how to have it’ until I was well past 40 – if love were real at all, why wasn’t I ‘getting my share’?? Ouch. Well, in fairness, there’s so much media pressure on us all regarding love we easily succumb to the visions of love we see in advertising, on television and in movies – how can what we see at home compete or compare? We are each so human – and no one is providing us handy re-writes of our script; our best moments are at risk of going unnoticed because we are so busy looking for something very different. How suck is that? You see where this is headed, right?

Mindful love. Yep. I couldn’t fathom it for a while. Mindfulness… check. Meditation… check. Awareness… check. Present in the moment… check. Treating myself well… check. Each concept falling into place, building on each other, and more than once I returned to my therapists office with this question “how does mindful love work?” It sounds like a simple enough question, and I couldn’t quite answer it in words – however many books I read. I didn’t understand that it wasn’t the part about mindfulness that I wasn’t fully grasping… it was love. 🙂

Now we’re getting somewhere! Is this the hot sexy part? With the tips for pleasing a lover? W00t!! Go sex!!

Oh… wait… nope. Sex is sex. Love is…

Love.

Love.

By moving into my own place, while also maintaining a romantic loving relationship with my traveling partner, I did something wonderful for me; I opened my eyes to some experiences about love that I hadn’t been able to understand so simply before. Some of the lessons have been complicated. Some of them have been so simple that they tripped me up while I sought to understand them as something more complicated than they were. Love matters so much that I figured I’d share some of the things I am learning – I expect that as with really first-rate self-care, learning to love well is likely a lifetime of practice, and similarly many of the practices themselves are so simple they mislead one into thinking they are also effortless – nope, in loving too there are verbs involved. Here come some verbs now…

Invest the best in your relationships that you have to offer. This is so simple and fundamental on the surface, but it is a rich deep practice that has kept me on my toes for months now, and until this past weekend, I didn’t have simple words to describe what I might mean by it. So here it is – invest the best in love. Kindness, a welcoming approach, listening deeply, and ensuring that the assumptions in my day-to-day thinking regarding my loving relationships are positive ones have nothing at all to do with money, with sex, or with material goods – without these things, though, no amount of money will buy me love.

An easy example, and common, if I am short-tempered with a loved one in a brief moment, surely it can be understood as part of being human, and an appropriate apology and making it right allows everyone to move on. If, however, my short-temperedness is a character trait that is recognizably ‘who I am’ it will likely undermine love over time. Other things work that way too; sarcasm, mockery, meanness, and cruelty have no role to play in love – defending their use by saying “it’s just who I am”, or by calling it a joke, may not be enough to stop love’s erosion over time, particularly if the user of such behaviors is unaware of the hurtful effect. (If the user is entirely aware of the hurtful effect of such things, and uses them for amusement or in anger without regard to the hurt they cause – that’s not love.)

This weekend, I mused with regret at some point that I don’t have money laying about in capital amounts with which to support my traveling partners endeavors – how wonderful it would be to be able to invest heavily in a solid business proposal, see it get off the ground, and watch his success and independence grow! I felt, ever so briefly, that I ‘don’t have enough to offer’. In material terms, that may be true (it also may not be true; ‘enough’ is a slippery concept). I realized as we talked through that particular conversation that what love asks of me has nothing whatever to do with money, and it’s never been money that was the strength of this relationship; emotions don’t work that way. Love is an emotion. Suddenly, I felt unsteady in my understanding of the world – I awoke to the vast riches I have to offer my relationships (and they are vast indeed).

If love isn’t looking for a cash investment, what is it looking for that I do have plentifully? How about – are you ready for this, because we’re all a lot wealthier than we realize, if we choose to be so – kindness. Yep. Day-to-day kindness and gentle words. Patience. Deep listening – really put myself on pause to hear what my partner is saying without ‘waiting for my turn to talk’. Hearing – really hearing my partner, the words, the intent, the meaning, the emotion – really ‘getting it’, because they matter, and it doesn’t cost a thing besides my good intentions, and a verb or two. Isn’t the basic willingness to do these things sort of implied when I say “I love you”? Making room in my experience to share the journey with another – graciously, generously, merrily – and making the good moments of greater value by savoring them, sharing them, exploring them, and giving them more of my precious mortal time, than I spend ruminating over some momentary misunderstanding, or hurt feelings over thoughtless words. How about vulnerability, too? Sharing life from the perspective that we are each very human, and being open to sharing our selves and experience in a raw and honest way – still being kind, still speaking gently, still listening deeply… it sounds easy. It’s worth practicing. It takes practice – invested, willful, engaged practice. And more of that, again and again.

Yelling, irritability, contentious disagreeable conversation, argument, fussing, insults, anger – not a bit of this is love. The love is in the quiet spaces in between, and in the laughter – and if we don’t invest the best we have to offer in the love we wish to enjoy, the love will slowly be squeezed out by thoughtlessness, negativity, anger, attachment to expectations, and disappointment when our assumption that love ‘should’ overlook our nastiness and bullshit doesn’t turn out to be true. Love isn’t a tantrum; it’s the long-term investment in what is best within ourselves.

Before we go too far, I want to be clear about one small detail – I don’t know of any way to actually ‘fake love’. This isn’t a ‘fake it until you make it’ sort of area of life, and a saccharine smile and a terse insincere “I’m fine” when that is clearly not the case isn’t love, either; it’s a lie. It is possible to speak honestly and sincerely – and also gently. (Listening helps with that.) Seriously. It is. Try it out sometime. It’s quite a lovely experience, I find. Yep. It does take practice. 🙂

Love is in the small things - strange for such a big deal.

Love is in the small things – strange for such a big deal.

Today is a good day to be love. Today is a good day to invest the best of what I have to offer in the relationships that matter most to me. Today is a good day to practice loving well. I’ll start with the woman in the mirror. Love can change the world.

 

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

A Good Night’s Sleep and a Cup of

January 13, 2016 //
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…Well…hardly ‘coffee’ … and you may be sipping something quite different. (I’ve read somewhere that more people drink tea than coffee, and considered it myself this morning.) Maybe you didn’t even sleep well? I woke in the night to the sound of a cough next door, which caused me a moment of concern before drifting back to sleep; my neighbors are elders of many years – and my bedroom is separated from their by the differing floor plans which put their living room between the bedrooms of the two units, I find myself hoping no one is seriously ill. When the alarm goes off, I am alert – reaching to switch it off, and listening for sounds of wakefulness next door. Still, generally speaking, I woke feeling well-rested in spite of that.

Wait…why ‘hardly coffee’? Because I’m out of coffee beans, and don’t keep instant in the house. lol I noticed last night before bed, and took no action on the basis of ‘I can get caffeine at work soon enough’. We’ll see, eh? This cup of dark warmth here next to me is half decaf – in order to get enough beans through the grinder for a whole cup of coffee, I added decaf to it so… yep. It’s not the usual brew, and it won’t have the usual wake-me-up factor. I begin sipping it almost reluctantly, as if my brain is guiding my will via ‘who cares’ signals, but once I overcome my vague feeling of dismissiveness about the coffee this morning, I am finding it quite tasty and suitable to the morning. Assumptions, expectations – humans. (Note to self: just go ahead and give yourself a chance to enjoy things without forecasting the outcome, would you please?)

My back cracks and pops through my morning yoga, but the pain I am in is somewhat diminished having gone ahead and practiced my way through my practice – each change of posture accompanied by an assurance to myself that “I can always stop after this one…” I just keep going until I am finished. (Is it going to be that day?) I shower, dress, take medication… each step in my morning routine feeling subtly forced, like a child being pushed along on a school morning. I am the grown up in this house! Yeah… but I am also the laughing naked child dashing through the house, resisting ‘what must be’ for all those other opportunities… to play. I earnestly want to ‘skip school’ today – just not go to work, just not do ‘the thing’. I don’t really want to be the grown up today. I’d like to stay home and paint, or read, or listen to music, or garden. All the truly worthwhile things life offers for our enjoyment – and for which I do not get paid. LOL “Welcome to Adulthood” I hear the woman in the mirror mutter back to me – out loud. Considering I am alone with my thoughts in this wee haven, that just seems mean – it wasn’t at all necessary to speak the words! Besides… I haven’t really had my coffee yet, and I don’t want to hear conversation just now.

If I only see what is unpleasant, if I only hear unpleasant words, will it be a surprise if my experience is also unpleasant? I can choose my perspective.

If I only see what is unpleasant, if I only hear unpleasant words, will it be a surprise if my experience is also unpleasant? I can choose my perspective.

It isn’t a bad morning. It is a fairly ordinary, very human, sort of morning. I’m okay with that – as I said, it isn’t bad. Is it good? My traveling partner would most certainly point out that I am phrasing it in the negative to say the morning ‘isn’t bad’ (“How is it?” he might ask…) I might answer “It’s okay, better than bad… not noteworthy…I’m enjoying it well enough.” All rather vague, but all… okay. 🙂 It is in the nature of contentment that the fancy adjectives and superlatives get a little dusty from disuse. lol

The work week is at a half-way point. I am eager to hear word on the apartment I’d like to move into, but I am not impatient about it, since it is happening rather faster than I expected as it is. The weekend is ahead of me… a date with my traveling partner Friday night… friends over to plan shared hikes this year on Saturday…Sunday…well…I’ve no idea. The housekeeping doesn’t do itself around here, so perhaps Sunday will be spent on practical matters, and invested in myself entirely? I find myself wondering… once the chaos and damage has all been sorted out, and put away, and once the gates of The Nightmare City are closed permanently and locked, and once life has proven it’s point about lasting contentment… then what? Does such a thing ever occur in life? Would I stop writing? I haven’t really had to look at any of that realistically in earlier years; it wasn’t a realistic likelihood in the past – it may be the future. Life isn’t about perfection and standing still, though, and I am confident that life’s curriculum is more vast than any single lifetime, so… yeah. Probably still writing for a while. LOL 🙂

I tend to think about work and life very separately, and sometimes wistfully imagine that I make my living doing something profoundly important to mankind, something remarkable, or something meaningful… I wonder what that would be like? Ah, but I remember in this same moment things that do matter. The gratitude of the young employee whose needs were met using unconventional solutions. I remember a day when some particularly elegant piece of analysis improved efficiency by illuminating a challenge in a way that allowed it to also be easily addressed. I remember great moments of partnering with colleagues on exciting projects. I start feeling renewed excitement and commitment as my thoughts shift toward the professional side of my life. It’s complicated. I’d like more time to paint, more time to live my own agenda – I don’t actually hate what I do, as much as find that it competes with what I love. Perhaps I am almost grown up enough to tackle this one, too? 🙂

Today is a good day to live each moment right here in the moment I am in, enjoying the thing I am doing now with my entire awareness. Doing so tends to change my view of the world. 🙂

 

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Categories Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, more than a little bit of bitching, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, The Art of Being, Words

I Woke Anxious

January 7, 2016 //
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It’s true. This morning I woke well ahead of the alarm clock, but late enough that I initially figured I’d just go ahead and get up…I woke anxious. No obvious cause for the anxiety, at least in that waking moment that it was the thing owning my awareness. As I allowed myself to become conscious other things shifted into my awareness: my head was stuffy, and I had to pee. I got up to deal with those very practical matters, and as I did so I wondered if the source of my ‘anxiety’ was simply these biological experiences of being human – could I take a chance on returning to sleep? I might not sleep… I might sleep and wake up groggy… I could just cuddle up in the warm blankets awhile longer without worrying about sleep one way or the other – I felt ‘rested’, although I wasn’t convinced I wanted to be awake.

I pulled the covers around me, compromising on the sleep/no sleep dilemma by choosing meditation – in corpse pose, wrapped in blankets. lol I woke when the alarm went off, without any anxiety, and smiling. I noticed when I woke that the headache I had the night before was gone – suggesting perhaps it was not gone when I had awakened earlier. This would not be the first time I have beaten back anxiety by taking care of this fragile vessel in practical ways, and refraining from investing additional attention in the anxiety itself. I’m not sure it counts as a ‘practice’ and it’s not one of those ‘100% effective!’ things – there are definitely verbs involved, and a certain genial tolerance that it won’t always be so simple is definitely required.

How much of my anxiety used to be caused simply by treating myself poorly day-to-day, largely unaware of it, generally not paying any attention to my own needs until forced to by some emotional storm, or physical failure? How much anxiety was caused by simply not hearing myself, not giving myself the consideration and respect that I continued to seek in the world, and all the resentment that went along with not finding it anywhere?  I’m glad that things as simple (although not effortless) as meditation, good self-care, being considerate of my own needs and boundaries, and treating myself as well as I would ask others to treat me (and then some!) have so much power to reduce [my] anxiety. [Your results may vary.]

In spite of the headache and a trying day yesterday, I enjoyed hanging out with my traveling partner in the evening after work. It wasn’t a dinner date – we just hung out. It wasn’t a booty call. Seriously – we just hung out. We talked intimately, warmly, connecting on that heart & soul level so common to dear longtime friends – and often so rare in long-term romantic relationships of many years. We are not together ‘out of habit’, or ritual, or despair, or… He and I are together by choice. We enjoy each other greatly. We choose each other again and again. Literally ‘in sickness and in health’ – I am fortunate that my traveling partner on life’s journey is far more than a romantic partner – he’s a best friend, a partner in work and play, a cook in a shared kitchen, an adventurer with whom I can adventure, an adviser, a coach, a buddy, a wingman – and my dear love. I’m doubly fortunate that we are intellectual equals, have shared interests, and are similarly competent in very different areas of life – a hell of a partnership, honestly. 😀

Love.

Love.

This morning isn’t fancy or exciting, or extraordinary in any way. The anxiety is gone – no idea why it was there, or why it isn’t there now. Doesn’t matter, and I don’t plan to dig into it. It’s enough that the anxiety is gone, and a new day begins. I am sipping my coffee contentedly, listening to music. I’ll get some housework done before work, and when I get home I’ll have a quiet evening ahead of me – maybe a movie tonight? I lose interest almost immediately; I’m reading a book that really has my attention, and I’ll probably come home, make a cup of tea, put my feet up and read until evening fades to night.

When I was a kid still living at home, reading was my escape and my refuge from the drama of family life. When I became an adult, I lost that somehow – couldn’t read without some quiet, some stillness, fewer interruptions. Rather than find the quiet I needed, for many years I had mostly given up reading in favor of the condensed concentrated entertainment products available for video consumption. Easier. (Also a sharable experience – how many families endure their challenges by painting over them with a bland wash of media entertainment, rather than facing them and resolving them, talking together, using the verbs?) I began picking up books again at about the same time I begin writing this blog – the Reading List developed quickly as I gobbled up relevant books desperate to find my way out of The Nightmare City in which I seemed to be so trapped. I still read now, finding it intellectually nourishing, and a convenient way to continue to build on my understanding of life and the world, to keep my mind young, and the results are hard to argue with – learning does so much to keep life engaging and interesting!

My traveling partner asked me about the book in conversation. His gentle awareness of my injury is there in the background; he has learned to help out in so many little ways with my recovery, generally. He asks me about the book knowing I have trouble articulating material I am reading – answering the questions, as difficult as it can feel for me, is a way of solidifying new knowledge, and figuring out where I am not actually comprehending new material fully, for further review. I will come back to the book tonight eager to revisit ideas I tried – and failed – to share. The deeper understanding matters to continued growth. He listens patiently, and doesn’t press when I stumble – he knows I will come back to it with a deeper more complete understanding, having heard questions about the material that will help me build that deeper understanding, myself. There is so much power in partnership. The reciprocity is critical; I return the favor, listening deeply when he talks about his experience, too, asking questions, listening to the answers, feeling feelings, honoring experience – ‘being there’.

Be love.

Be love.

Maybe that’s really what makes a good partnership – the ‘being there’ in the moment, fully engaged in the interaction with that other person, no other agenda, not ‘waiting to talk’, no rush, no pressure – just together in a shared moment?

Today is a good day to share an experience with someone. Today is a good day to listen with my whole self, and give my undivided attention to someone’s words. Today is a good day to be, and to ‘be there’. Today is a good day to change the way I interact with the world. 🙂

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

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
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