Archives for category: Metaphors

One Step, One Choice, One Moment

April 27, 2018 //

Ready for it? Here it comes… The next opportunity to make a profound change, or improve something, or embrace something (someone?), or “make that next move”… coming up any second now… Watch for it…

Oh. Wait. I don’t mean to be a let down, or to mislead you… but… that’s literally every single moment, ever, and right now. Seriously. Don’t like your life? Make some different choices than you have been making. They don’t even have to be huge choices. I’m not talking about “leave-your-mate-quite-your-job-move-across-the-world” changes, here, although those exist, too; it’s the small every day changes. Does your quality of life leave something to be desired? Let’s just start there, with something small.

Look around you right now (I’ll wait).

Okay. Based on what you see, from your vantage point right now, what could you be doing differently that may improve the quality of your life? Just that. No need to overwhelm yourself, just some small thing. Maybe “there’s clothes all over my floor” becomes “I’ll stop dropping my clothes on the floor”, followed by “Oh, hey, I’ll just pick these up right now, too”? Small stuff. Not all of everything all at once. Just… something. Practice it until it becomes “natural” – and by “natural” I mean that it will, over time, become something that is just part of who you are, you just do it, and it doesn’t really occur to you not to. That’s a thing, and it really happens.

By the way – it already has. Take another look around you, and hold that thought; you practiced everything you do that results in the life you live, over time, until it became who you are. Yep. Dishes in the sink? Clothes on the floor? Books you never read? A job you hate? Even things like screaming tantrums and hormonal rages. Chronically shitty attitude about life? Yeah, you can practice a mood or state of mind, too, and omg that can feel so hard to change – I mean, aren’t you “just who you are”? Nope. Not a thing. We are a product of our choices over time, our environment, our genes – lots of things – but we can definitely change a lot of it. It’s our choices that make that possible. We’re highly adaptable. We become what we practice, even if that wasn’t who we were when we started our journey.

So… today? Today my devices don’t control what I’m doing with my time, and aren’t permitted to pull my focus from “real life”. I use them, they don’t use me. I’m not a life support system for a fucking phone. 😉 That’s my change today – it’s actually pretty huge. I did okay with it yesterday. My notifications are off, and my ringer turned off during the work day, and when I’m driving (really anytime I don’t care to be interrupted by it). I don’t “need” Facebook, either, really, and the day went just fine setting firm limits with myself. I look at my phone when I need something from it. It’s not a tether that requires me to interact with the world on other people’s terms or timing. More practice today. 🙂 Every day. All of the minutes. Nothing but practice. I expect to fail some. That’s okay. I’ll just start over. Endless new beginnings, and we definitely become what we practice. 😀

Language matters too; put the past in the past tense. Put the person you want most to be in the present tense – then be that. (It does still take practice.) Don’t be tempted to let others define you. Definitely “use your words”. 😉

Time to begin again.

Tags be the change, begin again, being and becoming, choose change, choose wisely, define yourself and live up to who you most want to be, do you?, experience, I am my own cartographer, let the past be the past, meditation, my home my rules my way, perspective, pick that shit up, practicing the practices, ptsd, start over, sufficiency, taking care of me, The Art of Being, there are verbs involved, walking my own path, we become what we practice

Categories Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Spring, Words

I Can’t Fix You

April 24, 2018 //

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. 🙂

Tags be here now, be love, be the change, be the change you wish to see, begin again, being and becoming, choose wisely, choosing change, consider all your options, emotional self sufficiency, experience, getting through that dark night, good self-care, listening deeply, making choices, MBSR, meditation, mindfulness, mindfulness matters, OPD, p.s. I love you, perspective, practicing the practices, ptsd, relationships, sufficiency, taking care of me, TBI, The Art of Being, The Big 5, the map is not the world, there are verbs involved, walking my own path, walking that hard mile, what matters most?, when you hit bottom, who do you most want to be?

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 //

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. ❤

Tags are you going my way?, be the change, begin again, being and becoming, brake check, choose, choose wisely, don't like where you're headed? Go somewhere else, emotional self sufficiency, go your own way, I am my own cartographer, it's your plan you decide, listening deeply, mindful living, practicing the practices, ptsd, relationships, sufficiency, taking care of me, The Art of Being, the map is mine, the map is not the world, there are verbs involved, walk on, walking my own path, what matters most?

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 //

…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. 😀

Tags a machine is a tool not a master, be here now, begin again, choose wisely, experience, fuck Facebook, fuck television too, good self-care, have you tried unplugging yet?, I am my own cartographer, live live live!, mindful living, perspective, taking care of me, TBI, there are verbs involved, turning it off to turn it on, walking my own path, you don't tell me!

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

Staring at a Blank Page

April 16, 2018 //

I’m sipping my coffee and staring at this blank page (well, it was, it isn’t now…). The future is a perpetual blank page. I hold the pen in the present. Whatever narrative I jot down, whatever map of the world I attempt to draw, it is done from this moment, from this perspective. It has so little to do with the actual future that will actually happen. It’s easy to overlook that detail, but it is significant and worth keeping in mind.

I spent the weekend in the studio. I didn’t finish anything. I started a bunch of stuff. It was a delightful and productive weekend, creatively. I am content and nourished by the time spent painting. I’m finding it rather challenging to “get my head right” for the compressed work week ahead; I am yearning for some vacation time, and the good company of my Traveling Partner and friends. I am distracted and energized, like a toddler after an espresso shot. lol

People are peculiarly resilient and adaptable. Have you noticed that? It’s an amazing quality. We can endure quite a lot, and still be hopeful. We can suffer immense trauma, and still find ourselves positive about life, and able to enjoy it. We can break trust, and rebuild it. We can choose poorly, act badly, or go to pieces – and often put things right nonetheless. Pretty amazing stuff. Yes, of course, there are verbs involved, and our results vary. Our intention, our will, and our actions all matter. Our words matter. The content of our character and the values we choose to live matter. Still… we’re pretty fancy primates with a lot of potential.

Today you can begin again. Today you can choose to be your best self. Today you can live your life on a path to the person you most want to be… You only have to choose to do so. 🙂

Choose. Begin again.

Tags be the change, begin again, being and becoming, choose wisely, emotional self sufficiency, experience, good self-care, I am my own cartographer, listening deeply, meditation, mindfulness, mindfulness matters, perspective, practicing the practices, ptsd, relationships, sufficiency, taking care of me, TBI, The Art of Being, The Big 5, the map is not the world, there are verbs involved, use the whole page, walking my own path, what matters most?

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

One Step, One Choice, One Moment

Share this:

I Can’t Fix You

Share this:

Take a Different Route

Share this:

Well, Shit…

Share this:

Staring at a Blank Page

Share this:

Archives