Archives for category: Mindfulness

What Makes You Glow?

December 8, 2016 //

I’m sitting here just smiling. I’ve been smiling since before I went to bed last night. Life doesn’t feel like this every day, and I’m enjoying the moment. I feel “lit up from within”.

Moments that feel rich and warm and well-crafted of the stuff of daydreams aren’t an everyday thing. That used to be a problem for me; I was chasing the Happily Ever After of childhood fairy tales. No map. Happy not being the thing I think I thought it was. Slow going – and I wasn’t getting there. Sitting here this morning, smiling, sipping my coffee – I am happy. This is nice.

What makes you glow?

I got home after work, my Traveling Partner and a friend had arrived ahead of me, and they were next door enjoying the company of our friends there. Some visiting, then it was just the two of us, at my place, relaxing and talking and connecting – intimacy, contentment, that contented longing of lovers who want each other even after years together, and… Giftmas. 😀 I do love the holidays. “Your place is festive”, he had observed. It is. The conversation got around to holiday baking, at some point, and he made a funny face at me, when he notices the store-bought cookie dough in the fridge waiting its turn. He knows I bake. What the hell, right? 😀 No mixer. I am so not up to creaming endless pounds of butter and sugar together by hand! The conversation moves on. At some point I notice he is distracted on his phone, and he notices me noticing; the secret is revealed. He is holiday shopping. It’s Giftmas time!! He teases me with revealing the surprise, then admits he plans to have it to me right away; he is replacing my Kitchenaid mixer. It’s an unexpected delight, and an emotional moment for me; hundreds of times I have not chosen to replace it – and I can’t rationally explain why. The money? They’re not cheap… but it wasn’t that. I make a puzzled face and let the wondering go for some other day. He saw my happy tears, he understands that as silly as it is, sometimes things also have meaning beyond what they are.

Saturday I’ll have a mixer… I can make my grandmothers’ cookie recipes, or my Traveling Partner’s mother’s, or my Dad’s, or my own. I can make fruitcake. I can make macarons – or at least learn how. It’s a mixer, just a kitchen appliance in most practical regards – a very useful tool. This morning, and last night, it also amounts to a moment of genuine happiness, not about a mixer (or I’d have replaced it myself), but more about a moment of healing, of love, and of being understood and cared for. This morning I feel wrapped in love. I think it is moments like this one that leave us so often feeling like materials things matter… because I could easily confuse these feelings for being to do with the mixer itself, rather than the circumstances of life, and loss, that were tangled up with the old one it replaces. It’s the moment that is the source of great joy, and the moment is less tangible, and less easily discussed, than the mixer itself… which isn’t even here yet. 🙂

…He chose one that matches my other appliances. I smile.

…He thought to make sure it reached me in time for some holiday baking. I smile.

…He recognized the lingering sense of conflict and loss over giving up the old one. I smile.

…I am well-loved, and am fortunate to be able to love in return, and this moment, here, is quite precious. I smile.

Love matters most.

This too shall pass. Still smiling I allow myself the awareness that such a powerful deep moment of joy not only won’t last, it isn’t meant to; without the ups and downs, and the complicated complexity of all of it, how would I experience this as a moment of joy? Also knowing suffering provides the comparison needed to recognize it. Without the hurting over the loss of the old mixer, and the complicated baggage around its meaning in my experience (a wedding gift from my violent troubled first marriage, that I carted around for decades of baking – a lifetime, really – the value of the tool out-weighing the painful memories that surfaced every time I used it), I would not experience this new one as a moment of joy at all… it would just be a mixer. 🙂

Today is a good day for a moment, awake, aware, and willing to embrace the whole of my experience to be also able to experience this particular moment, here. Now.

Tags be here now, be love, exchanging gifts, Kitchenaid is good, listening deeply, love, love and lovers, love me do, mindful loving, p.s. I love you, Reciprocity, relationships, The Big 5, the true meaning of Giftmas, what matters most?

Categories Brain Injury, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, The Big 5, women, Words

Just a Reminder

December 7, 2016 //

Be kind. Be considerate. Be careful. Be aware. We’re each having our own experience – all in this together, sometimes not completely aware that we are interconnected. We each feel our own pain, sometimes thinking it hurts the most, of anything, ever, forgetting – often – how much other pain exists, and how much suffering there is in the world, generally. We forget to be our best selves, sometimes when it matters most. We forget we can begin again.

Today is a good day for reminders, best practices, consideration, openness, and helping each other out. Today is a good day to share a moment with a friend, and to be kind to strangers. Today is a good day to be and to become, and a good day to embrace change.

Tags ACT, are you going my way?, be here now, be the change, begin again, being and becoming, emotional self sufficiency, I am my own cartographer, MBSR, meditation, mindfulness, perspective, practicing the practices, ptsd, sufficiency, TBI, The Art of Being, The Big 5, what matters most?

Categories Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Love, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, The Art of Being, The Big 5, Words

Where’d I Put That Soapbox?

December 6, 2016 //

I could write hundreds of words today about how banal and commonplace it has become to spout actual lies and defend them as opinions. There are uncountable examples of it, and it’s easy enough to demonstrate that undermining people’s sense of reality in such a fashion is beyond odious; it’s harmful. This morning, I don’t much feel like deep-diving that grotesque practice of distorting reality.

I could write hundreds of words about Aleppo. About war. About conflict. About lost lives and lost children. Would I even be heard? Would my handful of words “matter”? Verbs, actions, matter more…

This morning I have other things on my mind, closer to home, more personal… A friend, a dear friend, someone I greatly love, has checked himself into a mental health care facility. I feel… concerned. Depression is an ass kicker. Mental illness is still so completely misunderstood by such a great many people. The feelings of isolation, despair, of distance, of agonizing doubt can be actually quite crippling, however illusory. Clawing ones way from that pit of gray fatiguing encompassing bleakness isn’t even a given, however much it seems, from the outside, that it would just be a matter of choosing… something… differently. 😦 I want to fix this. I can’t fix this. It isn’t a matter of words. My actions are not the actions needed here. I struggle. I don’t have to; this one isn’t mine, and I can let it go. Only… fuck. I want to fix this.

I shift gears and chat with my Traveling Partner about modifying equipment. I refrain from making lewd jokes about his “equipment” – however amusing now and then, the chronic, continuous, often completely inappropriate for the circumstances, lewd jokes and innuendos are symptomatic of my injury as much as they are a hallmark of my characteristic behavior… each time I am aware in the moment enough to willfully choose not to make one, I experience a sensation of positive change and growth. There really are times when such things are not welcome; I am learning to recognize that, and to also be able to act on it. Incremental change over time. I think about the handful of friends who might protest that this amusing quirk of mine is something they cherish, and enjoy being entertained by – to which my response could be “so, hey, while you’re being entertained, I’m struggling to keep jobs, relationships, and have comfortable conversations with strangers… so… yeah, I’m working on this”. We each walk our own mile.

Today is a good day to begin again. Every day is. Choose one. Grab a verb. Get walking. You are your most powerful instrument of change. ❤

Tags ACT, be the change, begin again, being and becoming, breathe, checking in, checking out, emotional self sufficiency, good self-care, I am my own cartographer, just checking, MBSR, meditation, mindful living, mindfulness for beginners, perspective, practicing the practices, ptsd, TBI, the map is not the world, there are verbs involved, what matters most?

Categories Anxiety, Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, The Art of Being, winter, Words

Sleeping and Waking

December 5, 2016 //

I crashed more or less “on time” last night to get the good night of rest I need to start the work week. I slept deeply, and I feel rested now that I am awake. My anxiety woke me unexpectedly, about 90 minutes ahead of the alarm. This morning I didn’t just get up – I didn’t want to. I got up long enough to take my morning medication and pee, and then I went back to bed. To be clear, I had little expectation of additional sleep, and I wasn’t even thinking I needed that – but I did need to have a moment to wake more fully that wasn’t associated with the anxiety that woke me earlier, so I made one. I snuggled down and found comfort, then meditated until I felt ready to rise and greet the day. Nothing fancy was needed, meditation-wise, only the simplest of breath and awareness, allowing myself to become more comfortable in this fragile vessel, and less driven by unexplained emotion.

This morning the day starts with music, and I’m feeling it on the loud side of joy, so it’s headphones this morning; I am fairly certain most of the rest of the neighborhood does not want to begin their Monday the same way. Basic consideration demands I think twice before I crank the bass on the stereo at 5:00 am. 🙂 I listen to DMX tell me how Monday is going to be, and entertainingly imagine past teams of analysts I have worked with striding into some call center or another, in slow motion, looking totally bad ass. lol Why not? Data is the future of… everything. Practical working analysts are the tacticians of that future. Start-of-the-day bad-assery, indeed. lol 🙂 (Most every way of earning a living every contemplated or enacted has value, but finding my own sense of place, and value, in the working world has been a challenge for me. Finding work that does feel valued and valuable has been worthwhile.)

The weekend was restful, nurturing, and filled with moments of simple delight. I baked holiday cookies, did laundry, and invested time in self-care to be fit to face the work week this morning. I watched the rain fall beyond the window, and generally enjoyed my time quietly, solo. I notice, this morning, as I consider the weekend, that I have been disinclined to share my space with friends since the break-in. Even now, I rarely invite anyone in. Even my close neighbors – friends, more than neighbors – are finding themselves having to specifically check on me, because I’ve removed myself from society rather more than I’d noticed. I’m feeling safer, once again, although I no longer trust that feeling. It’s a healthy choice to open up to friends and welcome them into my space again. It’s difficult to get past the wariness. There are obviously verbs involved. 🙂

Today is a good day to enjoy life as it is, with a smile, and a moment of recognition; however good or bad this moment feels right now, it isn’t going to last. Moments are only moments. Impermanence is. Change is. “This too shall pass.” Today is a good day to embrace what works, to enjoy what feels good, to invest in a future that is in some incremental way better than the past, and to remain comfortably aware that life does not stand still. Today I may not change the world, but I can sure change how I feel about it. 🙂

Tags anxiety, are you going my way?, be the change, being and becoming, breathe, change is, emotional self sufficiency, I am my own cartographer, impermanence is, MBSR, meditation, mindfulness, mindfulness matters, music in the morning, my home my rules my way, perspective, practicing the practices, ptsd, sufficiency, taking care of me, TBI, The Art of Being, the map is not the world, there are verbs involved, this too shall pass, walking my own path

Categories Anxiety, Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, The Art of Being

A Few Well-Chosen Words

December 4, 2016 //

Yep. That’s what I’m after this morning, as I sit here sipping my coffee – just a few well-chosen words. I haven’t got them. It’s an odd sort of morning, lovely, quiet – uninspired. I’m just a human, sipping coffee, watching the dawn unfold, content with the morning, with how I feel. Not inclined to reach for more, or find my way to less. Comfortable. Balanced.

….Two years ago, I would also have felt vaguely breathless and wary, waiting for the fragile moment to come crashing down in some random attack of drama or bullshit, unable to feel really comfortable, for fear of being unprepared.

…6 years ago, I would have been fairly certain that any such subjective experience was entirely the byproduct of psych meds I wasn’t sure I really needed (but taking them seemed to ease some things, somewhat… didn’t they?), and would be struggling with the experience, itself, as potentially “fake”, but too fearful of what “real life” might offer to seek change.

…10 years ago I could not have had this experience, at all. Between my hormones, my lack of in-depth study of my issues, symptoms, and concerns – a real lack of available knowledge to study in the first place – and the lack of emotional support in my primary relationship, things felt pretty hopeless much of the time.

Incremental change over time is definitely a real thing. We become what we practice – also thoroughly real, testable-y, reproduce-ably, demonstrably true. There are verbs involved, and seemingly endless practice. There are moments of failure and moments of “fuck it”. There are moments that seem unreasonably profound, and others that seem disappointingly practical. It sometimes feels like “an uphill climb” – of the sort that on a summer morning looks delightful at the outset, but by the time the top of the climb seems near, fatigue and heat have set in, and it all seems so fucking tedious…but… there’s the top… just over there… only to find that cresting the hill reveals more of the journey, and another, higher, peak. There have been days when pain slowed me down, and days when the lack of pain resulted in over-confidence – and more pain, later.

…Still, when I pause, this morning, to acknowledge that I just don’t feel properly “inspired” to write, and really just set it all aside to consider the moment itself, this one, here, now, in the context of the entirety of my life… I can see it; I’ve come a long way. 🙂

Today is a good day to celebrate life. Today is a good day to enjoy the day, as it is. I’ll get some things done around the house, and later celebrate my Traveling Partner’s birthday with him. Today is a good day to enjoy the ordinary, the routine, the day-to-day of life, with a smile, and a moment of appreciation.

…as simple as we make it.

Today, that’s enough. 😀

Tags be here now, begin again, being and becoming, emotional self sufficiency, incremental change over time, love and lovers, MBSR, meditation, menopause, mindful living, mindfulness, mindfulness for beginners, mindfulness matters, my home my rules my way, OPD free zone, perspective, practicing the practices, ptsd, relationships, sufficiency, taking care of me, TBI, The Art of Being, the map is not the world, there are verbs involved, walking my own path, what matters most?

Categories Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, The Art of Being

What Makes You Glow?

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Just a Reminder

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Where’d I Put That Soapbox?

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Sleeping and Waking

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A Few Well-Chosen Words

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