Archives for category: more than a little bit of bitching
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Struggles

May 23, 2016 //
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I woke last night abruptly, sometime in the wee hours. My brain was working overtime on something that was on my mind; my weight. I find managing my weight difficult. It’s a common enough challenge, and I won’t bore you with bitching and fussing, we’ve all got our own Tale of Awful with regard to beauty challenges of one sort or another, and other writers write well and powerfully about how our self-image is affected by culture, advertising, internet trolls, our upbringing… all that. I won’t bother to re-hash it.

I had gone to bed irked because I gained some weight that I’d fought hard to lose. Again. I woke up because my busy brain continued to contrast, compare, filter, collate, and sort information from a number of areas of life where I have (or have not) progressed and how I understand things to have worked in that instance. I woke because my brain got finished with that project and urgently needed to get my attention back on it asap. lol Peculiarly (encouragingly) I woke feeling hopeful and aware – aware of how I affect my progress (or lack of it) – and how I can get control of it (and myself) and make more powerful gains toward my goals. Nice.

Yeah. There are gonna be verbs involved. 🙂 I can even sum it up pretty briefly; I need to eat mindfully. No kidding. It could be literally that simple – and will likely be every bit that difficult. I know the quantity of calories I must limit myself to, daily, in order to lose weight. I have a decent understanding of my nutritional needs, and what the content of those calories must be. I want very much to be both healthier and more attractive, and I like it when my feet don’t hurt just from hiking a couple miles. I have the means to ensure my pantry has the type/quantity of basic ingredients needed to meet my needs day-to-day. I miss my goals when I fail to approach food and meals mindfully. It’s so easy to take my eye off good portion control simply by being casual about it, eye-balling something I’m ‘sure of’ now and then… which quickly becomes ‘so much easier  than’ measuring things all the time… which ends up with portions easily three times what I need to be healthy. The small mistakes add up in pounds. Damn it.

I dislike constant oversight, and living alone I don’t have any… but oversight is something that has value, if I am not willing or able to manage my life with that level of detail… so… can I do this, or do I need help? My brain says I can do this – and what woke me is how similar what needs to be done is to all the other tasks and processes I’ve worked to improve on over the last couple years. Mindfulness matters. It’s not even fancy or complicated – be here. Now. Show up. Be attentive. Be present. Enjoy the thing I am doing, in this moment I am doing it, awake and aware. Mindful. It’s the opposite of ‘mindless’ – it’s the opposite of ‘auto pilot’, and the opposite of ‘eye-balling something I’m sure of’. Mindfulness requires that I step through each routine, and handle each task, so entirely committed to it that those ‘I didn’t realize I…’ moments are minimized.  Before I go to far down this exciting garden path of feeling encouraged… It’s clearly not ‘easy’, or no one at all would need to have it pointed out, or would need to learn mindfulness, or practice it – we’d just do it!

I woke up realizing that a lot of what I struggle with in life would perhaps less difficult, less trying, less awkward, less painful, less embarrassing, less regrettable, less aggravating altogether if I were more mindful. It seems a given simply because at each opportunity to be more mindful on which I have been indeed more mindful, there has been a lot less struggle. Case in point; shortly after the new year, my new physician was fairly blunt that I need to take off some weight to overcome some of my pain management challenges. That’s pretty motivational… if that’s all it takes… right? Well, and for about 8 weeks I reliably lost 2-4 pounds a week, seemingly without real effort, by being very mindful about all matters related to food. Then… I got distracted, took my attention off the details, and gained some of that weight back. Again. Damn it. Fuck this gets frustrating. I went to bed last night being pretty hard on myself about it. I woke remembering very specifically that the emotions that surface through ‘being hard on myself’ about my weight quickly undermine my progress; depression wants calories, fancy soothing dessert-y calories. So does loneliness. So does yearning. Shit.

Practicing mindfulness with regard to food and eating allows me, as an emotional human primate, to feel what I am feeling, and continue to practice good practices. There are, as it happens, verbs involved. Yep – and my results vary. It’s why I’m still practicing – and probably always will be. It’s why I have to begin again. Again. 🙂

This? This is not a tale of failure – it’s just a few words over coffee about a common source of frustration in a very human experience, and what I will do about it, myself. It’s the doing that’s the real challenge, and it can be done. I’ve done it before. I’m eager to begin again, and I’m feeling fairly fearless about approaching the matter. I take a moment to appreciate that I know what needs to be done, and what works for me – that’s an excellent starting point on any journey.

An obstacle - or something to see along the way?

An obstacle – or something to see along the way?

The sun is up… Time to begin again. 🙂

 

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Categories Anxiety, Brain Injury, health, Healthy Living, Mindfulness, more than a little bit of bitching, Perspective, Spring, The Art of Being, weight loss secrets, Words

Ready? Then Change! Wait…What?

May 19, 2016 //
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The map is not the world. The plans I make are not the life I live. The calendar in front of me is more a… suggestion. I don’t tend to view it that way very often; my calendar seems so ‘real’ when I make plans. For example, today my calendar tells me that I’ve a date planned with my traveling partner, and that I am hanging out with friends tomorrow morning-ish, and grabbing lunch together. I am spending the weekend camping – my calendar says so, and I’ve the reservation number for my space and the address of the park right there in the event details. So… how is it that I’ve started today with this head cold that does not appear anywhere on my calendar, and is not accounted for in any of my planning? Seriously? It seems ages since I was last sick… why now?

I noticed my stuffy head when I woke up at 1 am, for no obvious reason. The room felt hot, and my mouth was very dry. At 3 am, I still hadn’t fallen back to sleep; my stuffy head was making me snore, and my own snoring was waking me every time I started to drift off. I got up and wandered around in the dark long enough to take preferred symptom-treating cold remedies, have a big class of water, and blow my nose. I slept some, woke again, slept a bit more, getting up for coffee at more or less my usual time…which I may not finish. I will probably go back to bed, whether I finish it or not. I make a point of putting boxes of tissues here and there, where they will be most convenient. I get all the cans of chicken soup from the pantry shelves, and stack them on the kitchen counter. I find the exertion tiring on a level that re-confirms that I am ill. Like a child or a puppy might, I sink to the floor where I am, there in the kitchen, ‘just for a minute’ because I feel woozy and weak for a moment; I doze off, head back against the cabinet door, feet stretched out, a bit like a rag doll left behind, forgotten. What a fragile vessel this is.

Camping will have to wait; being ill is best managed in comfort.

Camping will have to wait; being ill is best managed in comfort.

My snoring startled me awake, and I feel appreciative this time; had I slept in that position for any time, I’d likely h ave awakened with a crick in my neck that would have added additional pain to the experience of a common cold. lol I get off the floor. I take my coffee with me into the studio to cancel the camping reservation – someone else will want that great spot. It’s a good weekend for camping…or seemed so yesterday. Today I stare unenthusiastically out the window near my desk. I ache all over. I’m tired. I push through all that and message my partner; he’s not going to want to get sick, I’m pretty certain of that. I message my friends – I doubt they want to get sick either. My tinnitus is more engaging than birdsong this morning. My coffee seems flavorless, pointless, and uninteresting; I’ll make myself swallow it before I return to bed, to avoid the headache later if I don’t.

Why bother writing about being sick, though? We’ve all been there… It’s a thing we go through. Well… A.) Why not? B.) I started writing, so… I’m writing, and this is the experience I happen to be having.  And C.) It’s also a different experience of having a cold than used to be typical for me, which is unexpected. I don’t feel vaguely threatened, frightened of sleeping, vulnerable to attack, uneasy, anxious, or awash in wild uncontrolled emotions; these are experiences that once characterized being sick [for me]. I’m just sick with a head cold. Incremental change over time. Learning to take better care of the woman in the mirror, and this fragile vessel, making myself a high priority day-to-day, and treating myself generally well finds me defaulting to a very difference experience of being ill. No tantrums (so far). No inexplicable anxiety (so far). No giving in to poor self-care (so far). No lashing out unexpectedly at other people as if to blame them for the experience and inconvenience of being ill (so far). My health is better these days and improved overall self-care has resulted in many fewer experiences of being sick. I feel like crap today, and I’m irked to be faced with my weekend plans unraveling, but for now, I feel mostly pretty grown up about it. Nice change in experience.

I ache all over. Sitting up, writing, my head is less stuffy (oh, right – cold medication!)…but I ache, and sitting upright actually feels like… work. My coffee is cold enough to just drink, so I do. My head aches, and my ears are ringing (more than usual, some medications do that). I’ve no enthusiasm for birdsong this morning. Today is a good day to take better than usual care of this fragile vessel. I check the battery on my Kindle (although I know I am not actually going to read), and grab a box of tissues. Today I go back to bed; everything that isn’t taking care of me can wait, including camping, romantic evenings, and hanging out with friends.

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Categories Free Will, health, Healthy Living, Mindfulness, more than a little bit of bitching, Perspective, Sleepless Nights, The Big 5, Words

Waking Up on the Dark Side

May 13, 2016 //
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This morning I woke up crying. And in pain, but the pain is an everyday thing, waking up broken and emotional less so. This morning I woke up on the dark side of the bed, clumsy, hurting, and weeping. I initially tried a ‘reset’, took my morning medication and had a glass of water, went back to bed. Not helping. The tears become sobbing. Why am I crying? Is it only the pain? Nightmares? I slept well and deeply, and don’t recall my dreams… My brain carpet bombs my heart with every misstep, every failure, every scrap of potential risk in my near future, all my doubts, my fears, my insecurities – I’m drowning in panic. What the fuck is going on?? I stop caring much about any of that at some point and just give in to the sorrow, the dread, and the tears.

…Clearly, I was not going back to sleep. I get up. I make coffee. I open the apartment to the cool morning air. I am so overcome by restlessness and anxiety that meditation is difficult. I pace a bit. I’ve barely been up half an hour; yoga is difficult this morning and I am too stiff and too clumsy for now. No relief. No ease. The tears start again. My own words are attacking me, becoming water leaking from my eyes as soon as they form sentences in my head. The layered meanings of English words become enemies, and I hear only darkness and despair in the most beautiful poetry. I feel sad and lost – and can’t bear to put it into words. Fuck this… But now what?

I finally reach for my coffee and take a sip. Well. There’s one bright spot in a difficult morning – my coffee is excellent. It’s something – and I grab onto the moment and hold on. It’s still very early – earlier than I’ve been getting up most of this week. The sun has not yet risen, and I can see the colors of the sunrise just beyond the window of this room.

My brain sucker punches me again, when I try to write “just beyond the window of my studio”, and I start weeping all over again. How fragile happiness can seem when it slips away. “This is temporary, and it will pass.” I remind myself. I remind myself, again. Uncertain what is causing this emotional experience, even now, I go through the motions of any small thing that I know has the potential to be comforting, soothing, balancing… things that provide perspective, that ease emotional pain, that tend to support long-term wellness. I keep waiting for something to work. “Be kind to yourself, it’s a very human experience.” Yes, isn’t it? I feel rather as if I am… grieving.

I’m in pain this morning. I read my traveling partner’s well-wishes of the night before, hoping that I rest well and wake without pain. Well… 1 out of 2. It’s a start. Is this all just pain? If I start root-causing it now, I’ll likely be trapped ruminating over this all day without really getting anywhere. I woke up crying. I sure did. Now I work on pulling my focus away from it, and practicing practices that nudge me a different direction a bit at a time. The sun rises, peach and orange along the tree tops, dissipating into a pale cerulean blue wash of sky above. I watch the sun rise, and listen to the birds singing their morning songs. Today is not a work day, and clearly I need to take care of the woman in the mirror – once I figure out what this mad bitch actually needs to ease her hurts. Fuck this is hard sometimes.

My coffee is fucking good though. That’s something.

I take a really good deep breath. I observe my posture, and how tight my chest feels. I take a moment to stretch, really stretch, and breathe, really really breathe. More tears. Fuck it – let them come. I slowly ease myself through my ‘stiff back morning yoga sequence’, cutting myself some slack that it is so difficult today, and just doing it. Slowly. Try again when I can’t quite do some simple posture. I’ll get there. I remind myself that today will be a good day to meditate. I feel no enthusiasm for it. I’ve lost my joy for the moment – but chasing it is an exercise in frustration. The word frustration causes more tears; words are often associated with a visceral reaction for me, inconveniently. I remind myself that the tears are not my enemy, just another way to communicate an experience – a way that is very hard to shut down without actually addressing whatever the fuck is the matter. I let the tears come.

Okay, I’m done fucking around with this – and I need to break the cycle. Well – it feels like a need, and that’s enough to drive desperate action in human primates. So… I take a step I might ordinarily avoid, and I head to the internet. No, seriously, totally where I’m heading. Perspective is a powerful tool, and right now I’ve lost mine. I feel deeply aggrieved about… nothing, and it’s really messing up my ability to be in this moment and also okay – and I can’t identify any reason this would be the case. So. Perspective is on the internet. There is war. There is a refugee crisis. There is poverty. I let the tears continue, and I look on the face of the world’s suffering – because there are things worth crying about. There are people suffering, really suffering. I’m not among them. This is emotional bullshit I’m struggling with, and I can at least stop fucking struggling with it, and just be.

My tears stop. My heart aches for the suffering of others, and I feel grateful to be where I am, in the circumstances I have right now. I pause to reflect on what is, without burdening myself over whether it will last, or what ‘forever’ looks like, or whether this is enough. The sun clears the trees and fills my studio with light. Well… it’s not ‘enlightenment’ in any meaningful way, but it’s a start.

I’ll say that as practices go, diminishing the magnitude of my own suffering by immersing myself in the suffering of others (compassionately) in order to gain perspective is a fairly aggressive approach to take with myself when I am hurting – but it is often an effective tool. Compassion and gratitude don’t leave much room for despair, for anxiety, for sorrow, and tend to crowd out the chaos and damage, and the voices of the demon chorus.  (Note: I have found that it is not at all effective to attempt to take this approach with someone else when they are suffering – it’s sort of a ‘self serve’ tool, at best.) I’m not necessarily less angst-y, or feeling any less pain, but things being relative… yeah. I’m okay right now.

My coffee is quite exceptional this morning, and admittedly more so because I’d been getting by on the last of the pre-ground packaged coffee from the grocery store, left over from the trip to the coast for two days. The whole-bean artisan-roasted coffee this morning is a very different experience. I take a moment to allow myself to be comfortably aware that “this too shall pass”, that circumstances change, and that I may not ‘have it so good’ at some future point; change is. I am here right now, though, and it is enough. 🙂

A lot of the time I’ve spent bitching about how awful things were in that moment would likely have been much more enjoyable had I been focused on how exceptional other details of that moment happened to be. It’s just true. Hard, sometimes. Still true. My tears have dried. The day looks like a lovely one. The air is fresh and cool, and filled with birdsong. I am in a quiet safe space, with the day ahead of me. The pantry is stocked. The bills are paid. I head for my meditation cushion…

…I am okay right now. It’s enough.

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Categories Anxiety, Brain Injury, Free Will, grief, Mindfulness, more than a little bit of bitching, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, The Big 5, War and News of War, Words

One Important Change

May 11, 2016 //
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I sat down with a state employee yesterday, a requirement as I go through the various processes involved with shifting gears from ‘gainfully employed’ to ‘not so much’ for the time being. It was inevitable, and as indicated, required. It was a pleasant enough experience, like a jingle or a pop song, purposeful and fairly cheery… with one wrong note. Discussing skills and experience, she dismissed both my painting and my writing as ‘hobbies’ and told me in a frank and practical tone that those “don’t count” and I “should stay focused on real work skills” when seeking employment. I laughed and playfully pointed out what a buzz kill that must be for graphic artists, and technical writers… she looked at me oddly and said she didn’t understand what I meant. Oh my. Say it with me, People, “art is real work, so is writing, so is acting, so is philosophy – yes, people can (and should) be paid to think, and paid to create.

Can we please just make one change in the way we view productivity? Can we please recognize the inherent value of creative works? 🙂 Hell, the most important work I have done as a human being has been artistic work; not a damned thing I’ve ever done for corporate America has been worthy of further consideration once the moment has passed. (This is likely quite true for most ‘gainfully employed’ human beings – most of the effort for which we are compensated lacks meaning, it is simply revenue generating for that employer, and therefore valued sufficiently for [required] compensation – and based on the brouhaha over increasing the minimum wage, they grudge workers even that.)

Again and again, I am struck by how reluctant we seem to be to pay artists. It’s a little weird, isn’t it? We pay the barista who makes our coffee, the cashier who rings up our groceries, the mechanic who services our vehicle, the firefighters who stand by ready to fight fires (and who get paid even when nothing is on fire), we pay CEO types who may do literally nothing besides attending meetings and answering emails (and we pay them very well), hell – we even pay athletes to play games they’d likely pay for free, to secure the reliable playing of the game at a venue large enough for paying crowds to attend. What’s with expecting artists – any kind of artists – to work for free? (By the way, working for ‘exposure’ is the identical same thing as working for free!) How is painting not work? How is writing not work? How is acting not work? I mean, seriously folks… if you allow the average CEO, or executive manager, or pro athlete to identify their compensated activities as ‘work’, then how is a painter not working? How is a novelist not working? How is a poet not working? Seriously? Don’t be dicks. It may not be easy to place a painter in a paid position as a painter – but for fuck’s sake is it necessary to denigrate that meaningful work, by saying it isn’t ‘real work’? I’ll admit to being more than a little irked that the government will subsidize farmers, but not artists. It’s easy to see that filling the stomach of the nation is important… Is it so difficult to see that feeding our hearts, minds, and souls is important, too? Would we perhaps be better human beings if we more easily recognized artistic endeavors as valued work? I think it is worth thinking about. (End rant. 🙂 )

work

Not yet ready for ‘real work’, there is real work to be done to finish moving into my studio. 🙂

It is a lovely morning. I plan to spend the day [working] in the studio, aside from one pause for an interview call. The practical requirements of life must still be met, and I hope to find a position from which I can invest more time in artistic endeavors. I feel unhurried and well-prepared. My traveling partner shared a great quote with me yesterday that fuels and encourages me. “Chance favors the prepared mind.” (Louis Pasteur) I take additional steps to be that ‘prepared mind’ as I live my life and study life’s curriculum, extending my studies into new areas that have the potential to enhance my existing (monetarily valued) skills; I have enrolled in some coursework in analysis and economics. (I continue to be a big fan of continuing education, and it has served me well over the years.)

Today is a good day to be spent on practical matters and taking care of this fragile vessel. Today is a good day to invest in infrastructure (through educating myself, tidying up my studio, maintaining an organized living space, and practicing the practices that build emotional resilience and self-sufficiency). Yes, there are verbs involved. 🙂

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Categories Art, art and the artist, Free Will, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, more than a little bit of bitching, Perspective, The Art of Being, The Big 5

Some Mornings Less So

May 8, 2016 //
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Most mornings proceed pretty gently for me these days, and even on the worst of them I get by pretty well, and treat myself decently, and with considerable compassion. This morning was less than usually gentle, and although I’ve done what I can, I am less than ideally kind to myself – I am frustrated by my limitations and feeling irked. It’s not the best addition to my morning coffee, which somehow tastes bitter in spite of using the same coffee I find so richly satisfying most other mornings – and in spite of my general lack of ability to detect bitter flavors in the first place. It is one more defining detail of the start of my day.

I woke from a sound sleep, head as stuffy as the room also felt, throat dry, head pounding, and the clock factually admonishing me that it was already 5:30 am, well into the ‘I may as well get up’ time of morning [for me]. I definitely did not want to get up, and I felt groggy and out of sorts. I got up to pee, and opened the patio door to the morning breeze, hoping to cool the apartment down without fully waking up, and noticing my pain well beyond the usual as I did so. (That makes it sound far more efficient than my hapless dizzy clumsy careening around the room actually was.) I took my morning medication, drank a glass of water, and returned to bed, hoping to sleep in spite of the pain. That doesn’t always work out for me, particularly after sunrise, but on this gray overcast moody looking morning, and after considerable tossing and turning trying to find some combination of pillows and posture that would allow it, I slept.

I woke later to a cool room filled with fresh morning air, headache gone, and easily able to breathe. I feel rested. I still hurt. I am in more pain than usual, possibly just the ordinary change in my arthritis pain that comes with a change in the weather. Yesterday, sunny, warm, and clear… today, gray, overcast, cool, and threatening rain – it’s very much the sort of change that comes with more than usual pain, and I feel less cross with myself recognizing that. (At 5:30 am it was less obvious that it would be a cloudy day.) My coffee is still pretty dreadful… and I give some moments of thought to whether it makes more sense to pour it out and make another cup, or just drink it and have a better second cup later? I get up to go pour it out and start over… then remember I am currently getting by on limited income. Shit. I sit down, taking a more practical, frugal approach, and sip my coffee as it is… glaring down into the dark brew now and then, wondering what the hell went wrong with my process this morning to get this result?

Still… pain and a bad cup of coffee isn’t the whole of my day, or of my experience – it’s not even the whole of my morning. I’m barely awake yet, and the day stretches ahead well beyond my ‘now’, unformed, unlived, and largely unimagined. There will be verbs involved, and choices. 🙂 I sip my coffee and wonder whether or not ‘taking care of me’ today is more about yielding to the pain I am in and compromising my loose plans for greater comfort… or refusing to let my pain call the shots, and undertaking the things I am inclined to do, more slowly perhaps and less comfortably, and just understand that the pain is what it is, and it’s part of my experience more often than I’d like… It’s a hard call this morning. If it actually hurt less to just go back to bed and stay there… I probably would. It doesn’t, so that’s not even an option. lol

That’s a funny thing about the vast menu of choices life presents me with, that I don’t consider as frankly as I might, as often as would be helpful… there are some things I want very much to be choices of mine, that are not in fact on my own actual [still vast] menu of choices to consider – when I am honest with myself. I can’t really choose not to be in pain with my arthritis in any realistic way. I can’t choose to be younger. I can’t choose to change the past. I can’t choose to begin somewhere over there, when I am standing right here. I can’t choose for any of the many details of reality to be other than they are – although I can choose to ignore them, or pretend them differently, the consequences of my actions remain tied to the real reality, and the true truth. Reality does not care what lies we tell ourselves. Our truths have very little to do with what we say in words.

So… this morning… pain. I still want to go to the farmers’ market this morning. When I go, some later, I will still have to be mindful that my resources have changed a lot, and being frugal has value – this is a poor time to be careless or wasteful with resources. I will need to slow down a bit, and manage my pain – or my pain will take the driver’s seat and manage my mood. Choices. Always choices. It’s worthwhile to take a few minutes over my coffee to consider what my choices really are – and where they lead me.

I decide on a hearty breakfast at home, accepting as a given that shopping when I am hungry may drive unintended spending. Before breakfast, a walk and yoga. A second cup of coffee. A hot shower. I notice in this one moment, right here, now, I am not actually in pain… I don’t question that, and I do pause everything else (writing, coffee, gazing at the bird feeder beyond the window…) and take some time to be aware that I am not hurting, to savor it, to linger over the sensations of feeling good; doing so is a practice that shifts my implicit memory away from ‘being in pain all the time’ to being aware that I am not always in pain, and improving my day-to-day perspective and sense of my experience. Moment by moment I build my day… the difficult start? Just one moment of many to come, and I let it go. 🙂

Neither a single ocean wave nor one small bird defines a day at the beach.

Neither a single ocean wave nor one small bird defines a day at the beach.

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Categories Free Will, Healthy Living, Metaphors, Mindfulness, more than a little bit of bitching, pain, Perspective, The Art of Being, Words
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