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Breathe Through the Moment

May 30, 2019 //
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Moments come and go. Whatever shit you’re having to wade through in life, it’ll pass. You can, of course, slow that process down some, by clinging to misery. I don’t recommend it. Take a breathe. Relax. Be in this moment, and let that one go.

Sometimes the flowers are tucked away behind the vines.

Sunny days come and go. Rainy ones, too. I’m just saying; this, too, shall pass. That’s real. Take a breath. Have a cup of coffee. Walk in the fresh air, among the trees, or under broad open skies.

“Human” isn’t always easy. Actually, quite the opposite seems to be the case; being human often seems needlessly difficult. Worse – we choose the difficulty level on the game of life, more often than we realize we do. We make specific, considered, deliberate choices to make the game so much harder. I’m not sure why that is. We could each do things quite differently than we often do…

…You can begin again. Let it go. Breathe. Start over. Just a thought.

My coffee is good. This moment is deliciously quiet, and gentle. Morning has not yet really gotten going. I’m okay with taking that slowly.

We each walk our own hard mile. We often don’t notice others suffering, and have little ability to place the suffering of others in the context of suffering generally; our own pain often feels like the worst pain, ever. “No one else could ever understand how bad this is…” We isolate ourselves from the support we are seeking, forgetting how common most of these human experiences actually are. We sometimes choose to withhold compassion and kindness, because we aren’t receiving it, ourselves. It’s weird how that works.

I sip my coffee and consider The Big 5. Respect. Reciprocity. Consideration. Compassion. Openness.

I could do better.

It’s time to begin again.

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Categories Brain Injury, forgiveness, Free Will, Frustration, gratitude, Love, Mindfulness, Moments, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, Spring, Summer, The Big 5, Words

Flavor, Color, Scent, Sound

May 21, 2019 //
2

I’m awake. Rested. Sipping hot coffee. All the usual morning stuff, in the morning. It is a Tuesday. I’ve got an appointment before work, and I’m working very hard at not forgetting that. 🙂 I’ve been trying for awhile to get this appointment, so I definitely do not want to just… forget I have it. (Yeah, that’s a thing. lol) I sip my coffee, meditate, scroll through the news, and consider the day ahead.

Blossoms near a train station. Some other moment of observation and awareness.

When I find my thoughts wandering off, to events and moments that are not “now”, I pull myself back to this present moment with observation of some detail here, now. My breath. This cup of coffee, and the mug warming my hands. The glow of the monitor, illuminating a photograph. The scent of early morning flowers on the pre-dawn breeze filling the apartment through the open patio door. Sounds of my neighbor, through the wall, starting his own morning. Sensations. Awareness. Experience. First person, present tense.

Mmm… this really is a good cup of coffee, this morning. 🙂 I sit quietly, hands wrapped around the warm mug.

Roses don’t mind the rain.

Minutes pass. I am content. Relaxed. Enjoying this particular moment, for no obvious reason besides it being a pleasant one. Isn’t that enough? 🙂 The clock ticks slowly. I sip coffee and listen to the sounds of morning as the sky turns from darkness to a moody gray overcast sky. Rain today? I’m okay with that. I don’t mind the rain.

My mind wanders to daydreams of futures unknown and unknowable. I pull it back to this moment, right here, already rich with potential. My mind wanders to recollections of the past, fraught with inaccuracies and emotional baggage. I pull it back to this moment, and make room for these feelings, and this experience. I sip my coffee, and glance at the time. I remind myself of my appointment, again. I wonder, for a moment, if I ought to drive into the office… and deal with the chaos of downtown driving and parking. I chuckle out loud, facing the obvious; there is no need to drive downtown. Public transit will get me there, just fine. 🙂 Less stress. No parking cost. It seems the smarter choice. I sip my coffee feeling grown-up and practical, capable, and prepared for the day.

I think over my “everyday carry” items, and the day ahead. I make some changes, mentally, trusting myself to make those changes, in fact, before I leave the house for the day. It’s not a given, and I remind myself to double-check the details before I go. Backpack. Keys. Work badges. Card case. Cell phone. The book I’m reading. Some relevant paperwork for this appointment. My vape. Spare batteries for that. There’s a nagging feeling that I’ve forgotten something – but I nearly always feel that way, and the sensation is not reliably associated with an actual experience, so I make the attempt to let that go. I remind myself that my earbuds are laying loose on the seat of the car; I’ve forgotten to grab them several times now, and I’d really like to have them for the train ride.

None of this planning or preparation is the future. It’s all “now”. Maybe it improves the future in some way, maybe it does not. It’s easy to conflate the planning and preparation with the future moments themselves. They are not really related in such a direct way. I take a deep breath. I let it out. I notice that I feel sleepy, or fatigued, or… distant. I feel as if I am avoiding the moment, just ahead, when I step out the door, into a new day. Suddenly, I’d rather go back to bed. Inconvenient. There are things to do. I shake off the sensation, and finish off my coffee.

It’s time to begin again. 🙂

 

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Categories Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Spring, Summer, The Art of Being

The Damage Is Done

May 16, 2019 //
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Yesterday, along with my morning coffee and some hang out time with my Traveling Partner, I was relaxing and found myself appreciating how easy life feels, and how far I’ve come… Lovely feelings for what they are, but of course, these too are transitory parts of the experience of life. Later in the day, I got a healthy reminder; the damage has been done.

Sometimes it’s sunny in the garden of my heart, sometimes it rains. Roses can bloom, rain or shine.

No kidding. It’s possibly not about where I am in life now (rarely is, really), and when I find myself faced with a moment of struggle, a challenge, a bit of emotional bad weather, I sometime forget in that moment, that a lot of this chaos and damage was built so long ago that the “schematics have been lost”. I don’t easily understand why, sometimes, old hurts surface, or why shitty programming is still a thing, ever. It is what it is. I don’t lay down and die over it – that seems excessive. Still. I have moments when I feel hurt, or confused, or struggle with learned helplessness in a great relationship – over shit that damaged me decades ago, in shitty relationships. That’s just real.

…Some of the damage we sustain in the course of a lifetime is quite permanent. I know, I know, hardly the usual message of positivity, but hear me out here; that’s still okay. We become what we practice. It’s nearly always improvable. It’s not that I can’t heal – I know incremental improvement takes time. When I’m feeling really fine, and quite excellent, comfortable in my skin – and in my relationships – that is 100% when I am least watchful for life’s next lesson. There definitely is always a next lesson. lol

An otherwise lovely moment went sideways for me in a moment of learned helplessness colliding with my brain injury. I dithered. I stalled. I literally could not act upon an otherwise routine bit of circumstance. Embarrassing and a tad scary for me. Frustrating and probably hurtful for my Traveling Partner, taken by surprise by my absolute failure to “use my words” or affirmatively respond to this particular situation in any effective way. We let it go, with effort, both realizing it likely wasn’t something I could have done anything about, just then. It felt exceedingly awkward. The rest of the evening passed, for me, somewhat laboriously; I felt self-conscious, raw, insecure, and that I had failed to successfully adult in any legitimate way.

This morning, I let it go, again. It’s a new day. An entirely fresh start. A new beginning. That really matters this morning. I grab that opportunity with both hands, and hold on, then laugh at myself… because this, too, will pass. lol I sip my coffee, breathe deeply, and practice non-attachment, however unskillfully… lots of things take practice. 🙂

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Categories Anxiety, Brain Injury, forgiveness, Free Will, Frustration, Love, Mindfulness, Moments, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, Spring, Summer, The Big 5

Well This Sucks…

April 24, 2019 //
1

This morning I hurt. I woke with such a shitty headache, and neck pain. Did I sleep on my neck wrong? Maybe… I hurt. I know that.

Meditation? Sure. Still hurts. Stretching? Yoga? Yep. Hurts. Take something for that? Okay, fine. Still hurts. I put on my headphones and play the only song that makes sense right now. I scroll through the news, looking for a distraction. No luck, still hurts. Fucking hell. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.

I sip my coffee, and remind myself it’ll take time for the pain relief available through OTC measures to kick in. I start the song over. lol I remind myself to correct my posture, knowing that will also help. I remind myself that small incremental improvements eventually add up, and remind myself not to dismiss the seeming ineffectiveness of measures taken that seem to have little effect – again, it all adds up.

…Doesn’t it?…

I sip my coffee and consider the situation from a larger quality-of-life perspective; even those steps I take that don’t provide a “cure for pain” are genuinely improvements in overall quality of life, nonetheless. Why would I allow petty frustration with a headache put those out of reach based on a fairly subjective measure of their effectiveness (which is to say, immediate substantial pain relief of this fucking headache right here/now)?

…I still have a fucking headache…

…Well, but on the other hand, there’s not much else to bitch about, just at the moment, life is pretty good. So. There’s that, right?

Maybe if I begin again…? I change up the music.

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Categories Free Will, Frustration, gratitude, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Spring

Just Words

April 21, 2019 //
0

“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose By any other name would smell as sweet.” (Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet)

“Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me!” (a damned lie from childhood; some of that shit stings for a lifetime)

“That’s just semantics.” (A corporate management professional who should know better)

“I didn’t mean it that way!” (Nearly everyone, at some point)

Words and meaning – they do matter, don’t they? It’s how we get our point across (short of frustrated sobbing, or shouting, at which point no one hears the meaning over the volume of emotion).

“Use your words.” (A thing generally said parent to child, and potentially far more useful that a lot of other advice about words one could hear)

The point here is clear; gentle honesty, authentic civility, being “real” without willful offense, being truthful – and also accurate – seem wise and purposeful, constructive, ways to use language, on the “word delivery” side of things. I’m not saying people seem intent on wise use of their words, I’m just calling out the potential. We’re human primates; it is not unusual to see the worst of our nature. (I make this observation on an Easter Sunday, after reading new reports of police shootings in the US, and suicide bombings in Sri Lanka; we’re the scariest and most dangerous of all the primates, no doubt about it. 100% “most likely to destroy their own world.”)

I’m also contemplating the listener’s obligations in the face of some torrent of untruthful or hurtful bullshit, delivered in the form of words (spoken or in print, bullshit is bullshit). Clear, explicit communication is useful stuff; we sometimes allow a personal agenda of some kind (or fearfulness, or baggage) to nudge us away from truth, accuracy, consideration, necessity, kindness, and wisdom. Capable of spewing some heinous vile nonsense, we often also seem rather unprepared to deal with receiving it. What then? What to do when the world piles on, and we suffer the weight and the pain of it, feeling unable to defend ourselves, feeling compelled to try?

I’m not sure I have the best advice on that one; my tendency (and my practice) is to detect drama (or bullshit) and, if possible, walk away from all that. I attempt to avoid having drama-prone, hostile-seeming, or trolling-inclined associates join my social circle in the first place. I attempt to defuse discussions headed toward drama, explicitly, gentle, firmly, and without argument; I’m not interested in loosing the wild dogs of emotion in conversations that are ideally handled less passionately. I’m not interested in being provoked.

The world we live in can be exceedingly provocative, in all the worst ways. I mean, seriously? We’ve built a world in which people feel entitled to make their point by blowing up explosives in crowded places, taking innocent lives by way of gunfire, or using torture. How does any of that not provoke decent people (of all backgrounds and ideologies) into wanting to fight back, to insist on change, to reject the thinking that appears to be at the source of the violence? It’s a strange paradox, though; if we become the fighter, and take to the battlefield, we are immediately at grave risk of becoming that thing we so despise. I don’t have answers this morning… I’m just sipping my coffee, and noticing we have so many better ways to express ourselves, than by way of guns and bombs.

We could each do better. We can all begin again.

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Categories anger, Anxiety, Despair, forgiveness, Free Will, grief, Mindfulness, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Spring, The Art of Being, The Big 5, War and News of War, Words
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