Archives for category: Parables

Choose.

June 3, 2019 //

Initially, I wrote it off as coincidental; the rise of negativity, the more intense emotionality, the unpredictable temperament, while it could have been the new Rx… why would I assume it necessarily was? I mean… I’ve got issues. lol Then, my Traveling Partner noticed, largely by way of being hit with an unhealthy dose of it on the receiving end. Then, a couple of friends noticed it – one of them by way of the negative affect of my posture, and facial expressions. Oh. Hell. No. I am not putting myself through that. I’d only been on it a handful of weeks, and already struggling with nightmares, weird shifts in mood and/or perspective, and a powerful (slow) spiraling negativity that was definitely worsening. I follow up with appointment making, and begin to taper off of the new Rx, (after getting some relief, but not nearly enough to make the trade-offs worth it).

…24 hours later, the bleak gray “certainties” that had been rapidly becoming my perspective began to lift. Yesterday was a lovely day, and it was easy to enjoy, and the smile on my face felt real, not forced, and although I’m dealing with pain, this is me… dealing with it. So. Some better. Much better. Pain sucks, but pain along with feelings of muted despair, terrible mocking nightmares, and moody bullshit…? Worse.

I didn’t write over the weekend. I was definitely aware that my thinking and emotions were increasingly colored by this prescribed, regulated, managed, and also notably not working out well for me, personally, prescription drug experience. (I was definitely “on drugs” – which happens to any one of us far more often at the hands of a physician than a street dealer!) I’d ideally rather not drag everyone else into the muck with me. Making the choice to recognize and act upon the problematic symptoms sooner than later is merely a byproduct of being well-supported in my relationships, and having already experienced the outcome of excessive trust placed in someone else’s judgement over my own first hand knowledge, of my own first person experience. Seriously, though, if you’re on a medication with a problematic effect, please talk to your doctor – don’t just quit! Some drugs have a very particular or difficult withdrawal effect, and you’d want to be supported properly with appropriate care. 🙂

I woke easily, this morning, no nightmares chasing me. The alarm was unwelcome, and honestly, I expect this on a Monday morning after a lovely weekend; I’d rather stay home, in the garden, enjoying another coffee, and hanging out with my Traveling Partner, or a friend, or the squirrels and chipmunks if everyone else is busy. 🙂 Not gonna lie; I think work is highly over-rated. Still, it gives a certain structure (and cash-flow) to my day-to-day experience. 😉

So, it’s a routine Monday, after all that, following a lovely weekend of sunny days, gardening, and running errands. I’m sipping coffee, and looking ahead to the work week. I have the thought that it will be a busy one. Then I wonder about the impact of the Google outage… holy shit a lot of everyday life goes through the internet somewhere, these days. I sit with that thought for a moment, feeling grateful I don’t have all my household electronics controlled by way of an internet connected device. I actually didn’t notice there’d been an outage until my Traveling Partner read about it on the news. lol We were contentedly busy being people, in real life. Most enjoyable. 🙂

I look at the clock. Yep. Choices. Every choice I make is a whole new beginning. From the small things like “shall I have another coffee?” to the bigger things like “who am I and how do I want to live?” – the answers send my experience along a new path. I grow. I become. Journey-as-metaphor works, because it’s just so close to accurately describing what life, experienced along a timeline, is really like. There’s still no map… but these are my own choices, nonetheless. 🙂 I become what I practice, and it’s time, already, to begin again.

Tags begin again, being and becoming, choose change, choose wisely, emotional self sufficiency, experience, good self-care, I am my own cartographer, listening deeply, mindfulness matters, perspective, practicing the practices, ptsd, self-awareness, taking care of me, taking the time to observe, TBI, the map is not the world, there are verbs involved, walking my own path, we become what we practice, what matters most?

Categories Brain Injury, Free Will, gardening, gratitude, Healthy Living, Mindfulness, Moments, pain, Parables, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Spring, Summer

Pop Quiz

May 24, 2019 //

I sat, relaxed and contented, contemplating the quiet evening of solitude ahead. “I’ll probably spend some time out in the garden.” I said, smiling. I looked at my hands. “My nails are too long. I should cut them back, first…”

“Wear gloves. It’ll keep your hands clean and minimize the risk of leptospirosis…” my partner suggested. Seeing my frown, he added “I’m just looking out for you.” I smiled back and agreed his idea is a good one, wondering briefly if perhaps he disapproves of the way I encourage the chipmunks and squirrels. I let that foolishness go, as soon as the thought forms.

One rose among many and a lovely afternoon.

Some time later, enjoying the evening alone, I went out into the garden for awhile. I pulled some weeds. Smelled newly opened roses. Gazed into the trees, and enjoyed the glow of late afternoon sunshine on a warm spring day. It was lovely. I returned to the cooler comfort of the indoors, and washed my hands. I enjoyed a certain merriment; no broken nails. Nice.

What is enough?

Sitting quietly on my meditation cushion, I enjoyed the breeze filling the living room. When it began to cool down, as the sun sank low in the sky, and the living room was suffused with a sort of peach-colored glow, I got up to close the patio door… and broke a nail right to the quick, as I pulled the door closed. Fuck.

Perfect is a fiction.

…And I giggled. Then I laughed. I laughed for awhile. It felt good to laugh so… thoroughly. So much mirth over a broken nail. Cheap thrills, right? lol I sat down, still smiling, and cut my nails. At least they’re more or less even, and in proportion to each other. Short nails; fast typing. 🙂 Nothing really changes here. Short nails. Long nails. It’s the sort of irrelevant detail it’s so easy to get wound up over. Not last night. Not today. I woke still smiling.

Somehow I suspect there’s a lesson here, somewhere beyond the laughter, no doubt buried in a moment of reflection at higher altitude. Some metaphor? For now, the laughter is enough. 🙂

Tags all of my love, baby love, be here now, be love, be the change, breathe, emotional self sufficiency, good self-care, Kiss n Tell, love, love and lovers, meditation, p.s. I love you, perspective, practicing the practices, ptsd, relationships, roses, sufficiency, TBI, The Alchymist, The Art of Being, The Big 5, wash your hands, we become what we practice, what matters most?

Categories Allegories, Brain Injury, Free Will, gardening, gratitude, Healthy Living, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Parables, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, Roses, Spring, Summer, The Art of Being, The Big 5

Breaking Habits

May 9, 2019 //

I’m sipping my coffee, before dawn, on a Spring morning. Well-past Winter, and headed for Summer, the morning is mild, and the patio door is open to the cool morning air. I haven’t written a word in days… unless a letter to my Mother, for Mother’s Day, counts. I suppose it does… but…

…I’ve spent lovely hours in the garden…

…I seem to have broken my writing habit. lol Yep. It’s entirely possible to break a habit, however long-standing, however well-favored, and even when that habit is relied upon, enjoyed, and cultivated until it becomes a plot point in one’s life, and an element of character. Still breakable.

Just stop doing it.

Stop a habitual behavior one time, and it has little impact. Stop it again, and it becomes a repeated behavior. Continue stopping it ( as in, don’t do it) and, over time, it becomes part of who you are that you don’t do this thing. We become what we practice, it is that simple.

This is a technique, a practice, that works. It works very well; practice something long enough and changes occur. Practice a desirable behavior. Practice something tedious. Practice something useful. Practice something foolish. We become what we practice.

I broke my writing habit by taking a day from writing, now and then, which grew to amused tolerance of not writing, even for a couple days, which slowly became a small kernel of doubt; do I even want to write? I took a vacation for a few days, to focus on Love, and found myself just… not writing. At all. Good times. Challenges. Adventure. Drama. Practice? Well, one thing I was not practicing? Writing. It’s been interesting to live life without it.

The last day or two I have tended to be somewhat irritable, and easily hurt. At that same time, there’s been something “a bit off” every now and then, between my Traveling Partner and I, in spite of how delightfully well we get along, and how much love exists in this relationship. It struck me as I fell asleep last night that, in some small way, my writing is not only part of who I am… it is part of who we are. When I don’t write, not only do I lose “my mirror”, and regular moment taken for self-reflection, and reinforcement of those practices that tend to make me more the woman I most want to be… it also removes a handy window into who I am, and how I’m doing, that my Traveling Partner is quite used to having available. I wonder if that’s something he counts on? I remind myself to ask, some other time.

This is not to say I sense any obligation among all these words; my choices are my own. I miss writing every day. There is a longing that exists alongside the tempting freedom from this habit of sitting down each morning, over my coffee, reflecting on my thoughts, my actions, my experience… and frankly the longing won. 🙂 That’s okay, too.

I listen to a little bird outside my window, and my neighbor’s car warming up in the driveway. I sip my coffee, and feel the cool morning air fill the house. I think of the happy happenstance of running into a former coworker (current friend) yesterday, that I hadn’t seen in a while. I exist in this vaguely merry pre-dawn state, drinking coffee. I love this “place”, this particular moment and state of being. How is it that even this habit is so easily broken? How is it so easily resumed?

We get to choose.

Imagine the insane power our freedom of choice actually implies – and what it says, really, about who we each are (and who we are choosing to be). Raw power.

…And…yeah… it means that it matters who we each choose to be, and that who we are is a product of a great many choices we willfully make, each day. We can choose differently, and better, than we often do – and once we notice that? We sort of have an obligation to ourselves – to that person we most want to be – to step up, and walk a path we choose with care, and make those choices that make us more fully who we do want to be, until, over time, that’s who we actually are.

…So… There’s that. I check the time, and begin again. 🙂

Tags are you going my way?, be here now, be love, be the change, begin again, being and becoming, breaking habits, choose wisely, emotional self sufficiency, experience, good self-care, I am my own cartographer, listening deeply, looking in a bigger mirror, MBSR, meditation, mindfulness, mindfulness matters, perspective, practicing the practices, ptsd, sufficiency, taking care of me, taking time for me, TBI, The Art of Being, the map is not the world, the power of choice, there are verbs involved, walking my own path, we become what we practice, what do you choose?, what matters most?, who are you?

Categories Allegories, Brain Injury, forgiveness, Free Will, gardening, gratitude, Healthy Living, inspiration, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Parables, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, Spring, Summer, The Art of Being, Words

Yes, Even Letting That Go, Too

April 22, 2019 //

My coffee is delicious this morning, for those values of deliciousness to which coffee drinkers refer, when we suggest our coffee is delicious, obviously; it may still taste terrible for the non-coffee-drinker. lol It’s hot, though, and well-brewed, with care, and I am enjoying it. The weekend is already over. A new work week already exists as the immediate future. The weekend was lovely; time spent with friends, time spent with each other, savoring existence.

At some point, the phone rang (more common now, than when we had social media). First mine; an unidentified number from Mauritania. Since I don’t know anyone there, or do business with any companies there, I dismissed the call without answering it; walking away from drama, inconvenience, or unpleasantness, that I recognize, is pretty easy. I do it all the time. 🙂 The second ring was a friend, the phone was my partner’s, and the call was to bring up other drama, somewhere else, based on shit-talking other people, and those other people being people prone to talking shit, and this friend being the unfortunate recipient of shit-having-been-talked, he reached out to share the experience, and the shit he had heard. Unexpected OPD. Other People’s Drama is bad enough, but yeah, it’s even less pleasant and more, sort of, well… “sticky” when OPD becomes “personal”. It’s hard not to get emotionally invested when feeling attacked. It’s hard to “let that shit go” and remain mindful that even when it feels so personal, it really isn’t, at all. People talking shit are generally pretty well mired in their own chaos and damage, drowning in their own bullshit, and using the “theater of distraction” to pass the time in hell. It’s not about me.

I shrug that shit off, and walk on. It does make it easier to tell who my friends are, there’s that. lol 🙂

It was a small, tiny, and insignificant moment out of a delightful weekend. I’m glad we let it go and moved on with what matters most. 🙂

Now there’s the work week ahead, and I find myself, for just a moment, getting wrapped up in some other flavor or version of drama – office politics. I chuckle and let that go, too. There is no value or purpose in letting those details become the focus of my work (neither the tasks themselves, nor the characteristics of the days). Letting that go isn’t so hard; I focus on the questions, not the certainty of my answers. Disagreements, in theory, are not personal; we’re all working toward the same goals. I take that as a given, and practice assuming positive intent, and in doing so, all my relationships improve.

…It does take some practice. We become what we practice. I finish my coffee, notice the time, and begin again. 🙂

Tags anxiety, are you going my way?, be here now, be love, be the change, choose wisely, emotional self sufficiency, experience, let it go, let it go let it go let it go, listening deeply, mindfulness matters, OPD, OPD free zone, perspective, practicing the practices, relationships, sufficiency, The Art of Being, The Big 5, there are verbs involved, walk a better path, walk on, walking my own path, we become what we practice, what matters most?

Categories Anxiety, forgiveness, Free Will, gratitude, Healthy Living, Mindfulness, Moments, Parables, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, Spring, The Art of Being, The Big 5

Do You, Boo

March 24, 2019 //

Hey, welcome to morning (or afternoon, or evening, or whenever you find yourself reading this)! Got your coffee (tea, beer, fizzy water, or whatever it is you drink to refresh yourself in this particular moment)? Mmm, me too; coffee. Hot, black, delicious – a carefully crafted pour-over, made just the way I prefer it. It’s an acquired taste – not everyone likes coffee, and not everyone who likes coffee prefers their coffee black. There are quite a few preferences we individually express, and, obviously, that’s part of what makes us individuals – however similar we actually are as mammals, as primates, as citizens, as community members, as families… yep. Similar and different. Individual.

Who are you? Are you living your values? Are you making the choices that slowly allow you to become the person you most want to be? We toss around the phrase “a work in progress” to excuse so many things… but… are you working on being the best version of you that knowledge, skill, and practice, allow? It’s just a question. I can’t answer it for you, or change the outcome of your self-reflection. I can’t do those verbs – those verbs belong to you. 🙂

I had a difficult day, yesterday, for some values of difficult. I felt irritable all day. Easily annoyed. Frustrated by life. I found myself, more than once, seething in the background, but unable to ascertain “why”. A couple years ago, such a day would have resulted in many more similar days, perhaps, or escalated to some explosively unpleasant emotional moment that “ruined the day”. Yesterday, I was patient with myself. Willing to be aware of my challenges, without pushing that experience (and energy) out into the world, and other relationships. My Traveling Partner and I exchanged testy, irritable words in the morning, but the moment passed quickly, and resolved itself entirely, and the remainder of the day was a delightful one, with the one shadow being that bit of moodiness lurking in the background, waiting to take me by surprise. Well, that can really only happen if I let go of being aware of it – gently observant, compassionate, non-judgmental self-awareness for the win! Each time it surfaced as a concern, I made room to be aware of my emotions, and also the realities of my moment, to the fully extent possible for me. I let go of expectations. I let go of assumptions. I made a point to approach the world – and more importantly, myself – with considerable care, and unyielding commitment to refraining from lashing out at others as a result of my “headspace”. It was fairly effective; the day, generally, was quite a lovely one. Win and good.

I relate all this as a reminder that we can choose. We have a lot of choices. 🙂

This morning I begin again, over coffee, after a good night’s rest. A little later, brunch with a friend. Some time after that, a trip to a local artisan’s market. Fun. Monday will come soon enough. 🙂

What about you? What about your choices? Who are you? Where does your path lead? Do you take your coffee black? Cream and sugar? Blended with ice and high-fructose corn syrup? Flavored? With whip? Dairy or non-dairy? Extra shots? Perhaps you eschew coffee altogether? What I’m saying is, it’s a big menu, and there’s room for you to be who you are. How will you craft that raw self into the person you most want to be? What will you learn from life’s traumas? How will you approach educating yourself? How will you interact with the world? It’s a big menu…

…Are you ready to begin again?

Tags be the change, begin again, being and becoming, choose wisely, Do you boo, emotional self sufficiency, experience, good self-care, I am my own cartographer, mindfulness for beginners, perspective, practicing the practices, relationships, taking care of me, The Art of Being, the map is not the world, there are verbs involved, walking my own path, we become what we practice

Categories Allegories, Brain Injury, forgiveness, Free Will, gratitude, Healthy Living, inspiration, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Parables, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, Spring, The Art of Being, The Big 5, Words

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Pop Quiz

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Breaking Habits

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Yes, Even Letting That Go, Too

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Do You, Boo

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