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Limits, Boundaries, Choices, Change

February 22, 2014 //
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Life never let’s up with its curriculum; there is always more to learn, more to understand, more understandings to topple under the weight of new knowledge, and there is always change.

Every choice we make brings some moment of change. This morning I am ‘on call’ at work…does it change my experience of Saturday? Maybe. How much of any perceived change is truly due to ‘being on call’? How much may be due to the limits I, myself, set in some arbitrary way, based on my own assumptions? What is choice? I’ve been studying this, lately, in a deep and I hope meaningful way.  (Books are powerful, I am currently reading Emotional Intimacy, which delightfully enough is not at all ‘self-help-y’ and is very ‘science-y’.)

Relationship drama, every day life, and my commitment to ‘being a student of life’ put my focus on limits and boundaries this morning. For the sake of easy discussion, let’s go with a shared understanding that a ‘boundary’ is something we set, willfully, based on our understanding of our needs and values? Let’s also agree, then, that a ‘limit’ is something we have the understanding is imposed upon us by our physical world, our resources, or our perception of the boundaries placed by another? So, simply put, we set boundaries, and we face limits. Easy enough for our purposes, yes?  I watch the aquarium waking up for the day, and contemplate limits and boundaries. I set boundaries for their fishy lives by placing them in a glass container from which they can not escape, surrounded as they are by impenetrable walls, because I do not care to have water everywhere and fish flopping about unpredictably and dying in the open air. For them, those glass walls are the limits of their world, beyond which they can see, but can’t venture forth. So, limits and boundaries have a relationship in some instances. I find this worth contemplating.

How we define ourselves, and what we accept as our limitations, changes what we can choose.

How we define ourselves, and what we accept as our limitations, changes what we can choose.

I don’t see much to argue with if I apply these observations to relationships in my life. I have my boundaries, and all my friends, family, loves, lovers, and associates of all sorts, have theirs as well. How firmly any one of us insists on them varies. I find that I have limits and limitations in life, and I don’t know anyone personally who doesn’t. Something about the finite nature of things, and entropy, perhaps. When I set boundaries, they become someone else’s limits – but we are also limited by circumstances, resources – and choices. Strangely, I’ve begun to learn, it is my choices that are often the biggest hurdle I face when I look at my life through the filter of ‘my limits’. More of those limits are self-imposed than I understood, and often in a peculiarly arbitrary way. I choose to understand that ‘I can’t’ do or have something, or go someplace, or enjoy some experience – and later, on closer examination, I can see where I chose to place those limits on myself, and often based on erroneous assumptions, or worse still, as a bold act of self-sabotage. Choice embodies change – and freedom, and wide open vistas of opportunity.

As a fun exercise, take something you regularly deny yourself on the basis of “I can’t…” and just for the sake of some intellectual fun, rephrase it as “I can ___, if I ____.”  What would it really take? “I can’t be president” becomes “I can be president, if I run for office and am elected.” Wow. Just that simple. By now you’ve notice that I omitted the ‘because’ statement that is the heart and soul of self-imposed limits. “I can’t become president because I’m a woman and we’re just not ready for that as a nation.” is pretty damned disheartening, and at a glance can’t be easily overcome.  I could stop right there, and so often in life I have.  Frankly, this is an uphill battle I fight daily, these days.  Those self-imposed limits have no actual substance. They aren’t ‘real’ in the sense that the laws of physics seem real. They are not provably ‘true’ – they are only as ‘true’ as I accept them to be.  Defying those limits through force of will works for some people; great moral, political, and emotional battles have been fought and won through force of will alone. It’s a hard fight, and even emotional wars have casualties. Perhaps there is some gentler opportunity in simply changing our operating assumptions about life, about ourselves, about our choices? I’m just saying it is worth thinking about.

Why are so many people ready to place extraordinary limits on themselves through unsupported assumptions? Is it simply emotionally easier to say that “I can’t, because…” than it is to say “I won’t”?  “I can’t” means I don’t have to be accountable for my values, my boundaries, or my choices – it isn’t my fault! ‘Will’ doesn’t work that way, and I am learning what a crippling effect it has on my will to undercut myself again and again with “I can’t” when “I won’t” is more honest and true to my values, and boundaries. Allowing myself those “I won’t” moments also pushes me to examine why. That has to be pretty important if I’m going about throwing my will around!

Every day life these days pushes my limits, questions my choices, challenges my understanding of my boundaries, and insists that I understand, redefine, and use my will in a deliberate and adult way; accountable for my actions, and choices, and prepared to speak to my choices rationally.  I have some difficult choices ahead of me. Somehow, a quiet Saturday morning, a good latte, and watching the fish swim makes it all seem so much clearer; it really is about limits, boundaries, and choices. I am ready to understand the difference between ‘willful’ and ‘disagreeable’, and I am ready to change my world.

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Categories Anxiety, Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Parables, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Uncategorized, Words

Through New Eyes

February 18, 2014 //
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Well, not literally ‘new eyes’, new awareness is more accurate. It’s been a good weekend for awareness. Spring is on the horizon, too, and my thoughts are full of seeds, flowers, rose bushes, trees that want a bit of pruning, and rich brown earth waiting to be turned, amended, and planted.

A promise of sunny days to come.

A promise of sunny days to come.

This weekend I could be found in the garden. In the rain as often as not, and yes, in the garden. I pruned the plum-tree out by the back fence; two summers I have fussed about tangled low-hanging branches, and the challenges of gathering the tasty fruit. This weekend I took care of that, with love and attention, and aware that soon each branch would be leafy and heavy with fruit. Each cut I made was focused on the tree-right-now, and also on a desired form of tree-later-than-now. It was as much meditation as labor, and I delighted in the experience.

I took time to prune tangled roses and potato vine at the corners of the deck, tying up long graceful canes and branches when I’d completed the pruning. I’m eager to see the outcome, in summer, with leaves and flowers everywhere.

I mixed a couple of favorite blends of wildflower seeds, with some favorite annual garden flowers much less ‘wild’, and eagerly filled pots with rich soil and compost, and a few seeds. (It’s nice to have some containers of living flowers that I can easily move here and there depending on what we’re doing in the garden.) I sowed flower seeds in a couple of borders, and along the barren bank of a small hill that I stared at with some annoyance all summer last year; surely some hardy wild flowers will grow there? I tucked dahlia bulbs between jasmine and clematis vines, near a bit of deck trellis that supports hanging pots that are seeded with nasturtiums and sweet peas. There should be a lot of flowers this year…

‘Should’ is a funny word. It sets the stage for our unfounded expectations, resting them on an illusion of a foundation – a magical world where things do what we imagine they ought to do, for some mysterious ‘reason’, because they ‘should’. I caught myself yesterday, thinking ‘there should be a lot of flowers this year…’  As opposed to last year? When I also planted a lot of seeds? Sure – but last year I wasn’t as patient with the real work of gardening, and often lacked the will to really dig in and push my effort beyond the lethargy and ennui that is often the most obvious byproduct of ‘OPD’ (Other People’s Drama). This year, I am willing to smile at the seeds, the future flowers, the vines that need pruning right now, the roses that want to be prepared for that early bout of black spot in the spring, and understand the work of Love, and the work in the garden, are the same work; tending the needs of Life to grow and thrive. I may have a lot of flowers this year. My garden has that potential. Surely, rather than ‘should’, what I have is ‘may’ – and my will is predictably a factor there, as are my choices. If I don’t water, tend the plants, dead head the roses, harvest fruits, my garden will predictably be less vibrant, less productive, and less ‘full of flowers’. So simple.

There is always work to do in the garden. If I envision an outcome, my effort makes it more likely. If I dread a particular disaster, my effort to prepare and mitigate reduces the effect that disaster may have. If I am stressed, having my hands in the soil, and among the leaves and flowers, soothes my heart. There are a lot of verbs in my garden. Seeing the work of the garden through eyes that resent labor or effort, or feel only the weight of the work, and the commitment, can make it all seem so overwhelming, and a bit lacking in any chance of completion. Seeing the work of the garden through new eyes, each task becomes its own joy, its own moment to be one with Life.

There have been years when my garden held the entirety of what was sane and whole about me in its fragile eco-system. That’s a big burden for small flowers, and it worked out mostly pretty well; here I am. I cherish my garden, each flower, each tree, each paving stone and feeder. Now I get how much more the journey matters than the destination, and even sitting down to prune a potted rose on a rainy day, or slog through a muddy yard to plant wild flowers on a slope, or hang baskets that will soon be filled with flowers, there is joy and satisfaction in each task. I’m no longer frantically working toward a finish line; I’m just working, right now.

My garden is also filled with metaphors. Change. Sufficiency. Joy. Life. Love. All the best things emotion and heart and mindfulness have to offer are right there in the garden, for me. Life’s darker lessons have their moment in the garden, too, and I see them all through new eyes.

Another work week begins, and time to tend a very different sort of garden. 🙂

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Categories Brain Injury, Free Will, gardening, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Love, Menopause, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Parables, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Roses, Spring, women, Words

A Beginner’s Mind

January 25, 2014 //
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Strange, beautiful, wonderful day; sights and tastes and conversations with strangers, and after all of it, I find myself at home, secure and comfortable, safe from the world – and from myself, which is a new thing to explore.

It’s been building for a couple of days, this strange juxtaposition of new learning and new experiences, this willingness to let go and allow life to unfold, fearlessly. I am unconcerned with whether it ‘is real’ or if it will last longer than now. It’s now. I am here, in this precious lovely moment, after this delightful day, and it feels so effortless to contemplate the quiet of evening ahead. This is nice. I hope to repeat it (the feeling, in general, I mean – the moment has been enough on its own, and unrepeatable).

Today I awoke at an odd time, later than usual, but ahead of the alarm – itself set for an out of the ordinary time of morning. My routine was in tatters before I ever woke, and knowing that when I descended into sleep the night before, I woke unconcerned about it.  I made two lattes, and enjoyed a morning of intimate, gentle conversation with a partner already awake for the day, and left with a smile near to the time I needed to, imprecise and free from chronological bondage, to catch the train to an appointment. A hair cut, and a manicure later, I headed for my last errand, thoroughly enjoying the day and feeling very pampered.

Today the world felt filled with possibilities.

Today the world felt filled with possibilities.

What made today so rare, so extraordinary? Well, for one thing, the sun shined like …well… something brilliant and without adequate words. I enjoyed all manner of odd experiences along the path of my day-that-routine-forgot. My morning was unscripted. My haircut is different – on a whim. I got my nails done somewhere I’d never been. I had a bite of breakfast at an odd little stand-up cafe wedged among the food carts; it was very early and I munched my breakfast sandwich standing alongside a small throng of ‘the unwashed masses’ panhandling for a shot at a sandwich. It was a very good sandwich, and the conversation wasn’t bad, either.   I had a maple cinnamon latte at a cafe obviously frequented by artists – I’d never been there, but the conversations swirling around me in the background were a giveaway. Later, as I headed home, I saw a SuperHero cross the street, quite properly, at the cross walk and head into a small pharmacy. I wasn’t surprised, which did surprise me. A block or two along the way, I spotted another, then another SuperHero – tights, spandex, cape, all of it.  I don’t always think to question the extraordinary. This was definitely one of those times. It was many miles and minutes later before I thought to wonder – SuperHeroes? Why were there SuperHeroes?

I was offered an earnest moment of self-awareness and perspective, along with the fun of the day.  To reach my last destination, I walked across the Burnside bridge.

The least interesting view of the Burnside bridge.

The least interesting view of the Burnside bridge.

To do so, I had to carefully make my way through huddled groups, tribes, clans, of homeless people finding what comfort they can, where they are permitted to do so. Years ago, I’d have felt invisible passing between and around them, camouflaged by my own indifference to their privation, and mine. More recently, I might have averted my eyes, instead, hoping to avoid interaction, and allow what little dignity I had to offer through my lack of observation. Today I felt humbled; aware that I’d just had my hair and nails done, a recent shower in a safe and secure home of my own, an exceptional cup of coffee and a nutritious breakfast, and very aware of what a privilege that actually is.

Not generally SuperHeroes, but mathematically likely they may be, sometimes.

Not generally SuperHeroes, but mathematically likely they may be, sometimes.

On the train home, I continued my reading (Buddha’s Brain). The books about mindfulness are piling up. Some take a practical perspective. Some take a poetic tone. Some are quite spiritual, but striving to distance themselves from religion. Others are about the science. I am still a student, of life, of love – of mindfulness. I still have PTSD. I am still a survivor of trauma, and of a brain injury. I’m still headed for menopause.  While those things are parts of my experience I’m willing to identify as ‘facts’, I am also no longer utterly dominated by them. I’m learning. I’m studying. Bit by bit, I seem to be gaining on real wellness and balance. I hope I never find myself taking them for granted when I have them – and it does look like ‘when’ now, more than ‘if’. I wish I could share it. It’s all in print, in every one of these books. Each book telling the tale in a slightly different way, with different words, and different authors of different traditions and styles of communication. It’s all there, though. Mindfulness. Meditation. Practice.

Practice.

Practice.

Practice.

It’s not about ‘practice makes perfect’. There is no perfect. No need of perfect. There is only practice. A bit at a time I am catching on to the idea that the journey itself is the thing to attend to.

Along the way, more practice.

Along the way, more practice.

Today, I face the world with a beginner’s mind. Today I am compassionate. Today I am tender. Today I am changing the world.  Here it comes.

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Categories Anxiety, Art, Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Love, Menopause, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Parables, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Turning 50, women, Words

Busy Within the Stillness

January 4, 2014 //
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It is some moments after a pastel frosty dawn. The sky is still pink with it, lightening to a chilly gray-blue. Winter. A new year unfolding, each new day its own, and I have not spent much of it writing.  That is not a complaint; my time has been well spent.

My coffee this morning is smooth and sweet on my tongue. The house is quiet. I feel content.

I celebrated the New Year with an interestingly 3-dimensional, very hands-on, sort of meditation; craft work, building, as a physical metaphor for investing in myself, of being the change, of building a future aligned to my values, that supports my needs over time. I assembled a desk, re-arranged my space, and ‘moved in again’. I did each activity as mindfully as I was able, which was ‘mostly’, investing care, commitment, and love in assembling the desk, the chair, moving a bookcase, arranging ‘things’, eliminating clutter…  I can’t own the idea, it developed during a conversation with my partners about my challenges making my time really count for me.  I have not found it easy.  We discussed the nature of the challenges, and one partner suggested – and had before – a more dedicated writing space (I generally cozy up on the sectional, and perch my laptop in my lap). There was real wisdom in many of the observations and suggestions, and the outcome was a shopping trip out to Ikea, and a New Year’s Day project.  It was a powerful experience to build a solution in full awareness, mindfully, and with great care – as a treat for me.  It brought me face to face with the reality that I rarely treat myself with the same quality of good treatment that I am inclined to deliver to my loved ones. In the abstract, I had thought I was past that. lol.

The changes result in some small amount of upheaval, of course. These days I have some understanding why that is, and it didn’t linger longer than needed to get my attention to the matter, and I take time to be in the changed space frequently to chill and be, allowing it to return to a level of familiarity that feels comfortable. I have been sleeping very well since I moved the bookcase, and put the desk in my room. The room seems much quieter.

It is always interesting to rethink a space, and configure or use it differently. Having made these changes, like elaborate dominoes others now seem necessary, and the tight efficient arrangement of objects in a small space will require a high level of attention of detail and tidiness to stay beautiful and cozy, but last night when I stepped into my room at the end of the evening, it felt rather like a homecoming in a very visceral and supportive way.

The new year is off to a good start, for me.

Another lovely metaphor, eggs on a leaf in my aquarium. Happy New Year.

Another lovely metaphor, eggs on a leaf in my aquarium. Happy New Year.

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Categories Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Parables, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, winter, Words

335 Days

December 9, 2013 //
7

It’s been 335 days since I began this blog, this journey, this cycle of change and growth. 335 days.  A bit less than 47 weeks. 8040 hours, give or take. More than 482,000 minutes. Time measured, time spent, some of it wasted, all of it precious, and limited; I am living a more deliberate, mindful life than I had been living. I continue to practice new skills, continue to refine new practices that I value, and that seem to enhance my every day experience. There are a lot of small changes in the way I experience my life, the qualities I bring to my relationships, the value I place on the experiences of others, their challenges, the lessons they offer me when our paths cross along the way.

Now there is time to consider it all as the end of the year approaches.

It has long been my practice to take time on New Year’s day to consider the year past, and the year unfolding ahead of me. An hour or two, at least, to really put some attention on whether I achieved my goals, where I’m headed, what I can improve, what my challenges are. Funny, I’ve been doing that since I was about 14… it wasn’t as helpful a practice as it could have been, because for so many years I let my thinking self control the agenda, the tone, and the outcome, and left no room for my observing self to bring stillness, calm, and insight. Light without illumination, in a manner of speaking. This year I have come so far, and much of the journey on a very different path than any before. I’m eager to sit down with myself this New Year’s Day, look 2014 in the eye and say “Let’s do this thing!”

I slept badly last night. I didn’t, however, experience the stress of ‘how will I get enough rest to…’, which often complicates the bad sleep picture by throwing additional anxiety and something rather like ‘performance pressure’ into the mix. It was a pleasant relief to realize that just getting up and doing something other than ‘trying to sleep’ would be inconsequential to the day that followed.  I feel groggy and fatigued, predictably enough, but the morning is pleasant and comfortable in spite of that.  I’m an analyst by trade, which had tended to foster a rather simplistic notion that somehow ‘data fixes everything’ – if only there is enough of it. It hasn’t proven to be the case in practice. I spent years gathering sleep related data on my own experience: hours of sleep, hours disturbed, the nature of sleep disturbances, when they occurred by type, where my hormones were, my diet, exercise, medication, even details about the weather or environmental conditions, all sorts of stuff. I carefully analyzed the data for trends, looked for patterns, even found some; none of it mattered, because none of it had the power to affect the outcome in my experience. I struggled with missing pieces, undeveloped skills, correlations I wasn’t aware of, didn’t recognize, or didn’t understand were relevant. In my experience of my own life, mindfulness beats analysis for enacting change and improving my experience, easily. It’s not even close.  2013 has been the year that mindfulness became something, for me, and I, in turn, am becoming someone I enjoy being – sleepless nights and all. 😀

This morning seems a nice one to take a moment for gratitude, and a smile. The path isn’t always easy, and sometimes I still feel like I’m walking in the dark, banging knees, shins, and heart on unseen obstacles, but I no longer fight the needful journey.

Where this really started, back in 2010, and a moment of gratitude for the love of the man who shared it with me, then, and remains with me, still.

Where this really started, back in 2010, and a moment of gratitude for the love of the man who shared it with me, then, and remains with me, still.

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Categories Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Parables, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Sleepless Nights, Turning 50, winter, women, Words
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