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Careful There

May 10, 2018 //
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I woke this morning feeling rested, and generally pretty merry. I wasn’t even annoyed with myself for “not getting shit done yesterday, at all”. I sat here a few minutes, reading some news, sipping some coffee, feeling fairly encouraged and encouraging about the day ahead, and still willing to cut myself some slack for “just not doing a damned thing” yesterday, after work.

Spoiler alert: it’s bullshit internal narrative. No kidding. Not the positivity part – the part about not getting shit done. See, there’s plenty to do. It’s a long list. Frankly, life is a long list of stuff to get done, things to learn, places to go, errands, tasks, and moments… and last night, I actually did do some stuff, and even checked a couple things off my list that had been really nagging at me. Is there more to do? For sure. Always is. Did I also take time to relax? Yes! It’s a big part of my self-care to actually care for my self.  I woke this morning seeing the self-care as somehow undermining what I also got done, and this is something to be aware of; how easily I fall back on nagging myself, talking down on myself, negging myself, pushing myself beyond my limits in an unhealthy way, and just generally diminishing my general goodness based on some standard set elsewhere, by someone else, for some purpose not clear to be in my own thinking! I laugh it off, and put it aside willfully as “bullshit” – because it is.

I got enough done last night to make progress on things I wanted to do. That’s entirely adequate. 🙂

Two more work shifts and then a weekend. Fuck yes. lol It’s time to begin again. 😀

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

It’s a Daunting List

May 9, 2018 //
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I am sipping my coffee, feeling well-rested, and contemplating the weeks ahead. I’ve got a couple weekends here at home, and a rather lengthy list of “shit to get done” – mostly stuff that’s fallen a bit behind because I spend so many weekends away, these days. It’s basic housekeeping stuff: a handful of “still haven’t finished moving in” sorts of things, some common enough household repairs I can easily handle myself, and some overdue errands… real life, in list form. The list has grown long.

I’ve been enjoying life, without regret, and without allowing the list to get in the way. It’s all stuff that does need to get done, though. I’ve got a couple weekends ahead with which to do it (I am clearly not getting much of it done in the evenings after work). I find myself thinking sternly that it is time to find a proper balance between relaxing and finding chill space, contentment, and a drama free zone… and getting shit done. lol

I listen to the birds singing as day begins to break on the slim slice of horizon I see beyond my studio window. Physical limitations are hard to argue with. Cognitive limitations are hard to argue with. Shit still needs to get done. Every. Damned. Day. It’s only Wednesday morning, but since I returned home Sunday afternoon, I’ve managed to use every glass in the place – and I know this, because they are all neatly lined up on the kitchen counter, above the dishwasher, which is full of clean dishes that need to be put away (from Thursday morning)… except glasses, which I have removed from the dishwasher one by one, to use, then placed neatly on the counter. Omg – am I fucking kidding me??? Not okay. lol

I breathe. Relax. Feel my shoulders drop back down where they belong, after having crept upwards with tension, as I considered the dishes that desperately want doing. I dislike dirty dishes on this whole other “I will have a motherfucking breakdown if this shit does not change!!” sort of level – it’s been an issue for many years. Doesn’t matter that it’s me leaving the mess behind (that may make it matter more, actually) – it just needs to be handled. So human. I don’t think that is really going to change.

I smile and turn the page on my lengthy list of things to get done; it’s grown quite long over weeks and months, and it has become a source of frustration more than a list. So. I turn the page, and I begin again. A literal new list, a list for right now, and that lists some low-hanging fruit, and things that matter most. A list for evenings after work, leading up to this next, one, weekend. Only that. This is a less daunting list, already, and I find myself rather strangely already more motivated to get started.

…I can do the dishes before I head to the office this morning.

It’s time to begin again.

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Categories Allegories, Anxiety, Brain Injury, Free Will, Frustration, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, Parables, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Spring, The Art of Being

Every Damned One of All the Things

May 3, 2018 //
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Which matters more, skillful self-care or following through on plans? Or, how about this one, is keeping regular hours more important than “being there” for a friend? Or, what about “work life balance” – is the work more important than the life? Is the income more important than the quality of the experience? Is it more necessary to be a skillful emotionally self-sufficient adult, or to hold on to a child-like sense of wonder, whimsy, and joy?

Here’s a thought; maybe stop trying to divide every damned thing neatly into two clear choices? Life does not actually exist in that form in any common way. We have immense power over our own experience, through our choices, and life’s menu is far more vast than any one false dichotomy.

Yes – good self-care really matters. When I don’t care for myself skillfully (nutrition meals, appropriate caloric intake, good sleep hygiene, getting enough exercise, taking prescribed medication on time as directed, following a strict meditation practice, and generally treating myself as someone who matters to me), my world and my experience of life slowly begins to degrade over time, until my quality of life overall suffers, and I am not the person I most want to be.

Yes – following through on commitments matter. We count on each other as a community. Our shared strength far exceeds our individual strengths. Planning and following through allows us all to level up based on shared strengths.

Yes – work/life balance matters; when we work for pay, what we “earn” is a direct conversion of our life force into spendable currency that we need to meet other obligations and care for ourselves, but it also comes at the cost of giving up precious limited life time, life force, and individual resources. Clearly, there needs to be a balance, and most likely that balance should favor us as individuals, rather than our employers, generally. Or so it seems to me. We are not machinery.

Yes – learning to adult skillfully takes a lot of the strain out of adulting at all. If we can’t adult for ourselves, more than likely we’ve pushed that burden off onto someone else, who is now having to be the grown up in the room for more than one person. Be your own boss. Be your own grown up. Be the person you most want to be.

Yes – child-like wonder, a sense of whimsy and fun, a playful nature, and the willingness to let go a little, and to enjoy life, are delicious additions to a generally adult experience of life. I highly recommend it – but perhaps not the expense of the adulting basics necessary to keep one’s shit together appropriately day-to-day. <shrugs> I don’t know. Do you.

I guess what I’m saying is that it’s not a choice between two things. That’s a gross over-simplification of how real life works for real people in a real world; it’s so much more complicated than that, so much richer. Choices. Subtlety. Nuance. All the things.

I know. It sounds like a lot to deal with, and it is so easy to become overwhelmed. Narrowing things down to two clear choices seems so much easier – but that’s an illusion. It’s a game we made up that doesn’t really work very well, due to overlooking all the many other choices beyond just whatever to we’ve decided to admit exist in the moment. Mix and match. Choose your adventure. Allow yourself the freedom to look at the whole menu, don’t just sit down to life’s table and fall back on some shortcut for efficiency’s sake – this is your fucking life!! Live it.

Should I go to the store for windshield washer fluid at the end of a long work day – because I do need it – or should I “just skip it” because I am tired? Well, come on now, there are clearly more choices, right? I could… pick it up on the morning from the gas station down the street on my way. I could order it online and have it delivered, and hope that I don’t really need it sooner than that. I could make some homemade from ingredients on hand. So… yeah. More than two choices, by far. This is true of most experiences. Give yourself a chance to consider more than two choices. Yes, and even consider choices that you, perhaps, see as “not really an option”; you may be filtering out more than you realize.

False dichotomies are everywhere in our thinking. Advertising is practically built on them. Politics, too. It’s a lot of bullshit, frankly, and we can do better. That is also a choice. Are you ready to choose differently? Are you ready to begin again?

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Categories Anxiety, Brain Injury, Free Will, Frustration, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Spring, The Art of Being

Some of It Is In Your Head

May 2, 2018 //
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I had a wee moment yesterday, that teetered on the edge of the day going very wrong. It didn’t. I managed a step back, and some perspective, long enough for things to sort themselves out well. It’s really enough that things worked out, and not at all necessary to live life without such, or disappointing to have experienced it. In fact, because I didn’t become emotionally invested in the moment itself, or build it up to become a mountain of circumstantial anguish. It was more illuminating of my self and values, than at all disturbing. I didn’t know I would “get here”… hell, years ago, I did not even understand that “here” existed to arrive at. lol

We make up most of what causes our worst suffering, in our own heads. It’s ours. It’s hand-crafted painful narrative, and we often rely upon it a great deal to illustrate points, prove we’re “right”, and show “who we are”, to gain sympathy, or justify refusing to change, or to reinforce our insistence that we have no choices – without much attention to how entirely made up that bullshit really is. It sucks. It sucks to suffer in the first place, but oh does suck to understand we’ve done it to ourselves. Still – once I knew, I could stop fucking doing that!!

Life has been much better – easier, rich in cherished moments, low in drama, characterized generally by contentment – since I stopped putting myself through all that. It was not, unfortunately, something with an easy set of steps to follow, or something anyone could help me with.  I can try:

  1. Don’t be so down on yourself; you’re human.
  2. Don’t be so full of shit all the time; other people see through that crap, so can you.
  3. Do your best to be the person you most want to be, moment to moment.
  4. Repeat

No super helpful, I get it. It may be worth noting that, most commonly, I see the mostly likely point at which I am most prone to stepping from “what clearly actually is” to “I made this shit up myself, see?!” follows the word “because”. Maybe just… don’t do that. “I feel hurt” is honest, and clear, and fairly to the point. “I feel hurt because…” holds so much potential for magical thinking, disorder, lost reason, and lashing out at someone, that we often quickly stop sharing information that is legitimately provable true in real life, and start… making shit up. We often can’t tell we’ve done so, either. We believe our thoughts, and in this era of people behaving as if their opinion is every bit as worthy as actual truth, it can be hard to pull ourselves out of the slime long enough for honest self-reflection, and anything so wholesome as “truth”. “Because” is actually a pretty useful word, but fuck; fact check yourself.

Truth exists. It’s just sort of hard to stand firm to the process of telling it, honestly, particularly about ourselves, and especially when we may be quite definitely “in the wrong”. That’s right, I said it; we err. We make mistakes in reasoning. We excuse of ourselves things we do not excuse in others. We justify our bad acts. We’re “only human” – while we make that other person out to be a villain. It’s not actually okay. Here’s the thing that’s weird about it; it’s hard to call each other out for those lies (yes, they are) – we don’t want to be called out, ourselves, and… what if that person is “well-meaning”, or… they clearly believe what they’re saying? (Reminder: that we “believe” something is not in any way connected to the truth of it.) Yeah. I admit it – standing next to a friend telling me (or others) a tale that they clearly believe about “who they are” (or what actually happened) that I know, for a fact, is not true (from my perspective) – because I was there – is uncomfortable. I have nothing to say here about what to do about it or say to someone else who may be spinning up a bullshit narrative about themselves. I do make a point of trying not to be the person causing that specific category of discomfort, or indulging the particularly human quality of “making shit up”… unless I am literally writing fiction; it would be appropriate, then. lol

The way out of our pain in life is through it. Excusing it, camouflaging it, transforming it through skillful use of internal narrative – none of that “fixes” anything. We’ve all got to walk our own hard mile, deal with our own vast Augean stables, and become the person we, ourselves, most want to be, as honestly as we are able. (And, yeah, there are verbs involved – so many!)(Yep. Your results may vary, too.)

Why am I thinking about all of this, anyway? Life and the world, really, nothing fancier than that. The White House Correspondent’s Dinner got me thinking about it (Michelle Wolf’s comedy was brilliant and edgy). A moment I had yesterday seemed relevant. too. I woke feeling thoughtful, and I just went with it. lol

…I’m still out of coffee, but I remembered to start packing for the weekend. LOL

So how about today? New day, new beginning – are you ready to be who you are, as a starting point to becoming the person you most want to be? You can. You have choices. You can begin again. ❤

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Categories Brain Injury, Fiction, Free Will, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, Spring, The Art of Being, The Big 5

A Few Words from a Friend

May 1, 2018 //
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Sometimes it’s not enough to reflect. Sometimes it helps to reach out and talk things over with a friend. That’s not always easy; our friends tend, as often as not, to support us as if we are reliably correct, and as if our choices, themselves, can’t be questioned. It feels good to be supported in a 100% accepting and encouraging way, even when we are indeed the person “in the wrong”, or in circumstances when our own explicit choices directed our path, but it may not be healthy. It’s complicated. Feeling supported still feels good, and has real value.

Sometimes, I find it helpful to merely have the words of a friend. Their thoughts, day-to-day, to present a counterpoint to my own, just… generally. My own words are plentiful, but sometimes not enough to gain perspective. I’ve got a couple other blogs bookmarked for that very purpose… I bet you do, too. 😉

I was recently introduced to a blog of far viewer words than mine. Sometimes I need that. Brief perspective. Like a mental coffee break. Strictly Minimal. No, no – I mean, that’s the name of the blog, “Strictly Minimal“. 🙂 Enjoy.

This morning I woke to the discovery that I’d allowed myself to run out of coffee. (What the hell??) It’s quite early, and I’m not yet at any particular risk of a headache later. Rather than panic (an old habit I’ve learned to let go of, generally), I more simply decide to get coffee on the way to work, and handle restocking as an errand on the way home. I’ll need to run a couple of errands anyway; it’s a camping weekend coming up. There are things to do in order to prepare. For me, it’s the first camping weekend of the year. 😀

It’s a lovely morning. Entirely suited to all manner of new beginnings. I’m smiling, rested, ready for the day, and feeling fairly prepared for life. Generally, in the past, this sensation and state of being have usually preceded some horrible turn for the worse. I shrug that off; each moment is its own moment, and the future is not written. I have a great many reasons to be smiling today – one of them is that it is my anniversary with my Traveling Partner, celebrating 7 years married, 8 as lovers, even longer as friends. It’s a wonderful journey, and fully worth celebrating. Celebrating more, together, will come later – for now, I sit smiling. It’s enough.

Day breaks gently, beyond the studio window. It’s time to begin again.

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Categories Free Will, Healthy Living, Love, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Practices, Relationships, Spring, The Art of Being, Words
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