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Struggling

February 12, 2014 //
0

I slept poorly. I woke several times, restless and fearful, then later, angry. I struggled with nightmares. I felt too hot, sometimes, others too cold. I woke at 3:20 am, utterly awake, with ancient rage riding shotgun, feeling raw and emotionally volatile. I fussed restlessly through seemingly endless minutes of ‘trying’ to meditate. It didn’t feel effective, or worthwhile, and I gave up when my frustration with myself began to exceed the intensity of the emotions I woke with. I’ve come far enough along this path to recognize, and accept, that I might have a better experience, sooner, were I to choose to commit to the moment, and allow myself to begin to calm, truly, through meditation. There’s a verb there. I know it.

I’m not exactly best friends with my anger. Hell, I don’t think Anger and I can even have a civil discussion over coffee, just yet. My head aches from resisting it. My Anger launches a salvo of nerd quotes relevant to futility at me, from within. Oh yeah. Thanks, Brain. I wasn’t amused by “Resistance is Futile”, and frankly the material just got stale from there. This is a challenging emotional precipice for me. Teetering between the potential for unexpected rage, and unexpected tears…just waiting for someone to come along and flip that coin.

Did I mention the headache?

Which comes first, the drama or the fucked up sleep? Does it matter? One pushes the other, turn them around and the effect is quite the same; one pushing the other. Bitter damaged angry bits of self fight for a voice. Humor and cynicism occasionally pull into the lead with some comic relief. Take every tortured Super Hero, ever, portrayed as screaming, twisted, going through some powerful change… this morning it feels like that on the inside; some ferocious moment of tremendous growth and progress, imminent, painful, resisted…only to see the Hero, in the end, yield to their true nature. God damn it, when do I yield? When do I declare myself victorious in the face of my vanquished demons? When is ‘enough’? Who am I, and am I worthy?

Where the hell do all these tears come from?

I was not going to write this morning. I finished a favorite book… it was still brutally early when I had. I tried writing a tender email to the partner I lean on most for emotional support…words upon words, so many… when I found myself observing, in text, that the words themselves seemed ineffective, superfluous, and not actually helpful, I tried again. I eventually just scrapped the attempt. What would be the point? Communication? Of what? With what goal? I ‘officially let it go’…but here I am. Struggling with myself before dawn.

Let’s look at this again… I woke early, from a restless uncomfortable night. I have the luxury of spending much of that time in meditation, and some of it reading for pleasure. It’s quiet time, invested in me. My latte is exceptional this morning, and aside from the headache, my body feels pretty okay today – not much pain. I have a high-speed internet connection, and a warm secure place to live. My family is safe at home, sleeping, and the world (near by) is quiet. I have time and space to write, and the respect of my partners who know that I need it.

“Gratitude is the opposite of Anger.” Timber Hawkeye (among others)

I’m grateful the winter snow has mostly melted away, although the beauty of it was also quite wonderful. I’m grateful to have good coffee in the morning, and hot running water. I’m grateful that I can count on the good company of friends, and that I have a job I love. I’m grateful for so many opportunities to grow, and become the woman I most want to be. I’m grateful that I can recognize choice, and opportunities. I’m grateful for language, both spoken and written. I’m grateful for Love, and that wonderful quality it has to overlook bullshit.

I’m tired. It was a challenging, distressful night. This headache hasn’t let up, yet, but it likely will. For now, I’ve gotten past the anger I woke with, and that feels very good – and I still have time to settle down and meditate. The day is just beginning, and I yield to the moment, and all the possibilities it holds.

One small crocus getting a head start on spring.

One small crocus getting a head start on spring.

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Categories Anxiety, Brain Injury, Free Will, Love, Menopause, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Sleepless Nights, women, Words

Life Needs a Caution Sign

January 30, 2014 //
4

Or two, or three, or hell – let’s just pave it into something comfortable, predictable, and mapped, settle into easy contentment, and call it a day?

I had a great day at work, yesterday. Sometimes I have the strange sensation that ‘work life balance’ may actually mean that when things at work suck, things at home are lovely, and of course…the inverse of that would then be true as well. That, thankfully, is fanciful bitterness with struggle, and with the simple ups and downs of life.  We’re each having our own experience. The experiences we have are not all uniformly pleasant, or comfortable. I guess I’ll keep practicing the practices that seem to build a life that is more up than down, more content than not, easier than hard, more pleasant than unpleasant, and see where all that goes.

This morning isn’t my best morning. I woke crying from dreams that contained content ripped from the most difficult moments of the prior evening. It was nearly an hour before my brain would even acknowledge that the evening had ended on a relatively positive note – or at least finished somewhat supportively. My heart feels heavy, and tears are queued up waiting for a reason to spill over. This is one of my least favorite emotional states.

The bottom-line is that I want more than I have in life, in love, emotionally, sexually, even financially (although that one is very low on my list, and exists more to bolster the likelihood of other things I value being attainable).  I think wanting is probably pretty commonplace.  It takes wanting to reach a sense of being without, after all.  I even understand the connection between craving and discontent, and how difficult life can become when we desire only those things that are out of reach, or when we lose sight of the wonders we already have in our life.  I started 2014 knowing that ‘sufficiency’ is a big deal for me, and that ‘contentment’ is an emotional experience I enjoy, and a quality I would like to develop and support.  What I don’t know is where the subtle distinction between genuine contentment and ‘settling’ for something is, and how to recognize it. Is there a difference?

I struggle to communicate with the people nearest to me. Setting boundaries, sharing needs, speaking calmly and explicitly about what I want, what supports my needs over time, being honest about how I feel in the moment, or in general, these are all very difficult for me to begin with. Doing them well is something I find myself working so hard at, and still not succeeding with any reliability. At least, if I am succeeding, the outcome is incredibly unpleasant much of the time. This morning I woke wishing I could just stop talking at all. No more words. No speaking. No writing. No.More.Words.  I seem to have a gift for saying too much, or phrasing something in the worst possible way.  I rarely feel actually understood, or even heard. (It makes it so much ‘worse’ that there was a time and a relationship in which I did feel understood and heard, making it something possible in life that I just don’t have now.)

This morning I have a lingering feeling that the things that matter most to me are simply things I can’t have, or will experience only very rarely. I want very much for that to just be okay, if it is true. If it isn’t true, I’d like that emotional cocktail to just go away. I would like to have a better understanding of ‘sufficiency’. Enough. What is ‘enough’. How to I get that? I have the nagging suspicion that even intimacy is easier/better when approached mindfully… but I’m not sure I ‘get’ how to approach it at all. I suspect I may not have correctly labeled whatever the hell I think the experience of intimacy feels like, and am chasing an unknown experience, or ‘shooting at the wrong target’.

I am grouchy and things suck this morning. I am very human, and even though my intellect politely reminds me that ‘this is a construct of your own thinking and you can choose differently’ and my recently-more-mindful-and-learning-more-all-the-time heart tells me ‘this too shall pass’, I’m hurting now, and it is hard to stop picking at it. Soon I’ll head to work, and the process of getting there will distract me for a time, and maybe it will be forgotten when I head home tonight?

Right now is right now. Right now I feel like giving up. I’m frustrated, hormonal, and cross. I spent the night with my fears and nightmares and woke feeling sad, tired, and crying. Right now is harder than it has to be, and right now I’m struggling. This too – quite inevitably – shall pass. Time runs out, moves on, and brings change. So. Yeah. (I hear myself laugh out loud, it sounds a little worn down and bitter, and I think about how lovely yesterday was – that passed, didn’t it? Yep. So…this will as well.)

Some lovely pictures from yesterday…

We can build serenity.

We can build serenity.

No matter how much I am hurting in the moment, there is more to life and the world than my pain.

No matter how much I am hurting in the moment, there is more to life and the world than my pain.

Things can seem so complicated and overwhelming...

Things can seem so complicated and overwhelming…

Getting right up close doesn't always simplify our view of things.

Getting right up close doesn’t always simplify our view of things.

I am grateful that my experience this morning is largely subjective and a construct of my brain. I can find my way to something different. Compassion first, then, this morning? I pause with a certain surprise to realize that as I typed those words, my internal critic was hurling invective at me, launching emotional weaponry, and rallying my demons… I’m not always fully aware of the nasty bits and pieces of old hurts and old programming ‘going live’ to defend themselves in the background. Grim. Definitely compassion first…well… sort of first. Okay, not even a little bit first – that would have been a more positive start. Still human. I tested me. lol

Compassion, then, this morning – now that I see how much I need it.

Today, I am human. Today I face my hurts with self-compassion, and my certainty that emotional states rely on choices, too, however inevitable or permanent they feel in the moment. Today I change the world.

 

 

 

 

 

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Categories Anxiety, Brain Injury, Free Will, grief, Love, Menopause, Mindfulness, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Sleepless Nights, women, Words

3:00 a.m.

January 7, 2014 //
2

Yesterday was a weird and difficult day that followed on the heels of a strangely drawn out night. Drama. Grief. Stress. Turmoil. Doubt. Anger. Pain. Hurt. Insecurity. Sorrow. Words. Moments.

Somewhere else, in the distance.

Somewhere near, in the distance. 3:00 a.m.

Sometime minutes after 3:00 a.m. I found myself walking (again), just trying to breathe. I’m nursing an injured knee; I didn’t care, or feel it. My arthritis is giving me major grief; I didn’t notice or attend to it. Life, in general, is quite good; I could not feel it or connect with what feels good in my experience. My PTSD was in the driver’s seat. I had been pwnd by the chaos and damage within. I walked until past 4:00 a.m.  I was up at 1:00 am, and I never slept again that night, until after dawn’s terse reminder that the day had begun in earnest, and even then the short disturbed hours of sleep I snatched from the day were dark and troubled and hardly worth the bother – certainly not ‘restful’.

I saw it coming early the evening before. That’s pretty new, but falling short of useful. I ‘fired a warning shot’ by verbally alerting my loved ones that I was at risk, but my effort was insufficient to halt the emotional freight train. In the moment, everyone having their own experience, each fully invested in their own needs-of-the-moment, my warning was both disregarded, and just not important to anyone but me. It was one of those “I hear you, but” moments. (Note to the reader, my own perspective built on experience, is that when someone I am in an emotional dialogue with says “I hear you, but…” they are not only not actively listening, they did not actually hear what they said they just heard, because the entirety of their focus is on what they are about to say.)

My OPD (Other People’s Drama) flared up ahead of my PTSD.  A wiser woman would have shaken her head in dismay, given hugs all around, perhaps said something wise about self-restraint, open dialogue, compassion, disappointment, and regrets – then walked the fuck away! I am not yet that wiser woman. I failed to take care of myself by making an attempt to ‘be in the moment’ to ‘be supportive’ to people who matter to me. It was a choice that resulted, for me, in a loss of emotional balance, the exhaustion of my own emotional reserves, disruption of good sleep practices, terrible nightmares, a lot of time spent soaking in powerful emotions like despair, sorrow, anger, resentment, fear… (and much, much more! Call now!)

When my symptoms did finally flare up beyond what I could manage through force of will, I was in familiar, bleak, territory. I walked. A lot. I cried. A lot. I shook quietly trying to force myself to go through the motions of simple conversations. I made notes on pieces of paper to remind myself to attend to simple tasks like brushing my hair, my teeth, showering…(I wrote the same reminders on my calendar, on my gadgets, devices, apps…but as is often the case, I avoided handling delicate devices (and power tools!) because my unsteady hands, and uncertain temperament, can be unexpectedly disabling.) Habits built over a life time to cope with the emotional wreckage. I went through the motions of every day things. Meals. Chores. Taking down holiday decor. I got through the day. Day became evening, and evening became night. I forced the shadow of myself through the motions of a mostly ordinary day hoping to avoid having the experience linger into the next and dropped into an exhausted surrendered sleep at a pretty routine time. It doesn’t always work, but I find myself more hopeful more often these days, open to successes, and less likely to count on failures.

Yesterday. Not pretty. Shall we move right along, then?

Here it is today. I woke at 6:00 a.m. drenched in sweat, but just hormones, not nightmares, and I felt rested and calm. When I realized I was awake, anxiety began to surge with memories of yesterday. Then I remembered; that was yesterday. Today is an entirely new experience. The feeling of relief that washed over me was motivation to rise and do my morning yoga sequence, and the stiffness and pain in my back eased as I moved through the poses. Each breath brought me closer to a real smile.  The anxiety receded. The new day begins.

I spent unmeasured time meditating after my yoga, before my coffee, and on the tail end of that I took a moment to focus my awareness on my loves, each as individuals, the beings they are rather than who I would like them to be.  I took a  moment to appreciate their best qualities, to feel fondness and gratitude for the joys we share, to feel compassion for their struggles with their own unique challenges as beings, as well as those challenges we share as humans and as lovers, a few moments to breath, to love, to recognize and be whole and well with myself as an individual being on my own terms.

Will today ‘be different’? How can it not? It’s a different day. Still, there are choices to be made – and some of them are mine, even when the struggle of the moment isn’t. Understanding there are choices to be made is a good step. Making better choices in the moment is an entirely other challenge of its own and one I expect to work on as a lifelong endeavor.

So…here it is a new day, and I’m starting it with a good night’s sleep behind me, a great coffee on the side table, a smile, and a few choice words. A nice start. I hope to make good choices today, that meet my needs over time. Today, I will spend the day building. Today, I will change the world.

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Categories Anxiety, Brain Injury, Free Will, grief, Healthy Living, Love, Menopause, Mindfulness, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Sleepless Nights, winter, Words

Smiles and Memories

December 27, 2013 //
1

I love making new wonderful memories. I also enjoy smiles. This year’s Yule holiday had plenty of both. Quite a nice holiday. If I were still a child I would excitedly list off ‘all the things I got’, and it would be a short – and very satisfying – list. The best gift this year was unquestionably the good company, the low stress level, and the ease with which events and time flowed. A lovely holiday. I’m still smiling.

I'm still smiling...so is this thing. :-)

I’m still smiling…so is this thing. 🙂

One of the most delightful things about this year’s holiday is the strange stuffed animal one of my partners gave me this year. It was perched on the sofa, in the evening, unexpectedly. Its big happy smile has, since then, reliably evoked my own smile. It speaks to me beyond the mechanical “Merry Christmas” message it plays when I push it’s button. Big wide-open eyes, a friendly approachable smile…I have realized more than once since it showed up that I was carrying it about the house with me. lol. The simple delight of a smile is hard to overstate.

This year really wasn’t about ‘stuff’*. This year was also one of the most lovely winter holidays I’ve enjoyed. Good fun and good company, and it rather seemed as if everyone brought the very best bits of who they are.

I looked over my ‘Best of 2013’ results on my Facebook profile. Wow. A year of growth, of change, and so much to cherish and be grateful for. I am struck by how much there is to enjoy in life, even at the toughest times. I’m grateful for so many opportunities to grow, and to be heard.

Soon enough the year with end, and the New Year will commence – with or without fanfare, time passes. Time – so much and so little of it. I hope I am able to use what I have wisely.

This morning I hurt. I’ve a headache and a stuffy head. My arthritis is making me stiff, and I feel grumpy listening to the ‘snap crack pop’ and crunch of arthritic bones as I slowly work on regaining my mobility for another day. I slept badly. Really badly. I think back on yesterday and wonder… did I really have 4 quad lattes yesterday? Did I really have one of them past 4:00 pm? Am I really surprised that I didn’t sleep well? The house seems noisy, although I don’t find anything specific to pinpoint as noisier or louder than usual. I have an appointment and I am up earlier than I need or want to be. I’m hormonal and cross with the world, and vaguely resentful to also be aware that it is all pretty inconsequential stuff.  None of this has to be any more important right now than words on a page. I could choose to escalate my irritation to ire, and perhaps from there to anger or even rage… really, though, I’d rather not. It’s managing to be a pleasant enough morning in spite of pain, fatigue, and hormones, as I sit here in the quiet with my coffee.

I find myself wondering about ‘is’.  This lovely morning could be so easily derailed with a few poor choices. ‘Is’ it a good day – or a bad day? How much of that do I really choose, on any given day, at any given moment? What is the difference – really – between a day when I hurt, and hurting doesn’t matter, and a day when I hurt that becomes a day when all that matters is the pain I can’t seem to escape? Is it ‘choice’? What are the choices that make the difference?

So many of us struggle with so much… and I often see people dear to me struggling, and want to say ‘choose differently!’, but even in the moment I recognize these are not helpful words to hear, however helpful taking the action of making difference choices might be.

This morning I am looking for opportunities to make choices that have more desirable outcomes. Today I am learning to be more compassionate with myself, and less judgmental. Today, I am asking good questions and enjoying the beauty offered in each moment. Today I am changing the world.

 

*I did get some very cool “stuff” this year, though, and I would not want to diminish the thoughtful generosity of my loves this year.  They obviously know my heart.  I even stepped a little further into the 21st century by embracing eBooks at long last. 🙂

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Categories Anxiety, Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Love, Menopause, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Sleepless Nights, winter

This Is Entirely Different

December 21, 2013 //
4

Well, or maybe it isn’t.

Actually, it is.  I’ve written ‘this post’ six times, now. Each very different, written on a different theme, a different emotional voice, a different perspective, expressing very different needs, or understandings of the world around me, or my own life. It’s an odd morning that way. I’ve been up since 6 am, and after some meditation and a bit of yoga, I have been sipping my coffee and writing.  This post is entirely different from the previous versions.  It’s a strange morning and while I feel moved to communicate…I’m not sure what I want, or need, to say.

There’s a meme trapped in my thoughts. It drifts around Facebook regularly, it comes from somewhere…unknown to me in the moment. Words over a picture, the usual thing…the 3 questions meme – quote? “Does this need to be said? Does this need to be said by me?  Does this need to be said by me, now?”  I do love some good questions. I woke with these words in my head, but juxtaposed over a troubling dream that seemed very unrelated to the words.

I dreamt I was dangling from the Burnside Bridge, holding on by my hands, everything slick from a drenching rain that was falling. I pleaded with a man on the bridge to pull me up – I felt fear and desperation, and a panicked certainty that falling would be the end.

The Burnside Bridge

The Burnside Bridge

The man in my dream was a lover, or husband, or  father…someone dear to me, someone I could count on, someone I expected to assist and support me.  My pleading went nowhere helpful.  My potential rescuer seemed unaware of the urgency of my situation, looking vaguely thoughtful and caught up in his own thoughts, his own moment.  I repeated my plea, my hands were wet with both rain and sweat, and it was so hard to hold on.  The man above me looked down on me and politely said he would be happy to help, of course, but first he wanted to give me some feedback…

I woke to that ‘feeling of falling’ that dreams sometimes end with, feeling quite terrified, heart pounding, short of breath to the point of panting – and very very happy to be quite alive and not actually falling to my death in the icy December waters of the Willamette River.

I meditated. I let the dream go. I wrote. It came back. I wrote different words and dispelled my demons. They returned moments later. I wrote more different words, changed my thoughts (alright, Brain, nothing to see here, move along…), and continued to write, erase, rewrite – again the dream returned. I decided, finally, fuck it. Write about the weird dream and see where it goes. It doesn’t go anywhere, really, why would it? It was a dream. One of those intense, not-quite-a-nightmare sort of dreams that I generally accept as my sleeping mind attempting to communicate something to my waking mind – it is an endeavor of limited successfulness, and largely due to the difficulties with words.  This particular attempt seems to be pointing me toward considering emotions, words, and what matters most in the present moment. Differences between ‘urgent’ and ‘important’, perhaps, or a reminder that we each have our own needs in the moment, in life, in love… or… perhaps something entirely different.

Now it is morning, the household begins to wake. The day is all potential from this vantage point, and dreams are behind me, lost in the night. Today is a good day to love gently. Today is a good day to be compassionate with myself, and with others. Today is a good day to experience joy, and contentment, and to accept struggle with compassion. Today is a good day to change the world.

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