Archives for category: Sleepless Nights
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Weird and Distracted

December 12, 2014 //
0

I didn’t sleep well. I’m struggling to write; my typing is a travesty of spelling errors, and incorrect suffixes. My thinking feels fractured and chaotic, disorganized. My grammar probably isn’t. I regret the challenges it may cause you, reading this.

The wind last night knocked power out all over the place, and even the light rail was affected. I took a taxi home and enjoyed the longer than desirable ride with a relaxed, funny driver named Ben. All the signal lights were out for a large area of town, and the traffic was surreal; for some reason, the lack of signal lights was causing people to ignore the lines on the road, and the lanes as we neared each intersection multiplied well beyond whatever city plan existed unseen in the darkness. I was glad to get home after spending only 2 hours making the journey that typically takes just one. I take a moment to really appreciate the good decision-making that stopped me lingering for an hour or more at the train station, just waiting.

I also take a moment to contemplate what feels like a major dick move yesterday, and I’m not sure how I feel about the choice I made. When I went to get into the taxi, I recognized a friend from work, standing back where he could smoke a cigarette, also waiting for a train. He seemed eager and relieved to see me, and did his very best to inquire gently and with great civility if I would share my cab – and let me know where he was going, also heading west, sort of toward my home. I stalled and my words were not fluid, and I think I ended up sounding like a jerk saying no, instead of finding a kind way to indicate I wasn’t planning to take a route through that area of town – because the signal lights were out, traffic was going to be ugly, and the freeway would get me home much sooner. Maybe that’s still a dick move? At the time, I wanted to say “Hop in!”, and find a way to make it a good fit…if I had, it would have been a boon to my friend, and my journey home, myself would have been much much longer…and in good company… This is one I’ll be thinking over for a long time to come.

Hot flashes, night sweats, poor quality sleep…Hormone Hell, menopause or not. This too shall pass.

One more work day to get through. I’m not really thinking about the weekend. I am thinking about sleep. LOL

My holiday wish list includes good sleep this year...

My holiday wish list includes good sleep this year…

Today is a good day to be content that when I am doing my best, it is the best I can do. Today is a good day to choose to nurture the best in myself, and in others. Today is a good day to honor good decision-making. Today is a good day to change the world.

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Categories Brain Injury, Hormone Hell, Menopause, Mindfulness, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Sleepless Nights, The Big 5, winter

The Will to Practice

December 6, 2014 //
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I woke earlier than I wanted to this morning. I fell asleep later than I wanted to last night. The sleep in between those points was filled with distressing dreams that were neither pleasant, nor were they nightmares; they were instead rich in content, symbolism, and implication without being over-obvious, as if daring me to overlook what matters most in the storm of surrealism. I woke feeling stiff and twisted, with a headache that sources down low in my spine, and makes it way to my skull, a dull unrelenting ache that pulsates when I walk. It’s about as dreadful as it sounds…only…I also woke warm and dry, safe from physical harm, indoor plumbing near at hand, and clean drinking water besides. I woke to birdsong outside my window and a not-too-very-rainy morning, and the sound of Dave Matthews Band on the stereo; my traveling partner already awake, playing chess quietly. I woke to an offer of a hot latte made just the way I like it. I woke to a warm hug, and a loving smile. This is my very human experience; it’s not good sometimes and bad other times as much as it is generally a mix of details of a variety of sorts.

Over the past two years I’ve read a lot of words written by several people whose working lives are spent studying the neuroscience of emotion and consciousness. I’ve read about negativity bias, and have a very elementary understanding that the most intense experiences tend to be most memorable, and that we tend to prioritize negative experiences more highly on an implicit level as a survival trait. Sounds damning, sometimes. I’ve also read more than a little bit about a number of practices that can be put to use to minimize or mitigate our negativity bias – resulting in a more implicitly pleasant experience overall; they do work, I’ve tried them. I’ve read about (and tried) practices for calming my storming heart when my PTSD catches me unawares, or I find myself so fatigued that I am unexpectedly volatile. I have explored practices that have tended to take me from a very negative, bitter, chronically irritated and dissatisfied state of being, to a day-to-day state sense of self that tends to be rather calm, generally content, and mostly pretty joyful.

I hope I’ve never led you to believe it’s “easy” every day. I work at ‘happy’ and ‘content’ by practicing an assortment of practices that tend to take me that direction over time. There are verbs involved. A commitment to wake up every day and actually practice them – because they are only effective when I do them. Thinking about them doesn’t quite change anything. When I consider moments over the past two years when things just didn’t seem quite as good as they could be – speaking just of my own experience, subjectively – it seems significant that there’s often some days preceding during which I was less committed than usual to some key practice or another. (That’s often how I figure out which ones are ‘key’ for me personally! lol) I don’t feel any shame over that, and I don’t feel like a failure. (I hear my traveling partner’s voice in my thoughts asking in a humorous tone “Well, how do you feel?”) I do feel very human; encouraged by the bits that go well, and a little beat down by the things that don’t.

Like it or not, there are verbs involved. Real actions to take, that require some small effort of will – a decision, a choice, an intention followed through on with a behavior of some appropriate sort. There’s just no getting out from under the action-reaction thing. The actions I choose aren’t always ideal; that’s the next challenge, isn’t it? Once my will is firmly in place, and I’ve made a choice, and taken an action, then experience unfolds the next lesson like a map, and I see where my choices take me. Then the whole thing again, for some other circumstance. Life. I am learning to be more aware of the puzzle pieces themselves in this jigsaw puzzle, rather than straining to see the finished picture while I piece it together.

It’s hard to overstate the value I’ve been finding in the ‘taking in the good’ exercises in Hardwiring Happiness. I haven’t ‘finished’ the book yet, because I keep re-reading it, and meditating on pieces of the content that are most relevant to my own experience. The practice, particularly, of lingering over pleasant moments for a considerable time rather than allowing them to be so fleeting, and also of refraining from lingering over unpleasant moments and treating them fairly casually after-the-fact, is a current favorite; it really does seem to be altering my implicit emotional bias for the better. I recently started a simple practice for improving my perspective with regard to positive and negative interactions, intended to prevent me from taking such things personally, particularly when they are not (and they mostly aren’t). It’s a simple reality-check; if I am feeling very picked on and emotionally beat down, I make a list of the specific complaints, or negative feedback, directed specifically to me, about my actions – no other negative content is listed, because it ‘isn’t about me’. The first time I did it, I quickly recognized that I’d only actually been offered a single point of negative feedback – and the rest of the discussion wasn’t about me at all, however negative it sounded in my thoughts. A negative bias functions on a lot of levels, it seems. This simple practice has seriously improved my relationships with other people; in one case I was able to recognize that new boundaries needed to be explicitly set in a work relationship, without things blowing up, when my list made it clear that 1. the relationship was profoundly negative and critical, and 2. there was a legitimate issue surfacing as a theme that could be easily addressed.

Illumination, or artificial lighting?

Illumination, or artificial lighting?

Meditation does take a commitment. Practicing is action. Choices are necessary. Verbs are involved. The results, for me, so far, are entirely worth it. I sure don’t have ‘the answers’. I am finding it worthwhile to consider some of the questions carefully. Will… that’s the thing, isn’t it? The Will to Practice. How do I build Will? Practicing.

Today is a good day to experience the birdsong, the music, the laughter, and the love. Today is a good day to change the world.

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Categories autumn, Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Metaphors, Mindfulness, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Sleepless Nights, The Big 5, women, Words

An Entirely Other Moment

November 20, 2014 //
1

I woke with a headache this morning, and I woke several times during the night, returning to sleep with relative ease. The headache matters, and it is necessary to maintain awareness of the impact of disrupted sleep over time; my reactivity tends to increase over days and weeks of disrupted sleep. The headache, like much of my day-to-day pain, also doesn’t ‘matter’ in the sense that I make an effort not to be limited by it or allow it to call my shots, this can also put me on the path of lost balance, and lost perspective; I try so hard my own frustration becomes the bigger issue. Menopause or not, it seems I am lingering at the gates of Hormone Hell, too – or at least driving around that neighborhood in circles, lost. Night sweats. Hot flashes. Irritability. Difficulty maintaining a comfortable emotional connection to another.

Today is still an entirely new day, all potential, choices not yet made, reality not yet fully determined… I will do my best with it. Making the best choices in each moment is not the easy thing it sounds like it could be; I observe that whether something ‘sounds easy’ sometimes depends as much on the words as their meanings, which can be misleading. (Is there anything at all in my experience that has no potential whatsoever to be misleading?)

My coffee is good – and it was easy. I find myself being critical with myself, momentarily, for ‘not drinking it fast enough’ as I yawn through the morning, thus far. Day-to-day I can be ludicrously hard on myself, demanding far more of me than makes sense, or is even needed. The damage I’ve done to myself with the constant internal bullying, berating, and lack of satisfaction or encouragement has piled up over the years, and become part of the chaos and damage I fight now. I take a moment to adjust, to back up off of pressuring myself to drink coffee faster, and remind myself how lovely a leisurely morning, unhurried, unpressured, really feels.

Yesterday was challenging, not horrible, and had some wonderful moments to it. The finish was difficult; I was volatile after therapy and tired, and that can make me pretty unapproachable. People who like and love me still make the attempt and while I love that people are willing, and value me that much, it comes with risks and I ended up in tears over something fairly mundane, and feeling hurt and angry on a level that far exceeded what the event could possibly require. I took a walk in the night, enjoying the feeling of the icy rain pelting me for a couple of miles, and filling my lungs with the fresh cold air. Self-soothing, for me, often requires a combination of exercise, distraction, meditation, and distance that a long walk really captures; I sometimes feel as if I am ‘walking away from what is hurting me’. I contemplated how difficult it must be for my traveling partner to discover through the outcome alone that I am sometimes not as strong as I appear. It is one of the peculiar challenges of pursuing change and healing; change happens fast, but I am making active choices and using verbs, and my demeanor and affect do not always give away the contents of this fragile vessel, or the effort involved in being the change.

I made the wise choice to take a sick day yesterday, with some urging from my partner. I’m glad I did – and I think it sucks that the world, in general, benefited thereby, and he still ended up dealing with the grief and bullshit, himself. That seems particularly unfair. (I keep ‘checking the contract’ for life and living – there’s nothing at all about things being fair; this, too, seems unfair. lol)

Today’s okay so far. I’m tired. I have a headache. The increase in my Rx pain medication has been helping, but doesn’t really kick in for about an hour after I wake. I hurt, and I am patient with myself about that, at least so far.

Today is a good day to be less hard on myself. Today is a good day to remember that acknowledging where I am is necessary to get somewhere better. Today is a good day for good choices, and mindfulness that the good choices themselves have value, whatever the outcome. Today is a good day to remember free will is shared equally; we are each having our own experience…

Love in the World

Love in the World

…I wrote those words as the yelling started in another room, not even 6:00 am. OPD. (For the unfamiliar, that’s ‘other people’s drama’ – but often those ‘other people’ are those dearest to me). It wasn’t the raised voices of anger as much as the raised voices of frustration, hurt, and confusion, and it conveyed powerful stress in seconds. I add to my own stress and anxiety my concerns about the safety of the household in my absence while I am at work; today suddenly feels less safe, and less secure. I haven’t seen physical violence directed at people by anyone living here, but one member of the household is a destructive force to be reckoned with when upset nonetheless – and I do mean seriously destructive. The destruction of several door frames, doors, drawers, dishes, and a 25 year-old mahogany sideboard I lovingly hauled around the world for years testify to that. Many of my paintings can’t be hung because falling to the floor would damage them, and the risk is too high; doors have been slammed so hard here that paintings popped right off the walls and crashed to the floor. I don’t like discussing it, but it is real, and it is part of my experience; these are, in fact, experiences I promised myself I would not endure again. It’s wanton destruction of an utterly inappropriate nature (from my perspective), and it’s hard to determine whether anything at all is sacred; setting explicit boundaries about what is sacred to me hasn’t been effective. The sudden lack of household calm says a lot, and for me at least it amounts to a substantial loss of quality of life because it recurs with regularity. I dislike emotional weaponry; it tends to be both imprecise and very damaging, regardless who it is pointed at, everyone in the vicinity is feels the impact. This morning it’s my traveling partner who is ‘down range’, but we’re both stressed and concerned, and we’re both affected. I will go to work anxious and trembling, and my traveling partner will be working at home, dealing with his stress and trying to remain calm and productive after the difficulties of the morning. Doubtless it will continue to stress and trouble everyone involved for some hours, and my writing feels constrained and self-conscious as I struggle with my words. I know from experience that secrecy begets continued problem behavior, as well as isolating me from support and the comfort of being heard; I struggle on, hoping to say only enough to feel heard, and to be accurate about my own experience of the moment.

This moment is harder than others. I don’t know what’s next, at all. Also hard. This too shall pass.  I will continue to do my best, practice my Big 5, take care of me, treat others well, make the best choices I can, and hope that these are ‘enough’, somehow.

Today is still a good day to be less hard on myself. It’s still a good day to do my best. Today is still a good day to take care of me, and make good choices – hard choices, too, some days. We are each having our own experience, sure, but we’re all in this together. Treating each other well may be the one thing we can all easily do to save the world from our own destructive power.

What do you see when you look at the patterns in your life; your choices, or circumstance?

What do you see when you look at the patterns in your life; your choices, or  your circumstances?

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

Not Exactly What I Call ‘Sleep’

November 11, 2014 //
2

I didn’t sleep well last night. Actually, I didn’t sleep last night. I went to bed in the evening feeling fully prepared and ready to sleep. I even fell asleep with little effort. For about 2 hours. Then I woke, and dozed, and woke again. I got up around 12:41 am and prowled the house quietly. Then back to bed; there were no monsters. I woke again shortly after 2:00 am, did the trip to the bathroom. Back to bed. Heard my partner wake and move about the house. Another sleepless being. Shortly after, I got up, and got more water. I kept trying to sleep. I kept dozing off, waking, and not sleeping. I figure I may have gotten about 3.5 hours of sleep. I am not rested. I am not alert. I am highly volatile, and likely to be easily irritated. I’m not making predictions or making assumptions; this is my now.

When I got up with the alarm and recognized my state of being for what it is, I made a point of alerting my partner – still awake, himself – and letting him know I’m high risk for tantrums and nastiness this morning. He shifted from delight at seeing me, to concern and tender caution. He made it easy to retreat to my own space, where it is at least quiet, and unlikely that someone will haplessly piss me off, without remembering the fragile state I’m in.

The weekend is a blur. I took yesterday off in observance of Veteran’s Day, so that someone else on my team could take it off today, comfortably. We’re both veterans. I will work today, fuzzy-headed, slowed-down from lack of sleep, irritable, and doing my best to be patient with random people thanking me for my service. (The temptation is always to explain very carefully why it wasn’t worth it, and how the price is too high; I already know they don’t understand, and I generally don’t bother.) They mean well, and generally in the moment they say the words, they are indeed attempting to communicate something heartfelt and important to them. I try to accept it, graciously. I can’t actually offer them absolution, if that is what they are seeking. There is no way to ‘validate their parking’ ethically on matters of war.

I can hear the family, on the other side of the door, talking and laughing. I feel a surge of pointless anger. I’m so tired. The anger isn’t rational, and there is no blame-worthy object at which to direct it. I didn’t sleep. I fell asleep dozens of times, never achieving a deep enough sleep to survive foot steps in the hallway, coughing, toilets flushing, trucks passing by, occasional nose-blowing, drawers, doors, or the noises of the pipes cooling, or whatever it is that pipes do that causes that knocking they sometimes do. These are all everyday sounds. Generally they are not sufficient to keep me awake, or to wake me. Last night I wasn’t sleeping well. Returning to a calm resting place wasn’t too hard. Even if I hadn’t been actually sleeping, and tired, and very much inclined to sleep, there’s always meditation to bring me to the edge of readiness to sleep, and from there it’s usually just a choice. Last night my experience was different. I didn’t sleep well.

Now I’ve been on about it for more than 500 words; it’s hard to think about anything but the sleep, and rest, I desperately need to function well when I didn’t get it. I dread going to work today.

Rain-drenched autumn flowers...no substitute for sleep.

Rain-drenched autumn flowers…no substitute for sleep.

I hurt this morning, too. I wonder if the pain kept me awake? I don’t recall now. I know I hurt.

Lovely blossoms, just less frequent than spring.

Lovely blossoms, less frequent than spring; even pain doesn’t hide autumn’s loveliness.

I’m almost numb with fatigue. I hadn’t slept well for a few days, although I had at least slept. It wasn’t enough to prepare me for this. I giggle slightly hysterically, frustrated by the rampant typing mistakes this morning, the inappropriate expression of amusement somehow my response to the internal seething. Yep. Tired. It’s going to be an interesting day at the office.

Sometimes the truth isn't grand, or illuminating.

Sometimes the truth isn’t grand, or illuminating.

Today isn’t wasted, in spite of the rough start. There’s always more to learn, and the challenges I face – when I face them well – show my strength. When I am less successful facing my challenges, I learn more, grow more, and find new questions to ask along this journey of discovery. Today is one day I’ll do so from the perspective of great fatigue, and limited resilience. The day is far from wasted; it has the potential to teach me something truly new about what I can do with my choices and my will, and where my values really lie. Today, as days go, is ideal for putting new practices to the test, and for seeing progress and growth in action. Tired isn’t synonymous with poor treatment. I still have choices. I still hold a standard of behavior in my treatment of others – and myself – that puts abuse out of reach, and challenges me to do more, better, on a day like today. Where might that take me? No idea. I know I am loved.

My traveling partner comes to me with a smile, and although my initial reaction is one of caution and suspicion (because I am, frankly, not entirely clear-headed), he reached out with love, wrapped me in his arms and held me, touching me gently, stroking my skin, rubbing my back in places he knows reliably hurt, and folding me in his love. Am I still tired? Oh yeah. Do I still hurt? Yep, unquestionably. I am loved, though, and that goes beyond pain, and beyond fatigue, and touches my heart. Even today.

Lovely autumn roses; more beautiful because they are unexpected.

Lovely autumn roses; more beautiful because they are unexpected.

Today is a good day to do my best. Today is a good day to avoid making assumptions. Today is a good day not to take stuff personally. Today is a good day to be impeccable with my words. Today is a good day to savor pleasant moments with my full attention. Today is a good day to let small stuff go. Today is a good day to be patient with myself, and with others. Today is a good day to take care of me, and mind the basics of good self-care – even if I didn’t get enough _______. (Today it’s ‘sleep’, tomorrow I might forget my vitamins. lol) Today is a good day to build a world that cares for me, by being one person I can always count on to do so.

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Categories autumn, Brain Injury, Healthy Living, Love, Menopause, Metaphors, Mindfulness, more than a little bit of bitching, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Roses, Sleepless Nights, The Big 5, Words

Expectations, Assumptions, and Homecomings

November 9, 2014 //
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It’s Sunday, and today the travelers return. I love a good homecoming. It’s so easy to sabotage a wonderful moment with expectations, and assumptions… today I make my ‘to do list’ with an eye for the work week ahead, and ensuring returning travelers will have the laundry room for their own needs when they get home, and a tidy home to return to. Pain has made being productive around the house a challenge this weekend, but it’s somewhat less today, and I know that if I manage my self-care carefully, and mindful of my limitations, I will be able to meet my own needs for preparing for the coming work week, as well as meeting my own basic standard for household upkeep.

Expectations and assumptions are just about the fastest shortcuts to relationship misery ever. If I had set expectations that a certain amount of very specific housework would be done, then couldn’t do it, it could be disappointing or inconveniencing for other members of the household. Similarly, if they were to assume certain specific things would be done, and arrived to find that those things weren’t done, it could be irksome or inconveniencing, too. If I assume everyone around me knows how much pain I’m in – and how much that limits me – I set internal expectations with myself about how I will be treated, that may not be reasonable; pain isn’t visible to others as a quantity or magnitude of suffering, and the limitations it creates are not obvious at a glance.

Clear – and explicit – expectation setting has enormous value, generally, and I practice clear and specific expectation setting as much as I can. Ensuring that assumptions are quickly moved from ‘implicit’ and unconfirmed to ‘verified with clear communication and clarifying questions’ (resulting in assumptions becoming clearly set expectations), I reduce the stress and drama – and anxiety – of life and love. Seems simple enough in text…it isn’t always so simple in practice. I’ve done my best this weekend. Seems my family has as well. I’m eager to welcome them home.

It'll be evening when they get home... conversations over tea, anecdotes, laughter, the quiet warmth of family...

It’ll be evening when they get home… conversations over tea, anecdotes, laughter, the quiet warmth of family…I look ahead and fight the desire to hold expectations, or make assumptions about the evening to come.

I slept restlessly again last night. I’m not sure what’s disturbing my sleep; I wake frequently for no obvious cause, and I’m only getting 4-5 hours of sleep a night. This morning I just kept at it until daybreak, and managed almost 7 hours of sleep – in 90 minute to two-hour increments. Hardly ideal, but there’s no real distress in it, either.

Today I’ll spend the day in mindful service to home and hearth, and taking care of me with yoga, meditation, study, and working on my manuscript for NaNoWriMo. Today is a good day for all those things. Today is a good day to enjoy the day, this life, and this being I have worked so hard to become. The small details matter, and savoring the pleasant moments matters, too. It’s a good day to enjoy small delights. It’s a good day to enjoy the world.

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Categories autumn, Brain Injury, Free Will, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Sleepless Nights, Words
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