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Over That

October 1, 2016 //
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Let’s not talk about yesterday. Well… we could, but if we do, let’s only talk about the best bits, the fun of it, the things that worked, how we overcame a challenge, why we’re feeling good about the future – and if we don’t have any of that to appreciate, let’s take a moment to be right here, right now, and just breathe through the things weighing us down. It’ll pass.

I woke earlier than the rest of the household. I indulged in a rare (for now) luxury; meditation without a timer, on my cushion, in the patio doorway, watching the night become dawn, and unfold into day. Almost two hours later, I made a cup of coffee, feeling nurtured and enriched. I needed that so urgently.

My emotional resilience begins to erode quickly without my meditation practice; I don’t withstand the continued onslaught of human emotions, drama, assumptions, projections, noise, or even endure the ongoing presence of other consciousness’ very well without literal every day meditation. Having a house guest, and my traveling partner staying over, and parties breaking out at my place before I even get home from work has meant that I don’t have the quiet time I really need with any reliability, right now. This too will pass. I’m not even bitching – I get to spend a wonderful amount of time with my traveling partner. I don’t grudge him his human moments. We all have them.

He has his own perspective.

He has his own perspective; he’s having his own experience.

My walk this morning took me, new camera (phone) in hand, around and through the park. Autumn is showing up everywhere. It was lovely, and time well-spent. It’s enough.

Autumn is here.

Autumn is here.

Today is a good day to is a good day to breathe, and to practice. Today is a good day to begin again.

 

 

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Categories Anxiety, autumn, Brain Injury, Free Will, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, solo hiking, The Art of Being, The Big 5

This One’s for a Friend

September 29, 2016 //
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This morning I woke up thinking about a far away friend going through a bad bit. She spoke of fear,and she spoke of feeling mistreated, and she spoke of love, and when she spoke her narrative reminded me of dark times of my own, in past relationships. She’s well-loved, and has many friends. I know there are days she doubts it. I hear her heartbreak, now, reflected in many inconsequential things. I remember mine.

Attachment is a tangled bit of nastiness. I held on, fearful, for so many years in two very long (bad) relationships, and later, a one nearly as vile as the first, that I had the limited strength and fragile-best-effort wisdom to walk away from before I’d exhausted 3 years. (I pause to acknowledge the progress implied there, without being overly hard on myself about the slow learning curve.) I’m very human, love matters so much – and it’s peculiarly difficult to sort out the professed-love-that-isn’t-love-at-all from Love.

I held on because I was afraid. I was afraid to “lose everything” – without actually defining with clarity what it was I thought I was actually holding onto. I apologized when I was victimized, hurt, injured, mistreated, manipulated, and “managed” through cruelty and the withholding of affection. I turned my anger on myself, believing that I had in some fashion “deserved” this treatment – I mean, hey, hadn’t I… something? Didn’t I do… something? No, it wasn’t ever about me, but it took a really long time to figure that out. I needed help with that, too. It was a grim and lonely journey through a lot of chaos and damage.

Rare is that good friend who will look another in the eye and gently say “please take care of yourself, I’m worried about your safety” and “no, actually, I don’t think you deserved that, and I don’t think it’s a given that because your partner says they love you that this gives them a free pass to be cruel, demanding, irrational, violent, mean, confrontational, deceitful, hateful, exploitative…” (or any of the many dozens of other ways human primates can be cruel to one another). Sometimes it’s hard to find the words. Other times we wonder “is it our place”? (It is.) Perhaps we’re not sure about the circumstances, so choose to “stay out of it” rather than be mistaken. Maybe we don’t think it’s “that bad”, or it mirrors our own circumstances and forces us to look to closely into the mirror. It matters that we give voice to our concerns, though; our hurting friends, frightened friends, isolated friends, hell – all our friends need our voices in their moment of darkness, need to know we care, and that they matter – to someone.

You matter. I hope you are reading this over your coffee, or your tea, and that you take just one moment to set aside the hurting and the fear, and accept this one thing, right now; this too will pass. It’s okay to let go of the attachment, and look your worst care scenario right in the face; your thoughts have no substance that you don’t give them. They are free for the taking, to enjoy when they delight us, to educate us about our suffering when they are less delightful. Let your fears unfold their educational narrative in your thoughts, and breathe. Trust your good heart. Take care of you – because you matter. If things are okay right now, take time to just sink into that moment, and enjoy being okay right now. Breathe. Relax. Sip your coffee (tea?). Take a moment for you. This moment. Now. The moment you’ve got – the only moment you’ve really got. Be present for it. (The way out is through.) 🙂

Thank you being a friend. Thank you for listening when I’ve needed to talk. Thank you for sharing your own heartfelt words in a moment of fear and pain, and connecting across miles and years through our common experience as human beings. Emotion and reason. It’s not either or, and can’t be. 😉 I hear you. Other friends hear you. You are heard. You are loved. ❤

One new day, approximately infinite possibilities.

One new day, approximately infinite possibilities.

Today is a good day to begin again. Today is a good day for a journey – a solo hike through life, if you will. There is no map. You’ll be your own cartographer. There will be obstacles, challenges, and life’s curriculum is a stern teacher on some icy mornings of the heart. You’ll probably make some bad choices along the way, or get caught out in emotional inclement weather without an umbrella. There may feel like there are more bad times than good – even when data, real data, would suggest it could be otherwise. It’s a worthy journey, nonetheless, and well… frankly… you have the choice to take it willfully or to drift, but you must make the journey to the conclusion that it offers, or choose another – but the journey is itself is not optional. (You do get to choose your gear.) Ready? It’s time to walk on, Friend. ❤

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Categories Anxiety, Free Will, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, solo hiking, The Art of Being, The Big 5, women

Odds and Evens

September 27, 2016 //
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Full house this morning. My traveling partner and his son still sleeping, the apartment feels very quiet. I’ll probably be gone for the day long before they wake. I made it through the work day fairly comfortably, yesterday. I face today feeling confident I’ll manage, in spite of continued cold symptoms, and generally feeling somewhat miserable with the commonplace stuffy head nonsense slowly migrating into my chest for future misery with the congested chest nonsense next week. Maybe it won’t go that way… experience suggests otherwise. Do I have a preference? Is that even a question that makes any sense?

I breathe deeply – and set off a coughing fit. The coughing fit somehow results in looking into the kitchen light – long enough to start me sneezing, immediately after finishing with the coughing. I break out in a sweat, as though it amounts to real exertion. My fitness tracker disagrees, insisting I am “inactive”. I sneer at it dismissively, playfully retorting “you don’t know me” aloud, quietly. I smile that I’m “keeping my voice low” to prevent waking people; I ran the burr grinder for my coffee, have had multiple fits of coughing or sneezing, and closed the bathroom door on my hand earlier, resulting in quite an audible yelp of pain. So. I’m pretty sure sassing my fitness tracker isn’t going to be the thing that woke the household. 🙂 Funny human primates. Even on small courtesies we lack perspective.

Life looks different this morning than it did two weeks ago. I’ve lost 40 hours of my time each week, and gained valued resources in the exchange of life-force for currency. My traveling partner and I talk “next steps”, and about the future together. His restless heart yearns to move about his universe, exploring, traveling, seeing sights, and tasting adventure. Mine yearns for a safe haven after a lifetime of stormy seas and rootless wandering. Sometimes it sounds a poor fit, the two of us together, and this morning I savor how very well it suits me, to be here, safe, wrapped in contentment, a welcoming harbor for a traveler’s homecoming. This works for us. Later there will be stories shared, hugs, kisses (well… once I’m over this cold), and time well-spent, because we spent it together. Enough? More than enough.

In what direction will the journey unfold, now? What next steps can I see? Are there others, worthy useful others, I may be inclined to overlook? Do I want what my lover wants? Where our desires differ… who decides? Life is a solo hike; sometimes we share the journey alongside another, but it’s our hike to make, bearing the weight of our own burdens, and the consequences of our own choices. I am my own cartographer. Will I “pack light” and move quickly through life committed to a plan, without pausing to enjoy it? The map is not the world. The plan is not the experience. Will I struggle under the weight of my baggage, mile by mile, exhausted and cranky, but well-equipped for the unlikely odd circumstance? We are each having our own experience. How do I share life’s journey with skill, however briefly?

I sip my coffee, losing interest in the metaphor in favor of some distraction, already forgotten.

Where will the journey take me?

Where will the journey take me?

…And still the household sleeps. I look at my list for the day and realize I’ve overlooked meditation. Practices work best with verbs involved. It’s time to set aside the written word for a while. Today is a good day for practicing practices, and for good self-care. Today is a good day to invest in wellness. Today is a good day to slow down, and enjoy the journey. 🙂

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Categories Free Will, health, Healthy Living, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Relationships, solo hiking, The Art of Being, The Big 5

A Season of Change

September 18, 2016 //
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Tomorrow I go back to work. That isn’t today. Today, however, is a good day to prepare, to make myself ready, to review plans and expectations, to jot down questions, to plot a new commute with care, and plan out new routines that take into account my return to the workforce, as well as the likelihood that I’ll be seeing a great deal more of my traveling partner as the weather turns from festival summer to fireside fall.

The end of a chilly rainy autumn day.

Yesterday ended well, although chilly.

Who am I? It seems a day for such questions. Rainy. Mild. More yellow and amber tones in the leaves of the trees on the far side of the park than there were yesterday. Evidence of time passing, and of seasons changing. I feel transformed, myself, and able to face the prospect of working with quite a bit more contentment, and in much less day-to-day pain, even with the chill of autumn approaching. Has it really meant so much to take this time to care for myself, to live on my own terms, to follow my own agenda? Just six months? Worth it. Totally worth it. I’ll even be taking understandings gained and this perspective on the healing power of leisure into the workplace with me; I’ve learned a lot that has value to long-term workforce management strategies. Am I this person, this analyst-manager, this workforce management professional, this corporate employee? Is this who I am? No. Not really. I am not my work.

I look around the studio, very tidy – even projects in progress are cleaned up, for now, and put neatly aside. I’ll have a guest for some days, soon. Is this who I am? Hostess? Family member, local matriarch, devoted servant of home and hearth? Or am I the artist who has so accommodatingly set everything aside to welcome friends in need, lovers in distress, a traveler returning home, or family visiting from afar? Am I the frustrated citizen, attempting to dot i’s, cross t’s, and jump through hoops of paperwork on fire to comply with some requirement or another? Am I the disabled veteran, committed to my wellness, frustrated by “the system”, still doing what I can to meet my own needs over time, through diet, exercise, and careful management of my health? Am I the woman on the meditation cushion in the window, content, calm, relaxed? (Occasionally distracted with childlike delight to see a squirrel dart past, or a woodpecker stop at the suet feeder, sending both bird and feeder spinning crazily, to my great amusement.)

Who am I? Am I all these – or none? When I cling to some singular potentially defining quality, like my appearance, or an attitude, or a characteristic, or some detail singled out, change becomes such a frightening destructive force, with the potential to rob me of who I am. “Who am I?” is a question that quite honestly used to terrify me – not because I didn’t have a sense of self, but because I didn’t know what “the right answer” was, and that, by itself, was quite terrifying. Follow that with finding myself unclear on precisely what is required to prove the answer. Yep. Terrifying to feel so… unidentified.

There is no “right” answer. There may be quite a few… not “wrong” exactly… “incorrect”? Inaccurate. There may be quite a few inaccurate answers. I take time to consider the difference between “accurate” and “honest”. Truthful fits in there, somewhere, too. I’m not sure that accuracy in the details that describe this being of light wrapped in this fragile vessel made of meat actually answers the question “who am I?” at all well.

It’s a pleasant enough autumn morning, on the edge of a major life change. It seems a good time to give a moment of thought and consideration to the woman in the mirror. It doesn’t have to be fancy, or deep, or complicated; I’ll pick out work clothes for tomorrow at some point later, and likely find myself contemplating the woman in the mirror, who she has become, where she is headed, and how she hopes to share herself in this new context. That’s enough for now. 🙂

A cloudy autumn day suitable for hiking. A good day to walk on; the journey isn't about the destination.

Today begins well, a cloudy autumn day suitable for hiking. The season is changing.

Today is a good day to consider the journey. Today is a good day to walk on. Change is. Perhaps it’s just the season for it? 🙂

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Categories Anxiety, autumn, Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, solo hiking, Summer, The Art of Being, The Big 5, Words

There’s an App for That

September 10, 2016 //
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No matter what the challenge is, there’s probably a solution. Every puzzle piece fits somewhere in the puzzle. There’s a tool for every job – or the potential to make one. In the 21st century vernacular, “there’s an app for that” rings true.

Yesterday, in a moment that could have been filled with waiting, I found myself exploring solutions to problems, and seeking the right tool for a very specific task; my own fitness, and long-term wellness. 🙂

A very long time ago, when I once began the long journey toward better physical fitness (and wellness), I bought an inexpensive pedometer and found that it really did function well to help me keep my activity level up. I began to explore the most rudimentary gamification of my fitness challenges, and I made a ton of progress. It remains a journey with a lot of chances to begin again, and I’m not alone on this one; there’s an entire industry built on our dissatisfaction with our fitness and our physical appearance. I consulted with my traveling partner, who wears a fairly state-of-the-art wearable device. His experience proved valuable, when I went to shop in person, shortly afterward.

Although it was late in the evening, I got pretty excited about the idea of having a fitness tracker to support my progress toward my personal goals, and it actually worked immediately; I walked up to a retailer who stocks such things, even though it was later in the evening, adding about 2 miles to the days’ walking. 😀 I didn’t even have to buy a fitness tracker to benefit from the idea! (I’m still giggling about that, hours later.) I selected one that had the features I figure I’m most likely to use (and value) that is also aesthetically pleasing (it’s right there on my arm where I have to look at it all the time), and affordable. I took it home and stayed up far later than usual, charging it, and doing what minimal set up there was to sync it to my phone.

IMAG8161

This morning, again, I find value in it as I look down and notice how long I’ve actually been here at my desk, first thing, with my coffee, writing. It’s time to get up, time for a walk, time for more than sitting still… Today is a good day for something besides sitting still, isn’t it? Today is a good day to go, and to do. There is an entire world to explore! I smile over my coffee, enticed away from my writing by a new toy… It feels like a good fit. 🙂

(Incremental change over time is enough – there are still verbs involved.)

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Categories Free Will, health, Healthy Living, Mindfulness, Oregon Trails, solo hiking, weight loss secrets
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