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Being & Becoming

April 18, 2023 //
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It’s a good morning to sip coffee and just be here. It’s a pleasant moment. Funny enough, if it were an unpleasant moment, it would probably still be a potentially good moment to simply be… maybe just not right in that spot. lol Embracing authenticity, and also seeking to be the best version of myself I am able to be, tends to “make life easier”, if only by reducing the amount of bullshit I’m attempting to support, manage, dispense, or accept. Trying to “manage” every micro-expression to ensure I’m always “wearing the right face” is exhausting. Why do that? Just breathe, and be. Not an excuse to be a jackass; don’t do that. Be your most worthy self moment-to-moment. Make your best decisions – or be wise enough to set some decisions aside for a time when you can make them with a clear head. Be kind, honest, frank – and withhold unkind or harsh words for a time when you can find the words to communicate your point without being cruel or adversarial. Things like that really matter.

…I know it’s a lot to ask of a simple, mortal, human primate. We’re complicated and we almost seem to relish doing stupid shit and getting things entirely wrong. For example, we broadly proclaim the explicit value of reason, but truly we lead with our emotions pretty reliably. One might expect that, knowing we are such emotional creatures, we would also be of very high “emotional intelligence” and would put quite a lot of developmental time educationally into learning about emotions, how they work, the biochemistry of our emotions, the differences between “feelings” and “sensations”, the differences between feeling and thinking, and how best to express our emotions skillfully… but no; we prefer to bumble about in ignorance for some reason. It’s as if we think that by ignoring emotions we can escape them. lol (Doesn’t work that way.)

How much fucking trauma does humanity inflict upon itself over the lack of understanding of our fucking emotions, and lack of skill communicating or managing them? (Like, a whole lot – it was a rhetorical question.)

The news is mostly bad. The war drags on in Ukraine. Americans continue to slaughter children with guns. Wealth and privilege still insulate some people from the consequences of their actions. People still take sides in arguments of false dichotomies. Scammers continue to take what they can from anyone they can deceive. For-profit medicine continues to fail those who can’t afford to pay. For-profit education continues to take money out of the pockets of people who can ill-afford to waste it on empty promises of future success. Humans being human. We could do so much better – for ourselves, for each other, for the world.

Don’t mind me. I’m not even feeling gloomy this morning. Just sitting here sipping coffee fairly contentedly. Happy that I’m not sitting in an office in the city every day, killing time between two arbitrary points on the clock, hoping my car isn’t broken into while it’s parked, and hoping that I don’t get mugged or shot or stabbed on my way to my car at the end of the day. It all sounds much gloomier than I mean it to.

…Maybe it’s the gray, chilly morning coloring my thoughts…

I’m one human being, doing (mostly) my best to be the woman I most want to be. I’m good with it. Some days I’m a better version of myself than others. When I fall short of my own expectations of who I am – or could be – I at least know I can give it another go, some other time. I can “begin again” – with the experience of my most recent failures to grow from. It’s not a perfect system, but it’s something.

…Do new things, grow from those experiences, keep “becoming”…

This past weekend, my Traveling Partner and I went out for a drive in his truck. We had spent exciting hours exploring videos of off-roading and overland adventuring (in vehicles) and were pretty eager to take the truck out beyond the paved city streets. It was fun. We even got out into the wilds enough to reach snow, and to face a (brief, momentary) concern that just perhaps we may have “gone too far”. lol It was fun. The campgrounds we passed on the BLM land were still closed for the season, but we spotted some lovely places to get away that are actually quite near to home, though they felt very remote. What a fun adventure. I’m still thinking about it quite happily.

I look at the time and realize it’s already time to begin again… 😀

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Categories Allegories, Anxiety, Brain Injury, breathe, Free Will, gratitude, Healthy Living, inspiration, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Oregon Trails, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, Spring, The Art of Being

Simple, but also Hard

April 17, 2023 //
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I’m sipping my coffee and thinking about how often it seems that the solution – or greatest likelihood for that potential – is found within some relatively simple practice or task, and that all that is required is to do that thing. In this instance, I am thinking about my anxiety, which has recently flared up pretty severely – enough to amount to a reduction in quality of life and even a cognitive impairment. Unpleasant, for sure. Wrecks my sleep. Causes stressful rumination and massive thinking errors. Renders me defensive and likely to take dumb shit personally. Kicks over a domino effect of other challenges associated with both emotional and physical health. What is the simple practice that relieves my anxiety, reduces my “second dart” suffering, and restores the joy in my experience? Meditation. Mostly. Self-care, generally.

In my case, this time around, the drivers of my anxiety and my background stress are generally to do with work. More specifically, employment (and the implied day-to-day details of working for a living) and being employed, and spending X portion of my days dedicated to someone else’s agenda in return for cash. So… I took a closer look at two details: my self-care practices as they are, and the conditions at work that drive my stress. I checked for mismatched self-care-to-stress and no surprise, I found it. So, I have room to improve on how I manage my stress. Okay. Good starting point. I began there, with the weekend. Then, I examined the work conditions that are causing the stress and asked myself some basic questions…

  1. Are the current stressful conditions likely temporary, or more likely to be chronic, long-term, or characteristic of the role I’m in?
  2. Do I have realistic expectations?
  3. Are there obvious steps I can take to improve conditions thus reducing my stress?
  4. Is this job my only option?
  5. Is this job truly what I want to be doing – just as it is – or am I committed to the paycheck more than the role?

You can see where this leads. So, I took the time to reflect, and found that it made things “feel less personal” – which is useful, because things of this sort are rarely personal, and getting mired in that feeling can make it so much tougher to practice good self-care, or make skillful decisions about what I do with my time.

Over the weekend, I updated my resume. Looked over some other opportunities. Every new adventure leads to new questions, and new knowledge, and we don’t know what we don’t know. It’s a path. The journey is the destination.

There’s always room for a new beginning. 🙂

I finish my coffee, and sit with my thoughts for a moment. Soon enough I’ll set up the work day. First, I think I’ll take time for meditation, and maybe enjoy a short walk. Then? I’ll begin again. 😀

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Categories Allegories, Anxiety, Brain Injury, breathe, Free Will, Healthy Living, meditation, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Sleepless Nights, Spring, The Art of Being

It’s Always a Good Time to Change

April 16, 2023 //
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I’m sipping a cup of tea and thinking about life. In general, things are good. My anxiety has flared up, though, and it often feels as though “dial is turned up to 11“. My PTSD is reliably aggravated by my anxiety… and my anxiety is aggravated when my PTSD flares up… and around and around I go. My finger tips are torn and my cuticles are ragged from gnawing at them mindlessly. My Traveling Partner notes my overall stress level and suggests various things to help me “relax” – I reliably reply that I am relaxed – I’m not.

My self-care is going to shit quickly… there’s definitely a “mind-body” connection to be considered, too. As my anxiety worsens, I sleep more poorly. As my quality of sleep degrades, my pain becomes harder to manage. As my physical condition worsens over time, my emotional resilience is undermined, and I become more volatile, more easily provoked to anger, and struggle more and more to maintain a rational perspective on circumstances and events. It’s an emotionally painful and demoralizing process.

…I’ve “been here” before. I have tools now that I lacked years ago. I know to address the source(s) of my stress, and to meditate regularly, and practice non-attachment. I have learned over time that my reaction-in-the-moment, at the best of times, is likely to be less helpful that a well-considered, responsive approach, that is nuanced and thorough. I know that I am prone to “catastrophizing” and that this can become a real problem very quickly, robbing me of perspective, and a sense of sufficiency. I quickly “lose my joy”.

So, I am sipping this cup of tea and thinking about practices, and next steps, and how best to take care of myself under the current circumstances. It’s not “easy”, but that’s often the case with stressful situations. I’m fortunate to have a supportive partner, and good quality of life; at least I’m not having to also worry about those details!

I had talked things over with my therapist at my most recent appointment. He made some follow-up suggestions – almost a “homework” assignment, in practical terms. It was just 4 things he wanted me to consider doing. I’ve done two of those, so far. Feels pretty good.

I sigh. I am thinking about how often it seems that when a person expresses a deep interest in a topic, or shares some detail that gives them great joy, there’s often someone lurking in their social network who seems eager to pull the rug out from under them. Weird, eh? Don’t do that. Treat people as people. Treat them with kindness (you don’t know what they are going through). Appreciate that you can’t possibly know life and the world (or the decision-making of others) from the perspective of someone else – even if they choose to share that perspective with you. We’re each having our own experience. Do what you can not to fuck things up for someone else, eh? If we each did just that, the world would be far more pleasant for many more people.

This weekend my Traveling Partner when for a long drive together. We talked about life, and future other camping and cool drives we’d like to take together out in the wildernesses of America. It was lovely. Time well-spent. It’s not enough, however pleasant, to remove all my challenges from my experience of self. I’ve got the issues I’ve got. I’m learning to manage them more skillfully – and sometimes that means “change”.

It’s time to breathe. Exhale. Relax. And begin again.

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Categories Allegories, Anxiety, Brain Injury, breathe, Free Will, Frustration, gratitude, Healthy Living, meditation, Metaphors, Mindfulness, more than a little bit of bitching, Oregon Trails, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, Sleepless Nights, Spring, The Art of Being, War and News of War

An Experience, A Metaphor

April 11, 2023 //
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I got my car detailed yesterday. It’s a small SUV that suits me well. Over the past couple of years, though, as much as I love this car, I’d grown pretty used to using it as more of a tiny pick-up truck than as a “car”. We moved. Started a business. For big needs and small needs, my SUV served us well. We only needed to rent a truck specifically to haul something twice: once for a king size mattress, and again for a band-saw. Not bad. Here’s the thing though; I wasn’t investing time in proper care of my SUV all this time, and aside from occasionally taking out all the bits and pieces of trash and nonsense flung about or running it through a car wash now and then, I just wasn’t caring for my car as though it were a car I love… I was just “using it up”.

…I catch myself doing that with my own reserves of energy far too often…

So, after my Traveling Partner got a pick-up, it was clearly time to put things right with my car. I got it detailed, to give me a head start on keeping it nice, again.

Getting into my car after it was ready to be picked up was… an experience. It was cleaner than it was when I bought it! Wow. Every nook and cranny… clean. Carpets? Clean and deep dark black once again. Upholstery? Clean. Not a single crumb or mote of dust to be found. Super clean. That under-dash panel that popped off a couple years ago (that I was obviously too lazy to put back)? Back where it belongs. That wee clip or cover for something or other? It’s back on, too. The car smells clean. Wow. Just… yeah. Wow.

It was once again a thoroughly enjoyable experience to drive my SUV. Like… a total blast. I do love this particular car. Have since I first drove it. I’ll probably get a new one in a couple years – that good. In the meantime, though, the experience of enjoying this one? Fully restored. No trash or empty coffee cups on the floor. No dust or crumbs anywhere at all. It’s such a cute ride.

This is a real experience – but it’s also a metaphor. If we drive ourselves so hard that we begin using ourselves up, never taking time for self-care, or a moment to appreciate our accomplishments, or to just enjoy our life for a little while, we lose the joy that our experience can provide. We begin to lose a sense of what makes us special as an individual. We begin to take our qualities for granted, and become – even with ourself – exploitative and potentially even abusive (of our own self, and this fragile vessel in which we reside for this mortal lifetime). Life can become a grind. A series of errands.

It’s down to the details, isn’t it? How I care for myself matters; doing so, or not doing so, changes my experience of myself and my life. Worth considering.

I sip my coffee thinking happily about my very clean cute SUV. I think about the conversation my Traveling Partner and I were having last night about making some changes to our shared camping gear to account for the truck – it has vastly more room for things than my SUV! Trying to camp in style with just gear that fits in my SUV is a bit limiting, and fine for a solo experience, less so for the two of us. I grin thinking about my Traveling Partner shopping for a proper camp kitchen set-up. I generally get by with my Jet-Boil and freeze-dried camp meals. lol I’m looking forward to better camp food. 😀 (He’s a super good cook, too.)

A new day dawns. I think about odds and ends and things I need to get done. A quick trip to the grocery store. Put essentials back in the car now that it’s detailed (like, hey, the freakin’ paperwork back into the glovebox!!). Launder my all-weather gear that stays in my car for whenever I need it. Emergency kit. My spare cane. I shift in my seat restlessly.

…It’s already time to begin again…

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

Listen to the Rain Fall

April 10, 2023 //
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I am listening to the rain falling. The fact that it is the sound of rain falling on a video is not relevant; it’s raining outside, too. I just don’t hear it with as much clarity as on a video of rain falling. lol I like the sound. It is one that I find very relaxing, and has the pleasant byproduct of tending to minimize my tinnitus – at least while I am listening to it.

It’s Monday. My first coffee is gone, and I exist in the gap between that and my second cup. I’m set up for work and the day has started, though I’ll shortly step away for a few minutes to drop off my car to be detailed. It’s no longer necessary for me to use my car to haul lumber, parts, and tools for my Traveling Partner’s shop, now that he’s got his truck. Time to get my car back in beautiful cared-for-car shape once again. I’m excited about that. This is probably my favorite vehicle I’ve ever owned, and I like it best when it is clean and well-cared-for.

…funny which things turn out to matter most…

My second cup of coffee is more or less identical to the first. Dawn has become day. There are things to do, and I’ve got a calendar, a list, and a plan. It’s time to begin again. Already. 🙂

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