Archives for category: The Big 5
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Pain and Mixed Emotions

April 17, 2016 //
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I woke ‘too early’ this morning – meaning, I really wanted to sleep later, and felt unready to be awake. It’s a weekend day, so I went back to bed. I didn’t really sleep any later, but I indulged myself in the sensuous luxury of waking up quite slowly. Worth it. When I finally got up, I felt rested, and mostly comfortable. My back aches ferociously, but for now it remains quite manageable.

My thoughts are a jumble of future considerations, past concerns, and ‘what to do with today?’ thoughts. I smile at the question; it is a Sunday, and Sunday’s mostly take care of themselves, being [for me] a day for housekeeping (both in my home, and in my thinking), and for self-care. I already have a list of things I’d like to get done today, with laundry at the top. It is a day for practical things.

The titular pain is an obvious thing and, as much as I can, I refuse to allow it to call my shots on this lovely morning; there is a life to be lived, and I’d very much prefer to live it without regard to pain. It isn’t always easy, and the good self-care practices that build and maintain emotional resilience day-to-day are surprisingly effective also at minimizing the emotional consequences of living with pain. I keep practicing. Today will be a good day for meditation, and for those yoga poses that I am still permitted by my doctor (while we sort out what is going on with my health).

The titular mixed emotions are… life. I sometimes have a more than necessarily complicated time of things with my emotional life, partly a byproduct of my TBI, partly a byproduct of my PTSD, and partly…well… I’m human. 🙂 We are creatures of both emotion and reason – and emotion generally leads. Having made a firm decision regarding my professional life, and thrown some verbs into the mix, I am investing time in considering my future choices, needs, and opportunities quite deeply. It’s not always comfortable. I am flawed… human… and hopeful. I don’t know where the journey is taking me, but I am very much on the way… somewhere. 🙂

However straight and obvious life's path seems at a glance... I can't quite see where it leads.

However straight and obvious life’s path seems at a glance… I can’t quite see where it leads.

Today is a good day for practices, and patience. Today is a good day for self-care, and consideration for others. Today is a good day to change this small bit of the world right here, and look to the horizon to see the world changing in the distance.

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Categories Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Oregon Trails, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, solo hiking, The Art of Being, The Big 5, Words

Love Songs

April 15, 2016 //
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I am sipping a delicately fragrant cup of tea this morning, and lingering over the recollection of a lovely moment with my traveling partner last night. He put on a love song with a beautiful tender video for our shared enjoyment. It was a simple connected romantic moment, and very much worth remembering. This morning, with headphones on, I listen to it again…then play a favorite that makes me think of loving him. Suddenly, it is a morning filled with music – love songs, mostly, and uplifting songs of pure joy. “Love songs” to life and self – don’t those matter just as much? Sure – that’s part of the point; I matter. To me. No argument, defense, or justification required.

I find my way back to romantic love songs, of course, it’s that sort of morning. 🙂 I “miss” my traveling partner as fervently and with as much yearning as if he were away, instead of sleeping in another room. Sometimes love is funny that way. I let him sleep; I love him such that it matters more that he rest well than to risk waking him with a touch or a kiss. I’ll see him later today.

Love matters most.

Love matters most.

Today is a good day to be love.

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Categories art and the artist, Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Love, Mindfulness, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, The Art of Being, The Big 5

Asking the Questions

April 6, 2016 //
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This is a busy week. Doctor’s appointments, work, life, errands, decisions, choices, practices – and love – it’s a very busy week, indeed. Some of my appointments will bring me face to face with long-time concerns, some will require emotional presence – and emotional work. Work and life and errands and all the things that feel urgent or important or necessary may result in some stress to be managed. The love will be there, in background supporting me, in the foreground as something to be nurtured and invested in with good choices, consideration, and some verbs. I am a bit pre-occupied, particularly with the doctor’s appointments, and while I am hopeful that results may lead to quality of life improvements and a reduction in day-to-day pain… I don’t know what the outcome will be, really. I have questions.

I have rather a lot of questions. Maybe this queuing up of questions is more to do with any perceived feeling of being busy than all the things I am feeling busy with? Today seems a good day to ask questions. I can get on with answering them another time…any time. Some of them may not need answers at all – funny how some of the questions we ask work that way.

I list a bunch of questions. I mean seriously – a lot. Then I realize it really comes down to just a handful of questions that mostly cover it all.

What do I really want out of life from this perspective? Am I making the choices I need to in order to head in that direction? Am I willing to make different choices, or take greater risks? Do I have a good understanding of what my choices really are, and what the outcomes may be? Have I considered how each possible choice affects other areas of life – and people who matter most to me?

Walking my own path, one step at a time.

Walking my own path, one step at a time.

I “come up for air”, returning to this present moment, reminded how very ‘now’ life really is, as I consider questions that look forward. I missed two important [for me] questions…

What is enough?

Am I okay right now?

Isn't it enough to find balance?

Isn’t it enough to find balance?

Today is more about questions than answers. I am okay right now. Answering the others needn’t be rushed.

 

 

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Categories Anxiety, Brain Injury, Free Will, health, Mindfulness, pain, Perspective, Relationships, The Art of Being, The Big 5, Words

there is a list for that

April 5, 2016 //
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This morning I really want to listen to The Beastie Boys. I have a particular track stuck in my head that fits my mood this morning. It’s not really the sort of thing for a quiet morning, and with my partner sleeping in the other room I find myself feeling the lack of a good pair of headphones. How is it that I don’t have headphones? lol I didn’t need them before. It’s simple. I’m not complaining; I have a well-developed wish list of odds and ends and quality of life improvements. I add headphones to the list, for mornings. 🙂

I spent a quiet evening of study and meditation last night, time well-spent. I didn’t realize I had gotten so far behind on planned reading, and important [to me] study material. This morning, I meditate, things I read creep in and I find my thoughts again and again turning away from the woman in the mirror, to the reflection of her experience I so often see in the reaction and words of my partner. A different perspective on ‘who I am’, sometimes distorted in strange unexpected ways. We are both so different than we once were… Change is. There is still room for surprise, for wonder, for joy – and also for frustration, for misunderstanding, and even for anger (it is my least favorite of the emotions I know best), sometimes sadness; we continue to love and to learn – about each other, from each other, with each other. Partnership. He’s got his broken bits, and I’ve got mine. I am quite attached to the idea that we both do our best to care for each other and treat each other well, and like to believe that it is true; I don’t test it very rigorously, and simply accept that it is so. Funny how that sort of things works. 🙂

I open my everyday ‘to do list’ and add some housework tasks to it. (I may forget them far too long, otherwise.) I move on to other things.

I’ve benefited greatly from the additional time meditating the past couple of days. I find myself more invested in myself, and in this safe space that I’ve built to live within, and less focused on the stray agita and stress of humans being human that can be so easy to become mired in, otherwise. I consider what I can be doing (or doing with greater skill or consistency) to support and nurture my partner…and wonder whether he is aware of the things he could be doing to support and nurture me in turn? For the time being this is a shared journey, and in my certainty that I can take better care of myself, I am aware I can also take better care of him, without doing myself harm; it is a journey that requires steps, and covers distance. I’m sure there’s a metaphor in there…

Sharing the journey? A good opportunity to be love.

Sharing the journey? A good opportunity to be love.

Today is a good day to be love.

 

 

 

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Categories Brain Injury, Free Will, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Spring, The Art of Being, The Big 5, Words

To Be Determined

April 4, 2016 //
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This morning I begin writing without a title. Usually I start from the title and build from there. I only mention it because this morning I also begin without any particular thought on what to say or where to go. I listen to the rain awhile. I trim my cuticles. I meditate. I sip my coffee and scroll through my Facebook feed, noticing there is little to catch up on since the night before. I listen to the rain against the window pane awhile longer, aware of my arthritis pain, too. The weekend is over… I’m not sure I’m ready for that.

I enjoy these quiet hours I’ve set aside for me in the early morning. I smile thinking back on conversations with my traveling partner about ‘not being a morning person’ and how much I disliked the early rising hour of active duty life as a much younger woman. I would happily ‘sleep in’ every day, and wake without an alarm clock…knowing myself as I do, I’d still be up by 7:00 am most mornings. The choice to get up earlier than necessary in order to begin each day with time that is really my own was originally made with such reluctance and skepticism (it was my traveling partner’s suggestion); I expected it would not suit me to ‘deprive myself of sleep’ in that way ‘just to have some time to myself’. How many times in life have my assumptions been incorrect, or my expectations a poor fit for real life? (Let’s not count them all.) The idea of getting up very early to enjoy a leisurely morning each day didn’t seem to be an obvious win for me going into it, and I am still just a bit surprised when I consider how well it does work for me. Instead of ‘depriving me of sleep’ it became a practice that I can also rely on to help stabilize my sleep cycle; I now regularly crash out at about the same time every night, in part because I am up at the same early hour every morning. I sleep better, more often. I think a quiet thank you at the human being asleep in another room – uncountable “best practices” that I find to be practical, delightful, and useful have sourced with this partnership we share, and the exchange of good ideas in a context of openness and respect.

My thoughts move on. It’s that sort of morning. There are other practices to practice this morning, other opportunities to experience a moment, to grow, to enjoy the woman in the mirror. I sip my coffee, make choices, and organize my thoughts regarding the day and week to come. I try to do so without investing in untested assumptions, or building a plan on a foundation of implicit expectations.

And still (again?) my thoughts move on. It’s a less than ideal morning for this sort of writing. I smile as I recognize it, and I move on, too, thoughts and all. 🙂 Today is a good day for more practice, and fewer words.

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Categories Brain Injury, Free Will, Love, Mindfulness, Perspective, Relationships, The Art of Being, The Big 5, Words
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