Archives for category: The Big 5
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Choice and Will

May 18, 2015 //
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A lovely morning of smiles and tasty coffee begins well. The smiles and the coffee are both mine, and I am enjoying the quiet of morning solitude. The past couple weeks of lovely mornings have been built, in part, on my certainty that very soon I will wake thus, each morning, with very little risk of waking any other way. The knowledge that I am within days of moving provides me with unexpected resilience, resolve, and calm; however complicated things may seem, in just days it won’t be a day-to-day part of my experience. There’s strength in choice, and seeing my will manifest through my decision-making. The powerful advantage of skilled research and planning are worth the investment in time [for me], because having made that additional effort, I am prepared for most unexpected results of the will and actions of others, too. “Always have a ‘Plan B’ ready, that you put as much time into as ‘Plan A’, and make it one with an outcome you can really make work; ‘Plan B’ goes live more often than ‘Plan A’ in most tactical scenarios.” Wise words from a military instructor in another life, a long time ago, that have proven to be quite correct, time and again.

I am facing the day with a great deal of eagerness. I am hoping to hear that my application for my studio is approved, and to find myself busy later today with scheduling movers, electric service, and time off to get moved in and settled. Knowing how child-like I can be about facing disappointment, I also set clear expectations with myself that are meaningful right now; it may take longer to get approval, it may be less convenient than I’d like getting the move managed, I may have to plan around work needs for the time off I want… But every bit of that is trivial, beyond how easily it could derail my pleasant morning if I overlook the good self-care practices involved in managing my positive emotions with the same attentiveness that I would give the emotions that I enjoy less. Assumptions and expectations aren’t ‘real’ – but they are powerful. I practice being mindful and aware of this moment right here, enjoying it for what it is and letting go of projections of a future that is not now; change is, and the future will be here soon enough. I am learning to plan beyond the details of events and tasks, and learning to include my understanding of myself in my planning. 🙂

There are flowers where I am going...just as there are flowers where I've been.

There are flowers where I am going…just as there are flowers where I’ve been.

I spent much of the weekend packing boxes. Moving is simple when one residence is simply packed up and moved to another, but this is not that. I am taking time to gently extricate myself, and my belongings, from a larger household.  I find this is most easily managed by taking the time to organize what is mine, and have it in a state of convenient [for movers] readiness. Books, and paintings, and art gear got most of my attention over the weekend. Camping gear, too. My valuable breakables have been safely packed up for some time, with the exception of some paperweights, and some objects too dear to me to put away from view.

On other moves, including the move that brought me into this household, the process of packing things up and moving has been powerfully emotional, and a time of great sadness and turmoil – a departure, and an end of something – and over time the process of moving has become a sad one. Or…it was. This particular time doesn’t feel sad; I am excited to build a beautiful life around needs and values of my own, with only such compromise with life and the world as is truly required. This time, I am moving forward to something new, rather than moving away from something, at all. I’m even having fun with it. 🙂

Today is a good day to move forward with plans. Today is a good day to have a ‘Plan B’ ready, just in case. Today is a good day for choices and for actions, and for the perspective that allows life to unfold however it may, without being harmed by the inevitable surprises. Today is a good day for a smile big enough to share with the world.

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Categories art and the artist, Brain Injury, Free Will, gardening, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Spring, The Art of Being, The Big 5, women, Words

Strength Built on Moments

May 16, 2015 //
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This morning I woke feeling content, and comfortable. I woke smiling. The amount of pain I am in today seems irrelevant to the quality of my morning, which I am enjoying without expectation or demand. I am sipping my coffee and considering things involved with my imminent move; I have ‘a foot in the door’ on my studio, and planning the move has become very real, and very exciting. This feels like a moment of great strength, from the vantage point of experiencing it, and it turns my attention towards what makes me feel ‘strong’ – and what is that really about?

This is not a journey with a destination.

This is not a journey with a destination.

Tough times, hardships, trauma, and turmoil can so often feel unmanageable, or overwhelming. I have to commit to real effort to launch good practices sometimes, and to show myself compassion, and make time for simple reminders that ‘this too shall pass’, in order to feel I am going to ‘make it through to the other side’. I am vulnerable, and I am sometimes more fragile than I would prefer to have revealed to the world…but that openness that is so much part of who I am is also one of my greatest strengths, and a substantial gift.

Lasting strength seems built on moments of great hardship, survived and passed by. What I do with myself in times of stress, or trauma, isn’t merely about the strength I’ve already got – it seems to be what builds the strength I will count on in the future. I am learning to count on that strength in advance – like Harry Potter realizing he can cast his Patronus Charm, because he already has. Perspective once again pushing its way to the forefront of good practices, I suppose. 🙂

Today is a good day to invest in future strength with good self-care, and real appreciation for the journey that has gotten me this far. Today is a good day to celebrate how far I have come, and the challenges behind me. Today is a good day to stare the future in the face with a welcoming smile. I am my own cartographer, and today is a good day for a journey.

The map is not the world...still good to have a map, though. :-)

The map is not the world…still good to have a map, though. 🙂

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Categories art and the artist, Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Spring, The Art of Being, The Big 5, Words

Finding a Way

May 6, 2015 //
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Another lovely quiet morning follows a lovely quiet evening. I have feelings that fit figures of speech such as ‘I’m really on to something!’ or ‘I found it!’. I am aware that these feelings, like any feelings, are feelings – lacking substance or reality independent of my experience. I enjoy them without becoming invested in them, or building expectations that this sensation of comfort, contentment, and some not yet clearly defined feeling are permanent or lasting. No emotions are permanent or particularly lasting. Emotions come and go.  Our inner world is very fluid, very malleable, very changeable. Change is. For now, though, these are the feelings I am experiencing, and it is a pleasant quiet morning.

One moment, one flower - we each blossom in our own time.

One moment, one flower – we each blossom in our own time.

The title is not ‘finding my way’ this morning…because somehow that implies there may be only one such way of  my own, and I am coming to understand that while ‘my way’ is my own, and my journey is my own, and my choices are my own…there are so many options on a such vast menu of choices that this morning I feel less comfortable implying that any one way is the only one, mine or otherwise. I am my own cartographer, and I choose my steps, choose my path, choose my actions (and even choose what I think those choices may be).

This week I have had multiple opportunities to do what I can to be ‘supportive’ for friends suffering one or more of life’s hurts. (I am not very good at it, although I mean well.) People hurt. People suffer. Sometimes people even choose to do so. That’s hard for me to watch. I want to say ‘hey, choose differently…’, and sometimes I even do say something quite like that, but I know from my own suffering that it can be hard to hear messages of free will and choice and good self-care when we hurt. What is it about the suffering that can make it so difficult to turn away from it, when we suffer? It is undeniably true, in my own experience, that practicing mindfulness, meditation, and good self-care are often quite enough to ease my suffering, however much I am hurting. It is also equally true that knowing this is not enough to ensure that I reliably take advantage of that knowledge, myself. I see the challenge reflected back at me in the suffering of friends and those dear to me; they, too, find it difficult to turn away from suffering, and to choose good self-care, balance, perspective, and to take advantage of the tools in their emotional toolkit to sooth their own suffering through careful application of some verbs and choices (and many of them are not even a little bit ‘broken’).  Life’s curriculum, this week, is enhanced by case studies. We are each having our own experience… we are all in this together.

What is it that stops us from embracing all our choices, or from maintaining broad perspective, or from remembering that ‘this too shall pass’? I am still more about questions that answers.

There is value in considering the vastness of our potential, and our options.

There is value in considering the vastness of our potential, and our options.

Today is a good day to share without pushing, and to listen deeply. Today is a good day for affection, good-natured appreciation of the small things, and kindness. Today is a good day to be practical, and to be hopeful. Today is a good day to make good choices. Today is a good day to enjoy what matters most, and to invest deeply in what I love. Today is a good day to change a world.

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

Frustration, Failure, and Free Will

May 4, 2015 //
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I slept badly last night. My sleep was interrupted, restless, and featured bad dreams on old themes with new characters. I felt over-heated much of the night, which I noticed most often immediately before taking some action that subsequently found me feeling too cold. It was an uncomfortable sort of night. I could spend many hours and words looking for ‘why’; I don’t find that doing so is helpful, nor does it result in fewer such nights. I let it go and move on, feeling generally in good spirits this morning in spite of the difficult night.

I didn’t let the lack of good sleep frustrate me. It got me thinking, this morning, about frustration in general. Frustration is my kryptonite, emotionally. Something about my messed up wiring, and broken bits, allows even small moments of frustration to become a very big, very ugly, emotional mess in a small amount of time. Lately, I’ve been finding my way to using some common moments of frustration as simple practices for dealing more appropriately and comfortably with frustration itself. The value in these small practices has been almost immediate, but the value in any practice is the practicing, itself, and I still need quite a lot of it before I even approach a place in life where I may be able to say “I handle frustration well”. That’s the goal, though, ultimately.

The journey is not all blue skies and meadows...but there are some blue skies and meadows to enjoy along the way.

The journey is not all blue skies and meadows…but there are some blue skies and meadows to enjoy along the way.

It is no easy feat for me to choose to make use of some unpleasant moment or circumstance to willfully practice some better practice than my reactive impulse in the moment might direct me towards without any practice at all. Frustration is a free will killer. Frustration dissolves emotional resilience and mindfulness almost instantly, for me. Frustration is an emotion to which I reliably still react, rather than responding with mindfulness, will, consideration and good self-care.  Practicing useful practices has resulted in so many day-to-day improvements in my experience that it has been a source of some frustration that I hadn’t yet built a practice specific to mastering how I manage frustration, itself. Finding one or two in my everyday experience – built around the most common sources of frustration in my own life (like logging into apps using complicated passwords that easily fail, or the occasional odd screen-freeze on my device) – is allowing me to practice better behaviors in response to frustrating moments. The hope is that doing so with small things, harmless things, common things will insulate me from major freak outs and emotional disasters when bigger things frustrate me; practice may not make ‘perfect’, but it sure tends to solidify habits, and change specific reactions.

Taking time to appreciate pleasant moments gives them lasting impact on my day-to-day experience.

Taking time to appreciate pleasant moments gives them lasting impact on my day-to-day experience.

Celebrating progress, even small wins, has big value. Even something as small on the victory scale as a change in thinking, or a good idea, is worth a moment of my appreciation. This morning, I’m taking time to appreciate new practices that address a very old issue, for me, and feeling positive and supported. This, too, is a practice; the practice of celebrating small victories, and incremental progress over time, is a practice that builds more positive implicit memory, as well as providing myself with emotional support from within – which builds emotional self-sufficiency, and keeps me on the path of reaching that place where my close relationships with others are reliably chosen based on desire, and built on positive emotional values, rather than investing in habitual, self-defeating, or co-dependent behaviors, that over time become damaging.

Where does my path take me? How do I look beyond patterns to find change?

Where does my path take me? How do I look beyond patterns to find change?

 

Meeting most of my emotional needs, myself, isn’t an unreasonable goal, and getting there lifts the burden from loved ones to ‘make me happy’ – or ‘make me’ anything at all. I get to ‘make me’ in my own image. Powerful. I am eager to take that project to a new level by moving into creative live/work space and investing more of my time in me. The wait involved in ideal readiness – and an available unit – is another practice in managing frustration on a larger scale; my impatience lurks in the background, waiting for a moment to jump out and undermine my good time now. Mindfulness practices are one way to keep my Observer firmly in the driver’s seat for much of the journey. Another beneficial practice is to embrace the joy I find in planning the move; making a point of being very realistic, practical, and frugal builds useful skills for good self-care, and I feel engaged in imminent change in a positive way.  I’m still very much a beginner, practicing practices. I am still at risk of attacking myself, my will, my resolve, and my intention, from within on any point of vulnerability my demons can grab onto; it makes for some uncomfortable nights, but I am content to show myself some compassion, some acceptance, and some love, and move on from the difficult moments to continue the practicing of good practices. 🙂

It's worth it to take a look at my experience from another perspective...

It’s worth it to take a look at my experience from another perspective…

Today is a good day to practice good practices. Today is a good day to enjoy now, and celebrate small successes that matter to me, most. Today is a good day to enjoy each moment with a smile. Today is a good day to enjoy building my world.

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Categories Anxiety, Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Sleepless Nights, The Art of Being, The Big 5

My Will and My Won’t

April 30, 2015 //
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I woke this morning, too early, because biology said so; I had to pee. I wanted very much to go back to sleep, even though I knew the alarm would go off in less than an hour. It mattered less that I might not sleep more, than it did to honor my desire to do so. I snuggled up in the warmth of the blankets, and let myself drift off, favoring meditation if sleep didn’t come. Sleep didn’t come. Anxiety did, though. Like a blast through my relaxed near-dream consciousness, like a bucket of ice water on a challenge I didn’t volunteer for, like a pit in a pitted cherry in a particular good bite of pie, my anxiety surged very suddenly, and without obvious cause. Amusingly, I ‘heard’ a distant imagined voice, calm and professional, my own, in the background “please do not panic…” and smiled as I comfortably shifted my body to a more open position, and focused on my breathing. The anxiety quickly dissipated, lacking anything to feed on, and I continued to meditate until the alarm went off, and then for a couple of moments afterward; reacting to the alarm often starts my day badly, for some reason, perhaps some association with the word ‘alarm’, itself, and I often take a couple of minutes to breath and relax before I rise.

Like any muscle, my will becomes stronger (and healthier) the more I exercise it. Practicing good emotional and physical self-care pays off over time, although initially I wasn’t really  certain that such small changes would ‘matter’. Isn’t that the thing though? If I had insisted for myself that small changes, better practices, and that really committing to the practices that feel good to me were of no value – or no lasting value – or that I ‘won’t be able to make that work’, I most assuredly would have achieved what I was certain of – they wouldn’t have been of much value. Don’t get me wrong on this one, I am not decrying the value of empirical evidence, or sneezing on the standards of proof in science. I am suggesting that it is rather obvious, regardless what can be proven effective, that we have the power to render the most effective treatment worthless by undercutting our will, or by defining our successes as failure, or simply by choosing to identify the outcome as ‘not working’. This is not a matter of ‘faith’ – because the things I am practicing are not ‘faith-based’ practices. Like any practices, if I don’t actually practice them, they will not be effective – it is my choice to apply myself, to enact my will, to see change manifest because I choose it. There are verbs involved…but there is also acceptance, and awareness involved.

Tree of Life, Tree of Knowledge... or just a tree? You choose.

Tree of Life, Tree of Knowledge… or just a tree? You choose.

Why am I on about this today? For a friend, actually. It seems he has lost his will, and is surviving life on his ‘won’t’ instead. It sucks to see him suffer – worse still, it sucks to see him not only choose suffering, but to invest heavily in the continuation of suffering as though the suffering itself has great value, or is the desired outcome. Hell, maybe it is. He does get to choose. I feel both sympathy and compassion for his struggle; I have my own such moments. Maybe we all do, now and then. We each make our choices. There are verbs involved. Our results vary. We are each having our own experience. The map is not the world. The journey is the destination.

My friend has been exposed to all these ideas, himself. He has a lot of people who support and encourage him (although he often doesn’t recognize or acknowledge it). He very specifically enacts his ‘won’t’ at many decision-making points, and defines many moments as failures, accepting that there is no possible good outcome available to him. He often makes a point of limiting his perceived options, and holds onto life-goals that appear specifically chosen to be as far out of reach as possible, while firmly refusing himself any opportunity to see more of life’s potential. It makes my heart ache to see him suffer…and it confuses me to see that it is willful, and so carefully crafted. I am powerless to help – because these are his choices to make, and he makes them. Another lesson on attachment, perhaps, and a reminder that some of my own self-inflicted suffering is a matter of choosing (poorly) to find myself responsible for someone else’s self-inflicted suffering by assigning myself some portion of the task of alleviating that suffering. It doesn’t work that way with self-inflicted suffering; only the self can choose to let that one go.

The loveliness of life is not visible so easily if my eyes are closed; knowing this may not be enough to decide to open my eyes. That's how choice works.

The loveliness of life is not visible so easily if my eyes are closed; knowing this may not be enough to decide to open my eyes. That’s how choice works.

Today is a good day for good self-care, and for loving the being of light that inhabits this fragile vessel. Today is a good day to be compassionate. Today is a good day to consider more than the obvious options, and choices that didn’t make the first list. Today is a good day to be open to success, and to accept failure as an opportunity to learn and grow. Today is a good day to love, and to put myself at the top of my own agenda. Today is a good day to change the world within.

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Categories Anxiety, Free Will, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Perspective, Relationships, The Art of Being, The Big 5, Words
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