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Oh, Hey, Don’t Kill My Vibe!

August 19, 2015 //
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I woke with a stuffy head this morning – a cold? No, just a stuffy head. Allergies? I guess…maybe…or maybe my head is just stuffy? The morning I feel slow, unproductive, distracted, sluggish. How human! My attempt at iced coffee doesn’t have enough ice…the coffee ice cubes melt down, and the result? A tepid coffee…taller than usual. Not really the desired outcome…but it was an after thought, midway through making coffee. As is often the case with whims, the lack of planning, the inadequate preparation, and the lack of focus result in the sort of hit or miss outcome that, in this instance, is clearly farther along the ‘miss’ end of the spectrum. I’m having to invest in a positive state of being a bit more actively than usual.

I put on music that keeps me moving and puts a smile on my face. My sleep wasn’t especially restful. In addition to the stuffy head, I woke feeling sort of… desiccated, and headache-y. My traveling partner has indeed been traveling, and we hung out last night, it’s possible I got exposed to a head cold virus…but it doesn’t really feel quite like that… Why am I fussing over it? There’s more value in the awareness, the acceptance, and dealing with it – the why is sort of pointless, isn’t it?

Needing a moment of joy in the temple of my heart.

Needing a moment of joy in the temple of my heart.

I am thinking about the evening, hanging out with my dear love. Emotions come and go – my volatility is off the charts this morning, and I don’t understand that, either. Cuddling together on the love seat, hanging out, talking, and just being together, it was wonderful celebrating the profound connection we share; I miss living with him. I don’t miss the niggling little bullshit arguments that crop up when we live together, and seem oddly important in the moment – those I am happily doing without. I don’t miss the two of us tripping over each other’s baggage, and aggravating each other’s issues. I don’t miss those peculiar moments of doubt when I look into his eyes and wonder, just for a moment, if I actually understand what’s going on at all…or the look of doubt in his when some moment is seriously affected by my injury, and he wonders whether he can make love work with that.  (Yes, I can see it.) I definitely don’t miss the challenges around living with the mismatched assorted others in our experience that aren’t a good fit for one or the other of us; I definitely find not living with the OPD an improvement. I miss living with his smile, though, and his touch, and his everyday utterly inappropriate humor. I miss his scent, and his aesthetic, and I miss his conversation. It’s hard to ‘get enough’ of any of that without living together…on the other hand… I’m enjoying me so much more comfortably without the constant self-consciousness, and self-doubt that crops up so much more when I live with other people.

It looks like we’ll be seeing more of each other; I’m really settled in now, and this is a comfortable space to hang out, to be, and to enjoy each other. It’s a drama free zone. I look over my shoulder at the fireplace and imagine a crackling fire in autumn, feet up, arms around each other… Yes, Love, I am happy here. This works for me. This is my home.

Home.

Home.

This morning, though…I’m moody, irritable, and potentially a walking negative outcome waiting for the wrong moment to become real. What’s up with that? Freaking moody human primates! Who needs this bullshit? This morning I am working at the task of ‘defusing the bomb’; it’s less than desirable to go into the office teetering on the edge of having my temper flare up unexpectedly – at work it wouldn’t matter whether the context seemed ‘reasonable’ or the reaction ‘understandable’ for the circumstances. People are uncomfortable with strong emotion in the work environment, generally. This morning, I practice the practices intended to boost my emotional resilience – also those that tend to reduce it. This morning I am taking time to meditate. Then more time. Then another time. Then some time while I boil water for coffee. And after my shower. And when I got up. And a few minutes from now… yeah. It’s like that today; chasing stillness while the worst of my volatility simmers in the background, likely to go off without warning.

So much of life is about love and loving.

So much of life is about love and loving.

Al Green begins to sing to me about sexual healing – a light bulb goes off in my head – is that all this is? Am I a bitch in heat, grumpy and frustrated, and without a ready outlet to meet that need? I chuckle with gentle sympathy for myself, out loud, shaking my head – it’s a lifelong challenge managing my libido and my injury. Together they add up to a sex drive that no partnership but one has ever satisfied, and even that only survived the endless need for about a year. I am learning to go without more graciously. I am learning to accept love’s delights less demandingly. I kind of have to – real life, in this area, doesn’t manage to feel like ‘enough’. I am at least learning to accept that I will be drowned in enthusiastic hyperbole in every new relationship as potential lovers assure me they can easily meet my needs, and assurances that they too have a crazy high sex drive… It’s almost impossible to communicate successfully that we’re talking about very different magnitudes of drive; the disappointment each time I face that moment in a partnership when the truth of it becomes clear is always a bitch to deal with.

My thoughts stray to the approval of flibanserin – a drug intended to boost female desire – and I gotta wonder, if a person doesn’t want sex, how is that ‘disordered’? If level of desire can be a disorder… then what about women such as myself, where my level of day-to-day desire creates problems because it seems – to my partner(s) – excessive? I assure you, if feels perfectly normal to me.  Am I to be expected to take a drug to make me want sex less? I could see taking an appropriate medication if my body’s response to desire wasn’t consistent with my psychological or emotional experience of wanting… but… to make me want, if I don’t? I don’t get that. It is, however, a very hard conversation to have to have with someone when they are not desired…particularly if the relationship has a sexual component. It happens. It’s even happened to me – which is damned awkward. Still… I think having the honest conversation makes more sense [to me] than taking a mind-altering anti-depressant class of drug to force oneself to feel desire, when desire doesn’t exist. Maybe those honest conversations could result in people taking steps to create desire through action (the Big 5 is super helpful there)… or move on to a relationship in which their needs are more easily met? Seriously. If the sex matters that much (it does for me), and I can’t get what I need in a relationship, there are other choices than ‘going without’ (or ‘enduring what is not desired’), or ‘taking a mind altering drug to become more what the partnership requires’…but a lot of those options do involve investing in additional relationships of some sort. Inconvenient. Time-consuming.

Yeah. I’m feeling cross and bitchy today. I’m feeling critical of myself, my mood, my writing… and I’m betting that if I do something as small as just easing up on myself this morning, it’ll be a much better morning straight away. I’ll just set this one aside right here, today, and move on with the morning, taking the very best care of me that I can.

Stick with the basics - it's a great place to start.

Stick with the basics – it’s a great place to start.

Today is a good day to avoid taking my own bullshit too personally. Today is a good day to treat myself gently. Today is a good day to remember that we’re each dealing with our own bullshit – and we’re all very very human. Today is a good day to invest heavily in kindness – it’s free, and there’s an endless supply – and it might change the world.

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Categories art and the artist, Brain Injury, Hormone Hell, Love, Menopause, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Sleepless Nights, Summer, The Art of Being, The Big 5, women

Taking Great Care With Each Practice

August 18, 2015 //
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This morning I woke gently, and rose with a smile already tugging at the corners of my lips. I went to bed last night in a lot of pain, and on waking this morning I notice it has not diminished much. I am very stiff. I treat myself with care this morning, taking my time, and since I give myself so much of that in the mornings, there is no need to rush through any of the morning tasks or practices. Since I slowed myself down a few days ago (weeks?), my quality of life has improved.

I linger in the shower until I feel the stiffness of my arthritic spine ease. I make a point of relaxing and really enjoying the fish as I feed them, and watching them live their fishy lives. I breath deeply. I allow myself to listen deeply to the woman in the mirror, this morning – how is she doing? What can I do to make her more comfortable? What are her priorities as the day begins? I let in the fresh morning air,  opening the patio door and taking a moment to look out across the lawn; at this hour there are rarely any lights on elsewhere, aside from the walkway lights. I enjoy the pre-dawn quiet and the scents of morning, before making my coffee.

I have noticed that when my practices become ‘routines’ over time, they sometimes lose their ‘magic powers’. It’s not that they don’t really work, or that they have failed…It’s something simpler; I’m failing myself by doing them ‘mindlessly’. It’s easy-ish to fix. I have to slow down, begin again, and approach each such task or practice with a beginner’s mind, with willful mindfulness, and yes – a bit of discipline now and then, taking the time to fully embrace the task, the practice, the moment, engaged and present. I don’t berate myself over it when I drift off course – there’s no productive point in doing so. I don’t feel I have ‘failed myself’ grievously – I’m human, and these are practices for a reason; they require practicing. Going through the motions doesn’t count as ‘practice’ – or as living.

I am not a machine. I don’t actually benefit, long-term, from rigid habit, and life planned out thoroughly moment-to-moment, beyond the value toward simply getting shit done. Even for me, rigid habits and a strictly enforced disciplined approach to daily task completion are not something I thrive on – it’s just one method of coping with my injury, my poor memory, my challenges with maintaining a comfortable lifestyle over time. It’s not an ideal way to live. Living alone I can more comfortably explore life on a less habitual, less routine basis; moments of chaos and confusion are less likely to affect others, and any time I need to I can slow things way down, and be patient with myself; I don’t get stalled having to explain it to someone else. I am learning to live without the crippling burden of the [perception of the] expectations of others weighing me down.

The loss of so many small routines and habits sometimes catches me by surprise. This morning my cell phone wasn’t charged. I had remembered to put it on the charger; I had forgotten that the other end wasn’t plugged in. I changed my habit from leaving all the cables of all the kinds just plugged in and dangling all over the place to a much tidier practice of carefully putting away cables not in use . My environment is lovelier, tidier, and still quite convenient – since all the cables of all the kinds for all the chargers, devices, etc are conveniently in one location, together. It’s still a change. I forgot about the need to plug in both ends. 🙂 Surprise! I don’t take it personally, and I’m grateful for the quiet amusement, and practical perspective on the small inconvenience; there was a time it would have been enough to blow my morning, possibly causing some nasty pointless tantrum – I suck at frustration, even now. (It has been easier to learn not to be frustrated by certain kinds of things, that to learn to deal with the experience of frustration, itself. I don’t know whether that will be the wiser choice over time, but it does offer some relief now.)

Letting go of rigid fixed habits tied to time and timing, and all the expectations and assumptions those tend to support, has been a big change. The need to take great care with each task and practice, invested, engaged, aware, and fully living each moment becomes quite profound, lacking the foundation of rigid habit. Rituals exist because, perhaps, it is not so easy to approach every desirable practice in an utterly mindful way. I do like ‘easy’… but… I also really like living, eyes wide to life’s wonders, attentive, aware, savoring my experience, learning to thrive, and becoming emotionally self-sufficient. So many verbs involved. It’s scary sometimes. What if I forget my morning medication? What if I suddenly just stop doing things? What if I discover my values or preferences are at odds with the expectations of my loved ones? What if I’m not who I think I am? Well…I guess I’d begin again. 🙂

The sun is up now. I take a moment to make my bed, and tidy my bedroom. I finally feel ‘moved in’, in a very complete way. I think it is a combination of the love seat, and the wee trash cans which arrived over the weekend. I find myself wondering if the story of human progress can be told in the improvements in waste management over the course of history… I definitely feel the improvement in my own quality of life having a small trash receptacle in the bathroom, in my bedroom, and by my desk – I’d been having to walk every used tissue, bit of string, or piece of waste paper all the way to the covered kitchen trash, or recycling bin, and while it is a very small apartment and no real inconvenience to do so, nonetheless – I feel more ‘moved in’ having what seems the ‘proper’ number and placement of small trash baskets around the place. Funny which details matter to me. It’s exciting learning what matters most to me, myself.

I have time for another coffee, and some household chores that will ensure I come home to a lovely place – built for me, by me, based on what matters most to me. It’s a  nice feeling. Enjoying the moment seems to cause my brain to attempt a sneak attack, coming at me from behind with dire warnings and launching a salvo of ‘what if’ scenarios filled with house fires, burglars, unknown assailants, and all manner of extraordinarily negative [and incredibly unlikely] circumstances…I assure myself I’ll remember to turn off the stove, lock the doors, and be aware of my surroundings. My demons slink off into the darkness grumbling quietly.

Going my own way, having my own experience.

Going my own way, having my own experience, and feeling prepared to face the world.

Today is a good day to take great care with each task I face, with each practice I practice, and to face life with a beginner’s mind. I am a student of life and love. I am my own cartographer. The way I face the journey – and the direction I take – are mine to choose. It’s a very good day to set down some baggage and walk on.

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

Source Material

August 17, 2015 //
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This morning I made a very nearly perfect cup of coffee. It’s not really remarkable; my coffees are generally quite consistently very good. I have practiced this particular method of brewing, now, for 89 days, amounting to a minimum of 178 coffees, adequate practice to reliably make a good coffee. I’ve made a couple of really terrible coffees along the way – usually because I stopped paying attention at some point during the process, having gotten distracted by something else. I enjoy my morning coffee greatly, and I enjoy the practical self-sufficiency of making my own, precisely the way I prefer it, without any imposition on someone else in the moment. I enjoy being able to fully rely on myself to take care of my needs in this small way. I enjoy feeling knowledgeable, and competent.

My thoughts followed the feelings of ‘being knowledgeable’ and ‘being competent’ along other tangents while I sipped my coffee. I start wondering how much those feelings are actually tied to subjective experiences of knowing more, or having more skills, and how much they merely reflect my perspective how being able to apply the things I do know to my circumstances to achieve a desired outcome… without any particular connection of some noteworthy portion of knowledge of all the things possible to know. There are a lot of things to know…even about coffee. I don’t claim extraordinary knowledge of coffee… I know enough to make a good cup of coffee in the morning, one that satisfies my own expectations of ‘a good cup of coffee’. It’s enough… but there is more to know, and I could choose to pursue that knowledge, or not.

I keep following my thoughts down this particular rabbit hole and find myself wondering about this ‘body of knowledge’ that is my own…all the things I have learned in a life time, all the things I “know” (whether facts or opinions), all of the information and experience on which my understanding of the world – and myself – is built… Isn’t the ‘source material’ pretty critically important? I find myself reconsidering all the books on all the shelves; I have a lot of books and I make a point of keeping only those that seem to represent important pieces of who I have become over time… I find myself wondering, this morning, if I am perhaps hanging on to some of my chaos and damage in the form of “knowledge” – fundamentals in my thinking that are not just erroneous, but built specifically on concepts or information that tend to prevent forward progress, or foster ongoing negative self-talk; it seems more likely than not, and I support that suspicion with the many volumes of “The Great Books of the Western World“, a product developed and marketed by the intellectually mighty Encyclopedia Britannica, whose online presence is rather costly, compared to the vastness of the internet itself, at one’s fingertips with a Google search.

I bought “The Great Books” when I was not quite 21, and eager to advance my knowledge of the world, and to become ‘educated’. A smooth talking encyclopedia salesman skillfully persuaded me that all the knowledge I could ever desire was within those pages. It was an expensive purchase – and my first payment plan. When they arrived, I marveled at their weight, and beauty…and I read them all over the years (or at least began them – I’ll admit Fourier kicked my ass, and a couple of the philosophers just irritated me well beyond wanting to read another word). Had I attended most of the liberal arts colleges of the time, my education would have been based largely on the works included in “The Great Books”…but the controversy over the collection existed as soon as the collection was published, and the 2nd edition, published in 1990, would have been a better fit for my own tastes. Neither collection represents the voices of women with any vigor or thoroughness (or, let’s be honest here, at all)…and sitting here in the cool of morning, it hits me that there is a fairly direct connection to the cultural thinking that fuels so much of my own very personal anger about how society treats women, and the willingness to slap a label like “The Great Books of the Western World” on a collection of work that largely just ignores women, even in the 2nd edition. I mean…seriously? It’s not even “Some Great Books…”, it’s held up as “The Great books…” Giving readers the impression that all the world’s vast knowledge and progress has been the knowledge of men, the progress of men, the thinking of men – and it’s not actually true.

Why wouldn't about half these books be written by women?

Why wouldn’t about half these books be written by women?

I look again my bookshelf for the voices of women… for the voices of my own experience… I feel a certain strange heartsick feeling that I, too, neglect the voices of women in my library. It feels like a great wrong, that urgently needs to be made right – and for me, making that right starts with a question. “Do I actually find that these volumes are “The” great books of western thinking? Truly? Who says? Based on what, exactly? Is Descartes more worthy, from my own perspective, than Simone de Beauvoir? Is Fourier more relevant than Marie Curie? What about William James? Has his work provided me more value and perspective on my own thinking than Gloria Steinem? I find myself feeling fussy – and ignorant. My education is lopsided, heavily weighted in favor of the thinking of men, the voices of men, the experiences of men… and it isn’t limited to dusty books on untouched shelves; this is a deeper issue that affects how children are educated, and what we see on television, and in theaters. This lack of women’s voices, this disinterest in giving us a seat at the grown-up’s table, or making our presence an everyday part of significant historical discourse is a disservice to human progress, and our sense of who we are – and it fuels the quiet seething anger that is so often a part of my experience; the lack of feeling heard begins with these books. Or so it seems over my morning coffee.

There’s something beautiful about choice, and perspective, and new understandings; taken all together, they make great things happen, they create an opportunity for change. There are verbs involved, of course, and I expect my results may vary. I have spent my life listening to the voices of men, and mostly being a pretty good sport about having my own voice silenced to allow some man to speak, erupting in uncontainable rage only now and then. It’s no wonder my anger has taken so many men I have loved by surprise; based on the books in our hands, surely their expectation has been that it is always ‘their turn to talk’!

It’s an uncommonly pleasant Monday morning. I am eager to make some changes in my library…if “The Great Books of the Western World” were all the voices of women, what books would I see there on the shelf? It’s time I include them. It’s time to change the world.

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Categories Free Will, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Metaphors, Perspective, The Art of Being, women, Words

Slow Down, It’s Not a Race!

August 10, 2015 //
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I woke this morning, early, with a stern parental shout still ringing in my ears from my dream, “Slow down in this house! It’s not a race!” I turned off the alarm before it went off, and got up – making a point to indeed actually slow myself down; there’s simply no need to rush.

I make a point of planning my time so that I don’t need to rush in the mornings. This morning I made a point to really take that one to heart in a more mindful way, not just by counting on having more minutes before departure time, but also seriously slowing myself down. Meditation without a timer. Lingering in the sensuous warmth of the shower. Brushing my teeth awake and aware, and enjoying the sensation of tooth-brushing-as-a-process. Letting the casual touch of hand to skin as I dressed become something more like an appreciative caress. I spend a lot of a time with the woman in the mirror – I have no good reasons for treating her poorly, dismissively, or in any way lacking affection. I am enjoying the morning, slowly, patiently, attentively.

Making my coffee this morning became a further exploration of mindfully caring for myself. No stress. No pressure to achieve perfection. That’s not at all the point of mindful self-care; it’s just about being right here, right now, doing these things with great care, and great awareness, savoring the processes of life, itself. My coffee is exceptionally good today, without any particular additional effort; I simply made a point of showing up ‘in person’ – real, and awake, and aware, and comfortable with doing this thing, right now, with my whole attention.

A great coffee in the morning is a practice, a ritual, a measure of time, and a way to take care of me.

A great coffee in the morning is a practice, a ritual, a measure of time, and a way to take care of me.

Right now, too. This process is the one about writing a few words in the morning, getting my intellect and my heart synced up for the day, and moving forward together – if not with some plan in mind, at least able to capitalize on what I am learning, and able to understand that there is always more to this than what I think I know, and that we are each having our own experience. This moment in the morning, when I am most likely to write, is my opportunity to reflect, to gain perspective, and to do it in a safe space with good ground rules that protect me from poor practices, OPD, and self-defeating rumination. (When I write in the evenings, it is often because I am in emotional pain, and reacting to circumstances using any practical tools at hand to get a grip on myself – it’s quite different.) When I sit down very inspired, I sometimes fail myself on practicing good self-care practices, losing myself in the moment, slumped over my keyboard, leaning into the visual space of the monitor, typing away aggressively, enthusiastically, brains spilling all over fingers, becoming words – this morning, although I feel inspired, I approach my desk, and this process, with consideration for this fragile vessel. I begin with deliberation, and deep breaths. I am attentive to my posture. The resulting writing may not be of any different quality – but my back hurts less, I am making fewer spelling mistakes, and struggling less with my dying mouse.

When I rush through things, I make more mistakes, miss details, and feel a greater sense of urgency that generally becomes a more noteworthy amount of stress. This is an important detail, this morning; it is Monday. Time to get back to work after a long weekend. Definitely having the sense that my employer may have begrudged me the time I needed for me, there’s the temptation to rush into things. I could have gotten up quickly, thrown on my clothes after a bracing shower, and quickly marched into the office to become a good productive cog in the corporate machinery, getting a ‘head start’ on all the work I had ‘fallen behind’ on… just thinking the thoughts got my heart racing a little, my breathing became more shallow, my body began to prepare for fight or flight… Shit, it’s just a job! It does not require all that. So – yes. I slowed things down this morning, because there’s no reason to rush; it’s not a race. Remember ‘the rat race’? Sure, it’s still going – it’s a real thing, and lots of people participate, consuming themselves over the course of a lifetime for whatever pittance is paid to them for their trouble. My opinion? No amount of cash is enough to sacrifice the pleasure of really living life. Even my work suffers, when I rush myself. So… I’ve stopped racing. I’ll just walk this one, thanks. (It’s not as if there were ever any chance of ‘winning’ the rat race. “The cake is a lie.”) 🙂

Time well-spent following my own path.

Time well-spent following my own path.

The weekend was lovely. Long forest hikes among lush greenery, on twisting paths, up hills, and down…and relaxed evenings spent on creative endeavors. It mattered to get out among the trees. It mattered to have the powerful reminder in the ever-present sounds of distant traffic that the thing I was trying to escape is something I carry with me. It mattered to take a few days just for me, no interruptions from work, or routine communication from loved ones, or urgent pressure to get this or that done. My only fixed agenda being to take the very best care of me. It mattered to me to spend time sketching, writing, painting. I sought stillness – and I found it. Strangely, I found it at home, and within myself, to my very great delight (after the frustration of discovering I could not easily escape the sounds of traffic)…and yes, there are verbs involved (and my results varied).

The journey doesn't always take me far from home.

The journey doesn’t always take me far from home.

I reset my expectations of myself over the weekend. Had some important conversations with the woman in the mirror about how she makes use of her time. Set some important boundaries with myself about time, and what I want most of that precious limited commodity. When I am feeling more than usual stress, the easy thing is more distractions: YouTube videos, favorite t.v. shows, movies, Facebook… I can kill a lot of time with any one of those things. There’s no constructive point, later, in moaning about “not having enough time for me” if I am letting brain candy soak up those minutes of lifetime that could be spent meditating, relaxing in a hot bath, gardening, writing, reading, enjoying the company of friends in my actual presence doing some actual thing… It’s down to the verbs and the choices. It is sometimes necessary to slow myself down, to be aware of how quickly the time does pass. Being rushed stresses me out…slowing things down generally has quite the opposite result, and I face Monday feeling calm and prepared, unworried, patient with myself and the world, and feeling well-rested and well-cared-for. I found the stillness in the spaces between other things, once I slowed down enough to notice it waiting for me there.

A helpful change in perspective, and time spent listening deeply to my own heart, is a good place to find inspiration - and stillness.

A helpful change in perspective, and time spent listening deeply to my own heart, is a good place to find inspiration – and stillness.

Today is a good day for stillness, for calm, and for slowing things down long enough to savor both in the moment. Today is a good day to enjoy living life – without rushing through to the end. Today is a good day to decline urgency, in favor of appreciation, and to refuse to be hurried in order to enjoy right now. Today is a good day to slow down enough to enjoy the world.

 

 

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Categories art and the artist, Brain Injury, Epsom salts, Free Will, gardening, Healthy Living, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Oregon Trails, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, solo hiking, Summer, The Art of Being, The Big 5, women, Words

Getting It Right

August 6, 2015 //
2

It can be pretty daunting to work day after day after day after day attempting to reach a goal – harder still if I have adopted that goal from a suggestion, or had it dictated to me. When I miss the mark somewhere, or fall short of expectations – whether they are my own, or the expectations of another – it frustrates me, challenges my thinking, sets me at odds with myself (and sometimes with others) – all in service to an unavoidable prerequisite for achieving a goal; I’m not there yet.

There is plenty of encouraging literature in the self-help aisle, and more than a few apropos aphorisms reminding me that ‘to err is human’ and that ‘practice makes perfect’ (reminder: it doesn’t, at all), and book after book coaching on the  matter of progress over time, learning curves, and playing to ones strengths. When I make a mistake, I often find I am not open to encouragement, not willing to accept information intended to support self-compassion, patience, and growth – incremental change over time feels amazing, but is often received by others less well – with impatience and negative reinforcement. That generally sucks, and feels quite alienating. Human primates want they want, and living in this ‘right now’ moment the way we do, and suffering from such limited perspective (our own), it can be so easy to lose sight of how different we can each be in some moment, how varied our challenges are, and our own individual frustration with that other person takes on a life of its own – weapons of mass distraction are launched, sometimes with regret after the fact. Our impatience to have our own needs met overrides our recognition that this other human being does not live for our benefit.

I find myself struggling to ‘get it right’ – losing sight of how vast the options to do so actually are, and that I, myself, define my success or failure. Sometimes, things that are just fine, and acceptably adequate in all regards don’t feel like enough. I set the bar pretty high for myself – sometimes at the expense of my contentment, and well-being, and sometimes without realizing I have done so. I continue to work on practicing the practices that best support my needs over time. If I find I have discontinued something of great value, I begin again. I continue to support and nurture my best impulses, my most positive values, and to care greatly for this fragile vessel, and the being of light within it… sometimes I fail myself. It hurts, like any failure. I make the effort, every time, at some point, to simply give myself a break and begin again.

The thing is…there are goals, of course, but if they become expectations over time, the tendency to berate myself or treat myself poorly in the face of ‘not getting it right’ can be pretty significant – and I so don’t need that from me! The solution sometimes seems to be ‘then I just won’t bother’…like a child, fighting the process, because the process isn’t easy. Silliness, I know.  Growth takes time, and there are verbs involved. Practice may not make perfect, but it certainly crafts change – for me the fine line is what the change is about, and is it something I actually want for myself, or is it being imposed on me from an external source? That matters – I am on a journey to become the woman I most want to be, and I’m sharing my journey with my very best bestie, the woman in the mirror. Changes or goals imposed on me by my own will and intent, with mindful purpose, and good-natured recognition of what I want from myself in life aren’t ‘easy’ to achieve – sometimes they are damned difficult – but getting there is rewarding, and the journey itself is valued, however difficult. Giving up is generally not something I am seeking, or allowing myself. When change is imposed on me by external sources, or a goal is set by another person’s needs and agenda, getting there lacks any sense of reward, the journey is often a continuous source of stress and frustration, and my resentment is… a lot to drag around with me.

This probably seems pretty obvious – I’m talking it through this morning because I find that I am sometimes challenged by the intensity of my frustration when I fail at some task, goal, or have difficulty implementing some change that I neither desire, nor care about. What’s up with that? If it’s not my own, and I am not invested in it, why would I be the slightest bit troubled if or when I don’t succeed at it? How would that be any measure of my own success? How would it affect me in any negative way? That’s some baggage right there – and I’d do well to drop it off at the carousel and let it go.

We've all got some baggage.

We’ve all got some baggage.

I slept badly last night. I struggled to fall asleep, and it was well past midnight before I did. My sleep was interrupted a number of times; my apartment seemed unusually noisy, with an assortment of rather random bangs, bumps, creaks, thuds, and crackles that got me out of bed, flipping on lights, checking things out – at no time was there anything unusual to see. Sleep did not find me easily. I woke long before the alarm, with no particular hope of returning to sleep; I woke feeling frustrated, and vaguely as if I was failing to get something right. (In this case, probably sleep – I definitely wasn’t getting that right!) Once I was up, it was a rather anti-climactic ‘nothing to see here…’ sort of moment. I am awake, and woke easily, without any of the obvious grogginess that has plagued me for some days, now. I am finding new appreciation for a few moments (hours) of grogginess after a night of deep restful sleep… I probably won’t be bitching ungratefully about that any more; I value the sleep.

I am not tired so much as excited, perhaps; I have a long weekend, and I’m headed into the trees. My traveling partner is traveling, too, and taking the wanderer, and another partner, along with him for a weekend of forested fun elsewhere; they are headed to vast crowds, loud music, and communal fun. I am seeking a solo experience, and stillness, where it will be easier to listen deeply to myself; the world has nothing to say to me about what I want from my life.  I already miss my traveling partner…but I recognize that as with any other intimate connected relationship, I benefit from distance now and then; without it, I am prone to accepting the goals, needs, and desired changes of that other as my own – to my detriment. I’m not always super clear-headed about these things, and alone out in the trees, walking in stillness, listening to my own heart, I am more easily able to get my bearings, and set my own course on this journey. It’s a necessary sort of re-calibration, for me, that I am not so easily able to do at home, even now.

Did I mention I’ll be headed into the trees? You’ll likely be without me a day or two. I’ll come back with pictures. 🙂

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Categories Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Oregon Trails, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Sleepless Nights, solo hiking, Summer, The Art of Being, The Big 5, women, Words
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