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Not Trying, Just Practicing

September 13, 2015 //
0

This is an easy restful weekend so far. I slept in again this morning, and although I woke stiff and in a lot of pain, aside from that – which is annoyingly commonplace at this point in life – it’s a lovely weekend, relaxed, and still somewhat productive. I’m not ‘trying’ to get here. I didn’t head into the weekend with a firm plan to relax, or to rest, or to tackle a big list of stuff to do. The weekend began. I’ve continued to practice the practices that work best for me – I’ve meditated more than I often to (which already tends to be often), and probably done less yoga than I could have (and might be in less pain if I had chosen differently).

Yes, of course, coffee. :-)

Yes, of course, coffee. 🙂

I tend to associate the verb ‘trying’ with focused effort and a very specific outcome in mind. I also associate ‘trying’ with frustration; trying puts me on a more direct path to failing, by setting specific expectations of which actions must lead to what outcome. I’ve got challenges with frustration – it is my worst emotion, inasmuch as I just don’t deal with the experience of feeling frustrated well; it quickly becomes unreasoning anger, with risk of tantrums, tears, and actual quite dreadful headaches. As emotions go, I am least skilled with frustration. I find that when I let go of ‘trying’ to do something, or get somewhere, and simply get started on the task, or headed for the destination, building on good basic practices without becoming attached to a specific outcome, I not only enjoy my experience more, I definitely achieve my goals more easily – and more often – with less frustration.  It’s an experience to explore further.

Fancy

Sometimes the luxury self-care package includes a moment of self-indulgence – my salted caramel cafe au lait, Friday evening.

Friday night’s prolonged periods of reflection and meditation are still ‘seeping into my consciousness’. Yesterday was filled with “Oh!” moments of awakening, generally followed by abruptly stopping what I was doing at the time to pause, sit for a moment with the realization or new thinking, before moving on with the day. I ‘didn’t get anything done’ in the sense of practical matters being checked off a list of tasks, but I spent the day treating myself well, relaxing without guilt, and practicing practices that build emotional resilience for the work week to come, and ones that build the emotional self-sufficiency I will rely on for a lifetime ahead of me. With modern medicine in mind, there is every possibility that I will live beyond 100 years… making me more or less at the literal half way point in life, with a great deal more awareness than a newborn child has. These can be fantastic years ahead of me – handled appropriately. Certainly, there are more paintings to paint, more words to write, and more moments ahead of me.

...and more books to read. It's a good day for that, too.

…and more books to read, more poetry to write. It’s a good day for it.

I find myself asking a strange new question as I move through the hours of my days this weekend. “Is this the life you are choosing for yourself, for the next 50 years?” It’s not actually a yes/no limited question. The question is more intended to provoke reflection on who I am, how I live, and what my choices are – not only how I treat the world, and what I do with my time, generally – but also how I feel in the context of my own experience. Each time I ask myself the question, I take the opportunity to make some small change to improve on how I care for myself, how I treat others, and even how I think about my experience, and the world I live in. I am learning to value and appreciate my emotions without letting them take the driver’s seat; they communicate things about the nature of my experience that reason doesn’t notice right away [or at all, let’s face it; reason has a different mission].

…Now, if I can just figure out how to wring every last drop of delight, education, and value out of experiences that frustrate me, that would be quite spectacularly lovely! 🙂

It’s a good day for being, and for becoming. It’s a good day to try new things. It’s a good day to become more skilled at the things that work well. It’s a good day to honor progress, and appreciate all the small moments and interactions that delight me, educate me, and nourish my heart. Changing the world is a long process, relying on the incremental changes over time of a great many individuals – there are verbs involved. Changing the world within can happen over night; it’s a choice. [There are still verbs involved, and your results may vary. Practice. Begin again.]

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Categories autumn, Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Summer, The Art of Being, The Big 5, Turning 50, women, Words

The Journey Ahead

September 12, 2015 //
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I woke early for a Saturday. I woke early for a Saturday morning following a late Friday night.  I most particularly woke early for a Saturday morning following a late Friday night during which I danced, laughed, painted, studied, meditated, and did yoga – did I mention the dancing? I enjoyed an evening filled with movement, music and delight, and tumbled into bed quite exhausted and ready for sleep, just a bit past midnight. I woke at 4:00 am, awake, alert, and… awake. I took my morning medication, and managed to coax myself to sleep another hour or so, finally getting up on the internal promise that naps are a thing, if I need one later. 🙂

I broke out in a sweat, trembling, while I was making my coffee. A hot flash? Maybe… without warning I quickly went from sweating to nausea to being quite suddenly and very efficiently sick. The kitchen sink is not the ideally appropriate culturally typical receptacle for vomiting, and I was far more uncomfortable with having been in the kitchen at the time, than I was with being sick so suddenly. Any symptoms of illness were gone as soon as the vomiting ended, and that wasn’t an agonizing experience. As I said – efficient. I put making coffee aside, and cleaned the sink… then the kitchen… Yep. Uncomfortable with being sick in the kitchen puts it mildly. Well… the kitchen just sparkles this morning…now.   (I’m pretty sure it would take a forensic team to tell anyone ever got sick in that sink, or this kitchen, at this point. lol)

I had a ‘date night’ planned (with myself) for last night, and enjoyed myself most thoroughly, although it wasn’t entirely about pleasure or self-indulgence. I was a woman on a mission: get to know the woman in the mirror even better, understand her needs more thoroughly – and understand what holds her back from… whatever. Stuff. Or something like that. I have notes – it was all very organized. lol My honest intent was simply to reach a little deeper into the chaos and damage and tease loose a detail or two worth holding onto, and letting some of the baggage go. As evenings in general go, it was lovely, and I suppose successful. Sometimes the positive results of developing emotional self-sufficiency are pretty subtle, and don’t come in the form of grandiose visions of change, or profound epiphanies. Last night was rather like that, too. Deep, moving… but somehow also quite subtle. More affirming than radically changing anything, which is significant all on its own.

My weekend is entirely solo this week, and I need the space to work on me. I am spending the weekend writing, and painting, and meditating. I built a playlist for last night intended to stoke my creativity, and be thought-provoking…I ended up dancing more than thinking. I’m okay with that, too. Life is movement – there are verbs involved – sitting still is a very slow suicide (at least for this fragile meat vessel I reside within).

I started the weekend in the most delightful way, with three packages. I brought them into the house, but left them unopened until later in the evening, when I finally sat down to enjoy the night. One said ‘gift’ on it, and I opened it eagerly. A present from my traveling partner…

A token of affection. Love on a chain. The only heart-shaped locket I have ever owned.

A token of affection. Love on a chain. The only heart-shaped locket I have ever owned or worn.

I eagerly put a photo in the locket; the same photo that sits on the nightstand, where I see him smiling, relaxed, and enjoying my good company (I remember the day I took the picture very clearly). I touch the locket gently, where it rests on my collar-bone. I smile when I think of it, and of love. Because I generally don’t wear necklaces, I was very much aware of the sensation of it resting on my body through the evening, and the sensation was rather as if my traveling partner was with me. I feel loved.

Later I opened the other two packages – both from me, to me, both relevant to the experience of being me, of being a woman… both are books. Both are first editions (no idea why that matters at all, or why it delights me so – I’m still going to read them, and it’s all I would do with them, regardless; they’re books). One is an old book that I love dearly, written by a favorite author about a favorite strong female character: “Friday” by Robert Heinlein. I am eager to read it again.  The other is “Fear of Dying” newly released by Erica Jong, and I am eager to read it for the first time, and finding myself tempted to reread “Fear of Flying” now that I have some life experience of my own to understand it with (I first read it in 1973…I was 10, and didn’t identify with the characters or circumstances even a little bit). I find that reading adds to the intimacy of a quiet evening. I yearn to sit wrapped in comfort with my feet in my traveling partner’s lap, reading aloud for our enjoyment, and talking it over together.

I’ve been working on treating the woman in the mirror with more genuine affection, respect, and consideration – and one of the ways I ease her suffering and silent fury is to give more time to the voices of women, generally. Bringing Erica Jong to my library is one way of doing that. Certainly, she’s one of many strong female voices ‘of my generation’. Subtle signs of implicit gender bias in our culture exist literally everywhere, even in my own experience as a woman; I had no idea how many books Erica Jong has actually written over the years, or how many of those are non-fiction. It was an eye-opening moment reading the list of her work, and to understand how easy it is to dismiss female authors without realizing the error in the moment it occurs.

I didn’t paint much last night – I spent far more of the evening on meditation, writing, and dancing. I didn’t do any reading at all, although I had planned to. It was a night for love. If it had been a night out with another person, my feelings this morning would be as they are; I have a song in my heart, and a smile on my lips, and I feel valued and filled with joy. It’s nice to find that I can deliver that experience to myself now and then. It’s powerful to discover that these feelings are not specific to sexual love.  🙂

Taking care of me comes in many forms. I am pleased to learn how much I do have to offer myself, and what an array of choices there really are. The weekend continues… Today is a good day to enjoy the woman in the mirror.

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

What’s Your Point?

September 10, 2015 //
2

I wrote a lot of rather angry words this morning. I’ve deleted them. I’m reluctant to give OPD (Other People’s Drama) that much of my time – or to allow it to take that much of yours, either. I’ve done my best not to waste time ranting…but…I suspect it comes across a bit more that, than not. 🙂

Saving the world over my morning coffee...or something similar.

Thoughts and coffee

I sip my coffee and think over the whole point I thought I was getting to on the first draft (and the second, and third)… I think I was using way too many words just to communicate something simple – a caution? More a request. Please don’t be vile, nasty, bad-tempered, callous, cruel or mean to people you say you care about. It is mistreatment. In a perfect world, people don’t stick around for that shit, but we’re imperfect beings, and trudging through bullshit is sometimes part of the journey; we end up too willing to tolerate abuse. Love is not nurtured by mistreatment – and how much of your nastiness your loved ones can withstand is not an ideal measure of their affection.

Oh, hey, while I’m at it – please don’t be vile, nasty, bad-tempered, callous, cruel or mean with strangers, either. Realistically, you don’t know them well enough for them to warrant any sort of mistreatment, and it amounts to unkindness that just makes the world a shitty place. Stop it. Seriously? How do you excuse that shit?

Thinking it over, if it is unacceptable to mistreat our loved ones (which, frankly, it totally is), and also unacceptable to mistreat total strangers (and, I mean, why would you?)…how is it justifiable to mistreat all those people in between? You know the stuff I mean: being rude to a waitress, or nasty to a check-out clerk, or barista, or dismissive toward the landscapers, the mail carrier, or a telemarketer is all just as unacceptable and inappropriate – certainly, it is rude, and unnecessary. They are human. You are human, too. End of conflict… or, it easily could be. Your choices matter.

Being a better human being than you were yesterday is as simple as making just one choice to treat someone a little better than you might have – make it easy, start with people who really matter to you. (If someone ‘really matters’ to you, how do you justify treating them badly with purpose, deliberately, aware of the outcome, in the first place?) Here’s the thing – we like to think that we are not doing these things willfully –  it’s ‘happening’, ‘things just went wrong’ in a bad moment, we ‘didn’t mean it’ or some how meant it differently but lost our cool, or… but… that only holds up the first time. After that, it’s a choice, perhaps a habit, or worse a character quality, and it is definitely mistreatment and also entirely and completely unacceptable bad behavior.

How are you adding to global happiness?

How are you adding to global happiness?

Sorry about the lecture-y demanding irritated tone; we’re all human here, and feeling cared for and being heard matters to each of us. You are probably frustrated by these things, too. (I am finding it hard to watch from the sideline as someone I love is mistreated in another relationship, and I am not the sort to pretend I don’t see it, or to make excuses for bad behavior.) There’s no ‘chicken or egg’ paradox to mistreatment, either – that’s verbal slight of hand used by people to excuse abusive bullshit, and it doesn’t hold up under scrutiny. Tit for tat nastiness between lovers is just another variety of mistreatment, still unacceptable. Mistreatment is mistreatment. Make all the excuses you want to, the excuses do not change the behavior. We all have moments when we fall short of being that person we most want to be, but it does matter to make the attempt, and to address our poor behavior toward others, honestly, and openly, being fully accountable for our bad behavior, and poor decision-making. We all have opportunities to choose to listen deeply, to be open to understanding someone else’s experience, to demonstrate compassion, and to show growth – sadly, we don’t all take those opportunities when they come.

I tried a number of times to ‘find the right words’ this morning. My annoyance gets in the way of taking a lighter tone. I am frustrated at how easily human beings justify their shitty treatment of others. Seriously? How is abusing people we [say we] love even a thing? Personally, I find it most effective to snarl ‘go fuck yourself, that bullshit isn’t love at all’ and walk on – because when someone mistreats me, I do not feel loved. I no longer allow abuse to be part of my definition of love, loving, or being loved. “Love” is a verb, and it does not include abuse, mistreatment, or emotional weapons of mass distraction. Those are their own experiences, their own verbs, and choosing them is no demonstration of love – and it very much is a choice.

I could have just said “Wheaton’s Law, people, damn!” and saved a couple hundred words from being misused this morning… or maybe suggested a sing-a-long…  Be kind – there’s a surplus of jerks in the world these days. Be genuine – there’s also a surplus of shifty pretenders, and the real you is by far more worthy. Be considerate – we’re all human, each having our own experience, each suffering under the weight of the burdens we choose to bear, each worthy of being treated well.

Be love. That’s the thing most worth being.

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Categories autumn, Brain Injury, Free Will, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, more than a little bit of bitching, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Summer, The Art of Being, The Big 5, women, Words

The Most Difficult Post So Far

September 2, 2015 //
0

Turns out the toughest posts to write, for me, are those on mornings when my heart soars and I want to wax poetic about love. It’s a lovely morning, although I am a tad groggy and my brain is still sort of wandering here and there, and revisiting the lovely evening I shared with my traveling partner over coffees, dinner, and tales of adventure. I would happily overshare graphic romantic details without a thought for discretion, writing endlessly only about the ‘hearts and flowers’ of love and loving… certainly it is worthy subject material, always, and generally prominent in my thoughts on mornings such as this. I do prefer not to write too close to the boundary between joy and total loss of respect for the privacy of others dear to me, though… so, perhaps best to move on to other things?

Modern love

hello, Love

…And there’s the challenge, for me, this morning; what other things could I possibly write about on a morning like this, besides love? It was a great evening, in the company of someone dear to me, and just about perfect in every possible detail. Right at the moment I feel I could sit here smiling softly, wrapped in love, forever. “Forever”, unfortunately, isn’t actually a real thing for a mortal lifetime, and there’s much to learn, and experience (and endure) on this journey that is living. Perspective is a valuable handhold when something goes sideways later and life tries to knock the smile off my face – it may happen, it sometimes does. 🙂

tending the temple of my heart

tending the temple of my heart

Sometimes the hardest hits to my balance come on lovely days like this one. I go out into the world wearing this soft smile, wrapped in love, and don’t realize I’ve ‘let my guard down’ and am not protecting my heart from casual hurts, or have not taken care of my longer term need for balance and resilience by maintaining good practices. Feeling awesome, and feeling in love, sometimes results in taking my state of being for granted and letting good practices slip – because I already feel so good. It’s a mistake worth avoiding with mindful self-care. My day-to-day needs for good self-care don’t go away because I woke up feeling amazing, and feeling loved. There’s still pain to be managed. There are still chores to be done. There is still a budget to be watchful of (and far greater risk of poor impulse control when I feel wonderful). Meditation is still key to building resilience and balance. A healthy diet and appropriate exercise are still needed to maintain good health and promote longevity. Love doesn’t change any of that. Love mostly just feels good…and although I like putting love at the top of my ‘to do list’ (particularly adult romantic sexual love), love doesn’t wash the dishes, make the bed, or make sure I stay on goal with my budget (yeah – it definitely doesn’t help with that last one at all).

love's skills are varied and wondrous, but not always practical

love’s skills are varied and wondrous, but not always practical

Love is the most fantastically wonderful distraction from getting things done! 🙂

"Cherry blossoms" and thoughts of love...there's a metaphor there, somewhere...

“Cherry blossoms” and thoughts of love…there’s a metaphor there, somewhere…

This morning I sip my coffee and think about love’s demands – and the consequences of the actions love can drive. Impulse control issues can result in leaving work too early, or too often, or just sitting staring into a spreadsheet, thinking thoughts of last night, or some night to come. Love can derail my good practices, or find me becoming emotional cling wrap to hold onto any scrap of those lovely sensations just a while longer. Love’s playground becomes a proving ground for my growth over time; am I more easily able to stay on track with work, with planned activities, with other things that urgently matter to me? Am I able to maintain good practices in the face of romantic wonder? Am I grown up – or a little girl doodling hearts and flowers on the back of my notebooks? There is room in my heart – and my experience – for that little girl to remain safe and loved, but it’s also important that she not call the shots in my adult day-to-day experience.

"You Always Have My Heart"

“You Always Have My Heart”

Living alone, I am grateful that I am not particularly at risk of small relationship challenges spoiling my afterglow, that’s one obstacle to love’s delights that I am content to do without; I have enough work to do right now taming the adolescent lover within, and convincing her to do her chores. lol

Impractical, wonderful, sometimes adolescent - more than enough.

Impractical, wonderful, sometimes adolescent – more than enough.

Today is a good day for love – and for making sure things get done in spite of loving. Today is a good day to recognize that while it may feel like ‘love is everything’ and ‘love is all I need’, truly love doesn’t do her share of the dishes, make the bed, or vacuum, and the practical things in life need practical attention. There are verbs involved. It’s also a good day to treat people well, from this loving place; love is a nice way to improve the world.

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Categories Art, art and the artist, Brain Injury, Free Will, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Perspective, Relationships, The Art of Being, The Big 5, women

Waking Up Confused

August 26, 2015 //
0

I slept very deeply through the night, and woke to the insistent beeping of the alarm in a state of serious confusion. First, I wasn’t sure what the beeping was. I also thought it was Saturday. Oh, right – Friday. No…wait… I started to get up, and wobbled with a moment of vertigo, and the awareness of arthritis pain. I sat down abruptly, dizzy, and waited a moment before trying the whole thing again – and now pretty sure it wasn’t Saturday, or Friday, but not sure what day it actually is as I lurch toward the bathroom stiffly.

Minutes later, I’m at least pretty sure it is a work day, and although I am sorting through things and getting my bearings, it is some additional time later before I am clear that it is Wednesday, definitely a work day, and I start to feel more or less actually awake. I have the nagging feeling I am still not on track…a certain sense that something is missing… a shower, yoga, meditation…what could be missing? I wander sort of randomly through my small apartment, puzzled. Standing in the open patio doorway, feeling the morning air filter in from the pre-dawn darkness, just breathing and taking it all in is when I notice… no coffee. I mean, not yet. I haven’t made it, is what I’m saying.

I haven’t been awake all that long, it’s entirely reasonable that I don’t have coffee in front of me, at the moment I realize the lack. It is nonetheless reassuring to put that ‘something’s missing’ feeling to rest. The last couple mornings I have felt a bit more sluggish and slow to wake than usual. This morning was more intense still. I wonder for a moment what’s up with that, and wonder about the changing season and day length, and how much it may affect such things. Over time I have learned that one good response to confusion, particularly upon waking, is to slow down and take my time getting my bearings – avoiding making important decisions that require immediate action is a good idea, too. lol I eventually sort things out, given the time, and patience with myself. (I’m a bit disappointed it isn’t already Friday…but since I have plans after work, I’m also quite pleased not to have missed out on Wednesday!)

Last night was quite a treat. I sip my coffee (now prepared, and in front of me) and linger over my recollections of the cherished time spent with my traveling partner. He will indeed be traveling soon, and I won’t see him for days – may not hear much from him either, knowing he will be quite busy seeing the world from another vantage point. I don’t tend to take that personally, or worry overmuch when he is away. He’s a grown, capable man with a great deal of experience, prepared for most things. I could while away some unpleasant hours stressed out about the statistical chances of plane crashes, or violent crime, but it’s not a healthy pass time, and quite unproductive; whatever the far-reaching odds of misfortune, in real life generally it is more likely than not that everything will be just fine. He’s very considerate, when he travels, about things like notes letting me know he arrived here or there safely, so there’s not much to worry about. Hell – in any worst case scenario, I always come back to the awareness that for each of us our mortal time is too brief, anyway, and known to be finite. I let my mind be at ease, and welcome him home with joy every time he is away. There are verbs involved, and I prefer to choose other verbs than ‘panicking’ ‘worrying’ or ‘creating needless drama’.

Did I mention last night was lovely? It was. Quite. I am still smiling and wrapped in love. In the background, my thoughts continue to linger over the time we spent together.

Autumn rose hips.

Autumn rose hips.

Autumn is quickly approaching. There are early sightings all around, already: rose hips turning orange and red, leaves here and there beginning to yellow, fall-flowering wild flowers beginning to bloom, and small forest creatures working to pack on the winter weight for the coming colder seasons. Fall is my favorite, the crisp cold mornings wake me so completely, and the scent of fireplace smoke mingling with late season barbecue grilling is a delight on an autumn afternoon that begins warm, but quickly cools to an uncomfortable chill. Office conversations and meeting openers will soon shift from camping trips to football season…

I continue to sip my coffee. It’s very good this morning, and I am enjoying it before it can grow cold. I’ve got an Usher song stuck in my head this morning, but with the patio door open so early I am not inclined to put on the stereo; waking my neighbors to Usher before 6:00 am seems more than a little inconsiderate, so I won’t be doing that. It does not change the music in my head to enjoy the quiet of morning quietly. I can listen to the stereo at a pleasantly loud volume after work, dancing through whatever chores remain to be done this evening, and that will be enough.

Enough.

Enough.

It is, in fact, a morning of ‘enough’ – enough sleep, enough time to really wake up, enough of the simple resources of adult life that put hot coffee in front of me with such ease, enough to smile about, enough to begin the day with contentment and joy… simply and entirely enough. [Your results may vary.] The morning seems so saturated with sufficiency that it seems enough to mention that it is enough to be here, now, smiling. Additional words might be superfluous, as with the excess of buying ‘one more of those..’ when more can neither be used, nor enjoyed.

Today is a good day for ‘enough’, and as is so often the case with moments of confusion, the confusion I began with didn’t last – which, as it turns out, is also enough. Today is a good day to use my words, and also to embrace the quiet when the words run out. Today is a good day to enjoy things as they are. Today is a good day for love, and lovers, and a good day to connect with friends. Today is a good day to breathe deeply, and take great delight in small moments that feel wonderful, filling up on what feels good in each moment, however fleeting. Savoring this life, these moments, is sort of the point of having them. Certainly, enjoying them changes my experience of the world.

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