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Moved, Aware, Not Discouraged

March 27, 2014 //
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It’s been an interesting few days since my homecoming. Having returned home feeling focused, committed to specific goals, clear-headed and purposeful, serene and balanced, I was unsurprised to walk into an emotional hurricane at home; we are all having our own experience. We’re human, we have emotions, and life serves up hearty helpings of what drives them. They are no more unexpected than a hurricane, and nearly always visible on the horizon.  I’ve been in real hurricanes. Generally, savvy folks don’t stand around stunned letting everything around them go to hell, and they don’t seem unaware that there is gale force wind blowing them off course, or torrential rain on their parade.

So, I face the hurricane myself, moved by the experiences of others, aware of the destructive potential of the chaos, and not discouraged from my own goals or from seeing to my own needs. I am experienced with the weather we were having. lol.  I would find value in some sort of vast check list of experiences and circumstances that were once entirely outside my ability to endure, withstand, negotiate, enjoy, manage, cherish… and as each such occurs anew and I face it, experience it, with new tools, I could check it off the list. I like checking things off lists, actually. It gives me a sense of progress.

I’d still love to be able to share more about my beach experience and certain other bits and pieces; there is a lot of amazing stuff going on in my life as an individual, and I’m often frustrated that I lack the skills to really share them with my loves.  If I gave myself a chance at it, I could wallow in disappointment and discontent when I find that some wonderful bit of wonder ends up disregarded in favor of OPD.   Still, everyday life manages to keep my brain busy, my heart alive, and my calendar full.  Even what hurts or feels uncomfortable or seems inexplicable, is stuff to study, and to which I can bring mindfulness, and new practices very much worth practicing.  I am a student of life, not just visiting or passing through.

One view of the horizon.

One view of the horizon.

One very small thing I considered over the weekend at the beach was my health and fitness. What now seems a very long time ago I was much heavier than I wanted to be, and heavier than what feels comfortable on my frame. My weight was contributing to health problems, and even I could see that. It was also a significant driver of personal discontent and feelings of unworthiness.  I took matters in hand – and it’s an entirely other story than what I’m really on about this morning – and I dropped a lot of weight in a year.  It has stayed off. I’m much fitter, and healthier – but I haven’t reached my goal, and I’m still heavier than would be ideally healthy, and my fitness could still use improvement. I could moan about my weight loss progress being stalled for two years and launch a barrage of small contributing factors, but seriously? I wasn’t as committed as I needed to be to reach the goal I had set for myself.  I am accepted and loved by those who accept and love me, and mostly not very aware of haters moment-to-moment, and it was pretty easy to slow it down, relax, and lose focus. It doesn’t require more analysis than that. 🙂

I needed time to reflect.

I needed time to reflect.

So, I recommitted to my goal, with some study, and some celebration and waving good-bye to unhealthy favorite treats that had crept in over time to become pretty frequent. I took note that even a small glass of white wine with a meal didn’t treat me well emotionally or physically, and decided feeling good and being healthy is more important than wine with a meal – ever – and gave that up. I wasn’t exactly ‘a drinker’ at this point in my life, but I decided to give it up completely – although I’m not bragging or being smug about it, it’s just that it wasn’t hard to choose to give up empty calories (wine, gummy candies, sweets made primarily of butter, sugar, and flour) to keep my health.  It is, however, a choice. There’s a verb in there. Actions are involved and I am already taking them; strict about my caloric intake, the nutritive qualities of the food I eat, the amount and type of exercise I get each day.  I probably won’t say much about it day-to-day; this blog isn’t a diet, weight-loss, or fitness blog. For me the more important item is the goal>choice>action>outcome piece. There are always details, ups and downs, challenges to face, but generally it really is as simple has being sufficiently committed to a goal to enact the required verbs to reach it.  I’m wondering what will be different bringing mindfulness into the mix. Am I full of shit? I’ll check in, in September, and let you know. 😉

Planning to stay on course.

Planning to stay on course.

Other small things, well – small for the world, they loom large in my experience. Spring continues to unfold.  It’s lovely to see, and I enjoy the scents of spring without the agony of allergies; I make a point to be specifically mindfully grateful about it. Love, too, unfolds and grows and shows new facets of intimacy, connection, and delight. I still feel a moment of awkward discomfort when I’m aware of how dependent that has turned out to be on connecting with myself, treating my own heart well, and being intimate with my own emotional experience. The discomfort always passes, and the joy and contentment and deep meaningful connections that are within reach are certainly worth learning to accept how utterly necessary it is to nurture myself and treat myself well and with loving kindness.

Where the river meets the sea.

Where the river meets the sea.

I thought I had more to say. Since it isn’t about a word count… well, enjoy Thursday! It’s a good day to love and be loved. It’s a good day to be considerate and to be kind. It’s a good day to change the world.

So much horizon...

So much horizon…

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Categories Anxiety, Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Love, Menopause, Metaphors, Mindfulness, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Spring, women, Words

I’m Positive

March 19, 2014 //
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Interestingly – I actually am ‘positive’. I’m not sure when I got here. I was once a pretty negative, cynical woman whose sense of humor was largely based on the humor of disappointment, the humor of bitterness, and the humor of ‘whistling in the dark’. A ‘can do attitude’ was, at that time, based more on ‘because it just has to be done’, than the more common ‘because I can’ I bring to my days now. It is a pleasant change to be here, now. I look forward to things because they will be worth experiencing, or attaining, or simply because they are ahead of me, rather than with a dreadful certainty that ‘the fantasy is better than the reality’.

Then there’s Spring.

Lovely Blossoms

Lovely Blossoms

As beautiful up close as from afar.

As beautiful up close as from afar.

Cherry blossoms? Maybe, or some other fruit tree. A spring favorite.

Cherry blossoms? Maybe, or some other fruit tree. A spring favorite.

Yesterday, most of my meetings were held beneath the graceful branches of flowering trees.

Yesterday, most of my meetings were held beneath the graceful branches of flowering trees.

I'm rarely too rushed, these days, to pause for flowers.

I’m rarely too rushed, these days, to pause for flowers.

This morning, what else really needs to be said? Insufficient sleep, but what I got was good. The remains of a short work week still facing me, and so little drama at work that all I am is eager to swat the alarm clock Friday morning and head to the coast for a weekend of meditating, writing, sketching, and taking pictures; without even a hint of reluctance to take on the work days between me and the coast.

It’s Spring. Love is. Today is a good day.

 

 

 

 

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Categories Brain Injury, Free Will, gardening, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Love, Menopause, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Spring, women, Words

Love, Me

March 18, 2014 //
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I have a beautiful spring weekend on the coast planned, to be spent in a ‘spa cottage’ a block from the beach, in a community more village than town, small, intimate, friendly. Time planned for stillness, for tenderness, for meditation, yoga, and long conversations with a new love. It sounds wonderfully romantic.

Oh, to be sure, this love of mine has been part of my life for years, a timeless measure of time that feels like ‘always’. ‘New love’ hardly describes the chronology of our life together… but somehow, I have been remiss where love is concerned. Blind? To be sure; blind to her needs, her heart, even her beauty. Deaf to her words, her poetry, and that creative spark that makes her so much of who she is. I’ve been so hard on her, for so long. So often forcing to her scream what could have been whispered. I’m very fortunate that she stuck it out long enough to see me turn toward her loveliness with real affection in my eyes. I’m very sorry she had to wait so long.  

She will probably always seem about 22 to me; frozen in memory at that pinnacle of youthful beauty we each achieve, so often unnoticed until it has passed by. I have a photograph of her, then, dark-haired, fair, eyes-closed, thoughtful, mouth relaxed, she is calm and quiet; she is in a bubble bath, photographed on the sly, unaware of the subtle intrusion on her precious privacy.

22

22

I know so much about her, and until I realized how much love there is between us, I didn’t realize how little that knowledge meant for understanding her. Still, I know things. I know she thinks she’s fat. She struggles to ‘feel heard’ but doesn’t have words for her frustration, and too many for everything else. She rarely sheds tears, and when she succumbs to ‘crying’ it is often wordless, soundless, stuck like a scream frozen on a paused movie, that becomes garbled vocalizations of fury or terror through the force of her will. She yields to her animal nature as if forced, as though there might be something to prove, and perhaps in the proof she might find something like a soul; being too near her heat, her passion, her childish rage is hard to bear. I berate her for her impulsiveness and resent her lack of control. So often I have wanted to comfort her – or beat the hell out of her; unable to choose, I would choose instead to silence her, or leave her in pieces, alone. I did not want to believe she needed to be cared for; so often tenderness seemed the only thing that could move her to tears, at all. I know she doesn’t like to be touched by strangers, and doesn’t distinguish between sex and love; she says “love is a fraud, but sex is something I can feel’.  I know how she really feels when she says it. I know about her pain. I know she has a lifetime ahead of her, and finding her way will likely take all of it.

I know she doesn’t know how much she will survive, or how much she will change, in the years ahead of her in that photo.

Complicated, broken, she means the world to me now, and I wonder what I could do to ‘make it all up to her’ somehow. A quiet spring weekend at the coast, the luxury of being utterly heard, cared for, attended to – it’s just a down payment on a very large debt. She’s stuck it out with me, you see. It wasn’t ever certain that she would.

This weekend I’ll take the trip to the coast, for some solo time, getting to know this woman I love, hearing her stories anew, with compassion, and patience – I know she needs that from me. We’ve come a long way together, this me-of-22, and I. It’s been ugly, and more than once seemed at the edge of what could be suffered. It’s time we got together over a coffee or two, and really shared now together; there are things she never knew, that I’d like to share with her – like my love.

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Categories Anxiety, Brain Injury, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Turning 50, women, Words

More Strange Days

March 6, 2014 //
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I’m feeling a bit whipsawed by circumstances in life and love lately. I struggle to maintain balance – thankfully, finding it is less challenging these days.  Even my own words and thoughts sometimes tug me this way and that way as if to say ‘how sure are you?’. Like yesterday’s post on Change… I apparently have mixed feelings on some points. My commute home was a conversation with myself [no, not out loud!] that felt a bit like a tennis match…

Pre-occupied looks like bit like this...

Pre-occupation looks like bit like this…

…Change can be accepted or rejected, but it just is…

…It’s not okay to insist someone else change; acceptance and compassion are important values!…

…There’s a difference between demanding change ‘or else’, and encouraging someone to grow or consider their values and actions!…

…Is there? What’s it to me? Everyone is free to make their own choices, be their own person, walk their own path…

…We each have an obligation to take care of ourselves, to live our values, and to communicate when our boundaries are violated, or our limits reached…right?…

…It’s not acceptable to dictate values to someone else…

…If a relationship is based on specific stated values, and someone doesn’t actually live those values in their behavior, though, calling them on that… is that okay?…

…Walk away if you don’t like it. Why would it be okay to insist on change?…

…Every relationship I’ve been in as eventually found me facing an explicit demand to change something about myself that seemed an integral part of me, and I really don’t like it. When I capitulate I am resentful, and sometimes insincere, when I push back… oh… I don’t think I actually know what happens then. And I resent the lack of reciprocal willingness to meet needs and grow….

…See? That sucks. So don’t do it…

…Doesn’t it make sense to grow? To become more the being I want most to be?…

…It’s the ‘I statement’. It’s about individual freedom and will. It’s about not attempting to force someone’s heart, or demand that they value what you value, honoring their honest self with your own honest self…

Back and forth I went, as the train moved down the rails closer and closer to home. Closer to calling it a night, getting off my feet, out of the rain, into dry clothes, to enjoy a meal with my family and quiet conversation. I don’t think I found my way to any measure of ‘certainty’ on Change beyond ‘change is‘. It’s enough. I’m happy to have choices to contemplate, values to evaluate, and internal dialogue with good content, relevant to my own experience.

Another day begins. Life has prepared the curriculum. Pencils ready? And… begin.

To reach my destination, I nearly always have to start where I am.

To reach my destination, I nearly always have to start where I am.

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Categories Anxiety, Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Sleepless Nights, women, Words

Remember The Big 5?

February 28, 2014 //
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My commute home last night got me thinking about The Big 5 again: Respect, Reciprocity, Consideration, Compassion, and Openness, but last night, mostly Consideration.

Every open door is another opportunity to choose well.

Every open door is another opportunity to choose well.

I was struck first by how tired everyone looked. Well, sure, end of the work day, that makes sense; we’re all tired and eager to go home. What I saw next in so many faces was the sheer force of will it took to refuse to consider others.  A lot of faces, a lot of commuters, each actively engaging in processes of mind intended to sooth themselves and justify decisions to hang on to their seat, their spot by the door, the empty seat next to them, or whatever ‘win’ they scored on that trip that evening on that crowded commute. I saw a well-dressed business man, younger than me – late thirties, perhaps – steadfastly refusing to make eye-contact, or even look toward, the pregnant woman standing in the aisle next to his seated self. She was obviously very uncomfortable, and not quite tall enough to easily reach the dangling handles. In fact, not one of the healthy fit adults in the train car offered her a seat. Nor did they offer one to the elderly woman a few steps further down the car. They didn’t offer a seat to the harried mother of many little ones trying to keep assorted toddlers and a tween in check on her journey. Some of the seated commuters are ‘regulars’. I see them each day. They occupy their seats with a certain firmness, as if to say “this is my train, my journey, I do this daily and I have earned this seat.” There was also an assortment of woefully inconsiderate teens, just out of school activities for the day, and while I don’t excuse their callousness, their age makes it less mysterious, and less offensive. Yes. I am offended by the invested disregard for others that so many of us fall into as adults. I’m not judging, as much as observing with a certain sadness, and empathy. I used to be that entitled, self-satisfied, resentful, callous adult grabbing a seat on the train with a certain smug determination, and a sense of possession, and boundary setting.  My stomach churns bitterly and becomes a tight lump of something unpleasant settled inside myself when I acknowledge it honestly. It sure isn’t the best I have to offer as a human being. It definitely is not considerate.

What about last night? I stood for the commute. Why not? I’m not the strongest, youngest, fittest, or healthiest commuter along the route on most evenings, but I get by, and the courtesy shown when I can offer my seat to someone who needs it more than I do is an enormous investment in a very different feeling about life, about people, about the value in our shared experience. It matters.  I reflected on simple courtesy, and my Big 5, all the way home. There will be other commutes, and new opportunities to reflect on The Big 5. Consideration is a tough one to define, and might be the most important one, when I view ‘Considerate’ as ‘consider it’… isn’t that what it comes down to? Considering things fully? Taking a moment to consider that the woman or man standing nearby may have needs? May be in pain? May be suffering a moment of great sorrow? May need to get off their feet for even a minute or two on a rainy night? May feel alone, burdened, and unsupported? How many of my own worst moments of behavior come down to simple lack of consideration? What about yours?

I’m also keenly aware of ‘bystander effect‘. Last night I wrestled with understanding where the line between ‘doing the right thing’ and ‘meddling’ really is. If I ask someone else to give up their seat for someone who clearly needs it, am I ‘meddling’? Am I diminishing the personal authority of the person I intervene for? Am I being inappropriately critical or judgmental of the individual of whom I make the request? Are the answers to these questions easy for you? (I find them a challenging puzzle.) Culture changes over time. It once seemed a little silly that the buses and trains have signs and announcements reminding people to give up their seats for the elderly or disabled. It now seems obvious and necessary to make such reminders; we are not a considerate culture.

Today I will explore ‘consideration’ all day long. I will pause to ‘consider’ my actions and choices as often as I can remember to do so, and really consider the indirect outcome of my actions, not just the planned or desired outcome. Kindness is a free service. Compassion presents no inconvenience – and can as easily be learned.  What about you? Feel like helping me out with making the world a friendlier, easier place to enjoy life? Will you take a few moments, an opportunity or two, to be more than usually considerate? If you do, I’d love to hear how it goes!

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Categories Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Menopause, Metaphors, Mindfulness, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, women, Words
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