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Gently Now

November 21, 2015 //
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I slept in until past 8:00 am, rare for me. I woke shortly before 5:00 am, actually, and chose to lay down to meditate and let morning medication kick in before I got up to have coffee. At some point, I slept. When I did wake and rise to greet the day, it was pleasant to note that my pain and stiffness were not as significant as other recent mornings.

I’ve spent a bit less than an hour sipping my coffee, and watching the autumn sunshine move slowly over the collected drifts of colorful leaves piled against the garden pots on my patio. I’ve got some great grooves playing in the background, and a beautiful day ahead, as yet unplanned. Once or twice I have rather firmly, even sternly, snatched my consciousness back from the edge of work-related matters; I am quite committed to preserving my leisure for my own purposes these days, and that is inclusive of my cognitive resources in my off hours – not one extra thought or care of mine is going to be directed toward the agenda or needs of my job or industry. My employer must pay for my time, and since I am paid to think… well…you see where that goes quite quickly. At this point, even my brain is on board with a day of leisure, and any loitering demons invested in coloring my day with insecurity seem, themselves, to be taking the day off today.

There's a beautiful day ahead, to live, to thrive, to choose - to begin again.

There’s a beautiful day ahead, to live, to thrive, to choose – to begin again.

Anxiety is hard. Insecurity is hard, too. Doubt is also difficult. You know what, though? Letting it go, as difficult as it can seem, is surely no more difficult than the anxiety, the insecurity, and the doubt – and so often it is nothing more than letting the thoughts play on a loop in the background that creates those crappy anxious, insecure, doubt-filled experiences. Since having those experiences requires no practice (for me), putting the actual effort on the challenge of letting those things go makes a lot of sense. The outcome is worth the work; when I began practices of letting things go, and redirecting the flow of my thinking, and simply being mindfully aware, in this moment, just breathing, they were incredibly difficult practices! I had to begin again so many times. The progress seemed so slow. I was often so unsure that I was really getting anywhere, or that it was really helping stabilize me. I look back on more than two years of simple practices, improved self-care, and really taking care of the woman in the mirror… it’s not as difficult as it once was to give myself compassion, consideration, respect – to treat myself well day-to-day – and to be able, with relative ease, to redirect my thinking instead of allowing negative thinking and internal abuse to overtake me. Incremental change over time. We become what we practice. 🙂 (Yes, even you, over there – yes, you, the one struggling right now, and feeling maybe I don’t get it, can’t understand, and it won’t work for you. Even you – it’s just that practice is required, and there are verbs involved. You can begin again. Yes, and again tomorrow. And even after that. Change happens when we choose change. If this moment, right here, is that bad – you can walk on to the next moment, even if you must do so in a literal way to get the feel of it.)

Walk your own path, choose your own verbs, and build your own practices.

Walk your own path, choose your own verbs, and build your own practices.

A lovely autumn Saturday stretches out in front of me. My coffee is almost gone and what’s left is cold. Falling autumn leaves twisting in the sunshine as they drop are as the second-hand of some strange earth-clock, reminding me that the day progresses…and I’m still in comfy clothes and fuzzy spa socks. Where will today take me?

Today is a good day to enjoy exploring the world. I’ll get my coat…

 

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

Simple Basics

November 19, 2015 //
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The work day is over. I’m home after a quiet walk through the park in the increasing darkness of earlier nights. It was a chilly walk, and too dark for good pictures of the attention-getting sights or moments with my camera phone. I arrived home content, and mostly comfortable.

Coming home feels good.

Coming home feels good.

There’s nothing fancy about this particular experience of evening; I am writing while I heat up leftover Chinese food from last night. I smile thinking about the luxury of dinner for two, delivered, and the time shared munching, and laughing over comedic quiz shows. Last night was lovely. Tonight is, too. I consider the evening ahead – there are some shows I have planned to watch, but as so often happens, it isn’t really what is on my mind right now…dinner…writing…yoga…a shower…meditation…the simple basics of a life spent mostly practicing practices that build contentment. I’ve found myself standing in the middle of ‘happy’ an astonishing number of times since I stopped chasing it so desperately.

It’s been quite a distance to come on this peculiarly personal journey… the map gets bigger and more detailed as I become more the woman I most want to be, and tidy up ancient chaos and damage. The map is still not the world. I pause to stir dinner, hoping to avoid scorching it before it entirely heats through. I smile when I think about not having a microwave; of the many modern conveniences of life, it is one that isn’t very meaningful or necessary for me. I’d much rather have the bathroom light on a motion sensor, personally. It’s an aesthetic preference, perhaps, or one of the tiny details of life and choices that deceive us into thinking we’re really very different from everyone else who is also  human. lol

Dinner is almost ready. I pause for a moment and think about how very good things are, generally. I pause and really let that sink in, and enjoy it – and let the small things fall away, in favor of a perspective that puts the greater value on what feels good, and works, and makes me smile. It’s a nice evening to smile about the things that work. That’s enough.

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

Suddenly Aware

November 18, 2015 //
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For the moment I am painfully, heart-wrenching-ly, poignantly aware of the emptiness of my small apartment after my traveling partner’s departure. We had a lovely time. I already miss him greatly. I sit here quietly considering how better to have handled the evening. I had managed to bring things to quite an abrupt end, rather by mistake honestly. No confusing it – he asked me if I was done for the evening, or words to that effect, and I very clearly and plainly – quite simply – said “yes”. Within minutes he was gone, and my heart ached to see him walking away. Fuck. Seriously?

I don’t know how to reverse course on something like that. “Please stay.” That could be a place to start. I could hang out with that man for hours – have – and I miss living with him. I don’t actually understand why I chose to end the evening, really. Did I mis-speak? Well…I hurt. A lot. I’m in pain. By the time he’d gone I was in enough pain to be really regretting not doing yoga when I got home, and wondering if I really had taken that last dose of pain medication, my recollection of doing so seemed less clear, now. After-the-fact none of that seems at all relevant, and I wish I had spoken up before he left – simply, plainly, and clearly, and asked him to stay.

We've all got baggage.

We’ve all got baggage.

But that’s the bit about me…and I can get past that pretty easily and give myself a break. It’s nagging at me that if I feel this way – missing him so much it literally hurts – have I also caused him that pain? That’s actually not okay with me, and I make a point of trying to apologize…by email, because he’s driving…not entirely certain that my perception of having hurt him is even accurate, but trying to use simple kind language to say I’m sorry anyway – because I’m sorry that I might have hurt him in that way, and if I didn’t actually hurt him that would still be true. I’m not actually very good at that kind of thing, and it often ends up misunderstood. Still… It matters to me when he apologizes because he feels he has wronged me in some way, even if I didn’t have the experience of being wronged, so it makes sense to say I’m sorry – because I am.

Love.

Love.

Now it’s this quiet evening, alone. I’m okay with that, just taken by surprise by the unexpected choice. I sit quietly considering why I did not take action to change course in a firm practical way? I sit with the emotions I feel as I play it back like a video. There! I spot the fear that stalled me, off in a dark corner of my thinking, tangled up in the chaos and damage… but it’s not that big a deal, and I am not a puddle of tears, or freaked out with anxiety, insecurity and dread. I am loved. Sometimes I’m cluelessly hurtful in spite of meaning well – and in spite of that, I am loved. I think about my traveling partner, and something he said about a t.v. show he likes, and I smile hoping he has his feet up, watching it, and enjoying the evening. I roll out my yoga mat, and put my playlist on.

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

Another ‘Now’

November 17, 2015 //
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Morning again. I woke ahead of the alarm clock, a bit wistful that it wasn’t much earlier; I’d have enjoyed going back to sleep for a while. I woke, showered, made coffee, and wondered all the while at how easily our fears can change our minds, or our behavior. Mine, too, I’m not immune. Sure, I’m not feeling backed into a corner over recent terrorist attacks, lashing out in anger underscored by fear against an ‘enemy’ I don’t know and can’t define. Instead, my fears hit me very close to home, in the night, frozen while I listen to a neighbor wail. It was last night, and it was the sort of cry in the darkness that sources with terrible grief and pain. I have made such sounds, and felt feelings that project such sounds into the darkness… but I took no action last night. I laid quietly, very still, feeling distant fear wash over me, wondering…locked in the past, and fearing someone else’s moment, until quiet came and sleep overtook me.

I hesitate to load myself down with ‘should haves’, but I find myself facing the woman in the mirror with a firm question this morning. “Why did you not act?” Because, I could have – I live next door. To dress and knock on the door and ask the simple question “Are you okay? Can I help?” could mean so much to someone in distress. I didn’t go and I didn’t ask the question. My distant ancient fear got to me first, and I lay still in the night, frightened and wondering. I am able to make choices that result in being a better person than I was yesterday. I take a moment for gratitude that I live, really, such a singularly peaceful life day-to-day, these days. It’s hard to spell out how much that matters, or how much I value it. Contrasting experiences, like my neighbor’s distress in the night, are powerful reminders how far I have come since those long ago years when I was the one wailing in the darkness, terrified and wounded.

I sip my coffee and prepare for the work day. Here too there is room for gratitude and a moment of appreciation; I’ve gotten past much of my work stress, and regained my balance by restoring my perspective on having a job, in general. I have a good action plan for making significant improvements in my overall experience of working, and yes there are verbs involved, and change. I’ve remembered to shift the emotional investment in my experience back into my own experience of my time and life with myself, and firmly away from the tasks required during working hours to meet the needs of employment; it’s a job, and only that. Allowing my professional commitment in return for a well-earned paycheck to become anything more significant than that in the way I view myself holds so much potential discontent and frustration, for me personally. I am excited about the future, and although I don’t expect most plans to turn out as planned when life unfolds, I do find a bit of planning quite nice as a starting point. A plan is a map with which to begin again.

Every sunrise is a chance to begin again.

Every sunrise is a chance to begin again.

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

It’s a Choice

November 16, 2015 //
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I spent the weekend relaxing quietly, and taking care of me. I considered writing more, once or twice, and even had the occasional worthy notion to reflect upon. I chose differently. Instead, I took care of myself gently, and spent the weekend relaxing, recovering from the long week, and building emotional resilience for the week to come.

In the middle of autumn, a rose blooms.

In the middle of autumn, a rose blooms.

This morning I scroll through my feed noting the pendulum swing of opinion in action; French flag overlays disappearing quietly in favor of newly outraged articles about terrorism elsewhere in the world, other deaths, other wounds, other pain, accompanied by reminders that all these lives matter as well and… where was everyone then? I see articles wisely counseling the use of language that refrains from honoring terror groups with dignified titles, and asking that we not culturally dignify terrorists with honorifics or titles crafted to convey legitimacy. That makes sense to me, language has power. The reactive articles from pundits on the opposite end of the political spectrum reflexively spit back resentment that any change is asked of ‘the righteous and justified’, seemingly unaware that being one of ‘the good guys’ requires acts of goodness, not just a naming convention. What a mess we’ve made. Certainly, it is at times like these that it is most apparent we are very fancy monkeys; we do not easily agree on what is ‘good’ or most suited to our kind.

It’s strange how little part politics has to play in the life of any one individual human being. It’s a choice. One choice among so many, and we make tons of small choices every day. Treating each other well, truly, and without regard to our origins, our politics, our lifestyle, our beliefs, or our circumstances, is something to aspire to. People who successfully treat everyone quite well are a joy to be near, to stay connected to – to love. Behavior is chosen. What choices must I make differently to be that person – someone who treats everyone quite well, and is a joy to be near? How do I change the world when I make choices based on whether or not the outcome fits into ‘treating others well’? I reflect on these things most days.  It isn’t enough to consider, to think, or to wonder; there are verbs involved. There is a need for balance; among all the people I wish to treat well is one person I am often most likely to overlook – myself.

A busy work week begins soon. How will I choose my actions to ensure I treat myself, and those around me, truly well? What choices will I make to secure a comfortable experience, pleasant, fulfilling, and content? What choices will I make to provide that experience to others? How can I do better by the woman in the mirror today, than I did yesterday?

Blue sky between rain showers.

Blue sky between rain showers.

I turn the thoughts over in my head somewhat fretfully. I notice I am picking at the edges of my cuticle, left hand, index finger. I smile, and recognize that as small as it is, I could start with not tearing my hands to shreds with fussing and worrying. It’s a start. However small, as starting points go, each moment I choose to stop something damaging, and continue with something helpful, I begin again. Each new beginning holds the power to change the world.  Perhaps it isn’t ‘everything’ – but it is more than nothing, and it is enough to choose, and to choose again. It is through our choices that we change the world.

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Categories autumn, Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Love, Mindfulness, pain, Perspective, Relationships, The Big 5, Turning 50, Words
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