Be kind to yourself. Just that. Simple as suggestions go.
The paradoxical search for enlightenment…
“When you change your brain, you change your life.” from Buddha’s Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love, and Wisdom (Hanson, Rick).
Archives for category: Words
I am almost eager for dawn to come, for the clock to tick around to that particular moment when I head out the door for work. It is a rare feeling for me. I enjoy it, and I don’t question or doubt it. It is simply a feeling, and a pleasant one.
My fears that I would again find myself utterly unable to manage balance and fulfillment in the 4.5 hours left to me outside the workday Monday through Friday (once sleep and hygiene are accounted for) have proved to be unfounded – at least so far. Yes, time is precious and limited during the week, but somehow the weekend was vast and satisfying, and I met needs I’ve had for sometime and had struggled to fulfill, even between jobs. Time is non-negotiable and does not take any shit off of me, for sure. I am learning to enjoy moments, without clocks, and time seems to slow down for me when I do.
This weekend was made up of relaxed mornings meditating, doing yoga, writing, and reading. Time to study, and time to dream, even time to do seemed plentiful this weekend. I feel rested, and because I didn’t feel run down and emotionally drained at the end of the week, just tired, I didn’t have to work so hard to recharge. A solidly good weekend makes an exceptional jumping off point for another week of work.
I wonder if my new understanding that I am not obligated to do any particular job, or for any particular employer, also contributes to the lack of that other feeling I have for so long associated with employment… obligation pushed to the point of feeling trapped and resentful. It’s very nice not feeling that. Feeling trapped into employment resulted in work feeling more like indentured servitude as I scrambled to cover bills, struggled to get to ahead, and found myself making choices to go without some small thing or another, and having to prioritize the needs of an employer over the needs of my own heart and soul. Too ‘lefty’ and ‘soft’ for you? That’s okay with me – you go ahead and choose differently for yourself. 😉 I find myself content and comfortable with putting myself at the top of my To Do list.
No pictures today. The commute certainly offers up occasional photo-worthy moments, and I carry my camera with me nearly everywhere…the last few days I haven’t used it much. I’m still getting the timing on my commute down, still feeling a tad self-conscious about missing a connection. I get two shorter walks, a ride on the light rail, and a ride on the not-so-light rail, amounting to a commute of about an hour – not much longer than the previous commute, but considerably more dependent on good timing for success. Soon though…I’ve been playing with settings and lighting and taking time to get more skilled with my little camera.
Life feels pretty good. I smiled as I headed into town for my appointment with my therapist yesterday with a smile on my face. Somehow, I still ended up in tears in his office. How the fuck are there still so many tears to cry?! It’s strange crying in front of him – he doesn’t make the same faces other men do, who have seen me in tears. Why is that, I suddenly wonder? And why has it not occurred to me to wonder before? He and I simply continue to talk, my face leaking mostly goes unnoticed. I wouldn’t mind figuring that out with other men in my life, too. The tears are largely pretty inconsequential, putting an important emotional conversation on hold over them is a big distraction. lol
So, here we all are… a few words, an imminent dawn, a Tuesday morning. The new routine slowly develops around new choices, ongoing needs, hopes, dreams, projects… I’m working on a manuscript, it’s enough to say that, I think. No plot spoilers from me. lol. Then there’s clay, and there are images, and there is paint, pen & ink, life and love, a few chores to do between the fun bits… It may be some weeks before I iron out the details and find myself easily writing every day, again, at least here. I’m writing a lot, reading more than I have in years (turns out that a Kindle is a great choice of gift for me). Life has flow and balance and joy… and coffee. 🙂
Today…I am, and for the moment it is enough.
It’s been days since I’ve taken time to write. Time during the week is now quite limited; I’m back to work. I’ll figure it out. It’s really just a matter of new priorities, a new routine, and new balance to find.
Still more questions than answers…kind of feeling my way around in the dark, much of the time.
This post isn’t likely to be profound. I am sitting, writing, thinking, and reached a point where reaching for this made some sense. Funny, I feel okay. A lot has changed for me in just a year, and I’m still okay. I wasn’t always sure I would be.
It’s a lovely quiet Saturday, taking care of me: laundry, yoga, meditation, some reflective writing, some correspondence, a couple great lattes, a good book, a few episodes of Archer. I feel content.
Today I am compassionate with myself, and today I am gentle with my own heart, and the hearts of others. Today is a good day for tenderness.
This is no ordinary Sunday morning. Well, okay, it is. A dull gray rainy Sunday morning on which I woke without the alarm, did some leisurely yoga to regain my freedom of movement, soaked in a hot shower to ease my arthritis pain, took some timeless moments to meditate, and made a latte. It’s a rather nice Sunday morning, actually. I enjoy the rain, and the soggy gray sky. The only thing that seems a bit out of the ordinary is that this Sunday precedes a workday. It’s been some weeks now since setting the alarm clock would be necessary, and I’m very aware that tomorrow is a return to a different sort of routine.
Changes in routine can be emotionally difficult for me, although I’m also quite adaptable. This morning I find that my response to the internal question ‘Am I ready?’ turns out to be ‘Aren’t I always?’. The smile attached to the thought feels friendly and safe, comfortable, self-assured. I’m good at work, and the skills I bring to my professional life are generally something I can comfortably count on.
There have been moments when feelings of frustration that ‘this wasn’t enough time’ or that ‘I don’t know how to invest my time in me the way I think I need to’ and moments when I wasn’t sure taking this time has been ‘worth it’ or when I felt I had somehow ‘failed to do what I needed to’. This morning it is more clear that those fears are unfounded. I’ve had limited time to work with, and it coincided with the biggest holidays in my year, too. What I’ve accomplished for myself, to meet my own needs, and work on my own agenda, has actually been pretty significant – and includes ‘finding my focus’ – the next big piece of my puzzle to slip into place for the upcoming who-knows-how-long. A month well-spent, from my perspective, considered on this last Sunday before I return to work.
- I have had time and opportunities to practice mindfulness at my leisure, on tasks large and small, both solitary and shared, without the pressures of a rigid schedule distracting me.
- I have had the freedom to meditate any time I needed to, or wanted to, without any need to ‘set a timer’.
- I’ve been able to improve my everyday yoga practice, and really take time learning and practicing new asanas, new modifications, and new sequences.
- I got to enjoy the holidays ‘at full throttle’ without having to interrupt my fun every 12 hours to go back to work and do unrelated, significantly less fun stuff for someone else.
- I’ve had time to read, and enjoyed having the time and focus to read deeply, even taking time to cross-reference and follow-up on cited references in really engaging articles, and books. (I have started and finished 7 actual books in the past couple weeks.)
- I’ve had some time to get to know this person I call ‘me’ – I’ve changed a lot over the past year, particularly, and although there is more to work on, to understand, to learn, to practice – it’s been wonderful having time to step back a bit and look me over, and see what is important in the now.
- I got plenty of sleep – and learned that a significant portion of my disturbed sleep may be due to the background stress of work, and the commitment to someone else’s agenda, that isn’t being skillfully set aside at the end of work days.
- I began to explore sculpture and 3 dimensional creativity, crafting miniatures for my partner’s fairy gardens, and crafting colorful figurines to express my feelings, or share my experience, when words fail me.
Expressions. A very fun bit of what I’ve been up to this year. 😀
- I worked out simpler statements to clarify my needs, my boundaries, and my understanding of some fundamentals, which has improved my ability to communicate – with myself, as well as with others.
- I laughed a lot. I cried some. I got closer to my partners.
- I learned more about the nature of intimacy, and how very earnestly I want to be good at it.
- I explored things about who I am that have nothing at all to do with pain, or trauma.
- I changed up my personal space and some of my every day practices to enhance parts of my experience I really love, but struggled to enjoy comfortably.
- I rediscovered how much there is to talk about beyond employment.
Looked at that way, it’s clear the time wasn’t wasted, and that any perceived ‘failures’ are chosen perceptions, associated with personal baggage, nothing more. (Sorry you had to slog through all that, and thank you for taking the time to sit through it with me while I took a look at it.)
So, here it is, the last Sunday before I got back to work. I am okay with going back to work, for now, and it’s nice to feel confident that at any time I really need to, I can set all that aside and go home and take care of me. Hell, from a perspective of contentment and sufficiency, I’m pretty sure I have ‘enough’ to get by on, anytime, and find real satisfaction and joy in my experience of living. That’s a new thing… I hope to nurture it, and grow it, perhaps even gain some understanding of what makes contentment thrive. Contentment feels very good.
Today I am content and secure. Today I am kind and compassionate. Today I love and play at leisure, nurturing my heart through mindful enjoyment of everyday pleasures. Today I will change the world. ❤
Well…here we all are. Here I am, anyway. There are opportunities to wonder about the rest of it. It’s been a year, to the day, since I started this blog. I was somewhere very different as a person one year ago. My understanding of myself was – and remains – incomplete, but certainly I am in as different a place with that as a journey of 365 days could possibly make, for me. Very different, indeed. Change, as comical as it looks on the page, is a constant.
People do change, therefore they can change. It is not a given that they will change. That last is rather dependent on their own desire to change, for their own reasons, succeeding based on their will and actions. These seem obvious enough observations, but I did not have that understanding a year ago.
We are each having our own experience. That, too, seems damned obvious to me in 2014, but I have an understanding of myself that recognizes and acknowledges that this was not ‘always’ my understanding of things. It’s difficult to be certain quite when I became really sold on that understanding – that we are each all having our own experience. It feels like I ‘always’ understood this – but I can prove in my own journals and past writing that I did not, and also that the lack of this understanding in prior years was something that really had an effect on my ability to learn compassion, to build intimacy, to provide emotional support – even impeded my ability to listen well to others and respect or value their perspective.
Every step I take illuminates another step to be taken – like walking with a flashlight in the dark. I can recall, at some past points, saying something casual or flippant about ‘being a work in progress’, generally to minimize some mishap, or the consequence of some poor decision. This past year I’ve spent a lot of time learning what a very active thing progress actually tends to be – there is so much more to it than being aware it needs to happen, or reading up on some process for getting it done. ‘Work in progress’ is an incredibly active thing, with a lot of verbs involved, and a hearty helping of will and action, and practice doesn’t lead to mastery, it leads to good habits and improvements over time. I do not always feel up to the task, and I am surprised and even satisfied with myself for how far I’ve come in a year.
I feel powerfully committed to myself (that’s very new), and to building a good life, good relationships, a good heart, a compassionate nature, and to leave when my time is up able to say the world is, in some small way, the better for having endured my humble efforts. This is the most concise statement I know how to make about ‘who I am’ at the end of this one year. I doubt I’d have made such a statement in any earlier time in my life.
Words like ‘mindfulness’ and ‘compassion’ have become everyday parts of my vocabulary over the past year. I am learning new things; listening, caring, understanding, empathizing, sharing – no strings, less baggage. It still seems strange to me that so much of what I’ve needed all along has come from within… and that ‘taking care of me’ isn’t about being ‘selfish’, defensive, territorial, or confrontational, but is very much about living a contented life, and enjoying a sense of well-being, by ensuring I see to my own basic needs with as much commitment and skill as I do the needs of others.
I am spending time today contemplating this one year journey because, as journey’s go, it’s been it’s been one of the most meaningful I’ve ever taken, and one that I understand more clearly now to be both ongoing, and worthy of more active participation. It’s my life, after all. Sure, had I understood some things more clearly earlier in life, I’d have made some different choices perhaps, or had some very different conversations, but there is still so much ahead – many more moments, opportunities to choose, to talk, to act – to change. My will is truly my own – when I use it.
So are my words. This year I’ve used this blog to explore my world of words in a more honest way, with greater vulnerability, learning to share my experience without using emotional weaponry, and with consideration of possible outcomes beyond words on a page. Using my words to understand my experience more clearly, myself, without endless rumination or becoming mired in some momentary drama, and without over-burdening the emotional resources of my loved ones has been eye-opening regarding the limitations of words and language, and how it can direct my experience – and how I can learn to use those words to direct my experience, myself, from within. (Thanks for helping with all that, by the way, I appreciate you, and the time you’ve taken to share this journey with me in some small way.)
Soft jazz in the background, a latte gone cold on the side table, a soft gray morning sky on the other side of the window, the household sleeping… just one year? The distance between where I was a year ago, and where I am this morning can’t really be measured in time or distance. The journey isn’t even completed – there is so much more to learn, to do, to experience, to share, to understand, to contemplate, to enjoy… This is just one moment of many.
There is a lot to enjoy. This has definitely been a year to explore how very true that is. There is a lot to enjoy. Enjoying life is also a choice.
Here’s to free will and good choices!
Today I…
Evening Light 