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In Brief

November 21, 2014 //
2

I’d like to write, but I’m not ‘feeling it’ today on some other level. I want to communicate, but words hold little appeal. I have no new pictures; it’s been too cold to whip off my gloves and pull out my camera, or rainy to hard to do so without risky the device. There’s a specific feeling of stress to the idea of not writing, too; it feels a bit like holding my breath. (I write that, and realize I am holding my breath…I exhale mindfully, inhale deeply, and continue.)

The day begins gently enough over a hot Americano, quite strong, black. Work tools at the ready to handle the day from home. I hear the sounds of other people in the household beginning their days. The espresso machine grinding another shot for someone else’s coffee. A cough in another room. I slept reasonably well, waking several times but returning to sleep with ease, and undisturbed by nightmares although my vivid dreams were strange and illuminating. They slipped away before I could hang on to whatever they may have offered, once I woke. I’m in pain, but that seems wholly unremarkable, today.

What do I want of life, and the world? How will I get there? What is the best of what I offer as a human being? How do I offer it – and to whom? Of the things that seem to matter most to me, what matters most truly? Where is my will located, and how do I prevent my emotions from undermining it?

Today is a good day for questions. I don’t have a lot of answers, but answers haven’t proven to be nearly as worthwhile as exploring the questions anyway. Today? Brevity. Perhaps silence.

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Categories Anxiety, autumn, Brain Injury, Free Will, Mindfulness, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Words

An Entirely Other Moment

November 20, 2014 //
1

I woke with a headache this morning, and I woke several times during the night, returning to sleep with relative ease. The headache matters, and it is necessary to maintain awareness of the impact of disrupted sleep over time; my reactivity tends to increase over days and weeks of disrupted sleep. The headache, like much of my day-to-day pain, also doesn’t ‘matter’ in the sense that I make an effort not to be limited by it or allow it to call my shots, this can also put me on the path of lost balance, and lost perspective; I try so hard my own frustration becomes the bigger issue. Menopause or not, it seems I am lingering at the gates of Hormone Hell, too – or at least driving around that neighborhood in circles, lost. Night sweats. Hot flashes. Irritability. Difficulty maintaining a comfortable emotional connection to another.

Today is still an entirely new day, all potential, choices not yet made, reality not yet fully determined… I will do my best with it. Making the best choices in each moment is not the easy thing it sounds like it could be; I observe that whether something ‘sounds easy’ sometimes depends as much on the words as their meanings, which can be misleading. (Is there anything at all in my experience that has no potential whatsoever to be misleading?)

My coffee is good – and it was easy. I find myself being critical with myself, momentarily, for ‘not drinking it fast enough’ as I yawn through the morning, thus far. Day-to-day I can be ludicrously hard on myself, demanding far more of me than makes sense, or is even needed. The damage I’ve done to myself with the constant internal bullying, berating, and lack of satisfaction or encouragement has piled up over the years, and become part of the chaos and damage I fight now. I take a moment to adjust, to back up off of pressuring myself to drink coffee faster, and remind myself how lovely a leisurely morning, unhurried, unpressured, really feels.

Yesterday was challenging, not horrible, and had some wonderful moments to it. The finish was difficult; I was volatile after therapy and tired, and that can make me pretty unapproachable. People who like and love me still make the attempt and while I love that people are willing, and value me that much, it comes with risks and I ended up in tears over something fairly mundane, and feeling hurt and angry on a level that far exceeded what the event could possibly require. I took a walk in the night, enjoying the feeling of the icy rain pelting me for a couple of miles, and filling my lungs with the fresh cold air. Self-soothing, for me, often requires a combination of exercise, distraction, meditation, and distance that a long walk really captures; I sometimes feel as if I am ‘walking away from what is hurting me’. I contemplated how difficult it must be for my traveling partner to discover through the outcome alone that I am sometimes not as strong as I appear. It is one of the peculiar challenges of pursuing change and healing; change happens fast, but I am making active choices and using verbs, and my demeanor and affect do not always give away the contents of this fragile vessel, or the effort involved in being the change.

I made the wise choice to take a sick day yesterday, with some urging from my partner. I’m glad I did – and I think it sucks that the world, in general, benefited thereby, and he still ended up dealing with the grief and bullshit, himself. That seems particularly unfair. (I keep ‘checking the contract’ for life and living – there’s nothing at all about things being fair; this, too, seems unfair. lol)

Today’s okay so far. I’m tired. I have a headache. The increase in my Rx pain medication has been helping, but doesn’t really kick in for about an hour after I wake. I hurt, and I am patient with myself about that, at least so far.

Today is a good day to be less hard on myself. Today is a good day to remember that acknowledging where I am is necessary to get somewhere better. Today is a good day for good choices, and mindfulness that the good choices themselves have value, whatever the outcome. Today is a good day to remember free will is shared equally; we are each having our own experience…

Love in the World

Love in the World

…I wrote those words as the yelling started in another room, not even 6:00 am. OPD. (For the unfamiliar, that’s ‘other people’s drama’ – but often those ‘other people’ are those dearest to me). It wasn’t the raised voices of anger as much as the raised voices of frustration, hurt, and confusion, and it conveyed powerful stress in seconds. I add to my own stress and anxiety my concerns about the safety of the household in my absence while I am at work; today suddenly feels less safe, and less secure. I haven’t seen physical violence directed at people by anyone living here, but one member of the household is a destructive force to be reckoned with when upset nonetheless – and I do mean seriously destructive. The destruction of several door frames, doors, drawers, dishes, and a 25 year-old mahogany sideboard I lovingly hauled around the world for years testify to that. Many of my paintings can’t be hung because falling to the floor would damage them, and the risk is too high; doors have been slammed so hard here that paintings popped right off the walls and crashed to the floor. I don’t like discussing it, but it is real, and it is part of my experience; these are, in fact, experiences I promised myself I would not endure again. It’s wanton destruction of an utterly inappropriate nature (from my perspective), and it’s hard to determine whether anything at all is sacred; setting explicit boundaries about what is sacred to me hasn’t been effective. The sudden lack of household calm says a lot, and for me at least it amounts to a substantial loss of quality of life because it recurs with regularity. I dislike emotional weaponry; it tends to be both imprecise and very damaging, regardless who it is pointed at, everyone in the vicinity is feels the impact. This morning it’s my traveling partner who is ‘down range’, but we’re both stressed and concerned, and we’re both affected. I will go to work anxious and trembling, and my traveling partner will be working at home, dealing with his stress and trying to remain calm and productive after the difficulties of the morning. Doubtless it will continue to stress and trouble everyone involved for some hours, and my writing feels constrained and self-conscious as I struggle with my words. I know from experience that secrecy begets continued problem behavior, as well as isolating me from support and the comfort of being heard; I struggle on, hoping to say only enough to feel heard, and to be accurate about my own experience of the moment.

This moment is harder than others. I don’t know what’s next, at all. Also hard. This too shall pass.  I will continue to do my best, practice my Big 5, take care of me, treat others well, make the best choices I can, and hope that these are ‘enough’, somehow.

Today is still a good day to be less hard on myself. It’s still a good day to do my best. Today is still a good day to take care of me, and make good choices – hard choices, too, some days. We are each having our own experience, sure, but we’re all in this together. Treating each other well may be the one thing we can all easily do to save the world from our own destructive power.

What do you see when you look at the patterns in your life; your choices, or circumstance?

What do you see when you look at the patterns in your life; your choices, or  your circumstances?

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Categories Anxiety, Brain Injury, Free Will, Hormone Hell, Love, Menopause, Metaphors, Mindfulness, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Sleepless Nights, women, Words

This One Quiet Moment

November 18, 2014 //
0

I’m sipping my first Americano from the new espresso machine. The machine-that-had-been died. This new machine is the clear master of the coffee universe, and it has the features to prove it…but it takes the might of the pantheon of greek gods to lock in the porto filter – and the simultaneous requirement to be as delicate as a surgeon. 🙂 New skills in development, clearly, and some concerns about whether I will ever ever sleep through someone else making a shot of espresso ever again. I sure didn’t this morning. I woke at whatever brutally early hour my partner was testing the new machine – eagerly, and with great skill, I don’t doubt, but banging out the puck into the knock out box (I’m sure it has some proper name…) is as loud as someone hammering nails into the wall to hang paintings. Pretty loud at 4:30 am. The new machine is a birthday gift to my traveling partner – and a combined household effort to make it happen promptly. It’s a delight to have this tasty coffee first thing, and over time I’m sure I’ll get used to the different sounds of this machine, and able to sleep through much of it.

Here’s the best part of my morning coffee…it’s enough. Honestly? It’s enough when it is a french press of pre-ground drip coffee. It’s enough when I’m out of coffee and resort to black tea. It’s enough because that’s truly all I ‘need’… and…if I’m honest with myself, I’m addicted to the amount of caffeine I get each day in this form, and it’s both a preference and maintenance of that addiction. So. ‘Need’ is an appropriate word here, and I’ve got no baggage with this relatively harmless habit. The important word is ‘enough’. The experience of my morning coffee has varied over the years – and nearly always been ‘enough’. It’s a powerful lesson in sufficiency; take away someone’s addiction, and see what they find is an acceptable stop-gap measure, or a worthy substitute. That’s when I see directly into the face of sufficiency. My choices aren’t always about enough. My brain is very skilled at making ‘more’ seem reasonable, and from reasonable things easily escalate to ‘achievable’ and from ‘achievable’ the distance to ‘must have’ is short enough to traverse with great ease – and little mindfulness. I gotta work on that.

A different coffee, on a different day, in another place; memories of love are sometimes captured in pictures of coffee.

A different coffee, on a different day, in another place; memories of love are sometimes captured in pictures of coffee.

This morning I woke with a headache and a stuffy head. I’m not sick, just getting used to the change in household climate that accompanies the change in weather. My room feels too hot. I haven’t found the correct balance of bed-clothes, yet…which suddenly finds me feeling rather embarrassed to give it even a thought; how many people are struggling to sleep through the cold nights of winter because they just don’t have enough? My heart aches in a strange way I don’t recall feeling often in years past. I’m moved to participate in the holiday charity drives in the office out of some soft yearning to ease the suffering of the world, more than to avoid the embarrassment I used to feel because I didn’t consider the human experience broadly enough to be truly moved (and while aware of that, I didn’t know quite what to do about it at that time).

I am thinking, now, of all the things that drive humanity’s winter holidays…feasting and gifting, hospitality and generosity, the warmth and glow of inclusive celebration. It’s easy to get lost in the media spin, the marketing, and the advertising pushing consumers to consume – and to buy – and there’s so much more to it than dollars, at least there is for me.

Following my path where it leads.

Following my path where it leads.

Today is a good day to think ahead to the holidays. Today is a good day to plan and prepare for what is ahead, and to roll with the changes when life delivers on a different promise altogether. Today is a good day to hand craft something to enjoy, or to give – or both. Today is a good day to take care of me, and to appreciate others. What a rich palette life paints with; today is a good day to enjoy the colors. Today is a good day to celebrate with the world.

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Categories autumn, Brain Injury, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Love, Metaphors, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, The Big 5, Words

More Stormy Weather

November 13, 2014 //
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Okay, so definitely winter, or as nearly so as makes no difference, now. We’ve a winter storm warning for freezing rain, maybe mixed with some snow, definitely mixed with some local panic; we don’t do snow and ice well, here. The local transit is in chains – snow chains – but for now that’s more ‘just in case’ than actual weather. Weather forecasting has come a long way since I was a child, too, there’s real weather coming, and the storm shows in local radar. Do I go into the office, or not? That’s more complicated. This morning, I am inclined to go in to work in spite of the weather. Staying home doesn’t sound pleasant; everyone else is already committed to working from home, and I’m already feeling very irritable after an unpleasant start to the morning. I guess it will ultimately depend on whether the weather is worse than my mood. I keep checking the reports, and the transit web page; when local transit starts shutting down, it’s definitely time to heed the storm warnings.

Heeding storm warnings has great value. One of the small things in life I find most easily irritates me, personally, is when people close to me ignore my ‘storm warnings’, or treat me dismissively, or with a parental demeanor, when I am annoyed or angry. Mockery when I’m angry is the high-speed bullet train to the deepest longest-standing chaos and damage. Stoking my anger when I also feel helpless – or creating conditions wherein I feel helpless when I am already angry – is Plan A if the goal is to see me at my worst. Pretty nearly everyone has ‘tells’ – warning signs – that they are being pushed into their emotional ‘badlands’. I would expect that this being the case would make it so easy for everyone to be mindfully considerate of each other, sharing feedback in gentle words, delivering concerns or complaints with consideration and awareness that the person being spoken to is also human, and probably doing their best, generally. Being aware that the person we’re speaking to has their own issues, their own baggage, their own ‘soft white underbelly’ has so much potential to foster great experiences among beings built on respect, appreciation, affection… We don’t use our awareness that way very often, do we? I definitely have room to grow in that area. So does everyone I know. Hell, I can’t seem to reliably take advantage of my awareness of my own emotional state moment to moment to treat myself genuinely well, and with great fondness and tenderness – and I totally know me, and all that I need to thrive. It’s puzzling and frustrating and the result tends to be that I’d rather be at the office, where the expectations of me are very clear, and emotions don’t generally come into it.

I’d like to just coast gently from moment to moment with profound awareness, and great consideration for all my fellow travelers. Somehow, I keep finding myself pissed off about some small thing, or feeling hurt… It is a challenge to be ‘above the bullshit’ long enough to evaluate circumstances with reason, untainted by the hurt of the moment, to make the best possible decision which will meet my needs best over time. If I gave in to myself right now, I’d be storming around the place, stomping, slamming things, swearing… it wouldn’t help at all; it would merely serve to attempt to communicate to the household that I’m pissed off and hurting. If they don’t already understand that from my demeanor, and my words, they are not going to understand it through being obnoxiously loud, either; they aren’t listening. So. I sit quietly, seething alone, waiting for the storm to pass and hoping that the weather outside the house remains safe for travel. It’s best that I take this side of me to the office where I can harness the fury to a good cause without hurting anyone.

I feel angry this morning. I’m struggling to make peace with myself and the circumstances. It’s an enormous effort to practice practices I know ‘help’ – anger is an emotion that tends to want a specifically satisfying outcome, and seems to have the will to feed itself to stay alive. Knowing this hasn’t made it any easier to undermine my anger with wholesome emotional support based on self-sufficient practices. I dislike feelings in this range of the emotional spectrum, and a lot of my baggage is ‘about’ things colored by these sorts of emotions. It’s hard to make the choices that ease my suffering, sometimes. It’s hard to let go of wanting to be heard, and understood, and treated well, so I can rest comfortably on self-care practices that have built up my emotional resilience over time. It’s easier to yield to the misery, and give in to the suffering; but the outcome of doing so is predictably unpleasant. The outcome of good practices, emotional self-sufficiency, perspective, and a willingness to care for me with the same enduring strength and commitment I would bring to caring for any loved one is worth the effort, if only I can make the effort. There are verbs involved.

So. I guess today is a good day to practice good practices… and it looks like I’ll get a lot of opportunities to keep practicing. Today is a good day to attend to storm warnings, and take care of me. Today there’s stormy weather.

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Categories autumn, Brain Injury, Hormone Hell, Logic & Reason, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, more than a little bit of bitching, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, The Big 5, winter, Words
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