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Pacing Myself

February 2, 2023 //
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How funny that this one got saved as a draft, and never published…? Strange. Here’s a peak back at 2015.

It’s been a lovely weekend, so far. There’s a bit more to it, yet, and I am smiling, and feeling unhurried. I spent yesterday enjoying me, and completing some practical tasks with a hint of the artistic to them, like hanging a few more paintings, and beginning re-organizing all the shelved books into some arrangement that is both visually appealing and allows any one book to be located…ever.

When I moved in, I simply shelved all the books to get them out of boxes (because boxes take up precious space) – in general I have no idea what books are where. Yesterday I carefully went through all the books and identified a handful that I don’t find worth keeping at this point in my life. The minimal square footage requires that I be frugal about possessions, keeping only what actually has meaning, value, or utility. Today I will begin the more complex process of sorting them by author or by topic, and re-shelving them in a more logical way that permits research, and of course simplifies grabbing a particular book before bed, if I choose. 🙂 Truthfully, sorting tasks are a favorite of mine; I find them calming, pleasant, and likely to promote clear creative thinking. I have spent the weekend sorting things…books…small parts and fasteners…canvases…thoughts. It has been a singularly self-nurturing weekend without stress or urgency.

I enjoyed the morning with my traveling partner, and he indulged my longstanding fondness for breakfast (or brunch) by taking me to a favorite local breakfast spot. Now that we don’t live together 24/7, each moment we do spend together is something I willfully and mindfully cherish. At some point during his visit, hanging out at my place and talking about books, paintings, and when to wall mount the big monitor, he made the observation (rather astutely) that I had ‘tolerated’ (or was it ‘endured’?) living with him because I adore him so, but that it has become obvious that my clear preference for myself is to live alone. It’s true. My traveling partner is quite literally the only person I’ve ever really enjoyed living with…and even so, would prefer, generally, to live alone. Living with other people has been some degree of mostly miserable, for as long as I can remember – even as a kid. Some of the broken bits, and chaos and damage, just don’t make cohabitation easy for me, and having to share day-to-day space with other people just doesn’t feel good – or easy. I end up spending a lot of time with my teeth clenched, feeling tense, angry, irritable, trying to find some space for myself in which I will not be intruded upon – and it’s not because other human primates are any more fundamentally flawed than I am, myself. I don’t know that I have a solidly rational explanation, and making the attempt holds plenty of risk of hurting feelings, or creating imagined sorrows. It is enough, I think, to say that I prefer to live alone, and that I am comfortable with solitude day-to-day.

This has been a fantastic weekend. I have spent most of it quite alone, not even venturing forth except to do a little gardening yesterday evening, and breakfast out this morning, followed by the briefest possible trip to the market for coffee beans, and dishwasher detergent. I am understanding something differently about myself, as a result of this lovely [and much-needed] solitary weekend; loneliness is not about solitude at all, at least not for me. Ah, but my traveling partner is so right about the things phrased in the negative – knowing what loneliness is not about is far less useful than understanding what it is about. Perhaps I will learn that some other day? I won’t be learning much about loneliness this weekend – I am enjoying the solitude. 🙂

Contemplating patience, incremental change over time, and the tender ongoing exploration of self that my move as supported got me thinking about the idea of ‘pacing myself’ – taking my time with things in a mindful way makes so much sense. I tend to rush. I am enjoying the outcome of slowing things down in both life and love, and investing in quality of life through careful choices, mindful actions, and a willingness to practice being present in each moment without sham efficiencies masquerading as ‘multi-tasking’. I am ‘pacing myself’. I am living my life thoroughly, and enjoying how naturally my home seems to have become a ‘no stress zone’.

Today is a good day to slow down and enjoy each task, and each moment. Today is a good day to love. Today is a good day for stillness, for solitude, and for contentment. Today is a good day to create the world I prefer to live in. [Your results may vary.]

That was quite a long time ago, I suppose. Have things changed? Sure. I live in a home in a small town. I’ve got a mortgage instead of rent. My Traveling Partner lives with me and is my fond and adored companion on life’s journey, every day. My garden is a little bigger. My job has changed (and changed again). Have I learned to slow down and pace myself? Well… a bit more than I once knew how, yes. My results still vary.

…And it’s time to begin again.

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Categories Allegories, Brain Injury, breathe, Free Will, gardening, gratitude, Healthy Living, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Oregon Trails, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, The Art of Being, winter, Words

The Here and The Now

January 18, 2023 //
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My Traveling Partner and I recently watched a video that made some bold claims about the “harms of mindfulness” as a “culture” or as a self-help service available for anyone… at a cost. I rather expected I’d disagree throughout; I’ve gotten a lot out of mindfulness practices. Instead, I found myself nodding along. See, here’s the thing, “mindfulness” practices really don’t need to cost a single cent. Google “mindfulness”, watch some unbranded professional quality “not selling you shit” content, and start practicing – it could be that simple, and that close to being wholly free. It gets expensive when you start adding on self-help “professionals”, new age “gurus”, spiritual “healers”, and their many mindfulness centers, methods, systems, and… fees. What’s so crazy to me is that in general, much of this seems to come out of a genuine interest in making mindfulness practices available for the betterment of people who are suffering. (Scammers will always do what scammers have always done; grab an idea, gloss it up with an emotionally engaging pitch, and start raking in the profits at the expense of many who can’t legitimately afford that.)

Break free of the sales pitch, the expensive retreats, and the costly subscription service. Just be. Breathe. Exhale. Relax. No, it’s not a cure for everything. Hell, it’s maybe not a “cure” for anything at all. Does it feel good? It can. Is it helpful? It may be – it is for me, personally.

Maybe you think you are “doing it wrong” and that’s why it “isn’t working” for you? What do you mean when you say “working for you”? If you think it is going to solve all of your challenges, stop you ever shedding a tear or feeling hurt or knocked down in life, you may want to reconsider what you expect of this simple humble healthy practice. Let it do what it can, and stop right there.

…I’m saying this because I have considered, now and then, the monetary potential in having a successful mindfulness blog…what would that take? What would it look like (for me)? I always come back to the place I started; I don’t have a hunger to make a profit on the suffering of folks who are struggling to find balance or peace. That just seems like a shitty thing to do (to me). I mean, seriously? I’d be writing anyway. I write. I’d be meditating anyway. It has worked for me. The concepts are not new, and aside from the price of a handful of books, they haven’t cost me anything much. Why wouldn’t I share my knowledge (whatever I’ve got) and my words freely? I’ve considered writing a book. If/when I take that step, sure, pay me. LOL Fair.

One thing I didn’t like about the video we watched was the way the content was written to explicitly mock certain concepts or exercises used in one program or another to teach mindfulness practices. I found that unnecessary, misleading, and in poor taste generally. (We live in a world that seems to place value on misleading words in poor taste that are not helpful or necessary… which sucks, but that’s a different bit of writing for another day, I suppose.) I’m thinking specifically about the “eating a raisin” exercise that appears in MSBR coursework and other places.

As for “doing it wrong”…? Are you?

Any comfy cushion will do.

Here’s the thing about the “eating a raisin” exercise (in my opinion) – it isn’t at all about the raisin. Nothing to do with raisins in any way. Choose your fruit. Choose whatever taste or sensation you care to explore more deeply. The exercise itself is about being present, aware, and engaged entirely with that sensory experience. That’s it. You could do it with… oh, say… a cup of coffee. (If you’re a regular reader, is it now dawning on you that perhaps my frequent starting point of observing that “I am sipping my coffee…” may have significance you didn’t previously realize?) Yep. I practice this exercise often – with my coffee – to become more engaged, more “grounded”, more present in my physical reality, more “awake and aware” – because I frankly need the fucking practice. I was irked that the content creator we were watching tear down the simple (and admittedly somewhat silly) “eat a raisin” practice missed the whole fucking point of the exercise.

…I did appreciate that the video was explicitly opposed to financially exploiting the emotional pain of people seeking solutions through mindfulness, though. Don’t spend money on free shit, people. You don’t have to put yourself through that. If you want professional mindfulness coaching and you have the money and are willing to spend it on that? Get a good therapist. Period. Pay for what has legitimate value. Want to take a luxury retreat and practice meditation and mindfulness? Book a comfortable hotel on the coast somewhere, and take yourself there and be mindful. Enjoy. It doesn’t need to cost thousands of dollars, have a “name brand guru” smiling on the brochure, or require a waiting list. lol Seriously. What did you think my “going coastal” adventure days were about? That’s me taking a “meditation retreat” more often than not. 🙂

Sufficiency. Perspective. Mindfulness. Wrapped up in a bow. 😀 Enjoy. Please don’t just give your hard-earned money to charlatans, fake gurus, or slick salespeople. It’s not necessary.

I take one last sip of my ill-chosen coffee. It has gone cold – a fitting fate for a lavender Americano (turns out I do not enjoy the flavor of lavender in my coffee as much as I enjoy the scent of it). I sit with the feeling of a quiet start to an ordinary day for a moment longer.

Now I begin again.

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Categories Allegories, Brain Injury, breathe, Free Will, Healthy Living, meditation, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, winter, Words

10 Years of Healing and Change

January 9, 2023 //
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It’s been 10 years since I started this blog, and this journey. I mean, I suppose I could choose a lot of dates and say “I took my first step here”, but starting this blog and returning to therapy during a very dark time in my life was more significant than I knew at the time, and I’ve come farther, faster, I think, than I otherwise might have if I hadn’t taken those steps.

I lived in a different place, with different views.

10 years ago. I could measure that in jobs… it was 5 jobs ago. I could measure it in moves… it was 4 moves ago. I could count it off in hours, which is an impressive 87660. A little daunting if I think too long about how still needs doing. I could count it off in blog posts… 2512, an average of 20.9 per month, and more than 1 million words.

My first post was just an brief introduction. My second? It was about perspective. 10 years later to the day, and I’m still writing about how much perspective matters, and how to shift it in a more positive direction.

The first book my new therapist recommended to me, and an important step on a profoundly healing journey.

10 years ago I started reading, and building my reading list. I turned 50. I started keeping an aquarium (which I kept going until just last year). I began an intensely creative period as an artist. I bought new hiking boots and started walking a lot more, and I started making solo trips to the coast to make time for healthy self-reflection.

The beginnings of a piece on the theme of perspective.

I was in a rough place emotionally when I started this blog 10 years ago. At the same time I started this blog, I started an art project on the theme of perspective and experience, and the subjective nature of memory vs lived experience. I used two large glass containers, and into one I dropped dark stones, black glass “pebbles” and mementos of sorrow or grief, and small amounts of black glitter representative of darker moods. Into the other, I dropped light colored glass “pebbles”, glow glitter, and things reminiscent of joy and day-to-day moments of pleasure. Not so much “good vs bad” as pleasant vs unpleasant. I wanted to gauge “how bad is it really?” in some visible way. I kept it going until I was ready to create “Perspective” on canvas, some 6 months later.

“Perspective” acrylic mixed-media on canvas, 16″ x 36″, 2013

As difficult as my day-to-day experience sometimes felt, and as much as I often struggled with my experience, emotions, or circumstances, it was clear that even with “my thumb on the scale”, things were more often pleasant than unpleasant. The ratio wasn’t even close. There was more light than darkness, more joy than pain – and this is true even now. (I say that because it’s been quite a difficult morning and was a weirdly challenging weekend emotionally, and I’m definitely feeling that.) This particular art project opened my eyes to the importance of perspective in building and maintaining good mental and emotional health; if my lived experience felt unpleasant but was objectively better than I was feeling it to be, I figured there had to be a way to correct for that. I mean… I wear glasses because I’m near-sighted. What could I be doing to correct my sense of perspective on my own life? This became an important focus for me from then on.

…As it turns out, there are a number of different ways to gain or restore perspective… You could read Viktor Frankl… or take up meditation… or get therapy… I did all those things and found them each helpful in their own way. There are a lot of other things a person can do to shift perspective.

This morning I am sipping my coffee and thinking about the weird weekend from the perspective of having had a restless night, and being abruptly wakened (too early) by my Traveling Partner’s frustrated plea that I please work in the office today so he could get some sleep, himself. (I don’t doubt my snoring was keeping him awake, which sucks, and my office is adjacent to our bedroom and this manual keyboard is noisy, and my typing tends to reflect my emotions… I get it.) I was seriously looking forward to working from home this morning. I wasn’t set up to leave for the office at all. It wasn’t exactly a pleasant “wake up call”. I didn’t sleep well, myself so I just got up immediately, dressed, and “left for work” – hours before my work day even begins. I thought about just parking somewhere and napping in the car. I wasn’t actually properly awake when I left the house and possibly should not even have been driving (I was pretty groggy, hadn’t yet had my coffee, and was functioning on “auto pilot”, and feeling hurt to be asked to leave). I was feeling pretty “unwelcome in my life” – which is a shitty perspective to take on one’s own experience, honestly, and skewed hard away from the demonstrably positive real life experience I actually live day-to-day. I started the morning moody and emotional, and vexed with my partner. Bleh. I feel rather fortunate that I happened upon the awareness that this blog is now 10 years old, almost to the day (yesterday was the actual date of my actual first post). It’s given me new perspective on my perspective and a chance to write about perspective, generally, which tends to shift my focus from my own perspective to… perspective as its own thing. lol

The tl;dr is that perspective matters – and you can change yours. (Your results may vary.)

…I’m not “in a better mood” or any more well-rested than I would have been without the opportunity to reflect on and write about perspective, but it is much harder to just wallow in a shitty mood over the crappy start to my day once I take the time to slow down and reflect on some positives. I feel myself starting to let that shit go.

The weekend was actually pretty wonderful. We got some things done. Celebrated some achievements. Loved each other thoroughly. We also found ourselves dealing with a couple unexpected moments of strife. Predictable. Human primates are emotional creatures, and barely domesticated. I try not to get hung up on those, although now and then such moments find me reconsidering my life choices, if only for a moment. :-\

I stare into my coffee lost in my thoughts. Often.

10 years. This year I’ll be 60. Another opportunity to begin again.

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Categories Allegories, anger, Anxiety, Art, art and the artist, breathe, forgiveness, Free Will, Healthy Living, inspiration, Mindfulness, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, Sleepless Nights, solo hiking, The Art of Being, Turning 50, Words

Two Zero Two Three

January 3, 2023 //
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Here we are, a new year. Today is my first day back to work after the New Year’s holiday. I sip my coffee and wonder what sort of year this one might be…

The weekend was filled with year-end sorts of things, including the massive journal-disposal project that I’ve been mulling over for a long time, and honestly didn’t expect to sit down, start, and finish so… “soon” isn’t the right word. “Unexpectedly” also missed the mark. I just… I guess I’m glad it is behind me. Surprised I pulled it off, perhaps. 🙂 After wandering through many hundreds of thousands of words across something like 15,000 pages, I’m glad to be done with it and free from the storage and “document security” headaches that went along with keeping those journals all these years. There were some worthy observations of life in those pages, for sure, and some beautiful, poignant, or insightful turns of phrase, and I’m glad I took a look back. Those details were sparse compared to the tedium, the tantrums, the madness, and the committing-to-paper of details that generally do best lived-in-the-moment and not written down for later review. I mean… damn I was angry a lot. Bitter. Disappointed. Frustrated. Lusty. Struggling. Did I mention the lustiness? Yeah… I could have made a career writing pornography, I’m sure. LOL

…In some sense the hardest part about letting go of these journals and the years of writing was discovering that I already had…

It was interesting to see the change in my writing at the point at which my Traveling Partner and I had gotten together. Before we were lovers we were friends, and it was at that point I also began tapering off the various psych meds I was on at that time, (in part due to his encouragement and fueled by his astonishment at what I was taking and at what dosages). I really couldn’t write easily (or paint) on those meds; my creativity was severely impaired. To get that back, I had to go off the meds I was on (and it would be until very recently that I stayed wholly off all those medications, generally). My partner was very supportive of my painting and writing and my wellness.

At my most heavily medicated, I wrote very little.

My Traveling Partner and I had met many many years earlier – we resumed our friendship when we reconnected, working for the same employer in 2009, but didn’t start hanging out until early in 2010. By March that year we were nearly inseparable friends, jovially sharing our commute on public transit each day.

I was tapering off the psych meds, and both my writing and my painting were becoming a bigger part of my experience.

In October, after we each/both broke things off with other relationships, we moved in together. By May 2011 we’d gotten married. My writing exploded in an environment in which I felt emotionally safe to just write, to just fucking be. It wasn’t always comfortable; there were times when my Traveling Partner would actually choose to leave rather than be around me while I was writing or painting. There was so much “bottled up inside me” that finally “had a voice”. It was an intensely creative period.

2011 used a lot of pages!

When I think back on that time, and I think specifically about how much my current partnership has both inspired and supported me creatively… I’m astonished, and filled with love and gratitude. My Traveling Partner, as much as any one person ever could claim to be, has been my muse. My inspiration. My day-to-day “driving force” – for change, for momentum, for growth and progress, for continuing to begin again. Love makes it all matter so very much. He is also more uniquely capable than any one other human being of hurting my feelings in an instant, moving my heart, pissing me off, and being part of my journey. Fuck I love this guy. I could say more… but I think I’ve said it all at some point… I mean, just based on the amount I’d already written down since we got together…

My partner’s presence felt in every volume. Inspired by love.

I’m not sure…, but it could be that this post is sort of a love letter to a human being who played an important part in freeing me to truly work on becoming the woman I most want to be… finally. That can’t be an easy part to play in this messy life of mine.

If I could have easily done just one additional thing with all those journals it would have been to run the entirety of the content through some sort of algorithm that could reduce it down to just the unique observations – removing the duplicates, the mad spirals, and the redundancy, leaving behind only the things I said, wrote, and observed, each just the once. I wonder how much would actually be left? What wisdom have I gained (and lost) over time? I sip my coffee and think about that… and the way redirecting my writing to this space, this practice, has improved the quality of my writing. (It’s easy to see, having taken the opportunity to compare those volumes to these posts more or less “side by side”.)

I actually “write more” these days. It’s not always obvious; no clutter to measure by. lol I’m also much happier – and it was clear flipping through those pages that the deeply conflicted, traumatized, chronically unhappy woman I once was has been transformed over time. I still have challenges. I still have work to do. I’ve still got an eye on my mental health – and probably always will. I’m also doing pretty splendidly most of the time, by most measures. It’s a good place to be, and I’m grateful to my partner for sharing this journey with me. He’s a hell of a good “traveling companion” for a trip like this. lol I gotta remember to say thank you. 😀

In the meantime, I suppose I’ll just begin again… again. 😀 I wonder where this path leads…

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Categories Allegories, anger, Anxiety, Art, art and the artist, Brain Injury, breathe, forgiveness, Free Will, Frustration, gratitude, Healthy Living, inspiration, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, winter, Words

New Day, New Year, New Chance – New Choices

January 1, 2023 //
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Here it is. New Year’s Day. Another year wrapped up and a new year beginning.

…the new year is a blank page…

I’m still working through disposing of my old journals. It’s an interesting project, although it has tended to be a bit more emotionally engaging that I’d ideally like it to be. There are a lot of opportunities to make a willful point of letting some small bullshit detail go. Choices to be made to put down some baggage. I shred page after page, poignant moments, moments of rage and disappointment, moments of frustration and doubt, moments of discontent and disillusionment, moments of profound insight and great delight…memories of love and anger, and bearing witness to the passage of time.

Sometimes it’s necessary to let something go before I can truly begin again.

I’m glad I found so many little sketches. Saving those matters to me more than the words I’d written about whatever events they captured (or were inspired by). Some of these, though, were done on the reverse side of a page I don’t care to preserve… those I photograph, before shredding the page. They’ll live on as a digital image, now, and nothing more.

“Glow Opera Ballerina”, 5″ x 7″ ink on paper, 1999 – shredded.

I’d inserted various bookmarks and objects as placeholders between the pages of some volumes. Photographs. Notes. Love letters. A CD-R. Wait…what? A CD-R? (I wasn’t even certain we had a media reader that could read that, after all this time.) The name on the disk was not particularly revealing… almost as if intended to obfuscate the contents from casual view. I asked my Traveling Partner if we had a means of reading a CD-R? We did. Taking a look at the contents without opening any individual item, it was pretty clear this was a disk that would do best to join the various journals on the path to destruction. I thought to shred it, but… the shredder wasn’t happy about that choice. My partner suggested microwaving it for a couple seconds.

Unreadable by intention.

There were quite a few other interesting items in the bin with the journals. Old manuscripts, never finished. Individual pages of poetry that had been scribbled on napkins, note paper, or legal pads. Correspondence I have saved over the years – letters from my Dad, from my Granny, from old friends, and a largish manila envelope of the letters exchanged with my first husband while I was away at war, both his to me and mine to him. Some of this I’ll no doubt keep, but I’m starting to view some of this old stuff – explicitly anything to do with my first husband – as a sort of malicious “horcrux” (if I may borrow that notion) that has the potential to continue to be toxic for my day-to-day experience of myself, just through existing. Maybe it is time to destroy all of that, too. (I kept it for years because I was fearful I might someday need to prove what I’d been through.)

Old manuscripts and correspondence will need attention, too, another day.

It’s a lot to process. I think the commitment to getting it done as part of my individual new year’s celebration keeps me from getting overly involved in the raw emotions poured out onto these pages, at least a little. So many pages. So much rage and hurt and sorrow. Yeah, I definitely don’t need to drown myself in the hurts of the past – quite the contrary. It’s time to let it go. Page by page, volume by volume – this project has been overdue for a very long time, and it feels like quite a relief to finish it.

What about you? Are you ready for a new year? A new beginning? New practices, or resuming useful practices you’d let fall by the wayside as time went by? Will you be making a big change?

…Are you ready to begin again? I know I am. 🙂 Happy New Year!

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Categories Allegories, Anxiety, Art, art and the artist, Brain Injury, breathe, forgiveness, Free Will, gratitude, Healthy Living, inspiration, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, War and News of War, winter, Words
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