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What Matters Most

July 25, 2014 //
0

I’m almost over this cold. I’m grateful that although I’ve been sick it hasn’t been ‘that bad’. It’s been bad enough, however, to distance me from loved ones and fun, and that has sucked. My traveling partner will head out again later today, and the entire week he’s been home, I’ve been sick. Two years ago, or more, I’d probably have thrown some nasty tantrum over it, which wouldn’t have helped anyone enjoy their experience more, nor would it sooth my hurt over missing out on connected, intimate time. This time…it just didn’t occur to me to be temperamental about it. He’ll be away, then he’ll return. Seems a practical matter more easily supported by being easy and supportive.

So here I am. Contemplating farewells for another time, getting my shit together for work, and knowing that I’m facing a weekend opportunity to focus on self-work, meditation, and  yoga with a lot more focus and patience with myself than is sometimes possible with a full house, and a full calendar.

Contentment through perspective; sometimes it is enough.

Contentment through perspective; sometimes it is enough.

Today is a good day for smiles, and a good day for generous well-wishes, and fond farewells. Today is a good day to invest everything in love; the return on investment is still the very best, anywhere. Today is a good day for kindness, and a good day to offer to help. Today is a good day to share laughs, and links to good news. Today is a good day to recognize what ‘enough’ is all about, and have some of that, too. Today is a good day to change the world.

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Categories Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Summer, The Big 5, Words

An Entirely New Experience

July 21, 2014 //
0

Here it is, another day. Another week. Another sequence of moments about to unfold, touched by choices, and circumstances, colored by coincidence and thinking. Today is an entirely new experience. It’s a lovely morning to contemplate that, it is a Monday.

I slept like hell last night. It hardly matters this morning; it has become routine during periods of prolonged wakefulness, to choose an appropriately comfortable supine pose, still in bed, and meditate. There’s no ‘goal’ and I’m not ‘trying to get back to sleep’, I’m simply taking advantage of the quiet night hours to meditate, because I’m awake, because it’s a quiet activity, because it feels good, because it creates a lovely state of relaxation. Sometimes the need is greater, and I sit up and take it quite seriously, meditating in that timeless time in the wee hours, before the alarm goes off. It’s a nice bonus that I am often able to return to sleep afterward. Meditation did nothing to help my sleep, when I tried meditation to help me sleep. Meditation has done a lot to help my sleep in general, now that I am not trying to make it improve my sleep. lol There is real insight somewhere in there.

It is enough this morning that the headache I woke with dissipated while I was meditating, and that I feel rested in spite of having relatively little sleep. ‘Enough’ is good with me; I am not looking for more than that.

Enough.

Enough.

On the subject of new experiences, I spent the weekend focused on study, self-work, contemplation, and yoga. I don’t have a clever portmanteau for it (like ‘stay-cation’ or something of that sort), but it was time I definitely needed after an emotionally difficult week. I am still learning how to take care of me, and a big piece of that is boundary setting, communicating limits, and honoring those boundaries and limits myself enough to remind others to honor them as well. It doesn’t come nearly as naturally to me as undercutting my needs and fostering resentment over time – I’m super good at those, but find they don’t suit my long-term needs, or build healthy relationships.

One choice. One change. One moment.

One choice. One change. One moment.

So…it’s back to work, another week, practical details, calendars, meetings, ‘getting it done’… I have a busy week ahead. I observe that I have both the experience of eagerness to get back to a job I love, as well as mild impatience – because what could be more important than investing my time in me? (Every Monday I face that dilemma, and wonder why our culture is not more advanced by now; we have the technology to provide greater leisure to all…why haven’t we done so? I’m good at being employed, but it isn’t what I want to be doing with my time, in general.)

I am eager, too, to welcome my traveling partner home. I haven’t had any particular stress over his absence, I guess because he doesn’t feel gone to me, aside from missing the experience of his touch. He needed some time away, and certainly I’ve benefited from that time myself. (He said something once about the value of an opportunity to miss each other, and I have observed the truth of it in my own experience.) Still, I enjoy the tales of travelers, the opportunity to sample something different from the experiences I’ve had myself, the newness and intimacy of the restored connection, the subtle differences in language brought home from faraway, and stories. I just love stories, and my partner is a good story-teller. I hope to listen well.

Something changed for me last week. It requires further consideration, acceptance, and understanding. Fewer words, less thinking, and more awareness seem useful on this one, and it may be some time before I write much more about it. I find that I have a more clear idea of what I want in life, what I need from and in my relationships, and the choices it may take to get there. That’s a very big deal, I suppose, although it rather gets in the way of other things just at the moment. The timing is peculiar. Last week sucked in a most extraordinary way, but I managed a good amount of emotional resilience, balance, and self-compassion, and greater ease and a feeling of naturalness to making room for my emotions, and being kind to myself. I had feared learning emotional self-sufficiency might result in … greater loneliness. That isn’t seeming to be the case, so far, instead I feel more whole as I learn skills that allow me to rely on myself as a sort of emotional ‘first responder’. So far, pretty awesome. There’s more to learn, of course, and I suspect that like mindfulness itself, emotional self-sufficiency is more a practice than a goal. 🙂

Finding love everywhere starts with how I feel about myself.

Finding love everywhere starts with how I feel about myself.

So, yeah. Here it is morning, again. Time to start a new day. Today is a good day to treat myself well, and to embrace my values – and my friends. Today is a good day to smile at small children. Today is a good day to remember most people are already doing their very best, much of the time. Today is a good day for kindness. Today is a good day to recognize that respecting my own boundaries and limits, and setting them clearly, and managing them well, is a very nice way to tell myself ‘I love you’. Today is a good day to change the world.

 

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Categories Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Sleepless Nights, Summer, The Big 5, Words

So…No.

June 11, 2014 //
2

Wow. Not a very positive start to a post, at all. Is it a difficult morning? Did I wake in pain, or feeling poorly? Am I sad, hurt, or angry? No, not really any of those things, and it is a lovely, simple morning.  I am thinking, almost happily, about yesterday’s challenges – well met, and behind me. What remains is mostly the recollection of a mostly lovely day.

A lovely summer afternoon in this city I love.

A lovely summer afternoon in this city I love.

It isn’t a perfect picture; life itself isn’t about ‘perfect’ unless we choose to make it so. That’s rarely a good choice, in my experience.  I knew as I headed downtown for appointments at the VA that it was likely to be, like many experiences, less than perfect. It’s the VA. The news articles do not greatly exaggerate the issues, and may in fact present a rosier picture than exists in fact. Just saying.

First things first – any possible calm in the waiting room was entirely disrupted by loud administrators and ‘auditors’ of a variety of sorts. Business is business, work has to be done, and it isn’t all medicine…but when a disruptive crowd of noisy people fill up the waiting room of the Women’s Health Center, and some significant portion are rather disrespectful dudes with no apparent sense that people are waiting, and possibly not feeling well, its super annoying. Distracting, too, and as a veteran with a TBI, I’d like to be able to calmly focus on my appointment and my care needs. Yep – all about me, and every other patient there. Keep the freakin’ noise down!

It only gets better. Somehow, by mistake, although I specifically phoned and specifically scheduled an appointment with my primary care provider at her specific request, I was scheduled to see an entirely different doctor, who doesn’t know me, and has not had (or taken) an opportunity to actually review the entirety of my 20+ years of medical care for service connected injuries. She was personable enough, and educated, even fairly skilled on the VA computer system – a nice change of pace in recent years, to see doctors who can also navigate a windows OS – and I figured I’d relax and value what her perspective may have to offer. Seems fair.  My hopeful curiosity quickly fell behind my irritation.  She was quick to hand me the usual commonplace saccharine reassurances about menopause, not a glance at my records. I quickly and firmly objected to her suggestion that I may want to consider antidepressants for some of my menopause symptoms, and pointed her to the portion of my records that documents what a miserable failure that was – years ago.  She started to bring up atypical antipsychotics. I pointed her to that section of my records. Again. Again. Again. We finally get to a recommendation I hadn’t had offered before. She had piqued my interest – something that might ease the hot flashes? (They’re on/off nearly continuously these last few weeks, it’s very uncomfortable.)  No, I had no interest in spending even one moment in hospital purgatory (the pharmacy), yes mail the Rx to my home… and I made my escape.  While I waited for the bus to return me to downtown to connect with light rail, I read up on her suggestion… Um… wait, what? It’s associated with an increased risk of suicide. Not ‘a rare side effect’, nope, it has a white box warning label. Oh. Hell. No. Seriously? Why would a doctor recommend a drug with a high risk of suicide to a veteran with PTSD, and MST – who is also over 50? (Are the VA doctors unaware that veterans over 50 are, themselves, at increased risk of suicide?)

I walked away from the VA the way I often do – angry. To be fair, the state of women’s medicine isn’t fantastic, even in the civilian community.  Currently, the best medical test for menopause is… wait for it… No, seriously, that’s the test. Wait. 365 days, to be exact. Once one successfully completes 365 days of her adult life without bleeding from her vagina, it’s menopause! Very scientific, guys, very reliable… oh…what? You mean I might still have a period, or some spotting, or obvious hormone fluctuations after that? So… um… go medical precision? I think my irritation is understandable. The VA just pours salt in that wound by being more interested in Rx solutions than in practicing medicine and healing people, by rushing patient care in a very industrial and profit-oriented way (and still failing to actually be profitable), and being grossly understaffed in all roles just makes it very unlikely that anything will change – regardless who is at the top. The bottom line is still about the bottom line; no one really wants to pay the bill on all those broken people.  That shit is expensive.

It wasn’t unexpected. I headed for home, hopeful that I could just let it go and enjoy the evening.

Sometimes I have to take care of me.

Sometimes I have to take care of me.

The train was crowded. That’s a simple enough sentence. It doesn’t go nearly far enough. Wedged between a very large man who was drenched in sweat and smelled strongly of eau de unwashed humanity, and a very thin angular woman with children, strollers, and shopping bags, unable to move, pressed in on all sides to the point of being in very close contact – actually touching – I only managed one stop. I forced my way off the crowded train, gasping for breath, near tears, heart pounding – and still that residual anger. I was having a panic attack. Shit. I backed up against the building at the stop, in the shade, and closed my eyes. I took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, and another. The rush of commuters dissipated between trains. A handful of people were milling around, panhandling, chatting. My pounding heart and the rushing in my ears began to ease. A man approached me slowly, cautiously. “You okay, Sister?” He eyed me with wary sympathy. “Yes, thanks,” I replied. I made eye-contact. A homeless veteran? A veteran. Sometimes it is obvious. “I just couldn’t handle the crowd on the train, today.” He looked me over appraisingly, but without hostility or resentment, just that continued calm sympathy. “Yeah… you’re okay, though?” “Yes, thanks.” As he moved away, I contemplated his kindness. I wonder what he would have said or done if I hadn’t said I was okay? I wondered if his simple human kindness, consideration, and sympathy actually have more value than all the pills the VA has ever offered me. I sure felt better… I got on the next train and headed home.

Taking care of me still feels new.  A simple decision in favor of self-compassion, getting off an over-crowded train and waiting for the next one, really matters.  I ended up enjoying a lovely evening at home, as a byproduct of self-care.  Small changes. Good choices. So worth it.

Today is a new day, a fresh start, a different adventure. Today is a good day to be kind to strangers, and a good day to be kind to myself. Today is a good day to appreciate that we are each having our own experience, and we’re all in this together. Today is a good day to change the world.

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Categories Anxiety, Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Menopause, Mindfulness, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, The Big 5, women

335 Days

December 9, 2013 //
7

It’s been 335 days since I began this blog, this journey, this cycle of change and growth. 335 days.  A bit less than 47 weeks. 8040 hours, give or take. More than 482,000 minutes. Time measured, time spent, some of it wasted, all of it precious, and limited; I am living a more deliberate, mindful life than I had been living. I continue to practice new skills, continue to refine new practices that I value, and that seem to enhance my every day experience. There are a lot of small changes in the way I experience my life, the qualities I bring to my relationships, the value I place on the experiences of others, their challenges, the lessons they offer me when our paths cross along the way.

Now there is time to consider it all as the end of the year approaches.

It has long been my practice to take time on New Year’s day to consider the year past, and the year unfolding ahead of me. An hour or two, at least, to really put some attention on whether I achieved my goals, where I’m headed, what I can improve, what my challenges are. Funny, I’ve been doing that since I was about 14… it wasn’t as helpful a practice as it could have been, because for so many years I let my thinking self control the agenda, the tone, and the outcome, and left no room for my observing self to bring stillness, calm, and insight. Light without illumination, in a manner of speaking. This year I have come so far, and much of the journey on a very different path than any before. I’m eager to sit down with myself this New Year’s Day, look 2014 in the eye and say “Let’s do this thing!”

I slept badly last night. I didn’t, however, experience the stress of ‘how will I get enough rest to…’, which often complicates the bad sleep picture by throwing additional anxiety and something rather like ‘performance pressure’ into the mix. It was a pleasant relief to realize that just getting up and doing something other than ‘trying to sleep’ would be inconsequential to the day that followed.  I feel groggy and fatigued, predictably enough, but the morning is pleasant and comfortable in spite of that.  I’m an analyst by trade, which had tended to foster a rather simplistic notion that somehow ‘data fixes everything’ – if only there is enough of it. It hasn’t proven to be the case in practice. I spent years gathering sleep related data on my own experience: hours of sleep, hours disturbed, the nature of sleep disturbances, when they occurred by type, where my hormones were, my diet, exercise, medication, even details about the weather or environmental conditions, all sorts of stuff. I carefully analyzed the data for trends, looked for patterns, even found some; none of it mattered, because none of it had the power to affect the outcome in my experience. I struggled with missing pieces, undeveloped skills, correlations I wasn’t aware of, didn’t recognize, or didn’t understand were relevant. In my experience of my own life, mindfulness beats analysis for enacting change and improving my experience, easily. It’s not even close.  2013 has been the year that mindfulness became something, for me, and I, in turn, am becoming someone I enjoy being – sleepless nights and all. 😀

This morning seems a nice one to take a moment for gratitude, and a smile. The path isn’t always easy, and sometimes I still feel like I’m walking in the dark, banging knees, shins, and heart on unseen obstacles, but I no longer fight the needful journey.

Where this really started, back in 2010, and a moment of gratitude for the love of the man who shared it with me, then, and remains with me, still.

Where this really started, back in 2010, and a moment of gratitude for the love of the man who shared it with me, then, and remains with me, still.

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Categories Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Parables, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Sleepless Nights, Turning 50, winter, women, Words
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