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Taking Time

March 13, 2013 //
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I am taking time to enjoy today. It’s a good one. A good night’s sleep, a lovely morning of music, lattes, and great conversation, and now headed to see one of my dearest friends (and a woman of great character and heart). It’s the connections that make this such a wonderful experience. I feel like a child staring in wonder and fascination at something new and surprising. My face feels tugged by the persistent pull of an irrepressible smile.

It’s only Wednesday. Seems a good day to tell someone they matter…to share a heartfelt moment, to be vulnerable – and ready for wonderful things to happen, not merely prepared to endure the day. 🙂

Riding the train, listening to Dave Matthews telling me what he knows about love…I want to remember today, forever…

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Categories Allegories, Anxiety, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Menopause, Perspective, Relationships, Sleepless Nights, Turning 50

That’s Neither Here, Nor Hair

March 7, 2013 //
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I’d like to have a caution sign for the inside of my bedroom door. One of the safety yellow ones seen at the roadside for any number of upcoming hazards, and I want it to have one of those crazy squiggly road symbols for dangerous curves, and a falling rock symbol, and also a symbol for potholes. At the top, I’d expect it to say ‘Caution’, as most of them do, and perhaps at the bottom ‘Life Ahead’. Frankly, I could probably use a quick reminder every day before I head out into the world and get hung up on some ‘obstacle’ that isn’t actually an obstacle at all, but more of a lesson. 🙂

Short night last night, and a good morning anyway. Stayed up a bit past my ‘bell-curve bedtime’ watching a movie with my partners. Totally worth it. Lost a little more sleep to the happy sounds of life and Love, before my awareness distilled to a few moments of self, then dissipated to dreaming. Also, totally worth it.

This morning I am still turning over the Conundrum of Hair. I put it in capital letters to highlight the experience that this relatively simple question has come to serve as an interesting life lesson about decision-making and taking care of me. I mean, seriously? I’m talking about whether or not to get a hair cut – not exactly life-changing stuff, as changes go. I keep turning it over in my mind, trying to figure out not only what I want (for an outcome) but also learn more about my decision-making challenges in general.

I grew up hearing ‘Do something, even if it isn’t right!’ as an oft-repeated instructional slogan intended, I think, to foster a high level of productivity, initiative, motivation, and, oddly, effective decision-making (defined only as ‘making a quick decision and acting on it).  I learned it, and became an adult quite capable of making very bad decisions very quickly, and firmly, and taking prompt action on them – but I did not also learn to make the best possible decisions, only quick ones. lol. Life needs a bit of both, I’ve learned.  Often the decisions I’ve made quite slowly, over time, with a lot of consideration, and some false starts and mind-changing, plan-changing, or self-changing have been more worthwhile. I was taught a lot of disrespect for ‘dithering’, ‘vacillating’, and ‘being indecisive’. Funny how complicated these things have made deciding whether or not to cut my hair! Watching the process unfold both as an observer and as a participant is interesting, itself, and I’m finding value in taking a step back and asking myself some new questions.

I asked myself why am I considering getting my hair cut short right now? Why is the idea of getting my hair cut short – very short – scary? (I’ve had very long hair all my adult life) What does having all this long hair mean to me? What does the hair itself represent in my experience? Does the experience of having long hair have any intrinsic value? What about the experience of having long hair do I value? Am I willing to give that up to experience having short hair? Do I actually want to do this? Is there any other reason to cut my hair short besides ‘because I want this’? I’ve been turning these questions over in my mind a lot. “Long hair is sexy.” Yep, sure is – but so is short hair, because ‘sexy’ isn’t a hair style.  “I like the feel of my lover’s hands in my hair.” Mmm, yes, yes I do.  Does sensuality end with a hair cut?  That’s clearly not the case, since tons of men have short hair and don’t seem to lack for sensuality. “I won’t look like me.” Um…I am not a hair style. lol. “You can’t tell me what to do!” Somewhere inside I still feel the helpless anger and resentment of being controlled, in the memory of having to get a short hair cut because it was too much work to keep long hair neat when I was a child – it’s way past time to let that baggage go. lol.  I have a memory of crying to my father about a short hair cut I didn’t like…I must have been quite young…I remember mostly the feeling of hot tears spilling down and wailing “Daddy, I’m so ugly! I won’t be sexy – I look like a boy!!” and my father’s amused reply “Baby, there’s nothing about you that looks like a boy.” Well, at 49 and with the curves I’ve got, there’s sure no way to mistake me for a boy! lol “My partners like my long hair.” Ouch, that’s more difficult than I want it to be…sure, some people really like long hair, find it sexy, enjoy seeing it, touching it, and it may be part of how they see someone they love…but it’s just hair; it is not identity.  One of my partners is presently letting his hair grow longer after years of wearing it short. It’s sexy both ways – because he’s sexy; it’s not the hair. He looks different than he did with the shorter style; he is still himself. AND, although when he considered growing out his hair, he did mention it, and discuss it, and ask me what I thought, he did not ask for my permission, or make it about my needs or desires when he made a choice to change-up his look. Oh, ok, so that wasn’t really that difficult, after all. LOL 😀

Every internal objection, each moment of resistance, all the arguments from any angle are so easily knocked down when I am calm, centered, and willing to be compassionate with myself about old hurts, baggage, and internal weirdness.  So, now it comes down to what it really comes down to – is this what I want? Does it meet my needs over time? I still have not decided…and there’s no need to rush.  Now it is just a hair cut.  😀

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Categories Anxiety, Brain Injury, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Menopause, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Sleepless Nights, Turning 50, women, Words

News, Truth, and Meaning

March 6, 2013 //
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‘News’ is a funny word.  It could seem to be a plural of ‘new’, but ‘new’ isn’t a noun.  There seems to be a tendency, too, to make assumptions about the noteworthiness of an event based on whether we characterize it as ‘news’, to the point of having an entire separate word to describe those as ‘newsworthy’. There are cultural expectations that adults will have some basic familiarity with ‘current events’, with the implication that failing to follow ‘the news’ results in being somehow less relevant, well-informed, or professionally viable.

It’s a trap.

Think it over with me for a moment…periodicals and televised programming centered around journalism and reporting of selected current events or culturally relevant topics are often looked upon with a higher than average level of credibility. Why is that? I mean…they are producing a product for profit, are they not? The truthfulness of the material they offer is not actually regulated or accredited, and the goal of gaining or maintaining viewership, ratings, or sales numbers is not at all the same as a goal of ‘providing factually accurate information’ – is it? What would ‘news’ look like if all the inflammatory language, the color, and the spin were removed? If unbiased, unemotional language were used to present facts simply, we would probably be less compelled to read or watch it. Words, once again, being used to control us. Words being used to persuade us to spend our time receiving input that may not have lasting value, but will assuredly rob us of our time, and potentially our comfort, peace of mind, and ability to manage stress. No one news ‘source’ (they are not sources, they are brokers at best. lol) has a monopoly on manipulating the public, because they all have the same actual goal – gain viewers/readers, gain ratings, make sales for advertisers.  Is there an untapped segment of the public out there? (Angry women? Single mothers? Those on the right? Those on the left?) The media will identify it, and someone will begin creating content to appeal to that group of people – to acquire them as regular consumers.  It’s not about information, and it is not about truth. It is about ‘the business win’.

Why do I care? Pretty simple – I’m working on learning to take care of me; to manage my stress level, treat myself well, and live a good life that has meaning and in which I can thrive as a being. As the 2012 US presidential election approached last year, I found myself regularly in a state of stress and near-panic over news articles. Unacceptable.  I wasn’t sure how to deal with it – some of the events in the news were even triggering my PTSD, resulting in lost sleep, panic, emotional volatility, nightmares, and a near-continuous state of severe stress that was making me ill, and severely unhappy.  I gotta admit, it gets depressing really quickly to read some heinous news report about a gang rape a world away, and find no comfort at all in local or regional reporting right here at home – because so many of the voices in the news sound suspiciously anti-woman to the point of being ‘pro rape’.  It was an ugly election, and I have a long list of human beings of both genders that I not only won’t ever vote for (no matter what their future achievements or stated values may be), I feel rather as if I can’t actually count on the culture I live in to value and support women, or treat them compassionately and fairly under any circumstances.  It became a very scary world to live in, pretty quickly.  Someone, somewhere, must think it is OK to deliver ‘news’ content that willfully and deliberately selects verbiage that stokes emotional turmoil, triggers anxiety, depression, and anger, and may be not only hurtful and confrontational, but also may not be true…just to get it seen, just to make money. Ick.  The horrors of reported news from December through January was enough for me. I don’t need to complicate things that are already hard on me by allowing content providers to manipulate my emotions.

I turned off the news.  I gave it a break, skimming only what I had to, avoiding the rest. I turned off feeds. I uninstalled applications from my devices. I started logging off and exiting and shutting down things I am not actively using at any given moment.  I feel better. lol. Every day that I don’t read a story where some over privileged idiot with too much power and not enough wisdom says something stupidly offensive and hurtful, I have done myself a favor. I made some choices about content, too. I revisited my settings on the two content providers I choose to continue with regularly – and discontinued all the political and business ‘news’, entertainment ‘news’, and any category that had become a regular source of stress. I am keeping content relating to mindfulness practices, health and fitness, food, and ‘good news’ where that is available. I skim the front page quickly – subject lines only – and move along.  (It may be relevant to something that Hugo Chavez died, that seems historical I suppose, but I am also quite certain that not one detail about that actually matters to me in my here and now.) Going any deeper seems to require, at some point, suspending any skepticism and ‘trusting’ news content providers to be truthful – and to trust that their sources have been similarly truthful.  I’m not actually willing to indulge in that level of trust, when it has become pretty clear that The Daily Show can be relied on more easily to be accurate than mainstream ‘news’ content providers. lol.

Are you taking a moment to feel some sympathy? Are you also taking a moment to feel a little smug that you are not so helplessly enthralled by ‘the media’? Before you go too far down that road, please just take a moment to think back on your past 6 months or so – did you make even one decision to take an action, or engage in a behavior, because of something you read/heard on the news? Did you repeat to someone else even one ‘fact’ that you read/heard on the news, without independently verifying it yourself? I don’t think saying more is necessary, and your choices are your own. 😉

I also don’t want to waste my time reading what someone else wrote about what they think about what someone even further removed experienced, or base all of my thinking and decision making on things I read or heard somewhere.  I want to have my own experiences, and I want to have time to do that.  I gained hours of time back by discontinuing the habit of reading the news, or Reddit, or forums about this or that topic of interest. Now I have time to talk. Time to feel. Time to touch and be touched. Time to explore my life and my choices for the future. Time to consider what matters to me. Time to treat myself well and heal old hurts.

I discovered I do not know how to read the news mindfully.  So…I stopped reading the news.  I haven’t missed it.

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Categories Anxiety, Brain Injury, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Menopause, Mindfulness, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Rape, Relationships, Sleepless Nights, Turning 50, women, Words

Anxiety, Assumptions, and Answers

March 2, 2013 //
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Before I take another step, I’ll just say “Wow, what a good week”. Credit where credit is due; mindfulness practices, careful choices, and a will to avoid misunderstandings and assumptions are all making a huge difference, or so it seems so far this week, and the vibe at home is very supportive and inclusive much of the time, which fosters growth and change.

This morning I woke anxious after a good night’s sleep. It wasn’t the sort of major panic that brings me to my feet in alarm and puts me in motion before I can think things over, but it was there and my attention was on it when I woke. A glance at the clock and I was relieved that it was definitely to early to bother get up – it’s a Saturday – so attempt 1 to deal with it was somewhat dismissive and irritated, and of the ‘roll over and go back to sleep’ variety.  ( If you have an anxiety issue, yourself, you likely know how that went – the derisive hoots of laughter can be halted any time. lol.) Yeah, so I dozed a few minutes, woke up again – still anxious. ‘F*ck it’, I thought, I am so not getting up early today. Attempt 2 was a trip down the hall for an old school fix ‘get a drink of water and go back to bed’. Right, right. Sometimes it takes me a while to learn new things.  After another few minutes of napping, I was awake again, and this time the clock was pretty near to meeting my morning’s internal ‘suggested waking time’ for the day… damn it.  That‘s when I re-engaged my actual brain, and went through some basic breathing and mindfulness exercises I’ve been practicing all week… and my heart rate started to slow down, my breathing became deeper and more relaxed, my jaw unclenched…and the feeling of anxiety subsided. I was just about to get up when…I realized I’d fallen back to sleep! After my unexpected nap, I woke in a much better place, feeling gently aligned inside myself and pretty calm and centered.  I’m not sure what else to say about this morning…somewhere there’s a hippie thinking ‘I told you so’? lol. Damn it. Nothing to do now but have a quad latte and do some yoga. 😀

So, here it is, Saturday at the tail end of a good week. I think I’ll leave the ‘why am I anxious’ questions off my To Do list completely – because I don’t think ‘why’ actually matters right now. I think I will also refrain from making any assumptions about the feeling itself, as it comes and goes unexpectedly, today. I’m not going looking for answers about anxiety this morning – it’s a lovely easy Saturday, and I will enjoy that about my experience and continue to practice letting small things go, and not taking other people’s experience personally. So, maybe a walk later, and an opportunity to snap some close ups of small things, and a couple errands, and later some plotting and scheming…er… ‘planning’… Sunday dinner. (One of my most fun things every week is cooking Sunday dinner for all of us, and this week I don’t yet have even a notion what I might like to do.)

I hope the Saturday ahead of you is wide open with possibilities and that your choices bring you only the best outcomes. If it gets weird or scary for you, hang on for the ride, and take a minute to just chill and breathe.  It’s been working for me, pretty well.  🙂

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Categories Anxiety, Art, Brain Injury, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Menopause, Mindfulness, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Sleepless Nights, Turning 50

Words That Hurt

February 27, 2013 //
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Words are powerful.  We even have words to dismiss the power of words (“sticks and stones may break my bones but names can never hurt me” is a good example). Words can hurt.  Words, in my experience, can be and often are used in ways that amount to abuse, even torture – ‘water-boarding the mind’.  I can give examples, from my own experiences in life. How about these:

  • You wretched, worthless child – god damn it,  can’t you do anything right?
  • F*ck, you’re stupid.
  • You’re a girl, you only have to be good at cooking and blowjobs.
  • I brought you into this world, I can take you out!
  • No one will ever love you like I do.
  • You can not survive without me.
  • You owe everything to me.
  • Without me you are nothing.
  • Well, some people have talent, I guess you have to do the best you can without it.

Words used to imply the threat of violence in the face of non-compliance…words used to punish, to damage, to confuse… we use words to communicate, but we also use words to control, and hurt each other. Words seem powerful indeed; they can deliver lasting damage without contact of any kind. And the more we hear the same words, the more believable the words seem to be. Eventually, slogans, phrases, ideas, even insults become internalized and part of ‘who we are’. Scary.

I know I’ve lashed out at people using words – mostly operating on a very harmful assumption that although hitting people is not ok, hurting them with words isn’t ‘violent’. Oh, but isn’t it?  Is the emotional pain we deal with as a byproduct of unhealthy relationships any less painful than any other sort of pain we feel? Is it easier or more difficult to heal? Something to think about… treating people well, by using language in an honest way, without the intent or will to cause harm, damage, punish, or control doesn’t cost anything, and immediately makes the world a better place for everyone.

Pursuing mindfulness is taking me some very interesting places as a thinking being.

A question for Wednesday – if you could choose a life free of guilt, worry, or resentment, would you?

I find myself inclined to immediately answer ‘yes!’  I admit, however, I have made a lot of choices that brought one or more of those my way pretty reliably.  Worry and guilt seem easiest to dispense with, from my perspective. Worry is about something that hasn’t, and may not, happen. Guilt is about something already in the past – and unnecessary when I am accountable for my actions, and willing to take ownership for mistakes. The resentment piece was where I started this morning – because I was very aware that I had none in that moment, and then… uncomfortably self-conscious that that seemed noteworthy! I found myself understanding how mindfulness could ease worry or guilt, and seriously puzzled by resentment in general.  Should resentment even exist if I ‘take care of me’? If I live honestly with my partners, communicating my needs clearly, and taking time to understand theirs? I have reached levels of resentment in prior relationships that aren’t even describable in a rational framework – because it makes no sense to have gotten to that point! Good choices, honest choices, and treating myself well – and compassionately – wouldn’t leave room for resentment, would it? Is there any moment of resentment that isn’t based on my own choices? Is resentment always self-inflicted? I have no answers, just something I plan to think about more. “Treating myself well” is beginning to look like a vista, not a challenge… and thinking more constructively about some things is having results I didn’t expect. Good ones. Artistic ones. Emotional ones.

Yesterday was a good day. The evening was hardly marred by feeling ill and being in physical pain; I stayed in-the-moment with that, which was a very new experience and quite different. I woke feeling better this morning.  Today seems like another good day… how much of this is me and how much is something other than me?  Do I have so much control over my experience, in fact, that good days come so easily when I don’t expect bad ones? More to think about… but for now, mindfully forward into Wednesday’s work.

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Categories Anxiety, Art, Brain Injury, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Menopause, Mindfulness, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Turning 50, Words
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