Archives for posts with tag: be here now

Some Days

August 24, 2018 //

Some days it is enough to wake up smiling. 🙂

I am sipping my coffee, and listening to my Traveling Partner’s quiet breathing as he sleeps in the other room. This, too, is enough. 🙂

It’s even Friday – how much better will this one moment get? 🙂

This? This is what “happy” feels like. There’s no point chasing it; it doesn’t come to us by way of chasing it down. I sip my coffee, enjoy the moment. I am content that this, too, yes, will pass. Change is. New beginnings are. Fighting change is as pointless a waste of time as chasing happiness. It’s just not the most effective approach.

I sip my coffee, while I embrace change – all the many small twists and turns on life’s journey, the opportunities, the challenges, they add up over time. Skillfully managed, incremental change over time is simply part of being, and part of becoming. It helps to have a result in mind – and to refrain from clinging to that outcome as though it were a given (it isn’t). It helps to make choices – not just endure the changes inflicted upon you by circumstance.

Small things are slightly different this morning. The door to the studio is closed to minimize the noise of the keyboard that might reach the bedroom. The car is in the garage to make room for another car in the driveway. There is a warm, breathing, much-loved human being sleeping in my bed. The wheel keeps turning. I may wake up alone tomorrow. I’m even okay with that.

This moment? It’s enough, just as it is.

It’s already time to begin again, nonetheless.

Tags be here now, be love, be the change, begin again, being and becoming, choose wisely, emotional self sufficiency, experience, good self-care, I am my own cartographer, love, love and lovers, love me do, meditation, mindful loving, mindfulness matters, my home my rules my way, p.s. I love you, perspective, practicing the practices, ptsd, relationships, sufficiency, taking care of me, TBI, The Art of Being, there are verbs involved, walking my own path, what matters most?

Categories Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, Sleepless Nights, Summer, The Art of Being

August 23, 2018 //

I started to type a phrase into the text box, and got only as far as the word “next”, and sad numbly for a moment, struck by the observation that it definitely appeared to be spelled quite incorrectly… although… it isn’t. Huh. I sip my coffee, and stare at it awhile, no longer certain where I was going with the thought, at all.

Why am I writing today? I mean… routine, sure. It’s a practice, but… this morning I struggle to connect it with my thoughts or experience, and that, too, strikes me as strange.

I hear the trickle of the aquarium in the background. I’ve been ready to “decommission” it for several weeks now. The livestock are gone (some due to age, some through misadventure – a power outage while I was away – and some re-homed, prepared to drain the tank). I am away to often to care for my aquarium easily, and I am living a life that no longer requires serious masking sounds to ease my anxiety; there is no yelling in the background here, no day-to-day tension between others, or infiltrating my own experience. Those conditions, taken together, result in the aquarium becoming a higher maintenance element of my surroundings than I want to make time for. I chose change instead… then sort of got stalled half way through, because I am also quite human. I haven’t been particularly self-conscious about it – I’ll get to it, perhaps this weekend?

I look around this room, and through the open doorway, into the next. There always seems to be a “next” – a next task, a next project, a next moment, a next weekend… but we are mortal creatures. One day, “next” is also… “last”. I sigh out loud and sip my coffee, committing silently to tidying up and finishing things and putting stuff right and following up on loose ends… all the things. I regularly do. I often still end the day with some “next” thing that I really need to wrap up… the next day.

I smile at myself. This morning, a great many of my “nexts” are about the upcoming weekend, and about my Traveling Partner. We shared a great phone call yesterday, and I came away from it delightedly expecting that he could realistically show up more or less any time at all… maybe even… the next day. Wow. That lifted me up in the most remarkable way! It also filled my head with shit I now rather urgently want to get done, because I like to be a good hostess, and with the busy weekend ahead, and a possibly imminent visit from my Traveling Partner, things like that one waste basket I overlooked emptying are really standing out to me now. lol I find myself thinking about detailing the bathrooms, and changing the linens, and wondering if the patio door glass is clean, and how long has it been since I dusted? Already I am impatient about the work day ahead. Already I am eager to return home and get to work on the housekeeping. lol

I sip my coffee, think about life and love and wonder “what’s next?” I guess I’ll have to begin again to find out. 🙂

Tags be here now, be love, be the change, begin again, being and becoming, choose wisely, emotional self sufficiency, experience, good self-care, listening deeply, love and lovers, MBSR, mindful living, mindful loving, mindfulness matters, my home my rules my way, p.s. I love you, perspective, practicing the practices, ptsd, relationships, sufficiency, taking care of me, TBI, The Art of Being, the map is not the world, there are verbs involved, walking my own path, what matters most?

Categories Anxiety, Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, inspiration, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Summer, The Art of Being, The Big 5

Ready, Set… Go

August 18, 2018 //

The weekend is here. Generally, on a “go-come-back” sort of weekend, I’ve been facing the drive, itself, sort of grimly. Once upon a time, I loved driving. A collision many years ago took some of the shine off of driving, but eventually, many years later, I regained much of my enthusiasm for it, but… trauma re-wires the brain. Well, shit. Damn… that’s… complicated. Now, although I do enjoy driving, I am also (perhaps excessively) wary of my fellow humans behind the wheel. Frustration, resentment, rage – these are all human emotions that can commonly be “weaponized” with the addition of a bit of entitlement, or some assumptions, or a certain sense of righteousness. It’s scary out there on the freeway. Humans are driving cars. :-\

Today feels different. Although the car I’ve been driving is quite a nice one, in great condition, with lots of power and and maneuverability, I often felt it was utterly necessary to have all that at my disposal simply to survive the highway in the first place. I admit that most of the time I drive, I feel it; my life is at risk just performing the task of driving, on the American roadway. That’s pretty shitty. The car, as nice as it is, tended to contribute to the feeling, rather than easing it, although I don’t know why. It’s possibly “just all in my head”, because, again with the frankness, much of our experience of our lives is. (Get over that. It’s a true thing. Learn to work with it, rather than fighting it.)

Today feels different, in part, I suspect, because this new car in my driveway is a better fit for me as a driver, for a number of totally practical reasons (starting with the smaller size of the vehicle generally). It’s also… mine. It feels like a different experience – because it is a different experience. 🙂

There’s a lot to enjoy about newness, difference, and novelty. It’s exciting. It’s energizing. It’s cognitively refreshing. It’s distracting (from things like pain and anxiety). I’m smiling and eagerly gulping down my coffee so I can get on the road… it’s just now 4:30 am. LOL No dilly-dallying!! I’ve got miles to cover! 😀

I’ve no idea what the weekend holds, but it is ahead of me, and it’s time to begin again. Let’s see where this road leads. Zoom-zoom!

Tags are you going my way?, be here now, be the change, begin again, breathe, choose wisely, distracting myself from pain, emotional self sufficiency, experience, good self-care, I am my own cartographer, I'm in love with my car, long drive ahead, MBSR, mindfulness matters, my car, new car, perspective, practicing the practices, ptsd, road trip!, sufficiency, taking care of me, TBI, The Art of Being, the map is not the world, there are verbs involved, walking my own path, what matters most?, zoom-zoom

Categories Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, inspiration, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Summer, The Art of Being, Uncategorized

A Moment in the Morning

August 17, 2018 //

Are you rushing to get to work? Rushing through waking up, showering, dressing? Rushing to be out the door “on time”? Breathless with anxiety before you even start the car? Already thinking about the day ahead in such specific detail that you’ve “borrowed trouble” to fret about before you even have any in the moment?

I used to do that. I don’t now. It was a good change to make, to slow down in the mornings. 🙂 Maybe not life-saving, but certainly life-changing. I went from a fairly tightly timed morning routine that took 17 minutes from the alarm clock to the click of the front door closing behind me, and reliably got me on the bus heading into town 3 minutes later (the stop was just across the street from my apartment). Any deviation from my routine put me at risk of being late to work, and I had huge issues with time, timeliness, and time management, at that time in my life (I wasn’t bad at it, just really tense and weird about it on this whole unnecessary level). Being late – or thinking I might be – was a fast track to temper tantrums and treating people poorly (myself included). It was a shitty way to live, and it didn’t make me more efficient, or even on time more often.

What do I do now? It’s pretty low tech, honestly; I get up earlier. Like, I get up a lot earlier. I get up “earlier than I need to” by quite a bit. Most variations in desired arrival time at work don’t require me to change when I get up in the morning, that’s how much earlier I get up. Right now, it’s easily 90 minutes after my alarm goes off before I need to leave, and I could as easily leave the house fully 3 hours after I wake up and still be “on time” from the perspective of a salaried employee, and I sometimes do. It’s lovely, really, to be genuinely awake when I leave for work, to be able to write at leisure even on work days, to have adequate time to dress, shower, do some yoga, and even meditate before work – and still have time to write. It puts me on the path to being my best self each day.

I got home last night tired and frustrated by feeling the cold I thought I was over trying to make a comeback. I really don’t need the hassle or inconvenience, and I sat quietly frustrated, tears of exhausted aggravation coursing down my face for some minutes. Just… tired. I skipped the company summer block party over it, too. Came directly home. No chores. No video entertainment. No music. Hell, I didn’t even pick up a book. Just sat, staring rather blankly, sipping chicken broth or tea, until I was “sleepy enough” to just go lay the fuck down and rest. I was asleep early. I slept hard. Deeply. Uninterrupted. I was irritated by the weird repetitive noise that woke me – my alarm. It took nearly a full minute to figure that out and shut it off. I turned the lamp on and off a couple times, puzzled why the noise was not stopping. lol Usually I am awakened by the subtle “click” sound that immediately precedes the alarm actually going off. lol

I definitely needed the restful night. I woke feeling more myself. Still cross about this cold trying to come back – and of course, immediately as the fucking weekend begins. That’s becoming a source of real frustration for me, lately; the weekend is my one real opportunity each week to get some legit downtime, and it’s so rare any more to just enjoy one. I’m sick. Or traveling. Or moving. Or I’m sick. Or I have tons of shit that just must get done, non-negotiable. Or I’m doing something for someone. Or I’m sick again. Or I’ve gotten injured. Or I’m traveling. Or… I need to slow down. Again. And maybe not just in the mornings. Mornings? I’ve got those down at this point. 🙂

It’s a journey. No single change, no one practice, solves for X in every one of life’s equations. There are more verbs. More opportunity to do more/better, while also practicing skillful self-care, and figuring out what is actually worth doing well and more often. Being and becoming are a massively challenging jigsaw puzzle, and the pieces not yet fit into the puzzle are all jumbled up together in an untidy pile; sometimes it isn’t clear which pieces are most valuable in any particular moment. I’m still such a beginner at this being human thing!

I finish my coffee. Take a deep breath, look at the clock, and exhale slowly. It’s time to begin again. 🙂

Tags are you the person you most want to be?, be here now, be the change, begin again, being and becoming, breathe, choose wisely, consider this, doing more better, emotional self sufficiency, experience, I am my own cartographer, jigsaw puzzles, MBSR, meditation, mindful living, mindfulness, perspective, practice good self-care, practicing the practices, ptsd, solving for X, TBI, the adulthood puzzle, The Art of Being, The Big 5, there are verbs involved, this again?, what matters most?, where are you headed?

Categories Allegories, Brain Injury, Free Will, Frustration, health, Healthy Living, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Summer, The Art of Being, The Big 5

Contemplating a Blank Page

August 16, 2018 //

My coffee is tasty. The house is comfortable in the pre-dawn chill of a summer morning. The air quality is still pretty poor as smoke collects in the air from distant fires. My mind is more or less… blank. I’m not quite awake yet, at all. I take another sip of my coffee and stare at the screen. It too remains “a blank page” for some minutes before I finally just drop that into the title field, and sit quietly, drinking coffee, aware.

This is not an unsatisfying moment. I am not feeling frustrated. (I chuckle as I write those words, immediately hearing my Traveling Partner’s voice replying in my head “Well, how are you feeling?”) I am feeling content. Just that. This moment does not seem to require more.

We create our experience with our choices, and our understanding of it is a carefully crafted narrative we make up ourselves, that may or may not accurately reflect the details of our experience (or any other – we’re seriously really good at making shit up and convincing ourselves it is real). This particular experience, here, now, is built on my choice to relax and accept that I may not have anything noteworthy to write about this morning, and to fall back gently on “just putting words on a page”, “thinking out loud”, in real-time, unedited and uncensored. I smirk at myself using the word “uncensored” in the context of this particular morning; there’s nothing about the morning thus far that would require, or benefit from, censorship anyway. 🙂

I’ve caused myself so much stress, anxiety, suffering, and heartache, just by insisting that I do more, faster, so often. The arbitrary performance standards we set for ourselves (and each other) often have no basis in what works, or what matters most. Sometimes they are just numbers pulled out of thin air. Why let life become stressful over made up shit? Seriously. Same with our internal narrative; we often make up a story about our experience that is based on untested assumptions, unvoiced expectations, and wholly unrealistic fantastical details that are in no way factual – then we let it stress us out. (Note: consider not doing that!)

This morning begins another work day. One more after that, and it’s the weekend again. 😀 I’m ready for it… but first, I have to live today, in this moment, present and engaged, and doing both things and stuff. lol Have to? Get to.

…It’s already time to begin, again. 😀

Tags be here now, be the change, begin again, being and becoming, choose wisely, competing with a blank page, emotional self sufficiency, experience, good self-care, I am my own cartographer, meditation, mindfulness, mindfulness matters, one word after another, perspective, practicing the practices, ptsd, sufficiency, taking care of me, TBI, The Art of Being, the map is not the world, there are verbs involved, walking my own path, what matters most?, write that down!

Categories Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Summer, The Art of Being, Words

Some Days

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A Moment in the Morning

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