Archives for posts with tag: be the change
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What It Seems and What It Is

February 22, 2017 //
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I woke groggy and in pain, and lacking the welcome feeling of being rested. My head aches, my sinuses are stuffy, and the room feels hotter than the temperature says it is. As a collection of smaller experiences, these could be symptomatic of a head cold coming on, but in this instance, I think perhaps I slept too long in a position that wasn’t ideal for my head and neck, and slept poorly on top of that. I shrug it off, deal with it, and move on with the morning without reading into the experience or catastrophizing it.

I ache today. Pain is pain, I suppose, and in this case much of it is to do with the physical awkwardness of the way I approached painting this past weekend, working mostly on the floor, which required a lot of getting up and down, and sitting cross-legged on my rolled up yoga mat as a cushion, with extra leaning, reaching, and bending. It doesn’t make me regret spending the weekend painting, or even that I chose to work on the floor. I’m simply aware that my discomfort today is a price I am paying for it. It’s barely worth bitching about; as expenses go, it seems quite a bargain, since I am more often than not in some amount of pain much of the time, regardless. 🙂

I could make all of it worse, if I choose. A lot of people seem inclined to do so, enhancing their negative moments with additional emotional luster and investment in nebulous made-up root causes or “back stories” that imbue the tale with more dimension. I could borrow from my assumptions (also fully 100% made up in my own head) and sprinkle on some unfulfilled expectations of the world, or circumstances, or some other human being, and mix that in with those assumptions, and the moments of hurting that life requires I endure, and that pimple of a difficult moment is now grand drama of the highest order. It could make for much more interesting writing, I suppose, than my patient (with myself) humble (because – fuuuuck!!) observations of my experience, day-to-day… only… I’m not really doing this “to be interesting”. I’m sharing what I can of what has often been a challenging enough experience (without enhancements), because it helps me when I am able to “find my voice”… and also because when I struggled most, myself, in life’s darkest moments, it would have helped me then to hear that voice… from anywhere. So. I’m here for me. Here for you, too, perhaps, as a byproduct of rather haplessly reaching across time to a woman that doesn’t actually exist in my own mirror so much these days, just in case she (or someone very like her) is staring back at you.

I smile and sip my coffee. I enjoy a moment of “wow, I’ve come a long way”. I take a moment to also appreciate how much more prepared I am for dark times that may eventually return. “Wellness” can be rather unfortunately relative, and it would be a fool’s game to sip my coffee on a pleasant morning smugly certain I am “well”; PTSD and a brain injury don’t really work quite that way. I can sure improve my quality of life, my resilience, my skill at self-care… I can practice mindfulness, heal my heart over time, and be generally well, most days, most of the time. Complacency about it isn’t on the table for me. I’ve taken that journey a time or two, also. Sometimes reality hits back. Sooner or later, I may find my nights filled with nightmares, without knowing why, or I may find that arthritis pain degrades my sleep quality until my resilience and wellness are reduced, and I am less easily able to bounce back from stress or think clearly, and reach that point of fatigue when the cognitive impact of my TBI becomes quite clear, and my thinking disordered. I don’t reach for those moments… but I also no longer fight them, or the reality of those moments being an occasional part of my experience. I’m ready. Mostly. Generally. It sounds easier when I read the words than it ever feels in real life… but… yeah. Mostly pretty ready to be the woman I am.

I practice not making a difficult moment worse than it is, every time I have one, these days. I do my best. My results vary. There are verbs involved. Choices, too.

This morning I woke aggravated over something small and stupid. I could have used that to build on my physical discomfort and had a really shitty morning with minimal effort. I chose differently. It’s a pretty nice morning, aside from pain, and honestly – I’ve been in worse pain. I’ve got work on my mind, but even that could be “worse”… I’ve worked worse jobs (for companies I have literally nothing good to say about after-the-fact). Life isn’t like that now. It’s so important to be awake and aware for the good stuff, too. 🙂

Today is a good day to enjoy the day as it is. Today is a good day to choose wisely, to begin again, and to walk on. Practicing mindfulness may or may not change the world; it is enough that it has changed my experience. Today is a good day to practice.

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Categories Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Mindfulness, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, The Art of Being

Reconsidering Everyday Carry

February 21, 2017 //
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I’m smiling over my coffee after a weekend of painting. Switching gears to be ready to head in to the office this morning feels the tiniest bit “artificial” and forced. I carefully consider my “everyday carry” items, checking them off a mental list: access badge, card case, house keys, bus pass, packed lunch… Each item is utterly essential for its purpose, and sufficiently commonplace that I need to have it on me each day, at least as the day begins.

I find myself, as I often do, considering “everyday carry” in a more metaphysical way, and contemplating what I am well-served to have going for me, each day, in my cognitive and emotional backpack as I get the day started. Resilience. I definitely favor making a point to be adequately prepared with emotional resilience each day; I never know when life is going to haplessly knock me down. I like knowing I am prepared to get back up and begin again. Oh, and I’m also going to want to bring as much mindful awareness along for the day as I can; it’s more than helpful to be aware and in the moment, and also to recall that we are each having our own experience. So, perspective gets stuffed into my mental backpack for the day, too. Kindness? For sure, I’m definitely going to be bringing along kindness; I try to plan on enough so that I don’t run out before the day ends. A sense of sufficiency helps ease stress all day long, and minimizes any creeping sense of entitlement that might sneak in somewhere, so I maintain that with great care, too.

What’s in your everyday carry of the heart? How about your cognitive everyday carry? Are you prepared for imagined disasters, but not for the most likely stressors you’ll face each day? Are you prepared for major successes, but not for small failures? Flip that one on its head – are you prepared only for failure, but giving no consideration to success’ sometimes weighty consequences? I’m just saying, it’s a an exercise worth indulging to consider one’s preparedness for the day from the perspective of emotional experience, and of likely real-world events that any one of us might be required to face. We think to double-check that we’ve grabbed our house keys, our credit cards, and our cell phones before we head out for the day, why wouldn’t we also “check ourselves” and ensure we are bringing our best self, and our most skillful self-care along as well?

Some days are rainy. I may need different things in my everyday carry to account for the weather. :-)

Some days are rainy. I may need different things in my everyday carry to account for the weather. 🙂

Today is a good day to be prepared. Today is a good day to choose, to act, and to change for the better. We become what we practice. We could, if we choose, practice changing the world. 🙂

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Categories Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, The Art of Being, The Big 5

Identity

February 20, 2017 //
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“Who am I?” is a more-difficult-than-face-value sort of question, isn’t it? As questions go, it is one of the only ones I can think of that was once capable of spinning me into full-on freak out, real emotional meltdown, just to contemplate it under any sort of pressure to deliver an answer. Thankfully, I outgrew that at some point, and became free to fully consider the question for myself.

“Who are you?”

I wipe paint off my hands with less care than would perhaps be ideal. In the moment, it is enough to be certain of not leaving pigmented finger prints on every carelessly touched surface, and to limit the risk of ingesting paint. I am taking a break from painting, and considering the notion of “identity” – how I choose to answer the question “who am I?” matters greatly to me, although it has little to do with how I am identified to others. An odd byproduct of my musings, I find I am understanding with greater clarity how hurtful it can be to refuse to use someone’s chosen name, insisting on using a given name that they resent, dislike, or that simply doesn’t reflect who they see themselves to be. It’s a dick move to refuse to use the name someone chooses for themselves, regardless why they chose it, or what it may mean to me; it’s their name, they get to choose it if they wish to. Simple enough.

I can extrapolate that same thinking to cover most any characteristic someone might choose to identify themselves by. Me, for example… I take hundreds of pictures a month, thousands every year (some are even quite good… take enough of them, that’s gonna happen eventually). I don’t consider myself “a photographer”. I write poetry… one or two poems, reliably, every week at a minimum. Many hundreds over a lifetime. I rarely refer to myself as a poet, and this in spite of the fact that my one currently completed (as yet unpublished) manuscript is a book of poetry. I don’t paint every day, or even every week – in fact, there have been even a couple of actual entire years during which I did not paint, or sketch… but I do consider myself an artist, specifically a painter. Funny which things become part of my sense of self, my “identity” and which do not. Stranger still how little the qualities that define me, for myself, have anything whatever to do with how others may define me.

Letting go of attachment becomes most challenging when I am asked to let go of my attachment even to the words and ideas I have used to identify and define myself, within. I am an artist whether I paint or not – why is that? Is it any more “real” or “true” than any other element of my “identity” and sense of self? Am I harmed or changed in any way by not having defined myself as a photographer or poet? I still take pictures. I still write poetry. “Who am I?”

I find myself living my experience less tied to the words that may be used to describe it, just enjoying the rain as it falls, drenching meadow and marsh. Sipping a fresh cup of coffee, watching paint dry, and contemplating something beyond the words of the question “who am I?”, and living each moment awake, and aware, without being particularly concerned about who I may seem to be… even to the woman in the mirror. Today it is enough to stand naked and free and to answer the question “who are you?” with the simplest of wordless replies, “I am”. It is enough to be. 🙂

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Categories art and the artist, Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, The Art of Being, Words

The Parable of the Barking Dog

February 18, 2017 //
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The barking began at dawn. It continues even now. It’s not unusual; I have a neighbor with a dog that barks any time it is left outside, which is… often. It is frustrating and annoying, and incessant. The neighbor has received many complaints about the dog and the barking, and the reply is generally the same, “Well, I’ve tried to teach him to stop barking, but it doesn’t work. Dogs bark.” I gave that some thought, at the time, and even during the six months that I was home every day, I don’t recall ever seeing that neighbor working with their dog, at all. I wondered then, and this morning, what exactly my neighbor “tried”. I don’t see anything going on that looks like practice or training.

Dogs can indeed be trained not to bark (at the moon, at shadows, at strangers, because they are lonely…), it requires practice. Do the thing. Do it again. And again another time, and again after that. Then repeat all the practicing. Begin again, again. There are verbs involved, and a practice is not a noun, however much it may seem to be based on its function in a sentence. It requires consideration. Awareness. Intention. Will. Did I mention the practicing?

I’m sure my neighbor would be irked with me to hear me suggest that she isn’t actually making any particular effort to train her dog not to bark every hour of the day it is left outside. No doubt she believes her internal narrative that she “tried everything” and “nothing worked”. Haven’t we all said as much to ourselves – and our friends and loved ones – about something? Is it really the true literal truth in fact? Have I indeed “tried everything”? Have I truly practiced the needed practices with the necessary constancy? Have I tried, failed, and begun again sufficiently often? Or… did I try, fail, and then tell myself that I tried and failed and therefore “it didn’t work”? I see a difference there. Once I noticed that difference, it became more difficult to allow a negative experience to be who I am; we become what we practice.

Yes, there are verbs involved. No, change doesn’t happen solely because I’ve accepted that change would have value, or even because I am desperate to experience change. One evening in the yard training my chronically barking dog isn’t going to change that dog’s behavior long-term (or maybe at all) – practice is an ongoing thing.  So it also is with anxiety, with depression, with anger, with emotional volatility, with disorder, with sloth, with overeating, with nail biting… Hell, any number of troubling or challenging human experiences can be eased with one practice or another – if change is actually practiced. Fail. Begin again. Practice. We become what we practice. (Not one word of that implies “easy” or suggests effort would not be required.)

It works in a subtle way; even practicing ignoring that barking dog has an outcome rooted in incremental change over time.

Is your dog barking? What will you do about it? Endure it? Change it? There are verbs involved, and the choices are yours. So is the requirement to practice.

About that barking...? (photo by Emma Harris, used with permission)

About that barking…? (photo by Emma Harris, used with permission)

A very long time ago, I “tried meditation” and “it didn’t work for me”. I went forward in life for many years (decades) quite convinced by that experience that “meditation doesn’t work”, and gave it no further thought. My PTSD symptoms worsened over time, rather than improving. After all, dogs bark. We become what we practice. I didn’t understand why I wasn’t getting any better… hadn’t I “tried everything”?

In 2012, I stopped trying. I wasn’t sure what I would do instead, hell, I wasn’t sure I even wanted to live any more. I mention it because that seems a long time ago now, although it has been only 4 years since February 2013, when I started actually practicing meditation (and some other things) – and I do mean really practicing. Daily. Reliably. Even when I “don’t have time”. Even when “it isn’t convenient”. Even though I “wasn’t sure I was doing it right”. Even though I “wasn’t sure it would work”. Even when I found myself certain “it isn’t working”. Even when I thought “my life was falling completely to pieces”. Even when I thought “love might be lost” over my chaos and damage. Even when I wasn’t sure I wanted to live at all. I kept practicing, and failing, and beginning again.

We become what we practice. By practicing calm, I have become calmer. By practicing perspective and sufficiency, I have gained perspective, and learned what is “enough” for me. By practicing non-violence, I have become more peaceful. By practicing feeling content, I have become more able (and likely) to experience contentment. By practicing being awake and aware in this moment, I have become more present in my life, and in my relationships. By practicing listening, I become more likely to hear what is being shared. By practicing kindness, I have become kinder.

Today is a good day to practice being the human being I most want to be. Isn’t every day? 😉

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Categories Anxiety, Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Parables, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, The Art of Being, The Big 5, weight loss secrets

A Good Day to Breathe

February 17, 2017 //
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Strange morning. I feel my Traveling Partner’s absence like a weight; he is traveling, truly, and far away. I wake and start my day in the usual solitary way, but somehow I still feel his absence from my larger sense of space. My own version of separation anxiety, I suppose. 🙂 Still, in the same sense that he is away, he also tends to be “with me”, even though we are not often in shared space lately, so although I miss him, I still feel loved, still celebrate loving.

I sip my coffee, distracted and vaguely… bored? Weird. It is an uncommon thing in my experience, and I find myself poking at the feeling with a certain curiosity and wonder. The boredom dissipates as I realize it isn’t that at all. I’m just tired. My sleep tracker notes that this makes the second night on less than ideal quantity and quality of sleep. No wonder I feel a tad “out of it”. I correct my posture. Take some deep cleansing breaths. Relax. I hear the horn of the commuter train approaching the platform. I feel the chill in the room. I take a moment to just be, without fussing. It feels comfortable and self-supporting to acknowledge the fatigue, to accept myself in this moment, and to be okay with it.

One more work day and another weekend. Oh, my yes! I can sleep in tomorrow, attend the baby shower of a friend, and quite likely see my Traveling Partner in the evening. Sounds like a lovely weekend. It sounds like enough.

Today will be a good day to take care of the woman in the mirror, to be kind, and to show kindness, to take the day a moment at a time, and to enjoy this life as much as I am able (which is a lot, and mostly). Change the world? I’ll add that to my “to do list”. 🙂

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Categories Anxiety, Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Love, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Sleepless Nights, The Art of Being, The Big 5, winter
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