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Wait For It

October 4, 2018 //
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The world is going to do what the world is going to do. We are mortal creatures, and short-lived ones at that, relative to the vastness of time itself. Humanity may not survive its own poor choices. Seems fair, really; we’ve given a great many other species very little voice in their demise. We are killers. Rapists. Thieves. Liars. Spoiled-rotten bad-tempered children, with little real awareness of the experience of others – at our worst. Our best is something very different from all of that, but we’ve really got to work at it, each of us, quite individually, and generally without any significant encouragement.

This, right now, may be one of those times when we’ll need to work hard to be the human beings we most want to be, and we’re going to have to do it in the face of some brutally clueless, demeaning, fairly horrible bullshit. I’m talking about the Kavanaugh hearings and vote (which I guess will happen today) for his position on the Supreme Court. You just fucking know they are going to vote to confirm him, in spite of all we’ve heard, because they literally do not care about rape, at all (chances are, there are quite a few rapists in office), and do not care about women, and this is something they have stated quite frankly, and voted reliably to prove, time and again. So… yeah. Swallow that one, folks. It’s real, and it’s bitter.

I don’t know what it means for our nation, or for the world, but I know one thing it means for Brett Kavanaugh, if he is confirmed; he’ll spend that lifetime appointment secure in the knowledge that although his privilege as a white male one him his seat, also, like it or not, every woman on the Supreme Court knows precisely who he really is. Every colleague on that court, of any gender or political leaning, knows what his biases are, and that he is a liar, and not to be trusted. I hope it’s tense for him, every fucking day. I hope those women hold his gaze every single day with real contempt in their eyes. (He may not be sharp enough to notice, though, honestly – did you hear the testimony? Fucking hell. Dim bulb there.) Hell, his wife has had a hearty helping of seeing him through the eyes of an outraged nation, and maybe heard some things she did not previously know. I bet there were some uncomfortable car rides home at the end of the day over the past couple weeks.

So, yeah. I would love to be optimistic, and see his nomination turned down. There are other, better, choices for the Supreme Court. It’s not going to be that world we wake up in tomorrow, though; he’ll most likely be confirmed. It’s a strong “legacy boy’s club” there in Washington D.C., but – and this is worth a moment of contemplation – this shit went public in a very loud way, and in many of our own homes, already, right now, the tone is changing with regard to the way women are treated, the way survivors of sexual violence are treated, the way we view rape culture, and yeah – even the way we do or don’t tolerate (and how much, and how well) that crusty partisan legacy boy’s club living out its last days with the Elders of Whitemanistan, there in D.C. This isn’t going to go away. 🙂 Well, until the last of these rich white men in office finally dies off. (Maybe the next batch will be better? You own this. Vote.)

The challenge on our end is real; how to be the best version of the person we most want to be, really, with all this maddening bullshit going on around us? That’s a puzzle all its own. This morning, it is what I am thinking about.

Who do I want most to be, myself? How do I present that in the world? How do I maintain a comfortably authentic experience of self, while also pushing myself for real growth? What matters most? What is just a distraction? Can I change just one thing, today, on this path… and get there sooner, or more skillfully?

There’s a glimmer of real hope always held in the question “what can I change?” It presupposes change is a thing I can do. (Which I can.) I sip my coffee, and meditate on change. It’s a new day. New opportunities. Familiar challenges. I have multiple choices and a choose my own adventure game right in front of me, every day. (You do, too.) What will I choose today? Where will my path take me?

I sip my coffee. Check the time. Begin again.

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Categories Allegories, anger, Anxiety, autumn, Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, inspiration, Logic & Reason, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, The Art of Being

Let’s Just Call It “Real”

October 3, 2018 //
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I woke a bit early. Not early enough to go back to sleep. I got up.

I dithered a bit with my morning routine. One thing at a time. Got through it. Great. Fine. Necessary. Completed.

I sat down, eventually, with my coffee. It’s been awhile. Mostly just… sitting quietly. Scrolling. Done with that, too. Bored? No. Ennui? Not that either.

Anxiety.

Just garden variety anxiety on a Wednesday morning, without specific context or cause. It is the nature of an anxiety disorder, of any sort, really, to deliver some anxiety, however “well-managed”, now and then. Must be my morning for it.

“Anxiety” 10″ x 14″ acrylic on canvas w/ceramic 2011

It’s been with me awhile. “All my life” does not feel like an exaggeration. I take it much less seriously these days, seeing it for the fraud it actually is, and managing its presence more skillfully than I once could. Still… annoying to deal with, every time… and dealing with it is non-negotiable. Deal with it, or fall apart. Deal with it, or break down. Deal with it, or lose my shit completely in some very inconvenient or problematic way. Deal with it – or deal with the consequences of failing to do so. Fuck anxiety.

I don’t need to troubleshoot my anxiety. It’s got a familiar face; work, life, money, “the world”…  I’m real with myself about it. There’s more anxiety about more things than is entirely reasonable (it’s a scary fucking world right now, frankly, being a little anxious seems pretty damned reasonable). I take a deep breath and let myself relax each time I notice it surging forward, bubbling up from my consciousness to become part of my immediate awareness; it helps. It helps, too, not to deceive myself or play soothing mind-games to try to wish it away. I examine what seems to be driving my anxiety. I consider those things with care. Real? Exaggerated? Imagined? Sometimes anxiety is pretty legit, and functions to hold my focus on some concerning detail, until I take an appropriate action. Sometimes anxiety is just… wasted emotion. A reaction without a cause worth acting on. Disordered thinking. Sometimes, of all the irritating things, it is not anxiety at all – sometimes I have conflated the physical experience of excitement with the physical experience of anxiety, and don’t yet realize I’m just excited about something, and could enjoy that moment of anticipation much more, if I stop defining it as anxiety.

I breathe. Relax. Let it go. I let it all go. This thing over here? I let that go. That thing over there? Yep. That, too, I let it go. Another breath. Another concern. Another moment to let shit go. It’s a practice, and it requires practicing, and that means verbs, and that means choices, and that means… working at it.

Still.

So, yeah. Mindfulness is enormously helpful with managing my anxiety. It’s not a “cure”. It’s a tool, and a way of experiencing life, that can be very helpful. I feel much better when I maintain a rigorous meditation practice than when I don’t. I feel much better when I am able to maintain exceptional sleep hygiene, than when I don’t. I feel much better when I am open, authentic, vulnerable, and real with myself – and others – than when I am not. I feel much better when I get out of the house, get plenty of healthy exercise, and a good measure of both social and solo time. It’s not some one practice that eases my anxiety; it’s practicing the ones that work best for me in a consistent way.

Sometimes I fail.

Sometimes I succeed.

I just keep practicing.

It’s one of the challenges of achieving mental and emotional wellness; the work is on my end. I have to do the verbs. I’m going to be the one practicing the practices to improve my own experience. It’s my journey, built on my choices. Incremental change over time is fucking slow as hell, and can be incredibly discouraging; I still have PTSD, a TBI, a broken back, and a very human experience. All the improvement in my experience of self and life I could ever imagine will not change those things. No cure. Just practice, growth, and incremental change over time. 🙂

Sure. I’m anxious this morning. I have an anxiety disorder. I also, unrelated but metaphorically relevant, have a thyroid that failed years ago. I take medication for it, and go on with living my life. Anxiety isn’t really a lot different; I’ve got some fail sauce and messed up wiring in my emotional experience; I practice meditation, breathing, and other assorted practices for that, and go on with living my life. If my thyroid medication doesn’t work ideally well, I go back to my physician, and we make changes. If my anxiety flares up, I go back to my practices (and, in some cases, also back to my therapist), and make changes. “Easy”. (It isn’t, but it is generally adequate.)

I breathe. Relax. Run my writing through a spellcheck (which will reliably miss at least one error, regardless). Hit publish…

…And begin the day. It’s a whole new one, all my own. Fuck anxiety.

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Categories Anxiety, autumn, Brain Injury, Free Will, Frustration, Healthy Living, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, The Art of Being

Damn All This Foolishness!!

October 1, 2018 //
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Welcome to October. Big spider warning – this is Oregon, and it’s their season, just saying.

Spotted this rather large one outside the dining room window.

Your mission today, should you choose to accept it…

  1. Be authentic
  2. Be kind
  3. Listen deeply and without interrupting
  4. Make your own point clearly, and communicate explicitly
  5. Avoid argument
  6. Live your values
  7. Accept feedback without resistance and consider it in the context of positive intent
  8. Use “feeling language” only for describing emotions and sensations, use more accurate language to describe thoughts, observations, and ideas
    1. this specifically means to use “I feel” and “I feel like” only when specifically sharing an emotional or sensory experience
    2. this also means using language such as “I think”, “I observed”, “I see that”, “I noticed” for sharing thoughts, observations, and things that are not specifically emotional or sensory experiences

I’m beginning my day right here. What about you? Can you do all 8 of the above? Can you do them all “at the same time”? Some of these are suuuuuuuuper hard for me personally. Different ones may be harder for you.

Shall we begin again? What do you think? Can we change the world?

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Categories autumn, Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, inspiration, Logic & Reason, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, The Art of Being, The Big 5, Words

Beautiful Moments, Quiet Time, and Anger

September 29, 2018 //
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Yesterday was weird. I was angry all day; I’m a women, living in a nation that does not respect or value women, facing the possible Supreme Court appointment of an accused rapist. Well, shit. We’ve already got that very same sort of grotesquerie seated in the Whitehouse, and unknown, uncounted, unacknowledged numbers of that very same bullshit in our Congress, the Senate, our government agencies, our workplaces, and yes, even in some of our homes. Don’t be afraid to feel angry; this shit is worth our anger.

Be angry.

Vote.

Anger is weird toxic shit, though. As with a proper fairytale curse, it inevitably spills back in some way on the deliverer. We carry our anger in secret – problematic – then explode – inappropriate, ineffective, and generally the consequences are unpleasant. We end up doing a lot of “damage control” and repairing our angry words with excessive apologies, even pleading, and submissive posturing. We could do better with our anger. We can learn to be more skillfully, relentlessly, effectively angry. I’m not there yet – but I believe in the possibility, and the helpful folks of the rich white guy frat boy club currently holding office are totally here to help; they are keeping me seriously angry. I’m getting lots of practice.

One challenge is holding focus and keeping my anger relevant, limited, and correctly directed where it belongs. Preventing my anger from spilling over everywhere, into every relationship, is sometimes hard. The lines between actual harms, and perceived slights, become blurry. Anger is powerful shit. Wielding it skillfully tends not to come very naturally to me after a lifetime of being told I can’t have mine, that it’s not appropriate to express my anger, that my anger is unreasonable… being told for a lifetime to stop talking, to sit down and shut up, to restrain myself… being shouted down and talked over, for a lifetime, in most relationships (whether work or professional)… the underlying chronic persistent repression, being robbed of personal agency, being provided a restricted set of human and civil rights (just for lacking a penis, for fucks’ sake)… Yep. Harnessing that massive seething roiling pent-up body of lifetime rage and very carefully directing just so, at a particular moment or movement or person… is fucking hard.

One challenge is not being convinced, by those well-meaning loved ones inconvenienced by – or frightened of – my anger, to dim my light, to mute my voice, to stifle my rage. Rage is scary shit. I’m keeping mine, thanks. I’m fucking angry. I’m not going to shut up about it. You can walk on if that’s a problem for you. I’m okay with that.

No yelling though. No yelling in the house. No yelling in the morning. No yelling in frustration. Just… no yelling. Yelling is triggering, and generally, once a person is reduced to yelling, no communicating is happening at all. Knock that shit off. It’s not useful.

Seriously. Man or women. No fucking yelling. Take a deep breath. Give yourself a moment to calm the fuck down, and try again – without yelling.

I want to live my life well and beautifully. I want to enjoy moments. I want to indulge in life’s pleasures. I want great conversation, with close friends, and people who care passionately about things in life that also matter to me. I want to enjoy lovely emotionally relevant art. I want to feel joyous and empowered. I want to approach my life as a journey that belongs wholly to me. I don’t want to be swamped by my anger. I don’t want to be incapacitated or overwhelmed by it. I don’t want it to become a festering wound that deepens over time. There is much to consider.

I sip my coffee and consider it.

I sip my coffee and consider the friendship of women, too. So many of us struggle with that; women have been divided, often. Women are powerful together. It’s time we reach out more easily to each other. Forge lifetime friendships that support, encourage, nurture – and take back our world. 🙂

Last night I enjoyed the company of two women. One I’d met before, briefly, and one I had not met previously. Women of great heart and emotional depth. Women with something to say about themselves, and about life. Women with a trajectory – a vision of their desired future. Women who care. Women who laugh. Women who “get it”. We had a great evening of conversation. We were authentic and vulnerable. We were real and frank, and funny. We forgot to go to dinner. We overlooked the time. We talked – continuously, delightedly, eagerly – in that very specific way that generally leads to, in other homes, on other evenings, some man breaking in to announce he “can’t get a word in edgewise”, or to make a “playful” accusation that we talk to much, or to request some service or task that he could easily handle himself, or to point out that we are “chattering away” in some dismissive tone – as if our words with each other matter less than our willingness to put our attention on him. I am so fucking done with that. (Keep up, bruh, or listen politely and maybe learn something.)

This Kavanaugh bullshit has gotten me – a lot of women – pretty angry. We don’t feel heard. We don’t feel supported. It’s become too hard to avoid recognizing that women are specifically not valued, and are specifically perceived as property, even now, and even by the men in the fucking government (why the fuck have we elected this??). It’s hard. So… I converse. I converse with women. I’m not making any particular effort in those moments of conversation to make room for the care and consideration of men; I need to be heard. I also need to be educated… or… un-indoctrinated, at least. So I’m also reading. The titles are very telling, I suppose: “Down Girl: The Logic of Misogyny“, “Rage Becomes Her“, “Eloquent Rage: A Black Feminist Discovers Her Superpower“… I am clearly not alone in my anger. I have spent far too long on the words of men. For balance, though, I’m also keeping “Resilient: How to Grow an Unshakable Core of Calm, Strength, and Happiness” close at hand. I do seek balance. Utility. Function. Effectiveness. I am not looking to loose the wild anger of my ancient pain on the world – just see through some changes that would improve the world for women, and thereby for all of us.

If you’re a man hoping to be some part of some sort of solution, listening is a good starting point. Really listening. Making room to understand that we (women) are having a very different experience of life than you are. (Please don’t push back on this with some sort of statement about your experience and your needs; we fucking know already, we live that reality for you every fucking day, it is part of our daily indoctrination, and even our formal educations. Knock it off for a bit, okay? That’s specifically the ask here; give us a moment of your time, really. Authentically. Listen deeply. Hear us.)

Enough with that. I’ve probably said enough. 🙂

This morning is lovely and quiet, following a merry evening of lively conversation with beautiful well-spoken women. Powerful. I enjoy my coffee smiling quietly. It’s a good morning. I feel content, and whole. I am aware of my anger in the background – it does not rob me of this lovely quiet moment. It’s an extraordinary place to be with myself. I’ve come a long way as a woman, and as a human being, over the past couple years, and this feels like a reward for a lot of committed focused effort to be the woman, the person, I most want to be. I eagerly look ahead to seeing my Traveling Partner sometime soon, and sharing his energy, here, in this lovely space. We’re good together, and it feels good to be supported, valued, nurtured… Fuck. I miss him.  🙂 I’m betting that this visit won’t find my anger crowding out my love; there is room for all my emotions to exist in my experience. I am a human being – a creature of both emotion and reason.

“Emotion and Reason” 18″ x 24″ acrylic w/ceramic and glow details, 2012

It’s time to begin again. It’s time to change the world. ❤

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Categories anger, art and the artist, autumn, Brain Injury, Free Will, Frustration, grief, inspiration, Logic & Reason, Mindfulness, Moments, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, The Art of Being, women, Words

Something to Think About

September 28, 2018 //
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Yesterday was hard. Just watching the world watching the Kavanaugh confirmation stuff going on was sufficiently painful to make for a difficult day. He’ll probably be confirmed. It’s a damning indictment against all of us, and this world we’ve built. Seriously. (I’m quite serious.)

…Which leads my morning musings elsewhere, because there’s more meat on this bone than one man’s plum lifetime government appointed gig; it’s about all of us. It’s about the way we listen. It’s about the way we treat others in their moments of pain, grief, and stress. It’s about how readily and easily we dismiss the concerns of others, most especially if we don’t experience life the same way, or suffer with the same disadvantages. It’s about privilege, and the dichotomy of having it versus not having it, and how confusing the chrysanthemum flower Venn diagram of privilege actually is, with its overlaps, and intersections. It’s about how little we care about the pain of strangers, and how quickly we minimize the pain of loved ones because (although we likely mean well) it is uncomfortable to share it.

Be considerate. Listen deeply. Understand that the experiences of others may not be your own – and that this does not invalidate those experiences! It’s less about trusting their narratives, and much less about their veracity and your willingness to believe, and so much about “basic human decency” and being considerate, just generally. I’m saying we could all do better on this one, and that we all do well to make the attempt.

I’m pretty fucking done with angry men shouting me down. I’m pretty fucking done with angry men deciding what my truth is. I’m pretty fucking done with being dismissed, diminished, shouted down, talked over, or patronized. I’m done with a whole fuck ton of bullshit. I’m pretty fucking angry, myself. So… what am I going to do about any of it? Well… I’ll for sure be voting. That’s one thing I can do. Speaking truth to power is another. Refusing to soften my tone, or yield my position, these are also things I can do. Already am. All those things. Still… I could do those things more skillfully, I’m sure.

It’s time, then, to begin again? Isn’t it always? 🙂

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Categories Allegories, anger, Anxiety, autumn, Brain Injury, Despair, Free Will, Frustration, grief, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Rape, The Art of Being, The Big 5, War and News of War, Words
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