Archives for posts with tag: being and becoming
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Listening to My Anxiety

April 4, 2017 //
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House-hunting is weird. I have generally stayed fairly detached, which seems wise and emotionally healthy. This last little house felt so right, it was harder to maintain emotional distance. Each time I acknowledged, internally, how much I wanted this one my inner voice only weakly replied “how does it feel to want?” in that safely bitter tone that is a steady, more affectionate than not, reminder that until the keys are in hand… it isn’t mine. Well. It isn’t mine. 🙂 I woke to the news from my Realtor this morning, immediately followed by the search result with new listings. So. Okay. The search continues.

Funny thing, I learned more from this experience, because I really wanted this little house that very much. My anxiety while making the offer lingered while I waited to hear back. I was equally anxious about either outcome… but I learned the most from my anxiety specific to success; if I my offer had been accepted, there would suddenly be so many new details to attend to, and I didn’t feel wholly ready to face them. This is something anxiety is good for; teachable moments built on what-if scenarios that really “come to life”. There are things I hadn’t previously thought to specifically plan for, like… this little house lacked most basic appliances, and the result would be that immediately upon moving in, I’d be needing to buy a refrigerator, a washer and dryer, and certainly wishing I’d prepared sufficiently to also afford a dishwasher! Wow… That’s quite a bit of money to spend immediately after closing on a house, and also paying for a move. So… yeah… maybe plan for that? I mean, plan for it anyway, for the undetermined and indefinite future of many possible outcomes that exist until one actual outcome unfolds ahead of me. The more prepared I am for all the many possible outcomes, the less anxiety there will be in the moment, and the more easily that anxiety that does develop can be soothed by the easy assurances of good preparation.

So, this time, I’m not sitting around feeling disappointed (that consumed about a day and a half last time), instead I am making a list of the obvious details that would have required funds in the immediate aftermath of moving (I don’t own a lawnmower, either, or some of the homeowner gear one might expect to need…. like a step-ladder). Many of them are things I can plan ahead for, and certainly… I would do well to live much more frugally leading up to a home purchase; I’ll need every cent available in those first few weeks to be most easily able to just get up and go get whatever small solution to whatever common problem develops. That level of readiness would feel very secure. 🙂 More cash in the bank then seems to have more value that some moment of frivolity now. I find myself resolved to be very strictly attentive to a very lean budget. It even feels comfortable to make the wiser choices.

This morning, yesterday evening’s anxiety isn’t leading my day, but the recollection refines my thinking and keeps me on track toward reaching my most important personal goals right now. It’s a nice change of pace from allowing anxiety to send me into a tailspin, wrecking my days, wrecking my sleep, tainting my thinking with doom-soaked scenarios that never teach me anything, or have any positive result. I smile and sip my coffee, and move on with the morning, having taken some notes.

A beautiful morning full of hope… that was yesterday. Today, too. Probably also tomorrow. 🙂

Today is a good day for perspective. Today is a good day for contentment. Today is a good day to be re-inspired by the ordinary – and even by my own anxiety. Today is a good day for beginnings… and a good day to begin again. 🙂

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Categories Anxiety, Brain Injury, Free Will, Logic & Reason, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Spring, The Art of Being

Dancing Anyway

April 2, 2017 //
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I slept like crap last night. I mean… according to my fitness tracker I was at least recognizably making the attempt at sleep for more than 7 hours. That’s something. My sleep was fitful, restless, broken into small pieces interrupted by moments of wakefulness, and dreaming that I was awake. I woke wanting very much to continue sleeping, sometime around 7 am. I call that “sleeping in” today, and drag myself from my bed to face the day, which seems already very much in progress, being quite a bit past dawn.

I put on music first thing. I’m really hung up on a track I first heard yesterday. The words fit my playlist,  “Sit down. Be Humble.” A reminder. A great groove. I start there. Sunday. A good day for contemplation and reminders to be the best human being I can. I dance into the kitchen and make coffee. Music carries me into the studio with my coffee. More reminders.  It’s a morning for fun and love and… dancing? Who knew. 🙂 The smile on my face feels like part of how my face is made, this morning. I move things around on my playlist to put the best beats and bass and yes, even reminders, at the top. Later will be soon enough for anything more structured or serious. Right now? Music, movement, and smiles. This is about feeling good. 🙂

In case it hasn’t come up before… I am not a dancer. I’m also carry a few more pounds than I find comfortable (or aesthetically pleasing). I have physical limitations due to old injuries, and hell let’s acknowledge that aging has its say as well. Doesn’t matter. I’m not dancing for contest judges. I’m not dancing to show off. I’m not dancing to be good at anything or to demonstrate a skillful execution of some particular choreography. I simply like the way it feels to hear music and be moved. So this is all for me. It feels good to dance. It eases some of my arthritis pain. It slows the creeping inevitability of the passage of time. It is an experience. These are verbs I enjoy. 🙂

I move on in the playlist as I head for coffee number two… favorites new and old… songs that fill me with hope… and I dance on with the day, thinking about love.

Today is a good day to enjoy the moments that feel the best whenever they turn up. Savor the hell out of that delightful moment, right now, however brief. Save the recollection for later. Enjoy the experience as though it is the only moment. Wallow in it. Appreciate it fully. Be here, now. Then…

…Begin again.

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

Happy Gaslighting Day?

April 1, 2017 //
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I lost my taste for gaslighting after I lived with it for years. I gave up on April Fool’s Day entirely as a result. I mean, think about this “celebration” with great care… Is it kind to willfully mislead people about the nature of their reality? Who does that? Even as a prank, it’s a dick move. So… I stopped doing that shit because it isn’t actually funny. Just as with humor based on Schadenfreude; it isn’t funny for the person having the experience. Our amusement over it? If it’s based on cruelty, it’s cruel. Tit for tat? Not funny. It’s a dick move. We’re very fancy primates… which means our animal nature is not above that sort of bullshit, and, sadly, some of us actually go for wallowing in our worst potential.  We are too easily entertained by the human equivalent of throwing poo.

Am I being curmudgeonly? Perhaps. I just don’t care for people treating people poorly, (I definitely don’t want to be the person doing it) and in an era of serious challenges with bullshit and lies being passed off as news and truth, we’re all fighting for our sanity as it is. Don’t be a dick today. Consider that other person and what it means to be treated poorly solely for the amusement of others, and this just because the calendar turned over by one day. April Fools are the people playing the pranks, not the pranks themselves. Can you not pass up the chance to be foolish? Really? Is this the best of who you are?

You do you, though. It’s not my call. I’ll be over here, enjoying a lovely Saturday on the first day of April, staying away from social media, and treating people as well as I am able to do. 🙂 I’m not saying I’m any better than you, or even different – I’m just walking my own path. There are verbs involved, and I live within the confines of my own perspective. I have to face this woman in the mirror, a woman who knows what being gaslighted feels like, who understand how cruel practical jokes are for the person on the receiving end, and for whom frustration is real kryptonite. Gnothi seauton… eventually. 🙂

Is it clear I didn’t start here?  …I did have to begin again. It has been a journey, with missteps, and choices, and things to consider further. I’ve fought and resisted a commonly enjoyed cultural practice. That’s okay. I’ve made progress over time, and that’s enough. I awoke to the understanding that this practice of pranking people is cruel, and my understanding changed my choices and my behavior. That’s sort of how the whole growth thing works, actually, and it’s a very singular personal journey for each of us.  🙂 Today is a good day to grow and to choose. It’s a good day to take another look at the day and ask myself “why this?” and “why today” and “who might this hurt?”. It’s a good day to change the world.

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Categories Anxiety, Free Will, Logic & Reason, Mindfulness, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Spring, The Big 5

A Day for Me

March 29, 2017 //
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I took today off. I didn’t plan to be sick, I just planned to take the day off for my annual physical and some downtime. I scheduled a hair appointment (to have the wild lavender and pink and green that it is now refreshed before an upcoming concert). Later, I unscheduled the hair appointment, remembering to be frugal while I house hunt; the funds will be needed, more than likely. I re-planned the day to do some “go sees” of new listings in the afternoon. Yesterday, I canceled that too. I’m sick. I will just go get my physical, and come home and sip tea and read, I suppose…

…Nope. My plans are over-turned by the rental management here in the community. It is, apparently, “inspection time” again. (Please imagine me rolling my eyes irritably at this point right here.) I don’t have much to do to be ready, but I have canvases out in my studio, and I’ll just fret about the stupid inspection if I don’t spend an hour tidying up a bit, regardless. So. I guess I’m getting my physical and coming home to housework. The inspections are on Thursday. I won’t be home. I’ll have already taken today off from work, and can’t cut into my work hours further without putting time-sensitive work at risk of not being completed. It makes me uncomfortable to have anyone in my space when I’m not home, these days (other than my Traveling Partner), and the last time my landlady was in my apartment on a day I wasn’t at home? Yeah, I was burglarized. I’ve lost trust, and feel anxious about having her in my apartment in my absence. Work from home? I wish. The work I’ll specifically be doing is much more handily done with the vast acreage of widescreen dual monitors connected to the network directly than it can be at home on a laptop screen connected through VPN. I’m just going to have to adult this one. I’m annoyed by that, but not unprepared. I managed to avoid letting it keep me awake last night… mostly. I got 4 and a half hours of sleep. :-\

I woke mostly clear-headed, head still stuffy, lungs not yet congested (yay!), and still willing to embrace life as a goodness. That’s something. Today is  not the day I planned. (It often isn’t.) It is, however, a day out of the office, with a little more than typical looseness to it. I remind myself that this irritant (the inspection) is just one of the many small things driving me so urgently to find my own place – really my own, as in “homeowner”.  The inspection (for me) is a nothing event, anyway; I live a tidy, quiet, gentle life, and take good care of this space. The inspection never amounts to more than a casual walk-through, I just won’t be here, which really creeps me out. So. I’m inconvenienced and uncomfortable. I’ll get over it.

I am my own cartographer on life’s journey. There is no rule book, no map, no user’s guide for being human. We are each having our own experience. The map is not the world. The day… is not the plan. I’m still okay right now. 🙂

 

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Categories anger, Anxiety, Brain Injury, Free Will, health, Healthy Living, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Sleepless Nights, solo hiking, Spring, The Art of Being, The Big 5

A Bit of Human

March 28, 2017 //
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I got through most of the work day pretty well, yesterday. By noon I was fading fast, losing cognitive efficiency and clarity of thought quickly, with a viral-seeming sort of headache plaguing me quite continuously. I “called it” at 3:30 pm and headed for home a bit earlier than I typically would. I arrived home, stood in a hot shower for a while. Figured chicken soup would work for dinner. Couldn’t eat. Just had no appetite, and didn’t care. I went to bed about an hour or so after I got home, expecting to have a restless night, or be up again sometime later unable to sleep.

I woke to the alarm, at the usual time. Headache is gone. I feel alert, and generally okay. My head is a little stuffy, but not unmanageably so. I sit down with my coffee wondering how long this will take to fully run its course, pleased that it isn’t worse than it is, and glad that I took a Benadryl last night – it gets some credit for the long night of relatively deep sleep.

I scroll through my Facebook feed and then back out of that. There is a lot of anger in the world, and justifiably so in the face of new heights of government cruelty and societal bullshit. Is it really new, though? Nope. It’s really got our attention, now, though. People are really objecting to it, and are no longer willing to shrug it off, disappointed, disillusioned, and exhausted by lack of change. Social change that happens slowly over time often goes mostly unnoticed. Social change through protest, dissent, and private emotion in public places – “wearing our anger out loud” – is change through upheaval, and it definitely gets noticed. It creates a grand “conversation” between groups. It gets heated. Families get torn apart. Tribes are formed. Friendships end. Friendships are forged. It’s a time of change. From my own perspective, my best possible choice through it all is simply to be who I authentically am, on this personal journey to be that person most skillfully, most honestly, and with my choices and my will focused on my Big 5 (respect, consideration, reciprocity, compassion, and openness). It’s less about being right than it is about listening deeply and learning more… about being. If I can be a better person tomorrow than I am today, I am content that I am making progress toward being the person I most want to be, over time. If we were each committed to being the best possible human being we have the ability to be, it would be a good start on a peaceful world… right?

Right?

Right? Nah. Probably not. Most people already think they are “one of the good guys” with no further self-reflection at all, never considering the consequences of their actions on others. Tons of people are hung up on their own righteous ideology, their own opinions-as-fact, their own take on the world. We’re fancy primates; we don’t give up easily on our own bullshit.

Today is a good day to really listen to “the other side” of a discussion – however many other sides there are. Today is a good day to listen deeply, to consider other ideas than my own, and to make room in my awareness to understand the thinking of others. Today is a good day to accept the premise that we are each “doing our best”, generally, as we understand it ourselves. Today is a good day to ask illuminating questions – not to “win” an argument, but to truly illuminate my own thinking, and inform my understanding of the world more broadly, with greater wisdom and perspective. Today is a good day to maintain an awareness that we are each having our own experience. There is more to learn.

Today is a good day to begin again. 🙂

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Categories Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Spring, The Big 5, War and News of War, Words
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