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Assuming Positive Intent

August 8, 2017 //
3

A very long time ago, my Traveling Partner said something to me which I found very peculiar. He suggested I “be less negative”. It struck me as peculiar because I didn’t define myself in those terms, and perceived myself as “being” quite positive. (I wasn’t. At all.) He pointed to the frequent use of negative phrasing in my speech, and sarcasm in my humor (which, by the way, I used heavily – but am fairly tone-deaf to, myself). I could not argue his point, and I really tried. I found myself having to agree that I was indeed fairly negative. Negative phrasing, negative outlook on life, awash in unsupported certainty, argumentative, and admittedly, on occasion (too many occasions) deeply in despair… yep. Negative. Negativity. Just all the nope to life’s questions.

It’s been a long weird path to here. This place in life where I find myself now is very different. “Being a positive person” isn’t something easily faked, or forced, and repeating wholesome affirmations in the mirror isn’t going to do it, either. It’s more subtle than that. Making that change from negative to positive requires some adjustments in implicit memory, implicit biases, and habitual behaviors, and takes practice. I found that it began most easily with accepting that I wasn’t positive in the first place, which was exceedingly difficult, initially.

By the beginning of this year, I was already in a very different place, and would have said that I am a fairly positive person. Kind. Compassionate. Polite. Helpful. …And still there was a tiny core of rot at the heart of all that, with the potential to color my thinking heavily, and not in any particularly helpful ways. A coworker, in the office, in conversation about work-related matters, calmly noted one way by way of feedback “you’re not assuming positive intent”.

I had come a long way toward becoming a positive person, but she was correct; I had not yet come far enough to allow myself to understand others as being similarly positive, similarly well-intended, similarly worthy and sufficient, each of us having our own experience. I still tended to assume the other human beings populating my experience may be acting on ill-intent. Her observation clung to me, and polluted my consciousness for days. Over weeks it actually began on change my thinking, as I considered it in the context of real life interactions, in the moment.  This, too, has been an interesting journey.

Assume positive intent.

Seriously. I’m not saying that there are no hazards in life, or that there are no “bad people” out there, but how many folks are actually scary dangerous killers with murder in their hearts? How many of those do you actually know, or may run into, ever? So… all those other people, the not scary dangerous killers with murder in their hearts people? Yeah, those other people who are neither you, nor a danger to you – what value is there in assuming they wish you harm, or may do you harm through ineptitude? And your loved ones? Surely they mean you literally and entirely no harm? (If any other thing is true about their state of mind, maybe choose your loves differently?) When we approach other human beings holding onto a state of consciousness that suggests they “may be up to no good” or that they constitute some as-yet-unidentified threat to us, our defenses go up, and we are not our own authentic selves. Sometimes we even behave or use language that can seem to provoke the very circumstances we seek to avoid. We send mixed messages, and our non-verbal communication doesn’t agree with our verbal communication. It’s all very confusing, and I noticed something wonderful when I began to live life differently by assuming positive intent; my social anxiety diminished.

Assume positive intent.

Seems simple enough (is). Just stop feeding the internal narrative that details how some other person means me harm, right? That and more. It’s a subtle thing. A colleague took a really really long break? Instead of being annoyed by that, assuming positive intent opens the door for concern – are they okay? Is there a reason they needed a long break? Is it an opportunity to be supportive, or to connect? That was the sort of thing I started with. I moved on to things like … that driver ahead of me slammed on their breaks suddenly – are they just a giant jerk who drives badly? Assuming positive intent reminds me to consider their circumstances from their perspective. Perhaps something startled them, or they had a foot cramp, or maybe I was following very closely behind them and their discomfort with that situation resulted in choosing to break suddenly to send a message (however dangerous and in poor judgment that seems, it is also simply a bit of communication, right)?

Assume positive intent.

I just kept at it. Looking for the situation in which my assumptions of anything besides positive intent were more useful and appropriate than if I would assume positive intent. More and more often, I found myself fully embracing that assumption of positive intent. Funny thing; my relationships improved. All of them. Work relationships. Romantic relationships. Friendships. I’m still thoroughly human. I still make mistakes. I still hurt people’s feelings without realizing it, and make assumptions that are in error. It’s a journey, and there is no map. 🙂 Assuming positive intent does seem to make most experiences, particularly shared experiences, so much more pleasant, generally. I have come to no harm through an assumption of positive intent. So… I think I’ll keep doing that. Assuming positive intent, I mean. 🙂

Hey… haven’t I written about this before? Yep. It’s still working. 😀 This one? This is a practice that could change the world…

Shall we begin again? 🙂

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Categories anger, Anxiety, Brain Injury, Free Will, Frustration, Healthy Living, Love, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Summer, The Art of Being, The Big 5

Staying on Task

August 7, 2017 //
0

This week I begin working in earnest to rebuild the habits and routines that support my quality of life best. I spent some time last night rebuilding long forgotten “to do lists” and thinking over morning tasks versus evening tasks. I’d been letting myself “get away with” rather a lot of “letting that go for later” toward the end of my stay at #59. Still… yesterday’s mail came with some good news; I got my deposit back, in full. That’s a nice feeling, and a reminder that good self-care is often also good care of the environment in which I live. (There’s probably a larger message there…)

So, I spent some time cozied up with a digital “to do list” I am trying out. By the end of the evening, I’m a little astonished by the amount of “small work” I expect to get done in a day… every day… Seriously? It would be daunting, only… I generally do all that. lol Getting it down in an organized list may reduce the time it takes, by putting in a more sensible order. I like order. 🙂

My day started well, and I know that attributing that to having well-prepared lists of things to do doesn’t really make any sense; there’s no legitimate connection. I just feel good this morning. Prepared. That feels good. I’m okay with enjoying it as it is. There are so many little things I want very specifically to do each day, reliably. Building those habits that nurture good emotional wellness and quality of life takes a hearty helping of verbs, and continued reinforcement. It’s really easy to shrug something off one morning, let it slide, then… it becomes another morning, then continues until the habit isn’t just broken, but well and truly defeated. Pretty commonplace as challenges go. I also fight off having long-time habits simple extinguish themselves rather without any warning at all – as though it was never a habit at all. This is both frustrating and unpredictable. Having a good “to do list” helps with that a lot.

Why go digital when after all this time I keep returning to ordinary yellow legal pads for this sort of thing? I admit, I have my doubts about digital lists, but… there’s a built-in inefficiency involved in having to return to the legal pad, wherever I’ve put it down, again and again to check off something completed, or add something overlooked. I’ve tried digital lists many times: spreadsheets, notepad, specific list making apps, and time and again they have failed me mostly by not being quite the tool for the job in one way or another. Back the legal pad I’d go. So, this time I am trying out a digital to do list that really is that, and will sync across my devices (no going back to the legal pad on the other side of the house, or having to wait until I get home to check off things I’ve done outside the house). We’ll see.

I smile and sip my coffee, listening to a small brown bird offering early morning commentary on the imminent sunrise. I may be back to the yellow legal pad at some point. I’m not concerned with that, as a thing. It represents neither a success nor a failure. I notice my list reminds me to check account balances – it will remind me to do so, daily. Nice. I do that. I check it off the list. 🙂

Sometimes figuring things out takes some effort, some practice, some fails, some changes – all completely utterly normal and part of how we learn and problem solve. 🙂

Problem-solving, and practice. Incremental improvement over time. There are verbs involved.

With managing the small details, sometimes a list is helpful. Sometimes it is still necessary to begin again. 🙂 It’s time to go do that; I’ve got a list. 😀

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

Figuring It Out

August 1, 2017 //
1

The morning is gentle on my waking consciousness. I’m glad of that. The headache pounding away at my forebrain when I woke has dissipated. I’m glad of that as well. I notice, at the same time I notice my half-finished coffee has fully gone cold, I never opened the blinds (or the window) here in the studio when I opened up the windows to let in the fresh morning breezes. It strikes me as odd, until I also notice my latent noise sensitivity is quite a presence, in fact, and recognize that I had simply not opened the window, to dull the sound of the morning commuter traffic, which I definitely don’t care to hear.

Who am I today? Am I headache-y? Am I well-rested and merry? Am I irritable? I’m not actually certain. I may be all of those things at some point today. Right now, in spite of a leisurely shower, a good yoga sequence, and the fresh forested breezes on a summer morning, I remain rather groggy, somewhat irritable, and annoyed by my stuffy sinuses (which may have been the cause of the headache I’d awakened with). The more I focus on this experience, the more it intensifies, and the more irritable I become. Interesting. Sometimes mindfulness brings uncomfortable experiences into sharper focus.

I breathe. Relax. Pull my posture more comfortably erect as I sit at my desk. My eyes close, and without giving it further thought, my hands rest, quite still, on the edge of my keyboard. I breathe. Relax. My eyes closed. Feeling this space, this moment. My shoulders sink down until they are no longer crammed up against my damned ears. The sound of the traffic blends with my tinnitus. I breathe. Relax. Time passes.

Some time later, some 30 or so minutes, actually, my eyes open. I’m smiling. I needed that moment, I suppose. Just some meditation time, right where I sat, no further fuss or bother. Nothing to disturb me. I feel better than I did. More comfortably aware of the commonplace discomforts that are a thing. I am a mortal creature. This fragile vessel is not always an entirely comfortable thing. lol

The house is nicely cool now. It is sometime past day break. I still have time to water the container garden, do the dishes, make my bed – all the things I like to come home to at the end of the work day. It’s just me, right? So… I gotta do the things. 🙂 That’s pretty much how adulthood works generally; if I want a result, I must do the things. Shopping around for other human beings to do the things on my behalf isn’t nearly as efficient. Partnerships are not a form of indentured servitude, or long-term service, and I’d far rather count on mine for shared experiences I truly cannot have solo in life… sex, shared laughter, intimacy, exchanges of touch and emotion… all stuff I really love, too. How nice to share it! Not to imply that reciprocity with the housekeeping and whatnot isn’t valued – in my relationships it is both valued and required. Everybody eats? Drinks water, coffee, tea, whatever? Everybody showers? Sits on the furniture? Then everyone works to keep the place nice. It’s sort of obvious and non-negotiable. 😀

It’s still early. A good time to begin on the housekeeping. A good time to begin again, living and being, and becoming the person I most want to be.

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Categories Brain Injury, Healthy Living, Mindfulness, Moments, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Summer, The Art of Being

No Words

July 31, 2017 //
0

I am brushing off my practice of not scrolling through Facebook, reading the news, or clicking shared links about events, and giving is a good restart. It messes with my head to be tossed into the festering pool of hate and despair that our political dialogue has become, and first thing in the morning I have little ability to protect myself from being sucked in, and reacting to it. So…  there’s that. No more reading the news in the morning (again). It’s a poor practice for me as an individual.

This morning, I am thinking about the “no words” – boundary-setting language. I am thinking about what works, what doesn’t, and the how/why boundary setting can be so objectionable for some people that they immediately begin to rationalize, manipulate, or defy boundaries that have been set. I don’t know why I’m thinking about this, today; I woke up thinking about it. Well, sort of…

I didn’t sleep well. I was tired fairly early, went to bed “on time”, fell asleep promptly, but… it didn’t last. I woke around 2 am. I never slept particularly well after that, if I slept at all. I wasn’t distressed by my sleeplessness, that no longer plagues me in that fashion. There wasn’t any anxiety or stress over it, even knowing that if it persists for another day or two, I won’t be well-rested to make the 5 hour drive to see my Traveling Partner this weekend. I wasn’t laying awake in the dark thinking about boundary setting, though. Still… it’s what was on my mind as I woke. No idea why.

So I start the morning with my coffee, hot, and ideas to do with boundary setting swirling in my consciousness: agency, consent, saying “no”, saying “yes”, “reasonable” boundaries, consideration, respect… and on it goes. My thinking hasn’t really become anything especially share-worthy. My words this morning are unlikely to excite, inspire, or even to truly communicate. I am adrift in a sea of thoughts about boundaries, and boundary setting. There’s no stress over that, either, it’s rather a calm sea. 🙂

I’ve been struck by the seeming general lack of consideration between and among individuals of late. It’s probably quite subjective. It may not be at all an accurate experience of life. It just seems to me that people I observe are much less considerate than they were rather recently ago…but… when I attempt to take time to prove that assumption for myself, it falls apart when I attempt to show things were previously actually any better. I still subjectively feel that something “has changed”. I don’t know that the change is anything that affects the world… it could just be me. I am, perhaps, more sensitive to inconsiderate behavior, regardless who it affects, than I once was? Consideration is a big deal for me, personally. It’s one of my “Big 5” relationship values – something I value so highly, I both seek to practice it reliably in every relationship and interaction, and also require it, reciprocally, from others. My idea of “decency”, “civility”, and basic good manners requires consideration be a default behavior. Yes, and there are verbs involved.

The sky has grown lighter, and the morning is on the other side of day break. I finish my coffee, and notice that the house has cooled off completely. The morning breezes have blown through the open windows. It’s forecasted to be very hot all week. I’ve been very grateful to have already moved. My last place, without any trees shading the west wall, a floorplan with limited air flow, and no AC, quickly got into triple digits indoors if the outdoor temperature exceeded 86 degrees (F) or so, and if temperatures remained high, it gradually worsened, and reached dangerously high indoor temperatures poorly suited to human life. No joke. (It wasn’t that bad before the property management company cut down all the trees.) The new place is quite different. It is both well-shaded, and also has AC – and a floorplan that allows air to move efficiently through the place. Very livable. I pause to really appreciate how nice this is… and remember that I will need to water the container garden on the deck.

I hear a bird or creature of some sort, just beyond view outside the window. Curiosity pulls me to my feet… and the day begins. 🙂

 

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Categories Brain Injury, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Summer, The Big 5, Words

Try, or Practice?

July 29, 2017 //
0

I woke up early. It makes sense. I went to bed early, too. I woke during the night. No surprise there, I often do. There’s no stress over any of that. My head is a jumble of random beginnings of thoughts seeking a narrative in which to play a role. My morning is a strange sequence of broken routines and randomness. I’m not concerned about that, either. Again and again, I pull myself back to this moment, here, now.

I sit down with my coffee, eventually, some two hours after waking (which is only one of many odd random bits of altered behavior that seems without cause or purpose).

The first track on my playlist right now is an old favorite. I want very much to play the bass line; I am not yet sufficiently skilled (and realistically, there is chance I never will be). I can try to play it, and fail. I could do that repeatedly. I could do that repeatedly until I am frustrated to the point of disliking what I am doing, although I am doing it because I enjoy it… a lot of people approaching learning something challenging in just that fashion.

I take another approach, instead of “trying”… I practice. That’s it. My approach to a lot of stuff I’m not good at, don’t yet know, haven’t yet found my way around, through, over, or into, or need to do and don’t quite “get”, yet. I practice. I practice the basic skills that would be required to do the thing. Too complicated? I break those things down further, to more elemental basics, until I can begin assembling simpler behavior or actions (or understandings) into more and more complex combinations, and – if all goes well – have learned to do the thing, have gained a new understanding, have completed some complicated task… whatever it is. Most things seem to work out pretty well this way, although it is not the fastest process by which to achieve success. It’s a bit like… a through hike on an unmarked trail, while all the way along observing what appears to be a freeway almost within reach, on the other side of a fence. I could waste time trying to reach that freeway, or I can walk on.

I still get where I’m going. That’s enough.

It may be an uphill climb, some days. I still practice taking time to enjoy the journey, and to look for beauty.

I enjoyed a strangely intimate and emotionally nurturing yesterday. I hung out with a dear friend of many years. We haven’t made time to hang out in about 4 years, and it was overdue, welcome, and comfortably intimate. She is someone I love, though we’ve never been lovers. We’re at very different places in life, and that has been an interesting characteristic of our friendship all along. She was the friend who said to me, so many years ago, “have you heard of ACT?”. Words that would later prove to be another piece to the puzzle of healing and learning to care for the woman in the mirror, because they would still be lingering in my consciousness on that grim December day when I began checking off my list of things to do before I would end my own life. That last item? Try therapy one more time. Her words were a hint at a new direction; “third wave cognitive behavior therapy”. There are several, some very rigid and formal, others less so.

Have we covered this before? Sure. It’s buried in the details, in much older posts. The eagerness of this new way to experience life, more authentically, with greater self-compassion, erupts in my words post after post after post. Life happens. I write about that too. Now and then I add something to The Reading List; my journey is paved with stepping-stones made of books, and practices, and the words of dear friends.

A current favorite track on my playlist feels timed for the moment. My heart fills with tenderness, and gratitude. I’m glad I stayed. Warm tears splash my glasses, and my shoulders shake with sobbing, and I’m just fucking crying now… I’m not unhappy. I’m relieved. I might have missed this precious moment right now. I might have missed yesterday… the lovely color work I got done on my hair… the phone call with my Traveling Partner later in the day… the conversations with friends. Fuck I am so glad I stayed around awhile longer… My heart aches with a powerful need to say “thank you” or.. “I’m sorry”… or… something.  There are literally no words for this strange strong emotion of thankfulness I feel that I chose to live. I’m okay with that too. I’m not afraid to feel.

Another good morning on which to begin again. I don’t know that I’ve done anything that changes the world, but so much as changed about the woman in the mirror. 🙂

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Categories Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, solo hiking, Summer, The Art of Being, The Big 5, Words
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