Archives for posts with tag: breathe
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Sleeping and Waking

January 25, 2019 //
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I’ve been sleeping decently well for a couple days. In spite of that, I am still quite fatigued, and right on the edge of that human condition in which I might actually start acknowledging that I am indeed quite exhausted. It’s a thing that builds over time, and that I stubbornly, more often than not, pretend is not a thing until I just… can’t. The result? I wake each morning grateful to have slept well and deeply – and already explicitly excited about more sleep at the other of the day. I’m much less focused on any daytime successes or goals than savoring the moment I woke slowly this morning, and wondering how much more delicious that will be tomorrow, on a Saturday, with no alarm clock. Omg. So good.

I sip my coffee and pull my focus back to “now”. I encourage myself to engage the day ahead. To wake the fuck up completely. To ready myself for work, properly. lol I feel like I’m fighting a young child who doesn’t want to go to school. More coffee? Is that the answer? Well… it’s an answer. I’ll go with that.

Life is on the verge of a lot of changes. (Change is a constant. I giggle at the thought.) The wheel continues to turn, always. My anxiety about my own missteps, errors, and the everyday risk of poor decision-making competes for my attention with my general excitement about a future that isn’t here yet. No point being overly emotionally invested in any case; the future isn’t “real” in any particular sense. That forward look? It’s imagined. Part of my internal narrative. Prone – very much so – to conflation, to exaggeration, to thinking errors, to poor assumptions, and expectations not tied to reality, thinking about the future is more like reading fiction than anything else. Some of it is excellent, insightful, work – some of it is just story telling. I breathe. Sip my coffee. Let it go.

Life has been filled with change – and turmoil – and trauma – and tedium – and opportunity – and also love. My “hustle” isn’t the same hustle as yours, but we’ve all gotta hustle, right? I smile at the open manuscript on my laptop. Where will I take this journey? I give silent props to my writer friends. There is a canvas on my easel; it too is a tale of past experiences. I smile a silent “thanks” to the friends who inspire me, and the artist friends who have work in progress staring back at them, too. I think about the trails I have already hiked, sitting here wearing boots worn down lovely through three re-sole-ings. I think about gardens I have grown. Pictures I have taken. Lovers I have loved. I sip my coffee and let those things simply be what they were, and what they now are; memories. I let that go, too. I don’t find my future living in my past, generally. 🙂

The wheel keeps turning. Change is. The next moment will be here when it arrives, and it will be as “now” as all the others. Impermanence.

I finish my coffee as I realize I am “pruning my dreams” as I sift through my thoughts; some dreams need to be let go, too, not due to any inherent flaw with the dreams themselves, but rather because they skipped over the part about having a shot at ever realistically being part of the present, at all, and have gone from the future directly to the past, unnoticed, unfulfilled, unrealistic from the vantage point of “now”. Why isn’t that more poignant? It feels so… practical.

I’ll raise my now empty coffee cup in a vague gesture of salute to life, on my way to the kitchen… it’s time to begin again. 🙂

 

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

Savor That Sweetness

January 21, 2019 //
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I pause from my studio time to have another coffee, consider the day, and the work so far, and just to take a needed break. Tables everywhere, a desk, a large easel – and I still often find myself working on the floor. lol It’s not as easy as it once was. Breaks are a good practice. 🙂 I shifted, at some point, from stretching my legs to pacing. I didn’t really notice the change, my thoughts were still in the studio.

I contentedly note that although I’ve spent considerable time in the studio, this weekend, and very satisfyingly so; I don’t have much “to show for it”. It hasn’t been a frenzy of hastily conceived and completed work (one of the ways I commonly work is bursts of inspiration resulting in a dozen or so new pieces over a weekend, then… nothing for months. lol). In fact, this weekend has been a slower, deeper creative spell. I spent time tidying and organizing the studio, lost in creative thought. I spent time sorting through previously prepared backgrounds of various sorts, looking at them with new eyes, and new inspiration. I spent time contemplating a couple major works, still in progress, half-surprised that the slow pace has not frustrated me at all, making notes about next steps, and assembling materials. I spent time working out technical challenges involved in some new work I want to do – some ideas come to life more easily than others. What have I not done? I haven’t actually painted much. Nonetheless, a deeply satisfying creative weekend, savored moment-by-moment, rich with inspiration, and an awaking-from-within, as vague notions become detailed plans, sketches, and notes.

I needed this time spent with and on self. I sit contentedly with an afternoon coffee, reluctant to pass up the luxury of it, even knowing tomorrow is a work day. (I made a good choice, and made decaf. 🙂 )

There is much to be learned from moments, and the day is not yet over. There’s more that I want to do – practical things, like laundry, cleaning paint brushes, and showering. It’s been a busy weekend, and I find myself reluctantly recognizing that I’m nearing the end of my physical resources, for the time being. Maybe for the day, and certainly for now. I allow the acknowledgement of fatigue to become encouragement to take time to savor the experiences of the weekend, at leisure. Breathe. Relax. Consider some detail or another. Feeling the contentment. The satisfaction, and feeling of wholeness. I continue, breath by breath, recollection by recollection. I feel my smile. I feel the comfortable relaxed posture I am in. I take note that I am not in any noteworthy pain at present, only a bit tired. I look around the studio at what I’ve gotten done this weekend. Tube after enticing tube of paint, and dozens of jars of glitter, sparkling bits and pieces, threads, chains, and shards of glass, draw my eye around the room hungrily. It does feel like a sort of hunger – to touch, to arrange, to feel the textures of paint and canvas, to see a thought become a vision – but I am sated already, and too tired, now.

…There will be other weekends…

In the meantime, there are practices to practice, and self-care to manage. For now, that’s enough. 🙂

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Categories art and the artist, Brain Injury, Free Will, inspiration, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, The Art of Being, winter

Some Fall, Some Are Cut Down

January 20, 2019 //
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I was sipping my coffee between moments in the studio when I really noticed; there’s a tree missing from the view beyond my deck.

What I expected to see…

It’s not a great picture, and I warn you now, it isn’t from an identical perspective – and perhaps that’s why it nagged at me so much. Something is different, I spotted that right away, but figured, in the gloom of twilight, last night, that perhaps it was just more winter, fewer leaves, more lights in the distance… something.

…what I see today.

There’s a missing tangle of mostly-dead tree. Obvious as anything could be, once I allowed myself to really see it, absent my expectations. There’s something to be learned from that.

The healthy heart-wood of the stump left-behind, quite evenly cut, about 18 inches from the ground, tells me it was not lost to misadventure or high winds. Willful. Probably well-intended. I feel sad about it anyway, thinking about the owl that had been making her home there. The squirrels using it as a freeway ramp to the tree nearer the deck. The loss of privacy from neighbors beyond. Just… the loss of a tree. It’s painful. Oh, I’m sure a dead tree just hanging out there on the steep edge of the yard, where it suddenly drops off just past the fence, was a hazard of some sort, to something, but… fucking hell. I’m getting a little sick of people just taking my fucking trees away every-fucking-where that I move. Irksome.

There’s much to learn from contemplating this change. Trees fall. Trees are cut. Impermanence is. Non-attachment helps with the pain of circumstantial misfortunes. We have choices. Trees can be planted. Trees sprout. Trees grow.

I sip a delicious afternoon coffee – a perk of having a 3-day weekend, afternoon coffee always feels like luxury to me. 🙂 I contemplate impermanence, and change – and choices. I think about seeing. I mean, really seeing – eyes and mind both open to what may be new and changed. I contemplate acceptance; change can be hard. Recognizing what has changed is not without it’s own challenges. I breathe. Relax, and consider what I am practicing, and what I want to achieve. I think over conversations with my Traveling Partner; this last visit was rich with thought-provoking, inspiring, observations, and discussion. Connected. Insightful. Loving.

We become what we practice. (Remember, “trees take a long time” 😉 )

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Categories Allegories, Anxiety, Brain Injury, Despair, forgiveness, Free Will, Frustration, gardening, grief, Healthy Living, inspiration, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, The Art of Being, The Big 5, winter

Kryptonite

January 11, 2019 //
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Even on the days I feel strongest, most well, most balanced, healthiest, most prepared to adult on all cylinders, even if I feel like a super hero – I’ve got my Kryptonite. We all do. When I am mindful of my limitations, my boundaries, and skillfully setting and managing expectations with others, I can plan around all that. Kryptonite is different; it’s that emotional weakness, trigger, or character flaw that trips one up most often, sometimes quite unexpectedly.

What’s your Kryptonite? Mine happens to be frustration. :-\ Life would seem much “easier” without it. lol

My day started easily. Gently. Rather routinely. The commute was effortless, and efficient. I already had my weekend plans sorted out. My day is locked into a plan pretty comfortably, too. I got into the office feeling relaxed, and ready.

Fat fucking lump of Kryptonite sitting right in my inbox. LOL

Breathe. Take a step back from that shit. Remind myself none of this is personal, really, almost never. At all. Another deep, relaxing breath. This? Not about me. If I make it about me, then it becomes toxic – and I “lose my super powers”. lol Metaphors work for me.

I get a fresh cup of coffee, return to my desk, and get on with things. Re-set. Restart. Reboot. Do-over.

Begin again.

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

What Now? What Next?

January 10, 2019 //
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It’s an ordinary morning, before, most likely, an ordinary work day. My coffee is hot, and adequately tasty. The room is a comfortable temperature, a little cooler than I like it in the evenings. I hear the trickle of the aquarium in the other room, and remind myself that it is on my project list to change the water, replace the heater, re-settle the plants, and restock with something inexpensive and entertaining – guppies? More neon tetras? Just plants and shrimp, maybe? I love having the planted aquarium, and contemplating the planned project, I feel that pang of sadness over the fish that I lost last year over a weekend with a power outage. It sucked to come home to that. This morning, though, right here? So far it is a pleasant one, routine, ordinary, unexceptional… I have grown used to pleasantness (in spite of chronic pain, and this perpetual headache).

This is now. I’m enjoying it. How about you? 🙂

So… If you are not enjoying now, is it truly a byproduct of a very crappy right now experience (which can certainly be a thing, and we’ve all had those moments) – or are you fixated on some past (however recent) or future (however soon) moment of misery that is not actually now? If that’s the case, I would like to offer a suggestion (what you do about it belongs to you); very deliberately, and with great presence and attention to detail, come back to “now”. The real now. The true present moment. Breathe it in. Become aware of the details – even the smallest detail that feels comfortable, pleasant, and fills you with contentment or joy, is worth your attention. Find a comfortable seat. Be gentle and kind with yourself. Breathe it in. Breathe it out. Let go of the past moments. Let go of the future moments. Just sit with, and be here, right now. 🙂 No kidding. Practice that.

Practice it a lot.

I was thinking about something at work yesterday – a busy day, filled with meetings and interrupted practical task-processing workload of the sort that suffers for interruptions – and what I was thinking about is this; it’s actually fairly easy to make future-affecting decisions somewhat skillfully from the vantage point of the present, when I’m actually present, mindfully aware, and firmly in the moment…but it’s nearly impossible when I am stuck on some past moment, or mired in anxiety about a future moment that is not yet now. I gave that rather a lot of thought, actually, and used the thought to tickle my awareness of the need to pull myself back to the present moment, again and again. By the end of the day, I felt more firmly present, and in the office that’s sometimes hard to get to. Rigid processes, task processing, clear orders of operations in interlocking pieces of workload with dependencies on the pieces of work that lead up to it; while these things make work more efficient, faster, and get more done with fewer human beings, they also tend to rob me of awareness, keeping me part of a process, and less than a human being. So much less. Then, complicate that with the stress of those interruptions that fracture my focus, degrade my desired efficiency, while also directing my attention solely to that interrupted work – and specifically away from presence or self-care. Yeesh. It’s a very unpleasant experience.

By the end of my day, I had figured out being more human in an inhuman (and inhumane) scenario. That feels good – I’m hoping to improve on my presence, awareness, mindfulness – and humanity – in the office, today. How much better could work be? How much of my inhumane work experience is self-selected? What can I change or improve upon with my own will, awareness, and choices? Where will this path take me?

I glance at the time, and into the bottom of my empty coffee cup. I guess I can go ahead and get started… Now.

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