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Unlimited Freedom

April 25, 2024 //
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…Unlimited freedom… That sounds so good, right? And here in the United States of America, we have that… right? Nope. Not even close. Get over that shit sooner than later. LOL In the free-est country in the world, no one has “unlimited freedom”, ever, at all. It’s not a thing. We are each and all constrained by the limitations of the laws of our country, by the social contract we live under, by the rules and taboos of society, family, tribe, school, and workplace, and by the non-negotiable realities of, well, reality. lol There is no such thing as “unlimited freedom”. So. Yeah. Let that one go.

This lack of freedom from limitations on our freedom doesn’t have to be a colossal buzz kill, though… in the least free nation in the world, we’ve each still got some freedoms, and some freedom. Fewer than in the most free nation in the world, sure, but… the most important freedoms we each have can not easily be taken from us, as individuals, unless we choose to give them away.

I’m just saying… you can only drive as fast as the cars ahead of you and road conditions permit. You can only spend as much money as you have – or can borrow at a cost. You can only be as comfortable as the resources available to you permit. You can only be as well as your health and available medical care provide. You can only make choices based on the options you are aware of. There are limits. Constraints placed on all of us by reality itself. Those limitations on our freedom are non-negotiable. Fighting that by seeking “unlimited freedom” is … fairly silly. There are more productive uses of your time.

You are free to choose and free to act – and free to bear the consequences of your decisions and actions.

…Why am I even thinking about this? I don’t know. It’s just what happened to be stirred up in my thoughts this morning. I am sipping my coffee, pretending to be free of pain, watching the rain fall… and thinking about the rather ridiculous notion of “unlimited freedom”. We’ve each got “freedom up to a point” to work with, and it’s rather a lot (depending on geography and lines on a map) – but it’s for sure not “unlimited”.

I’m free to pretend to be free of pain… I’m fortunate to have prescription pain relief available, and it helps but doesn’t remove my pain entirely. So… How “free” am I? I mean… I have the freedom to choose whether to make my pain the center of my day. I have the freedom to choose what steps I take to manage my pain and to seek relief. The outcome isn’t so much in my hands; reality will have its say. Nonnegotiable. So. I’m in pain. It’s a rainy day and my arthritis is griefing me hardcore. It thoroughly sucks. But… I’m still free to choose not to make it the center of my day, to go on and do what I can with what I’ve got, and enjoy this moment, and the next, and maybe the entire day. That “freedom of choice” thing? That’s a big deal. It’s powerful. What we do with it has a lot to do with what our experience feels like – and how much “freedom” we feel we do have.

…Choose wisely…

I sit watching the rain fall. (I’m free to do so.) I sip my coffee. I think my thoughts. My mind wanders, I bring it back to the falling rain. I breathe, exhale, relax, and feel background stress I wasn’t fully aware of diminish. A new morning, new day, new beginning… and ahead of me so many small choices to make. There’s freedom in that. In both the new beginning, and in the choices – and there are so many opportunities to begin again, to choose well (or just choose, at all – I’m not telling you how to live your life). If we allow ourselves to tumble through circumstance without making willful considered choices… we’ve still chosen. It’s a wild ride.

What will you do with the time you have, and the freedom you’ve got? What does success look like to you? What options have you got to face what assortment of challenges on the path you’ve taken? Could you choose differently and get a different result? (tl;dr – yes.) Will you? Who even are you, when you are alone with yourself? Rhetorical but important questions… I think about them rather a lot.

How best to be the person I most want to be, living my best life as I understand that…? I sigh and finish my coffee. I guess a good first step is to begin again. 😀 I may not change the world… but I can change my experience. I’m free to do that.

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Categories Allegories, Brain Injury, breathe, forgiveness, Free Will, gratitude, health, Healthy Living, inspiration, meditation, Mindfulness, Moments, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, Spring, The Art of Being, weight loss secrets, Words

Finding Encouragement in the Mirror

April 16, 2024 //
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This morning I woke feeling kind of down. I had replaced the batteries in the bathroom scale last night, and did an honest weigh-in to get a clear understanding of the journey ahead. That number was bigger than I expected it to be. Bigger than I thought it was. Bigger than my most comfortable self-deception suggested it would be. I woke up feeling a bit depressed about it.

I drove into the office thinking about my weight. The journey ahead. My desire to live a long healthy life enjoying the companionship of my Traveling Partner for many years to come. The clock is ticking. The challenges with my health, my weight, my fitness, and my emotional wellness; they’re all tied up in knots with each other. I’m sipping my (black) coffee, thinking about the mental math I did on the commute, trying to figure out realistically how many pounds I want to lose to get to properly healthy place… and how long that may take, trying to stay very honest and real with myself, no games, no bullshit, uncompromisingly honest with the woman in the mirror. Harsh. With no missteps, no failures of will, no injuries that limit my ability to exercise… I’m still looking at (at best) a 2-year journey, and a lifelong commitment to change. Fuck that sounds like… a lot. 😦

…How do I get from here to there, and do it without being a complete jerk to myself? What tools are in my toolkit, and can I use them more skillfully than I have? I know I can rely on my Traveling Partner to be kind, supportive, encouraging, and to hold me accountable in an honest and compassionate way… I feel less sure of being able to provide that to myself. I know from experience that treating myself poorly leads to problematic outcomes, and generally limits my success. It’s just not the best approach. So… now what? How do I avoid the slide into despair over this mess? I feel like self-sabotage is around every corner…

I think about my mother’s challenges with her weight. I think about my Granny’s challenges with hers. I think about my recently deceased dear friend’s challenges with her weight. It’s not easy. It’s likely that each one of these women lived shorter lives than they otherwise might have, had they been more successful at managing their weight and maintaining their fitness. There are lessons here. Lived examples. Things to think about. I sigh out loud and sip my coffee; all the powerful examples in the world do nothing whatsoever to create change. There are verbs involved and no fucking shortcuts result in long-term change. It’s necessary to commit to action… then act. Do the fucking verbs.

I remind myself that it’s hard to go from Detroit to San Francisco if I’m standing in Baltimore. Having an honest awareness of the number on the scale now is useful perspective. I make a point to share it with my Traveling Partner, and with my physician. It hurts to own up to it, but… this is where progress begins. I can’t start in a place where I’m not standing. It’s not as if it isn’t obvious that I’m well-over a healthy weight for my age, height, and body type, just at a glance. It’s not as if I weren’t aware of how difficult it can be to keep moving and to eat healthy – and I can’t claim I didn’t know how important these details are. So. Here I am. Ready for a next step. Ready for a new journey. Ready to make real progress.

…Ready to begin again…

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Categories Allegories, anger, Anxiety, Brain Injury, breathe, Despair, forgiveness, Free Will, Frustration, gratitude, health, Healthy Living, Love, meditation, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, Spring, weight loss secrets, women

How to Prepare for Change

March 29, 2023 //
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I sip my morning coffee thinking about “change”, as I anticipate changes to come that may or may not be “what I want”. I’m okay with uncertainty these days, more than I’ve ever previously been as far as I can recall. Change is. I can prepare for it, embrace it when it arrives (or seek further, other, changes), and see where it takes me, or I can… not do that, and struggle with it instead. There is very little potential that I can avoid change. I sip my coffee and think about the conversation I had with my boss yesterday. Promising. No, I’m not going to be more specific – I don’t know what the future holds. I’m open to it, though, and ready to gently comply with circumstances, or seek further change – depends on the outcomes, I suppose. I’m certainly not expecting to “stand still” in life. lol

How do I “prepare for change”, though? Depends on the changes, I guess, but I usually start with envisioning life as it may be following the change(s) I anticipate (or have chosen). I take time to read and study details or ideas that are new for me, or present challenges – what can I learn before the change is upon me? Do I have questions? Concerns? I look into those details. I probably make a list of things I’d want done before the change comes – or will want to do to meet the challenge as it comes.

If my anxiety is vexing me with regard to some particular anticipated change, I spend time reflecting on successful other experiences of change in my life, generally. This reminds me that it’s do-able, and that I’m capable.

From there, the last bit of “change prep” I find reliably helpful is to be kind to myself, and alert for any potential self-sabotage that I’d do well to … not do.

None of us are truly alone on this journey that is one mortal life, yet we’re each walking our own path, and having our own experience. It’s a strange puzzle. With my boss’s words lingering in my thoughts, I contemplate where I can develop new connections, build new bridges, shore up incomplete knowledge, explore new learning relevant to the change we had discussed. It’s exciting to feel the process of growth and progress. One thing I enjoy about all this is that I get to keep everything I learn along the way – whether the change that comes is what I anticipated, or something completely different. I continue to grow. Exciting.

I sip my coffee thoughtfully. I breathe. Exhale. Relax. It’s a pleasant (quiet) Wednesday morning. It’s a good time to prepare for change. It’s a good time to begin again.

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Categories Allegories, Brain Injury, breathe, Free Will, gratitude, Healthy Living, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, Spring, The Art of Being

Change and Change Again

March 16, 2023 //
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It’s the first morning I’ve had any “writing time” in what seems like a very long while, although it has only been 6 days. “Only” 6 days? It’s been nearly a week! I am struck by how long it actually has been, even as I observe how little time that is, from another vantage point. I try to think about what I was doing before last weekend that would have halted my writing in that way, and finding myself a bit lacking. I startled myself with an abrupt bark of a laugh in this quiet early morning space. Right. That was it…

…The same events that changed the entire character of the “department on-site get together” I went to the city for this week had also altered the flow of my days last week. Just that; work. There it is, though; change. Change is…

What had been planned as a fun sort of re-calibrating/re-charging sort of get together of colleagues who rarely meet IRL or work together collaboratively in a shared physical space in a single time zone became a tactical gathering of professionals doing what they do in an extraordinary way to meet extraordinary needs. Instead of a handful of structured pleasant meetings, ice-breakers, team-building exercises, and after hours get-togethers and social activities, it was work. A lot of work, long days, fast-paced and very demanding, and we were mostly all too exhausted to do much partying. Most of the structured strategic planning or informational sessions were just cancelled, and others were re-planned to be recorded content for later consumption. Many of us didn’t make it to any after hours activities at all; too tired. I put in about the same hours in 3 days this week than I generally do in an entire week. lol The week is not over.

I’m not even bitching about any of this. It was amazing to see the team come together as a well-coordinated effective professional powerhouse. We got so much done that was needful and even urgent. Pretty cool. (I would not want to try to sustain this kind of intensity or pace, it would quickly be exploitative and abusive.)

I’m so glad to be home again! I feel rather as if I was very far away for a very long time, although I was only gone 3 nights, and I was only 47 miles away. My Traveling Partner missed me. I missed him. (So much!) We enjoyed a lovely chill evening together. It was nice to cook a simple meal in my own kitchen (we had hot dogs). It was so good to be in my own bed, again. 😀

I’m only half un-packed, and I’m sitting here sipping my coffee thinking about how to most easily pivot from getting laundry done and unpacking to repacking for my wee coastal holiday next week. (So soon!) There was nothing restful about the trip to the city I just returned from, and although I missed my Traveling Partner enough to consider (briefly) canceling my coastal getaway, I know I actually really need to take some proper time for myself, to rest and recharge. I’m so tired! LOL A couple days on the coast, sleeping in, writing, reading, drinking coffee, walking the beach – it will be a healthy investment in my wellness and resilience.

I sigh out loud, remembering an errand I need to run today and making a point of putting that “top of mind”. I feel my attention tugged in the direction of planning the day. It must be time to begin again… 😀

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Categories Allegories, Brain Injury, breathe, gratitude, Healthy Living, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships

Life Can Change Fast

May 16, 2020 //
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Change is a thing. Life can change as fast as contagion spreads. It can change as fast as a single decision, made in an instant. Life changes with our choices, with our thinking, with our actions. Change is powerful stuff.

…Fighting change is often quite futile…

…Change is often more positive than it feels in the moment of “impact” when our state of being feels disrupted most…

I’m sipping my coffee and thinking about change. A rainy gray sky suggests the day will be on the cool side. My arthritis is not arguing with the weather; I ache. I have things to do. I have changes to embrace. Decisions to make. Verbs to put into action. It is a Saturday, and I am taking my time, over my morning coffee. (Funny to call it that these days; nearly all my coffee is “morning coffee”, since drinking coffee in the afternoon wrecks my sleep. lol)

I think about life. Life now. Life at other times. The life I’d most like to have, at some point in the future. I’m not feeling maudlin, blue, stressed, or anxious – I’m simply aware that whatever “this” may be, at pretty much any time, in any moment, that “this” too will pass. No kidding. That’s how powerful change is.

Where would I like to live, if I did not live here? Where would I choose to work, if I were to choose to work somewhere else than where I work now? What sounds good for dinner later, and do I need to shop for ingredients for that? Do I “have anything to wear” (having lost some weight), and am I going to do something about that, one way or another? Small changes can add up to big changes. Sometimes seemingly “big” changes turn out to be less of a big change after all.

Early morning on a Saturday. I sip my coffee and think about change, and how well or poorly I deal with it, and why that may be. I think about choosing change, and managing change, and putting my will and my verbs fully into action, in support of the changes I want most for myself.

Changes. Change is.

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Categories Allegories, Brain Injury, Free Will, gratitude, inspiration, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Spring, The Art of Being
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