Archives for posts with tag: choose wisely

Beginning Again, Again

September 19, 2016 //

So many beginnings have followed my April decision to leave the workforce for a while. Today, another; I return to the workforce.

I slept badly. I’m not surprised by it, and I am gentle with myself about this long-term “feature” of my experience. I did manage about 7 hours, split by a brief period of wakefulness after my fitness tracker buzzed my wrist during the night, when my traveling partner alerted me of a change of plans that might see him returning today. That’s pretty exciting, and the news of it kept me wakeful for almost an hour.

I woke pleased to be this person who chooses work clothes ahead of time, and prepares in advance for early morning activities; there is less likelihood I’ll forget something on the way out the door, or feel rushed getting to that point. I dislike feeling rushed, and being rushed by circumstances or people definitely results in forgetting more stuff. I’ll take my time today. I prepared so that I easily could.

I note the time, and realize my mornings are once again compressed between that waking moment, and 7 am; my departure time. Efficiency in these morning moments is once again something that has value. I smile. I’m ready for that, I think, and remind myself to turn on the dishwasher when I leave for the day. I sketched out my new workday routine last night, identifying those household tasks that are the better fit for early morning (quiet, biggest bang for my buck, things I don’t want to come home to…), and those ideal for after work (noisy, quickly handled, most appropriate at the end of the day, things I don’t want to wake up to…). Deep cleaning, big chores, and real manual labor sorts of things shift back to the weekends, when I have the time to take time with them, and also treat myself with care. I guess I’m ready.

First days are generally about beginnings in a lot of little ways. I expect the day to be pretty exciting, generally, with a lot to see, a lot to hear, and a lot to learn. One major new beginning, professionally, is the change from a Microsoft environment to an Apple environment. That’ll be exciting and fun; I remind myself to avoid emotionally investing in outcomes and expectations, and to test assumptions, listen deeply, ask clarifying questions. I remind myself this is not a test, and commit to experiencing the experience, and to be open to new information. The views from my new office are quite amazing, and one question I am eager to ask is whether I can shoot pictures from those windows. 😀

My attention is focused on first day thoughts. My emotions are filled with first day jitters. All that is okay; it’s very human. I breathe. Relax. Check the time, which is most amusing because I’ve got an alarm set at intervals to remind me to move from one thing to the next, I sometimes need that; there’s no need to check the clock. Still… it’s time for breakfast, and next things… and beginning again. Again. 🙂

Tags be here now, be the change, begin again, being and becoming, breathe, choose wisely, day one, emotional self sufficiency, experience, I am my own cartographer, listening deeply, meeting binder, mindfulness matters, perspective, ptsd, sufficiency, taking care of me, TBI, The Art of Being, there are verbs involved, what matters most?

Categories Anxiety, autumn, Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Sleepless Nights, The Art of Being

A Season of Change

September 18, 2016 //

Tomorrow I go back to work. That isn’t today. Today, however, is a good day to prepare, to make myself ready, to review plans and expectations, to jot down questions, to plot a new commute with care, and plan out new routines that take into account my return to the workforce, as well as the likelihood that I’ll be seeing a great deal more of my traveling partner as the weather turns from festival summer to fireside fall.

Yesterday ended well, although chilly.

Who am I? It seems a day for such questions. Rainy. Mild. More yellow and amber tones in the leaves of the trees on the far side of the park than there were yesterday. Evidence of time passing, and of seasons changing. I feel transformed, myself, and able to face the prospect of working with quite a bit more contentment, and in much less day-to-day pain, even with the chill of autumn approaching. Has it really meant so much to take this time to care for myself, to live on my own terms, to follow my own agenda? Just six months? Worth it. Totally worth it. I’ll even be taking understandings gained and this perspective on the healing power of leisure into the workplace with me; I’ve learned a lot that has value to long-term workforce management strategies. Am I this person, this analyst-manager, this workforce management professional, this corporate employee? Is this who I am? No. Not really. I am not my work.

I look around the studio, very tidy – even projects in progress are cleaned up, for now, and put neatly aside. I’ll have a guest for some days, soon. Is this who I am? Hostess? Family member, local matriarch, devoted servant of home and hearth? Or am I the artist who has so accommodatingly set everything aside to welcome friends in need, lovers in distress, a traveler returning home, or family visiting from afar? Am I the frustrated citizen, attempting to dot i’s, cross t’s, and jump through hoops of paperwork on fire to comply with some requirement or another? Am I the disabled veteran, committed to my wellness, frustrated by “the system”, still doing what I can to meet my own needs over time, through diet, exercise, and careful management of my health? Am I the woman on the meditation cushion in the window, content, calm, relaxed? (Occasionally distracted with childlike delight to see a squirrel dart past, or a woodpecker stop at the suet feeder, sending both bird and feeder spinning crazily, to my great amusement.)

Who am I? Am I all these – or none? When I cling to some singular potentially defining quality, like my appearance, or an attitude, or a characteristic, or some detail singled out, change becomes such a frightening destructive force, with the potential to rob me of who I am. “Who am I?” is a question that quite honestly used to terrify me – not because I didn’t have a sense of self, but because I didn’t know what “the right answer” was, and that, by itself, was quite terrifying. Follow that with finding myself unclear on precisely what is required to prove the answer. Yep. Terrifying to feel so… unidentified.

There is no “right” answer. There may be quite a few… not “wrong” exactly… “incorrect”? Inaccurate. There may be quite a few inaccurate answers. I take time to consider the difference between “accurate” and “honest”. Truthful fits in there, somewhere, too. I’m not sure that accuracy in the details that describe this being of light wrapped in this fragile vessel made of meat actually answers the question “who am I?” at all well.

It’s a pleasant enough autumn morning, on the edge of a major life change. It seems a good time to give a moment of thought and consideration to the woman in the mirror. It doesn’t have to be fancy, or deep, or complicated; I’ll pick out work clothes for tomorrow at some point later, and likely find myself contemplating the woman in the mirror, who she has become, where she is headed, and how she hopes to share herself in this new context. That’s enough for now. 🙂

A cloudy autumn day suitable for hiking. A good day to walk on; the journey isn't about the destination.

Today begins well, a cloudy autumn day suitable for hiking. The season is changing.

Today is a good day to consider the journey. Today is a good day to walk on. Change is. Perhaps it’s just the season for it? 🙂

Tags anxiety, be here now, begin again, being and becoming, breathe, choose wisely, embrace change, emotional self sufficiency, good self-care, I am my own cartographer, meditation, mindfulness, order from chaos, perspective, practicing the practices, ptsd, returning to work, sufficiency, taking care of me, TBI, The Art of Being, the map is not the world, there are verbs involved, tidying up, walk on, walking my own path, what matters most?, who am I?

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

Practicing on Paper

September 16, 2016 //

No witty words today. No observations of particular note. No emotional salve. No imagery. Today, I practice. I haven’t yet found my social security card, which I didn’t realize I’d misplaced until I happened on it some weeks ago. It was conveniently already in a place “that makes sense”, where I “couldn’t possibly lose it”, and which I had already forgotten, previously. It wasn’t my best decision-making to leave it in that location trusting that I wouldn’t forget it, yet again.

Well, damn… Where did I put that?

This morning I am made entirely of human, and the practicing with be all of those that help me ‘keep myself together’ in the face of potentially an entire day of small frustrations while I hunt down this worthless 2″ x 3″ piece of paper no one gives two shits about until it’s time to fill out an I-9 for employment. I’m somewhat amused to live in a state without reciprocity between the DMV and Social Security Administration, because I’d have been able to order a replacement online to be mailed to me if they did, and I’m mostly pretty done with being angry about it; amusement is what’s left over. Suffice it to say my in-person visit with the SSA was not ideally successful; I feel victorious over my issues to struggle with public tears on the phone with my traveling partner and nothing worse.

It’s just a piece of paper. It is not “who I am”.

So. The practicing. Today I’ll both look for the card (again), and maintain positive self-soothing practices hoping to keep my experience of frustration very minimal. That sounds so… easy…

I can't help think there's got to be a better way... it's the number that matters.

I think there’s got to be a better way… it’s the number that matters. (Hello? 21st century? Can we get an upgrade here, please?)

“Easy” doesn’t describe my experience of frustration very often. Frustration is my kryptonite. My results may vary. There are a quantity of verbs involved. Taking care of the woman in the mirror such that she is efficient, focused, committed – but not a frantic madwoman tearing the house apart enraged or hysterical – is one of the more major challenges I deal with when faced with frustration. That’d be quite the tight-rope act 3-4 years ago, or more. Today it feels like an exam. A test. Well… sure, okay. I’m being tested. Good test results may rely on good general self-care… it’s at least somewhere to start. So. Coffee. Yoga. Meditation. A nutritious balanced breakfast between 200-350 calories. Exercise. And the cherry on top; time spent considering how very often I do find things, lost things, misplaced things, things that have been moved in a thoughtless moment. I find things. It’s here somewhere. 🙂

Helpfully, it’s quite unique in appearance.

Sometimes the practices I need most turn out to have benefits I didn’t consider before. For me, the opposite of frustration is not “gratification”, it is “emotional ease”. The last time I misplaced something dear to me, that remained lost, unfound, perhaps “gone forever”, I lost myself in hysterics for hours and felt low and rather lost, myself, for many days. I grieved. It seems excessive, generally, for lost stuff. Today is a good day to treat myself better than that. 🙂

It’s just a bit of paper.

Somewhere in my mind’s eye, I imagine an orderly school room of children, a teach or test proctor at the front… “Pencils up! And begin.” Today is a good day to begin again. It’s enough.

Tags be here now, be the change, begin again, being and becoming, breathe, choose wisely, cognitive ease, cognitive strain, emotional self sufficiency, frustration is my kryptonite, good self-care, I am my own cartographer, it's just a silly bit of paper, MBSR, meditation, mindfulness matters, perspective, practicing the practices, ptsd, reactivity, taking care of me, TBI, The Art of Being, there are verbs involved, what matters most?

Categories Anxiety, Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, The Art of Being, The Big 5, Words

A Great Place to Start

September 14, 2016 //

Don’t be a dick. It’s a good beginning. It’s also “Wheaton’s Law“, and a solid rule for living comfortably among others. 🙂

This morning I woke up comfortably 10 minutes before 5 am, well-rested, and having slept through the night. I considered going back to sleep long enough to roll over and find real comfort (no real reason to insist I get up early), but my mind was awake and ready for the new day. I got up. Yoga. Meditation. A few minutes gazing contentedly out into the night sky, still filled with stars. I sat down to write with a smile…

Seriously. Just don’t. 🙂

Yeah. Wow. Thanks, Facebook, for one more opportunity to practice openness, compassion, and acceptance that we are each having our own experience. The lessons in life’s curriculum are sometimes unpleasant. I’m quite taken by surprise by the hateful, fearful, narrow-minded, judgmental things people can say about one another… although, rarely about those dear to them, generally they save the hate for generalizations they’ve made about groups of ‘others’ they assume don’t share their values – or, apparently, their humanity. It’s appalling enough from strangers. I’m (figuratively) stricken speechless when it comes from someone on my own friends list. :-\ Don’t be a dick.

…But… It really is an opportunity to practice acceptance, and to practice a kinder approach to others. Because we are each having our own experience, asking questions instead of making assumptions becomes a way of finding out more, when I approach a friend fearlessly and ask why they’ve said what they’ve said, and inquire, too, how it is to be taken. (I often find that what I’ve read is intended sarcastically, or ironically, and I find those qualities difficult to detect in text, without additional context, myself.) Sometimes people legitimately don’t seem aware that they may sound hateful. Sometimes I straight up ask that question, “Are you aware how hateful you sound, here?” Sometimes I don’t really know what to do, as when a family member or loved one of someone dear to me says something clearly hurtful, cruel, diminishing, or abusive to my dear one; sometimes involving myself is clearly a mistake, or potentially unwelcome. Lately, there’s been a lot of hateful rhetoric on Facebook. I worry that people don’t realize that it does matter, and is hurtful. Don’t be a dick.

No, everyone isn’t being soft or weak when they don’t care to be abused, or refuse to tolerate abusive dialogue. No, it isn’t ludicrous when vulnerable, wounded people want a ‘safe space’ to be heard. No, it isn’t unreasonable when traumatized people still dealing with PTSD want trigger warnings to more easily choose to avoid triggering topics, language, or people. These are people seeking to take better care of themselves – and that’s entirely okay, and rational, and when they must also stand up to ridicule or resistance just to request that support, it’s beyond okay – it becomes heroic. Don’t be a dick.

Attacking people because they hold a political view you don’t like? Don’t be a dick. It’s possible to make your point without personal attacks. Using abusive attacking language toward someone you say you love because you’re angry with them (or the world)? Don’t be a dick. Why would you treat people you love that way in the first place? Really? How is that love? Feeling resentful that someone struggling reaches out for help and gets it, because you struggle too and “no one helps you“? Don’t be a dick. Isn’t it okay to ask for help? Isn’t it okay for someone to choose provide it? Isn’t it okay to receive it? Just seriously don’t be a dick. How hard is that?

“Don’t be a dick.” It’s a great practice. It does require some self-awareness, and a willingness to be honest with yourself in your worst moments, able to acknowledge that you are, indeed, being a dick in the first place. Then, the next step, fucking stop doing that! It would be a nice value add to also make it right if you’ve already gone ahead and followed your worst instincts, and treated someone badly because you were committed to being a dick, instead of being the person you most want to be. Choose your words with care. Think how you would take it yourself if you heard those words, delivered just that way, by someone you think cares about you, in a similar moment. Not liking the sound of it? Do you find yourself reaching for a rationalization? (Because, if you do, it’s probably a dick moment that you could let go, just saying; kind words need no justification.) Don’t be a dick.

For those reading these words, thinking “fuck kindness” (and I know you’re out there), I can only say “please reconsider”. I know you’re having your own experience, but damn, the stain left on our own hearts by our own ugliness saturate our souls far more deeply than the hurtful words of others ever can. Hate changes us. Don’t be a dick.

It could be that you live in the context of hate and fear every day. It may not be that easy to tell that you’re being a dick, if everyone else around you is also being a dick. Brief hurt looks preceded by uncomfortable laughter are a good sign to look for; just because hurtful words are laughed off by our friends, doesn’t mean we’re being encouraged to continue with being such dicks all the damned time. Just stop. It’s not as funny as we may have grown to think it is, and it’s a form of humor specifically based on hurting people based on vulnerability or disadvantage. We can do better as human beings. We don’t have to be dicks. It’s a choice.

As with any choice, there are verbs involved.

I’m aware that these words likely won’t really be heard by any of the humans who need to hear them most; some people are righteous about being dicks, convinced of their position with moral certainty, comfortable telling the world to ‘toughen up’ and swallow more of their shit. I’m still saying it – because I won’t be that friend who let you keep being a dick without telling you I find it unpleasant. 😉

Practice the practices that take you closer to being the human being you most want to be.

Today will be a lovely day to be the best of who you know yourself to be, to be kinder than you must, to be more open to hearing about someone else’s experience, to provide a moment of help because you can, to reach across one of the many fairly random pointless divides we have created among ourselves as human beings and say “that’s not relevant to your humanity”, and treat each other truly well.

Tags be love, be the change, begin again, being and becoming, choose wisely, choose your words with care, don't be a dick, kindness is a free service, listening deeply, my home my rules my way, OPD, perspective, practicing the practices, relationships, taking care of me, The Art of Being, The Big 5, there are verbs involved, what matters most?, Wheaton's Law, Wheaton's Law enforced here, words matter

Categories Free Will, Healthy Living, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, more than a little bit of bitching, Perspective, Relationships, The Art of Being, The Big 5, War and News of War, Words

Changing with the Changes

September 13, 2016 //

Swim or float. Dance or run away. Choose or be swept away by chance, and change. Things do change. It amuses me that one of life’s constants is change, itself.

I woke early, feeling I’d ‘overslept’, but only because I’m resetting my internal clock to wake more precisely at 5 am daily, in preparation for returning to the work force. (Why is it a “work force“, exactly?) Unsure what woke me, I rose, did my ‘oh crap I’m so stiff’ yoga sequence, then made my way toward coffee. I smile, mindful that my routines are at risk of breaking with my traveling partner staying over. It’s on me to manage my self-care, and ensure I stay on track with fitness tasks, and meditation. It is a comfortable awareness where once it felt only frustrating. I keep practicing. So many things are about the experience of a practice, more than any end result, that I’ve gotten much more skilled at not being invested in a particular outcome, which seems also quite comfortable now.

I think I’m saying I recognize I’m fit to return to work, by my own understanding of my self, on my own terms. 🙂 It’s a welcome observation.

My smile rests comfortably on my face; I smile a lot these days, genuine, natural, unforced. It feels good. Smiles feel good; if the facial expression I’m holding in place doesn’t feel good, it’s probably not smiling, however many teeth I may be showing. lol

Change is a real thing, though, and sweeps in as a storm as often as it creeps in slowly like the tide. Either way, it’s fairly unavoidable. I expected this would be quite a solitary week. It is a week spent in the company of friends, and with my traveling partner. I expected I probably would not see my traveling partner for many days, from last Thursday, to next Tuesday sometime, but here’s he, now, having his morning coffee…and there’s some chance we’ll dine together after I am off work my first day back, next Monday. Not all the changes thrown my way are of consequence, some are quite wonderful and pleasant, some have nothing whatever to do with me, rippling over my experience like the waves of some pebble tossed into still water. Change is, I have no say in that. I’m learning to swim. Learning to dance. Learning to choose to be changed along the way, with a calm heart, and wide-eyed with wonder.

Each time for the first time, each moment the only moment. ~Jon Kabat-Zinn

It’s a lovely morning on the fading edge of summer. The days grow shorter, and cooler. The nights are becoming longer, and chilly. I begin the days in darkness now, watching the sunrise as I write is far more rare; it hasn’t yet begun, and I am almost finished here, this morning. The wheel turns.

My partner’s voice resonates with warmth and love (or simply because his deeper male voice sounds so to my ears) when he steps into the studio for a word or two. A welcome interruption… I’m nearly finished here, and the day is getting started. There’s a life to live, and a world to explore! There will probably be changes… where I am an ‘agent of chaos’ in my own life, my traveling partner is as often an ‘agent of change’, through his adventurous spirit and spontaneity. Change is. It’s far easier to surrender to the inevitability of change, and to grow, than to resist it – and to grow in some other direction, with considerably less comfort. LOL 😉

Tags be the change, begin again, being and becoming, breathe, changes, choose wisely, emotional self sufficiency, good self-care, I am my own cartographer, learn to be, learn to dance, learn to live, learn to swim, love and lovers, meditation, mindful living, mindfulness matters, perspective, practicing the practices, sufficiency, taking care of me, The Art of Being, there are verbs involved, walking my own path

Categories autumn, Brain Injury, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Summer, The Art of Being, Words

Beginning Again, Again

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A Season of Change

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Practicing on Paper

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A Great Place to Start

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Changing with the Changes

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