Archives for posts with tag: choose your adventure
Newer Entries »

Currents, Tides, and Waves

September 25, 2015 //
0

This is not a blog post about science, water, or the seashore.

This morning I am sipping my coffee and contemplating this empty text box, and letting my thoughts wander where they will. I am pre-occupied with the evening of love ahead of me, and content with morning quite precisely just as it is. This morning, the titular aquatic metaphor is a reflection on differences in thoughts, and thinking. Some of my thoughts are an undercurrent to the busier consciousness of the immediate moment, with wakefulness interrupting my dreams and beginning a new day being rather like a tide of consciousness rolling in. My momentary considerations of some one title or another on which to build this morning’s writing are as waves, hitting my awareness, being considered, then receding.

I continue to sip my coffee and think about love. What a very sweet beginning to the day to choose. And love? Love, itself…? More than enough. Today is a good day for love.

Be love.

Be love.

Tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Categories autumn, Brain Injury, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Perspective, Relationships, The Art of Being, The Big 5

Bouncin’ Back

July 15, 2015 //
2

I woke with the alarm this morning, and for a few moments lay quite still, awake, getting my bearings on the day before attempting to rise. I don’t spend much time on ‘auto pilot’ these days, even first thing as I am waking. It seems a healthy change, but it is dependent on my own still-developing ability to stay on course using awareness, will and verbs. I am a beginner. A student. A project in progress. I suppose this is always true, for each of us, until we choose to cling to what we think we know, instead of allowing ourselves to learn and grow…

I am not yet reliably skilled at staying in the moment and making each choice anew without the ‘advantage’ of habit, reactions, programming, and a clear plan with many ‘plans B’ and alternate options for a variety of contingencies and unexpected effects of the free will of others. Still…it’s very pleasant to wake, linger a moment with myself, breathing, before rising rather than feeling my feet hit the floor as I turn off the alarm, and sort of lurching hurriedly through a firm very fixed routine. The occasional miss on taking medication, or wandering off having forgotten to start the dishwasher, seems like a small and reasonable trade-off to become more awake, aware, and alive; embracing an authentic experience of myself, and enjoying my life is very much worth the effort. (Yes, there are verbs involved.)

Enjoying morning.

Enjoying a moment.

This morning, I am listening to favorite tracks and getting my day started in an upbeat energetic way. My coffee is ready – but I’d forgotten about that, until just now; I am dancing through chores and housekeeping. Coffee does sound good…

…Still hot, too. 🙂

Today starts well – most days do now. It’s a pleasant life, and I am eagerly looking ahead to making some of this more permanent in my experience by buying a little place of my own. It’s time I was able to call somewhere ‘home’ knowing that it is not a lease-dependent condition reliant upon the whim of some landlord. I have a much clearer idea of what I want out of a home of my own, and my wants and needs are not lavish, out of reach, or excessive. I have no need to impress someone else, or achieve any goal besides ‘home’ [easy enough, since ‘home’ is something we make with our hearts, our will, and our work – and not something that can be purchased, ever]. Hell, this wee apartment is ‘home’ to me on a level only one other dwelling has been; it’s about what I put into it, rather than plumbing fixtures, fancy doors, upgrading paint or flooring, or vast square footage used to indicate importance and stature. Buying a home will be much less costly than it would be if I were attempting to purchase the esteem of others at the same time. 🙂 Something for me will be quite enough.

Last night I enjoyed some quiet time and conversation with my traveling partner. Saying so does little to describe the profound delight I take in hanging out with this one particular human being, or to share how precious those moments together are. We enjoy each other. The stresses and challenges of living together in a stress-filled multi-adult shared household were incredibly unhealthy for the two of us as a partnership [and for me as an individual], and it pleases me to be once again able to wholly enjoy him – to enjoy each other together – on this profound connected level that we share so easily without the interference of others. I had worried, when I moved, that I had entirely lost my skill for ‘being there’ for him, over time, and that I was simply no longer able to be a gentle supportive presence, listening, loving, engaging, connecting… It was silly to worry myself so. The environment we were in simply didn’t support that, at all, and in that context our effort to enjoy each other with any ease was continuously undermined, often in a seemingly willful way. I understand the circumstances (and people) much more now, and the perspective offered by distance is very helpful. It has been easy to ‘let it go’; it does not directly affect my experience now, and is not worth taking personally (it was never ‘about me’).

I am smiling this morning. My traveling partner is comfortable turning to me when he needs support – that means so much to me, and now I recognize that being there for him in that way is a powerful positive value in our relationship for me – it is something I have to offer Love that is very much worth having. My Big 5 is powerful there: Respect, Consideration, Compassion, Reciprocity and Openness build a strong foundation for love. My attention to living beautifully, and study of The Art of Being, is useful, too; I have created a beautiful safe space here, for myself, that nurtures calm, contentment, and affection. OPD dissipates here, unable to find a solid platform from which to run the show. Seeing my distressed partner at the door resulted in a warm welcome, a loving embrace, and supportive chill time enjoyed together – no stress. Lovely.

Enough.

Enough.

This is my life. This is my home, and this is the way of my heart. This is enough. 🙂

Tags , , , , , , , , , , ,
Categories Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Love, Mindfulness, Perspective, Relationships, Summer, The Art of Being, The Big 5

Zen Bullshit

June 29, 2015 //
0

I am enjoying a quiet morning without the stereo on, without any additional stimulus in the background, and the cool chill of morning slowly reaching all the corners of my wee home through the open patio door. The A/C is off, more to enjoy the quiet cool morning, and less to save money/energy, but it has those benefits as well. The only sounds are of traffic on the not-so-distant street, and the bubble and zing of the goose-neck kettle heating water to make coffee.

I had a wonderful weekend taking care of me, and enjoying myself as I am. I spent most of it alone, and most of it at home, with the exception of a couple merry hours with my traveling partner, with whom I shared coffee and breakfast out on Sunday morning. Saturday was all mine.

No use crying over spilled tiny hardware parts. :-)

No use crying over spilled tiny hardware parts. 🙂

Saturday I spent mostly on household chores and meditating, and much of that spent meditating on art. Bare walls bother me, and I still have an entire wall running the length of my living space that for now remains quite empty. Because the wall is the length of the living space I’ve been stumped by what to do with it, thematically; it does seem to want some sort of theme. Over the course of the day I hung some paintings in my bedroom, and completed the installations in that space. Feeling quite content and accomplished, (and perhaps not paying attention) I carelessly overturned a small compartmented box of hanging hardware and the tiny contents splashed onto the carpet. It’s the kind of thing that can so easily cause tempers to flare…only…in this case, not mine, not this time, and not over this particular category of mess. I settled down with a fresh cup of coffee to sort all the wee parts into their compartments with some measure of honest delight – and posted the picture and a comment on Facebook to the effect that it would be a fun little diversion. A faraway friend replied with some cynicism that my calm sounded like ‘zen bullshit’. 🙂 I laughed, and reminded him how much I actually enjoy sorting things (it’s a harmless quirk and I don’t bother with troubleshooting or ‘fixing’ it).

I get where he’s coming from on the ‘zen bullshit’, though. I remember when I stood on the outside looking in, at a time when what I thought meditation was ‘didn’t work’ for me (not quite the right sort of meditation for the desired outcome), and snarled at the soft-seeming nonsense other friends who already ‘got it’ tried to share. It’s not actually nonsense, as it turns out. It’s not ‘zen bullshit’ to practice practices that get desired results…and it wasn’t ‘easy’ to find my way here. There were – and are – verbs involved. A fucking ton of verbs, day after day after day, and a surplus of opportunities to quit, to fail… to practice. Practicing never ends, and there is no finish line or clear victory beyond the stillness, itself. The calm and contentment are totally worth the investment in time, in effort, in will –  and in won’t – and in patient acceptance that practicing good practices results in incremental change over time. I didn’t practice ‘being calm’ – I practiced other practices that in time resulted in greater calm. No zen bullshit – just effort, will, and results that vary.

Like garden flowers, we thrive when conditions are right, and bloom in our own time.

Like garden flowers, we thrive when conditions are right, and bloom in our own time.

This morning I am happily celebrating all the value I find in the ‘zen bullshit’ practices that have made their way into my experience. I’ve chosen this path. Sometimes it is slow going. My calm and contentment are not a byproduct of magic, or new age-y mysticism, or some ‘secret the pharmacy companies don’t want you to know’ – I have worked to get to this place, and made some unconventional (and sometimes difficult) choices in order to build a life in which I can thrive. Seriously? I’m 52, and the progress has definitely seemed slow going to me. I’ve given up some experiences I truly love in order to make more room in my heart, and my experience, to live well and invest in joy, contentment, and love. This journey is not about ‘easy’. It is also not about ‘faking it’; authenticity matters to me, and sharing the experience I am actually having is something I do – hard or easy.

We make our own way through life's wilderness.

We make our own way through life’s wilderness.

This morning I raise my cup (coffee, black) to the world beyond the ‘zen bullshit’ and wish friends and loved ones suffering under the weight of their challenges some moment of relief, and hope that they find their way ‘home’ and that their suffering is eased by the choices they make, whatever those may be. We are each having our own experience, and while there are definitely verbs involved there are surely enough verbs to choose from for each to walk her own path. Choose wisely – your choices matter. [Your results may vary.]

Tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Categories art and the artist, Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Summer, The Art of Being, The Big 5

My Will and My Won’t

April 30, 2015 //
0

I woke this morning, too early, because biology said so; I had to pee. I wanted very much to go back to sleep, even though I knew the alarm would go off in less than an hour. It mattered less that I might not sleep more, than it did to honor my desire to do so. I snuggled up in the warmth of the blankets, and let myself drift off, favoring meditation if sleep didn’t come. Sleep didn’t come. Anxiety did, though. Like a blast through my relaxed near-dream consciousness, like a bucket of ice water on a challenge I didn’t volunteer for, like a pit in a pitted cherry in a particular good bite of pie, my anxiety surged very suddenly, and without obvious cause. Amusingly, I ‘heard’ a distant imagined voice, calm and professional, my own, in the background “please do not panic…” and smiled as I comfortably shifted my body to a more open position, and focused on my breathing. The anxiety quickly dissipated, lacking anything to feed on, and I continued to meditate until the alarm went off, and then for a couple of moments afterward; reacting to the alarm often starts my day badly, for some reason, perhaps some association with the word ‘alarm’, itself, and I often take a couple of minutes to breath and relax before I rise.

Like any muscle, my will becomes stronger (and healthier) the more I exercise it. Practicing good emotional and physical self-care pays off over time, although initially I wasn’t really  certain that such small changes would ‘matter’. Isn’t that the thing though? If I had insisted for myself that small changes, better practices, and that really committing to the practices that feel good to me were of no value – or no lasting value – or that I ‘won’t be able to make that work’, I most assuredly would have achieved what I was certain of – they wouldn’t have been of much value. Don’t get me wrong on this one, I am not decrying the value of empirical evidence, or sneezing on the standards of proof in science. I am suggesting that it is rather obvious, regardless what can be proven effective, that we have the power to render the most effective treatment worthless by undercutting our will, or by defining our successes as failure, or simply by choosing to identify the outcome as ‘not working’. This is not a matter of ‘faith’ – because the things I am practicing are not ‘faith-based’ practices. Like any practices, if I don’t actually practice them, they will not be effective – it is my choice to apply myself, to enact my will, to see change manifest because I choose it. There are verbs involved…but there is also acceptance, and awareness involved.

Tree of Life, Tree of Knowledge... or just a tree? You choose.

Tree of Life, Tree of Knowledge… or just a tree? You choose.

Why am I on about this today? For a friend, actually. It seems he has lost his will, and is surviving life on his ‘won’t’ instead. It sucks to see him suffer – worse still, it sucks to see him not only choose suffering, but to invest heavily in the continuation of suffering as though the suffering itself has great value, or is the desired outcome. Hell, maybe it is. He does get to choose. I feel both sympathy and compassion for his struggle; I have my own such moments. Maybe we all do, now and then. We each make our choices. There are verbs involved. Our results vary. We are each having our own experience. The map is not the world. The journey is the destination.

My friend has been exposed to all these ideas, himself. He has a lot of people who support and encourage him (although he often doesn’t recognize or acknowledge it). He very specifically enacts his ‘won’t’ at many decision-making points, and defines many moments as failures, accepting that there is no possible good outcome available to him. He often makes a point of limiting his perceived options, and holds onto life-goals that appear specifically chosen to be as far out of reach as possible, while firmly refusing himself any opportunity to see more of life’s potential. It makes my heart ache to see him suffer…and it confuses me to see that it is willful, and so carefully crafted. I am powerless to help – because these are his choices to make, and he makes them. Another lesson on attachment, perhaps, and a reminder that some of my own self-inflicted suffering is a matter of choosing (poorly) to find myself responsible for someone else’s self-inflicted suffering by assigning myself some portion of the task of alleviating that suffering. It doesn’t work that way with self-inflicted suffering; only the self can choose to let that one go.

The loveliness of life is not visible so easily if my eyes are closed; knowing this may not be enough to decide to open my eyes. That's how choice works.

The loveliness of life is not visible so easily if my eyes are closed; knowing this may not be enough to decide to open my eyes. That’s how choice works.

Today is a good day for good self-care, and for loving the being of light that inhabits this fragile vessel. Today is a good day to be compassionate. Today is a good day to consider more than the obvious options, and choices that didn’t make the first list. Today is a good day to be open to success, and to accept failure as an opportunity to learn and grow. Today is a good day to love, and to put myself at the top of my own agenda. Today is a good day to change the world within.

Tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Categories Anxiety, Free Will, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Perspective, Relationships, The Art of Being, The Big 5, Words
Newer Entries »