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Beyond Words

June 18, 2016 //
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It’s been a lovely week – truly, the entire week, lovely end-to-end. Remarkable. See, here? I am remarking on it. Clearly, remarkable. Well… maybe not so remarkable at all that; it’s been quite a while since I had a terrible week, aside from the irritants of work-related stressors (and at least for now, those have faded into memory). In any case, remarkable or not, it’s been a very pleasant week, filled with love and friendship, beginning with just about the best birthday I recall having, and ending with today – a quiet, calm, gray Saturday preceded by a good night’s sleep. I spent a lot of the week with my traveling partner – time well-spent. Life time. 🙂

No idea what I’ll do with today. Returning to the workforce looms ever closer, each morning of each day one day nearer to the one on which my alarm clock will do its dirty work, waking me before I care to be awake… for now, no alarm clock. I continue to enjoy it greatly, waking with a smile most days. A literal, actual, smile, in the moment that I wake… now that’s remarkable. I feel a sense that each day is precious – even more so than I often do. What will I do with today to make the time most worthwhile?

Well, sure. This.

Well, sure. This.

The wise course seems to be to continue to practice the practices most useful for me to maintain emotional balance, to withstand life’s highs and lows, to remain mindful moment-to-moment – or to at least practice, and begin again when I miss the mark – and simply to savor the time, as it is, as it happens. This is my experience. I suppose it makes sense to experience it. 🙂 No rush. No pressure. No demands or urgency from within. Just a day – unscripted, and ready to become what it will. I’m ready to enjoy it, without forcing it into a mold. There are, as usual, verbs involved. What will my choices be? How will I approach the world – or will I? Will I go? Do? Will I devote myself to gentle luxury self-care? Relax and read the day away? Garden? Walk mile upon mile of forested trail, with a pack, snacks, a camera, and plenty of water? Will I cross town to the farmer’s market? Will I seek? Will I find? Will I travel and return with tales of adventure? Will life happen to me – or will I embrace it?

Walking my own path, one step at a time.

Walking my own path, one step at a time.

I sip my coffee, thinking of love. It’s been an absolutely wonderful week for love. My smile deepens and I consider loving moments built on choices. I already miss my traveling partner (still… again…), although we’ve managed to spend most of the week together in a loose relaxed on again/off again way that has both delighted me (to see him so much/often) and given me the space and time I need for other things. I take a moment to consider this human being who is such an exception to my contentment with solitude… I yearn for him. I adore him. I think about him when he is apart from me. My muse. My sanity. Another sip from my now cool-enough-to-drink-down-quickly coffee becomes finishing it off, and I notice this blog post has become, somehow, a love note. Well. Not the direction I thought the day was headed – I’m okay with that. I’m okay with a lot more of who I am these days than I once was. 🙂 I’m okay with love.

Love matters most.

Love matters most.

Today is a good day for love. Today is a good day for unplanned, unscripted, unlimited ease. Today is a good day to take care of me, and to treat the world with great kindness. Change is. The world, too, is changing…each choice we make, each of us, is some small part of that strange human difference engine. Today I will ‘be the change’, rather than just standing around while change happens. It’s enough that the changes are small, and limited to the only sorts of things I can change… myself, my actions, my expectations, my assumptions, my words.  Today is a good day to change the world.

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Categories Free Will, Love, Mindfulness, Perspective, Relationships, The Art of Being, The Big 5, Words

Gently Now

November 21, 2015 //
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I slept in until past 8:00 am, rare for me. I woke shortly before 5:00 am, actually, and chose to lay down to meditate and let morning medication kick in before I got up to have coffee. At some point, I slept. When I did wake and rise to greet the day, it was pleasant to note that my pain and stiffness were not as significant as other recent mornings.

I’ve spent a bit less than an hour sipping my coffee, and watching the autumn sunshine move slowly over the collected drifts of colorful leaves piled against the garden pots on my patio. I’ve got some great grooves playing in the background, and a beautiful day ahead, as yet unplanned. Once or twice I have rather firmly, even sternly, snatched my consciousness back from the edge of work-related matters; I am quite committed to preserving my leisure for my own purposes these days, and that is inclusive of my cognitive resources in my off hours – not one extra thought or care of mine is going to be directed toward the agenda or needs of my job or industry. My employer must pay for my time, and since I am paid to think… well…you see where that goes quite quickly. At this point, even my brain is on board with a day of leisure, and any loitering demons invested in coloring my day with insecurity seem, themselves, to be taking the day off today.

There's a beautiful day ahead, to live, to thrive, to choose - to begin again.

There’s a beautiful day ahead, to live, to thrive, to choose – to begin again.

Anxiety is hard. Insecurity is hard, too. Doubt is also difficult. You know what, though? Letting it go, as difficult as it can seem, is surely no more difficult than the anxiety, the insecurity, and the doubt – and so often it is nothing more than letting the thoughts play on a loop in the background that creates those crappy anxious, insecure, doubt-filled experiences. Since having those experiences requires no practice (for me), putting the actual effort on the challenge of letting those things go makes a lot of sense. The outcome is worth the work; when I began practices of letting things go, and redirecting the flow of my thinking, and simply being mindfully aware, in this moment, just breathing, they were incredibly difficult practices! I had to begin again so many times. The progress seemed so slow. I was often so unsure that I was really getting anywhere, or that it was really helping stabilize me. I look back on more than two years of simple practices, improved self-care, and really taking care of the woman in the mirror… it’s not as difficult as it once was to give myself compassion, consideration, respect – to treat myself well day-to-day – and to be able, with relative ease, to redirect my thinking instead of allowing negative thinking and internal abuse to overtake me. Incremental change over time. We become what we practice. 🙂 (Yes, even you, over there – yes, you, the one struggling right now, and feeling maybe I don’t get it, can’t understand, and it won’t work for you. Even you – it’s just that practice is required, and there are verbs involved. You can begin again. Yes, and again tomorrow. And even after that. Change happens when we choose change. If this moment, right here, is that bad – you can walk on to the next moment, even if you must do so in a literal way to get the feel of it.)

Walk your own path, choose your own verbs, and build your own practices.

Walk your own path, choose your own verbs, and build your own practices.

A lovely autumn Saturday stretches out in front of me. My coffee is almost gone and what’s left is cold. Falling autumn leaves twisting in the sunshine as they drop are as the second-hand of some strange earth-clock, reminding me that the day progresses…and I’m still in comfy clothes and fuzzy spa socks. Where will today take me?

Today is a good day to enjoy exploring the world. I’ll get my coat…

 

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

Currents, Tides, and Waves

September 25, 2015 //
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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.

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

Bouncin’ Back

July 15, 2015 //
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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. 🙂

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

Zen Bullshit

June 29, 2015 //
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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.]

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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
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