Archives for posts with tag: compassion
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Easy and Hard

July 5, 2016 //
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I could so easily mess with today by getting myself invested in expectations of misery, frustration, and boredom… I caught myself on the first attempt, and gave myself a chance to reconsider. I’m going down to the VA today, to wait on a cancellation or other opportunity to get my imaging done sooner than the [only available] scheduled appointment more than three weeks away. I’m hopeful I’ll be fortunate, and that my patience will pay off today. If it doesn’t – there’s tomorrow, and I’d likely commit 2-3 days a week to this, to get the images done sooner than later.

It's a journey, there is no map. Sometimes, there is no trail.

It’s a journey, there is no map. Sometimes, there is no trail.

This is where things start getting trickier for me; my perspective, my experience, my emotions… those are just me. What about ‘everyone else’? It’s a matter of balance, and sure, perspective, too. It matters that “we are each having our own experience”, because “we’re all in it together”.  Today I will do my best to be approachable, to-the-point, and calm. I’ll listen deeply, and do my best to avoid interrupting. I’ll ask clarifying questions. I’ll be patient with others and respect their humanity. I will remind myself regularly that at the VA almost everyone hurts in some way, and be considerate and compassionate – with myself, too. It’s a lot to practice…

A deep breathe. A lovely flower.

A deep breathe. A lovely flower.

We become what we practice. I’ll have to face the woman in the mirror at the end of the day. I hope to choose my practices wisely.

Practices… perspective… mindfulness… balance… It’s a lot to keep up on, if I take them one by one. Thankfully, they’re sort of ‘bundled’ together in one practice-filled mindfulness package. 🙂

I balance my bee sting allergy with my fascination for bees by keeping my bee sting kit handy, and using great care.

I balance my bee sting allergy with my fascination for bees by keeping my bee sting kit handy, and using great care.

Balance is important enough to practice. I thought about it, metaphorically, while I worked on balancing literally during my workout, this morning. One portion of my workout is entirely about balance, and when I began it, some of it seemed pretty silly… “stand on one leg”. Huh. Okay, sure. Easy! Oh… not so easy these days. Hmm. I begin again. Again. And again. I wobble. I sway. I keep at it. I practice. Seems easy. I guess, in most practical regards, it actually is quite easy. It’s the doing it well reliably bit that complicates things… and then… well… I’ve been on this new workout routine for…a week? About a week. A bit more maybe. It’s feeling really good, in the sense that my muscles tell me each day that there is change. Then, yesterday, I was able to put some real miles on my boots with much more comfort. Bad posture and pain had begun really holding me back… By the time I got home, feeling refreshed, strong, and exhilarated, I was also feeling my left knee ache. (Damn it!) This morning, I got up and felt it as soon as I took a step. I reached for my hiking staff before I even made coffee – looks like I’ll be walking with support for a few days. Balance… definitely not ‘easy’. Definitely takes practice.

perspective

Perspective matters, too; it’s easy to focus on how much my knee aches… or how unpleasant I find dealing with the VA…

 

There's more to it than this moment.

There’s more to it than this moment! I consider my needs over time; how do I best take care of myself long-term?

We become what we practice. Incremental change takes time. Building new skills – or restoring old ones – requires both. A good measure of patience with myself, and some perspective on the challenges, will probably be useful, too. 🙂

Practicing patience, self-soothing, and learning balance has unexpected delights.

Practicing patience, self-soothing, and learning balance has unexpected delights.

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Categories Anxiety, Brain Injury, health, Healthy Living, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Oregon Trails, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, solo hiking, Summer, The Art of Being, The Big 5, War and News of War, women, Words

Opening Up

May 15, 2016 //
1

A few days ago I went into my Facebook settings and ‘followed’ everyone on my friends list. (Over time I had ‘unfollowed’ several friends, for a variety of reasons, and recently recognized how limiting that could potentially be for those friendships.)

I consider myself fairly open-minded at this point in life – though, actually, I ‘always’ did… and… I just wasn’t, for a very long time. I grew up with hate, primarily racism, sexism, and homophobia, with plenty of extra hate laying about for ‘strangers’ and ideas that didn’t suit my community – or my father. He was a fairly well-educated man, professional, with broad life experience and a good intellect. He also thought of himself as ‘open-minded’. He also was not. Definitions of terms are surprisingly stretchy, varying rather a lot between how we apply a word to others, versus how we apply it to ourselves. Why do I mention it? The quantity of peculiarly subtle hate that cropped up in my Facebook feed when I followed everyone on my friends list. I admit I was taken by surprise by the rationalized lack of tolerance, lack of compassion, lack of understanding, and the intensely dogmatic (and more than a little nationalistic) ‘us versus them’ perspective on the world. Fear-based thinking. Entitlement. Ad hominem and straw-man fallacies in abundance. It was an eye-opening and thought-provoking experience. It got me thinking about hate… and the woman in the mirror.

I don’t hate much. I mean that in the verb form, as in “I don’t indulge in the experience of feeling hate, or acting on impulses that may have their source in the experience of hating” when I recognize and can avoid it. I qualify it in that fashion (‘…when I recognize and can avoid it.’) because I’m human. Prone to irrational fears of the unknown, prone to seeing threats where no threat exists, and prone to negative biases – because at one time in the evolution of humanity, we needed those characteristics to secure our safety. Not very useful at this point, I must say, and obviously damnably difficult to let go of, based on what I see in my Facebook feed this past couple days. I’m not immune. I tend toward reactivity, versus responsiveness (as do many of us, it’s very human). I practice another way, deliberately, willfully, and with use of plenty of verbs – because I don’t find positive value in hate. Full stop. No need to justify my values there. This is who I am.

Now.

Yep. There’s the thing; it’s who I am now. I’ve grown and changed a lot over the years. There was a time when I wore hate like a luxurious cloak of finely made fabric; I brandished it, justified it, and felt righteous about my hate. I didn’t call it hate. I didn’t recognize the hateful nature of my words and ideology. I didn’t understand that I was hateful. I didn’t see that I was hurting people. I had little self-awareness and less compassion. I look back on that much younger self of long ago and I am embarrassed – and relieved to be transformed over time, through experience, through choices, and through the patience and acts of loving friends and associates who valued me beyond the hate, the prejudice, and the ignorance.

Thank you. (You know who you are.)

Hate is pretty ugly stuff. A lot of it sources with our fears, and our insecurity about our selves. Worse still, a lot of our fears and our hate, culturally, is manufactured bullshit – created to fatten up someone’s bottom line, either at the polls, or in the marketplace. That’s some sick shit right there, when a human being is willing to foment hate to profit from it personally. I’m not okay with that. I’m okay with being uncomfortable with what I don’t understand. I’m okay with being uneasy about what is strange or new or different. I’m okay with wanting or needing to set boundaries for myself, or having limitations as a human being – I’m a human being. Hate though? Not actually okay at all – not if I intend to say I am a civilized, rational, reasonable, good-hearted, compassionate, human being. The ‘us/them’ bullshit used to justify hate is precisely that – it’s bullshit. We are all human beings – even the fairly hateful loathsome ones who push my ability to tolerate human stupidity – and we are each having our own experience. I can’t actually ‘fix this’, though… except with regard to the woman in the mirror. I don’t do hate. It’s a choice. There are verbs involved.

…I have friends (and family) who do. Hate exists because people hate. That’s an unpleasant thing to have to accept… that there are people who matter to me who embrace hate. These are good-hearted people, generally, who likely don’t see themselves in that light, and who don’t recognize their words or behavior as hateful. They feel justified. They are also having their own experience. I am uncomfortable with hate. I find myself facing an interesting life lesson here. I am thankful that friends and loved ones who knew a more hateful younger me didn’t turn away from me; over time it changed me to see another way modeled by people I value.

There’s no denouement here, no handy lesson, no easy solution or catchy final paragraph wherein the good guys win. This is life. This is messy. This is challenging. Change and growth don’t come easily – and can’t be forced. I can continue, myself, to grow, to do better than I did a year ago, and to practice good practices, learning to treat myself – and the world – truly well. I can refuse, myself, to hate. I hope it’s enough.

 

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Categories Free Will, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Love, Mindfulness, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, The Art of Being, The Big 5, Words

Waking Up on the Dark Side

May 13, 2016 //
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This morning I woke up crying. And in pain, but the pain is an everyday thing, waking up broken and emotional less so. This morning I woke up on the dark side of the bed, clumsy, hurting, and weeping. I initially tried a ‘reset’, took my morning medication and had a glass of water, went back to bed. Not helping. The tears become sobbing. Why am I crying? Is it only the pain? Nightmares? I slept well and deeply, and don’t recall my dreams… My brain carpet bombs my heart with every misstep, every failure, every scrap of potential risk in my near future, all my doubts, my fears, my insecurities – I’m drowning in panic. What the fuck is going on?? I stop caring much about any of that at some point and just give in to the sorrow, the dread, and the tears.

…Clearly, I was not going back to sleep. I get up. I make coffee. I open the apartment to the cool morning air. I am so overcome by restlessness and anxiety that meditation is difficult. I pace a bit. I’ve barely been up half an hour; yoga is difficult this morning and I am too stiff and too clumsy for now. No relief. No ease. The tears start again. My own words are attacking me, becoming water leaking from my eyes as soon as they form sentences in my head. The layered meanings of English words become enemies, and I hear only darkness and despair in the most beautiful poetry. I feel sad and lost – and can’t bear to put it into words. Fuck this… But now what?

I finally reach for my coffee and take a sip. Well. There’s one bright spot in a difficult morning – my coffee is excellent. It’s something – and I grab onto the moment and hold on. It’s still very early – earlier than I’ve been getting up most of this week. The sun has not yet risen, and I can see the colors of the sunrise just beyond the window of this room.

My brain sucker punches me again, when I try to write “just beyond the window of my studio”, and I start weeping all over again. How fragile happiness can seem when it slips away. “This is temporary, and it will pass.” I remind myself. I remind myself, again. Uncertain what is causing this emotional experience, even now, I go through the motions of any small thing that I know has the potential to be comforting, soothing, balancing… things that provide perspective, that ease emotional pain, that tend to support long-term wellness. I keep waiting for something to work. “Be kind to yourself, it’s a very human experience.” Yes, isn’t it? I feel rather as if I am… grieving.

I’m in pain this morning. I read my traveling partner’s well-wishes of the night before, hoping that I rest well and wake without pain. Well… 1 out of 2. It’s a start. Is this all just pain? If I start root-causing it now, I’ll likely be trapped ruminating over this all day without really getting anywhere. I woke up crying. I sure did. Now I work on pulling my focus away from it, and practicing practices that nudge me a different direction a bit at a time. The sun rises, peach and orange along the tree tops, dissipating into a pale cerulean blue wash of sky above. I watch the sun rise, and listen to the birds singing their morning songs. Today is not a work day, and clearly I need to take care of the woman in the mirror – once I figure out what this mad bitch actually needs to ease her hurts. Fuck this is hard sometimes.

My coffee is fucking good though. That’s something.

I take a really good deep breath. I observe my posture, and how tight my chest feels. I take a moment to stretch, really stretch, and breathe, really really breathe. More tears. Fuck it – let them come. I slowly ease myself through my ‘stiff back morning yoga sequence’, cutting myself some slack that it is so difficult today, and just doing it. Slowly. Try again when I can’t quite do some simple posture. I’ll get there. I remind myself that today will be a good day to meditate. I feel no enthusiasm for it. I’ve lost my joy for the moment – but chasing it is an exercise in frustration. The word frustration causes more tears; words are often associated with a visceral reaction for me, inconveniently. I remind myself that the tears are not my enemy, just another way to communicate an experience – a way that is very hard to shut down without actually addressing whatever the fuck is the matter. I let the tears come.

Okay, I’m done fucking around with this – and I need to break the cycle. Well – it feels like a need, and that’s enough to drive desperate action in human primates. So… I take a step I might ordinarily avoid, and I head to the internet. No, seriously, totally where I’m heading. Perspective is a powerful tool, and right now I’ve lost mine. I feel deeply aggrieved about… nothing, and it’s really messing up my ability to be in this moment and also okay – and I can’t identify any reason this would be the case. So. Perspective is on the internet. There is war. There is a refugee crisis. There is poverty. I let the tears continue, and I look on the face of the world’s suffering – because there are things worth crying about. There are people suffering, really suffering. I’m not among them. This is emotional bullshit I’m struggling with, and I can at least stop fucking struggling with it, and just be.

My tears stop. My heart aches for the suffering of others, and I feel grateful to be where I am, in the circumstances I have right now. I pause to reflect on what is, without burdening myself over whether it will last, or what ‘forever’ looks like, or whether this is enough. The sun clears the trees and fills my studio with light. Well… it’s not ‘enlightenment’ in any meaningful way, but it’s a start.

I’ll say that as practices go, diminishing the magnitude of my own suffering by immersing myself in the suffering of others (compassionately) in order to gain perspective is a fairly aggressive approach to take with myself when I am hurting – but it is often an effective tool. Compassion and gratitude don’t leave much room for despair, for anxiety, for sorrow, and tend to crowd out the chaos and damage, and the voices of the demon chorus.  (Note: I have found that it is not at all effective to attempt to take this approach with someone else when they are suffering – it’s sort of a ‘self serve’ tool, at best.) I’m not necessarily less angst-y, or feeling any less pain, but things being relative… yeah. I’m okay right now.

My coffee is quite exceptional this morning, and admittedly more so because I’d been getting by on the last of the pre-ground packaged coffee from the grocery store, left over from the trip to the coast for two days. The whole-bean artisan-roasted coffee this morning is a very different experience. I take a moment to allow myself to be comfortably aware that “this too shall pass”, that circumstances change, and that I may not ‘have it so good’ at some future point; change is. I am here right now, though, and it is enough. 🙂

A lot of the time I’ve spent bitching about how awful things were in that moment would likely have been much more enjoyable had I been focused on how exceptional other details of that moment happened to be. It’s just true. Hard, sometimes. Still true. My tears have dried. The day looks like a lovely one. The air is fresh and cool, and filled with birdsong. I am in a quiet safe space, with the day ahead of me. The pantry is stocked. The bills are paid. I head for my meditation cushion…

…I am okay right now. It’s enough.

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Categories Anxiety, Brain Injury, Free Will, grief, Mindfulness, more than a little bit of bitching, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, The Big 5, War and News of War, Words

Tricks, Traps, and Jokes

April 1, 2016 //
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Crap. It’s April Fool’s Day again. I should have taken the day off to stay safely at home, and off-line. I didn’t. It’s a regular work day, and I’ll be in the office and wary of the ‘playful’ side of colleagues, and the ‘spirit of the day’.

Don’t misunderstand me; I’m not an innocent here, and I’ve done my share of April Fool’s Day pranking in younger years; I gave it up many years ago when it finally struck me that willfully sowing chaos and stress in other people’s lives isn’t really funny at all…that was back in the 90s.  April Fool’s pranks in some cases are mostly fairly harmless, but very misleading… and once I finally gave thought to how that might affect people who have cognitive challenges to work around already it seemed both inappropriate, and unkind. April Fool’s pranks sometimes fall into a very different category, and are mean and at the expense of someone else’s emotional or physical safety without regard for the consequences to that other human being. I find myself wondering why it would even seem necessary to say that those sorts of pranks are not okay? Are you waiting for me to say ‘April Fools!’? I’m not going to. It’s not my thing. I’d rather treat you well and work together such that our shared understanding of reality is functional and reasonably accurate.

I'd rather find a friendlier way to celebrate spring.

I’d rather find a friendlier way to celebrate spring.

I woke this morning, immediately before the alarm went off – which was nice; I don’t like hearing it. I woke with my thoughts filled with as-yet-unprocessed bits and details and things my consciousness is fussing over in the background, feeling a bit frustrated by the din within. There are fewer moments of real stillness lately, a byproduct of cohabitation that has its charms and its challenges. Taking more time meditating, sitting quietly, and reading sounds nice and I am looking forward to the weekend.

I know that one of the things nagging at me is the very real need to ‘brush off’ the lingering OPD (Other People’s Drama) of exes, and however initially unappealing it may sound, realistically I am aware that forgiveness and letting go are the way to proceed. There will be no ‘closure’, most particularly with the most recent one; these are people having their own experience, too, and in their narrative things are very different from mine. There is no ‘meeting of the minds’ to rely upon, no shared interest in harmony, balance, equanimity, mutual respect or consideration… frankly, if there were, things might have turned out quite differently all around. Any ‘closure’ I find will likely be created from within, based upon the firm foundation of my own willingness to be accepting, to forgive, and to let go of attachments (not attachment to the people involved, those are long gone, but rather the attachment to needing to be heard, attachment to being understood, attachment to being ‘right’…). There are, as usual, verbs involved. This one isn’t easy, but few challenges are.

At the moment, I struggle with seemingly fresh hurts over old relationships; the path ahead is clear, nonetheless, and the choices are mine. I suspect that the attempts to contact me by a couple of exes, and the continued reminders of the more recent hell I vacated (that reach me by way of providing emotional support to my traveling partner as he deals with his own experience), is enough to challenge me to do a more thorough job of taking care of myself by letting some of this bullshit and baggage go, in a more complete way. I continue to practice good emotional self-care. I find The Four Agreements immensely helpful for dealing with symptoms of OPD. Why does it come up again? I wonder, but don’t answer the question easily.  I’m not sure the question really rates the work to find an answer beyond the obvious one; there is more to learn, and I have not yet completed that work.

Seeking balance, instead of answers.

Seeking balance, instead of answers.

The morning unfolds gently. My coffee is almost gone. The clock suggests it is soon time to head to the office. My mind still feels overly busy, and recognizing it I sense a bit of anxiety creeping in around the edges. I breathe. Relax. Let it go. I make a private commitment to myself to spend more time meditating this weekend, and consider getting out on the trail into the calm of the forest… or taking the bus to the beach.

Today is a good day to treat myself well – and everyone else, too. Be safe out there, World, and watch for pranksters. 🙂

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

Self-Sufficient and Connected

March 20, 2016 //
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In some moments I feel as if I am walking some invisible slack line high above sharp rocks or dangerous obstacles, no safety net, with an armload of squirming cats that don’t get along with each other, and haven’t eaten in days. The sensation is not improved by upheaval in my day-to-day routine, disarray in my environment, or the challenges of experiencing emotional intimacy and connection, while also developing emotional self-sufficiency. Sometimes it’s hard. Difficult. Complicated. Emotional.

Well, sure, you say that, but...

Well, sure, you say that, but…

My traveling partner does his courteous, considerate best to ease the strain, to minimize the challenges. He is, however, having his own experience. I practice deep listening, while also recognizing I have both a need and obligation to my own emotional wellness to set boundaries; this is by intent and respecting my ‘OPD free zone’; my partner is welcome here any time, but relationship drama is not. I continue to invest in my own emotional self-sufficiency, while also recognizing that the skills and tools required are not yet forged of unbreakable materials, and require continued practice, and more good boundary setting. I actually suck rather a lot at the setting of clear reasonable boundaries and maintaining them skillfully. An ongoing challenge requires ongoing attention, and the work involved is on me; there are verbs involved, choices, and mindful attention to the needs of the woman in the mirror, while also being compassionate, present, supportive, and aware – considerate – of the needs of the person so dear to me, now sharing this space.

partnership

Partnerships endure and overcome challenges with shared effort, support, consideration, and awareness.

It has been very tough to relax entirely this week, or to find a feeling of being grounded, centered, balanced, and hold on to it; the symptoms of OPD are present in many moments. I set all that aside and listen to the rain fall. I could contentedly spend the day listening to the rain fall; it’s not a comfortable fit for shared living. At least, for now, I don’t yet know how to say ‘I need more quiet time than I am getting’, without causing hurt feelings, or heaping more experiences of feeling rejected on someone who urgently needs very much to feel welcomed – somewhere. This is home. My home. His home whenever he is here. A safe place to be at home with oneself, and with love. I remind myself that healing takes time, and that hurt creatures need comfort and care, and that change is. Human beings don’t tend to remain ‘in crisis’ indefinitely (unless repeatedly subjected to an insane cycle of empty promises, baiting, and torment). Healing happens in a safe nurturing environment. It still takes the time it takes. I ask myself an important question or two about what matters most to me, and find myself feeling soothed, content, and comforted. At least for a while, it will be on me to provide much of the positivity and comfort here, and to be the builder of an emotionally healthy environment that meets needs for two, and to do rather a lot of ‘adulting’ – maybe more than I feel ready for. I remind myself I’ve been providing these things for myself successfully for a year, and that love is not an adversary, or a drain on resources, or an inconvenience, but may require some tweaks and changes to the way space is used, and the timing of various practices, tasks, and activities.

partnership

Partnerships don’t alleviate the requirement we each have to take care of ourselves, while we also care for each other.

I take some time this morning to meditate on boundaries, ground rules, The Big 5 on which I personally seek to build all my relationships (respect, consideration, compassion, reciprocity, and openness), and what I can do to deliver on those characteristics well, and not simply assume they are my due. A partnership requires equanimity, and shared effort. We can only each do our best, as we understand our best to be in the moment, and even at that, sometimes our best is literally not enough to cause change. I can choose not to take small hurts personally, and be a supportive presence in the midst of my partner’s emotional chaos and suffering; it will require me to learn to juggle my own needs and theirs with considerable efficiency, and to learn to set boundaries more firmly, but also with great tenderness and compassion. Fuck – I hope I am up to the challenge. A year ago – almost exactly – the best I could do was simply remove myself from the problematic environment, because the difficultly level far exceeded my competency, or ability to care for myself while enduring it.

Having both complex PTSD and  a TBI, trust me when I say I don’t find living with people easy; however lonely solitary living may sometimes feel, it is nearly effortless in comparison to cohabitation!

Today's sunrise wasn't this colorful. I am reminded that change is.

Today’s sunrise wasn’t this colorful. I am reminded that change is.

Every day is a new opportunity to begin again. I spend the time over my first coffee revisiting my budget. There is change to account for. I account for it. I accept how uncomfortable I feel having to do so, so soon after moving. I take a moment to recognize the simmering anger and resentment lurking beneath the discomfort, directed toward someone who is literally no part of my life in any direct way. I resent that there is even an implied presence, or any agency affecting my routine that I have not invited into my experience. I breathe and let it go. I’m okay with the anger, and the resentment too, they seem a reasonable emotional response to being shoved from the slow moving-in process I had embraced so deliberately, to being in circumstances that feel rushed by need and urgency. I dislike the unpleasant negative emotions that come with the lurking ‘OPD’ now a constant threat in the background.  It is part of my partner’s experience, and as unpleasant as I find it, it’s no doubt worse for him. I’d like most to ease his suffering. How do I set and reinforce boundaries about this OPD free zone I have created for myself without encroaching on the free will of a respected adult now in my household? (I mean, seriously? I entirely don’t care to deal with it, don’t see that it must be dealt with at all, and don’t want to encourage it; it has no place here.)

...and listen deeply.

…and listen deeply.

The day is barely begun, and holds so much promise. Perhaps a second coffee, and another chance to begin again? Perhaps a different selection of verbs with that? 🙂

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Categories Anxiety, Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Spring, The Big 5, Words
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