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Things We Choose

April 13, 2015 //
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There is so much free will in life. There are so many choices! I like that about the experience of living. Similarly, I am sometimes frustrated by the limits I place on myself, often without recognizing that I have also chosen those.

Even when we are awake, aware, and observing the world through a beginner's eyes, we choose much of what we see.

Even when we are awake, aware, and observing the world through a beginner’s eyes, we choose much of what we see.

Mondays get a bit of bad press. This morning I’m choosing a different Monday. (Because I can, that’s why. lol) This particular Monday is one that I will use to make choices, eyes open, willfully, in favor of things I enjoy. Today, simply, I am choosing joy, choosing delight, choosing pleasantness, choosing small things that put big smiles on my face. Will it be time in the garden after work? Will it be pen & ink sketches on my lunch time walk, or photographs of spring flowers? Perhaps I may choose to create small figures from colorful modeling clay to create a tiny world at the foot of my wee ornamental pistachio tree? I could choose to create order from chaos with mindful service to home and hearth; a wonderful way to put practices to good use on a number of levels. I could read a great book I love – or a book I know nothing about, but comes highly recommended by someone who matters. I could wrap up a productive work day over dinner with a friend, or in meditation. I could share a movie night with family, or enjoy a long walk.

Choosing my path with care seems worthy as choices go...

Choosing my path with care seems worthy as choices go…

What I’m saying is that I choose a lot of my experience, and it begins with a pretty vast menu of options. I filter those options – we all do – down to some much shorter list of things that in that moment seem most probable, most ‘do-able’, then peculiarly I sometimes find myself left with the illusion that this much shorter list is actually the whole of it – ‘all’ my choices. It isn’t. There are so many more choices than I generally lay before myself for consideration in any one moment.  This is not an uncommon experience, I see it in others – most often that scenario that begins with distress that ‘there’s no other choice’ or ‘nothing else I can do’. My reaction is often one of commencing to throw other options into the mix for consideration – behaving as if that person is unaware of the vastness of their unlimited options. It’s not helpful; people know they have more choices. They have excluded many of them, by choice. I am learning to take a new approach – even within myself – in the face of ‘I have no other choice’; I am finding value in asking to what purpose the choices have been limited thus, rather than offering more choices. Sometimes it isn’t at all that ‘I have no other choice’ – it is more likely that I have made the choice, and am not content with either the choice itself, or the anticipated outcome. It is an interesting exercise in perspective to make a point of changing what I anticipate the outcome of an uncomfortable choice to be, and reconsider it – it has the power to change what I think about the choice, and has often proven as likely to be a valid possible outcome, in practice. My ‘outcome predictor’ is quite broken; I anticipate catastrophe far more often than I anticipate profound success. I am regularly wrong, in both cases.

It feels very different lately to make more of my choices based less on some predicted outcome, and more on what the experience itself feels like for me – and to choose more frequently from the list of ‘Things I Enjoy Greatly’ rather than from the list of ‘Things I Must Do Or There Will Be Consequences’, or worse, the very short list of ‘I Have No Other Choice’ (a list most of us have, I suppose, and it seems dreadfully short on options, and usually made up of unpleasant ones).

Today is a good day to do things I enjoy, because I enjoy them. Today is a good day to do things that must be done – and to choose to do them, also, in a way that I enjoy. Today is a good day to choose well, and to choose wisely, and to keep myself high on my list of priorities. Today is a good day to explore The Art of Being, by being – artfully, joyfully, and fully embracing the best of who I am, from my own perspective. Today is a good day to take the time to enjoy my experience.

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Categories Brain Injury, Free Will, gardening, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, solo hiking, Spring, The Art of Being, Words

Art and Practice

April 6, 2015 //
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I like the sound of the phrase ‘The Art of Being’. I find something contained within those simple words that hints at more than the practical details of practicing practices and the slow pace of incremental change over time; it suggests nuances of self and experience that exist beyond the logistics of resources and effort in practices. As lovely as it sounds, however, the Art of Being remains tangled up in practices that need practicing. As with being an amazing singer, or gifted artist, perhaps, the beauty of raw talent is a wonder that holds potential to be further improved upon with skill, craftsmanship, and experience…all things that come from practice, and possibly some coaching or education.

Sorting out ‘art’ from ‘science’, and taking those next steps from talent (or good fortune) to skill and craftsmanship, to design and engineering, is an experience of its own. It is the journey from awareness to real understanding. From “I’m doing it!” to “Of course, I’ve got this.” From asking questions to… understanding, or at least to the threshold of building real understanding. To be clear, I am still asking questions, and still approaching my circumstances and experience with a beginner’s mind in every  moment that I remain mindful to do so; there are still practices involved, still requiring verbs, will, and choice.

I am rereading the Four Agreements; a worthy starting point on any journey of self.

I am rereading The Four Agreements; a worthy starting point on any journey of self.

For me, now, the ‘art’ in The Art of Being speaks to an increased level of ‘ease’ within myself, and how I approach my experience moment-to-moment. It implies a heightened level of acceptance, of self-compassion, and self-appreciation. It implies a reduction in assumptions, expectations, and attachment resulting in an increased level of calm, contentment, and even merriment. I expect to find that someone skilled in The Art of Being will be emotionally self-sufficient, accepting of themselves and not inclined to take the emotions or experience of others personally, and to be so without doing emotional harm to others thoughtlessly or by intention.

I feel a bit as I do out on a long hike, checking my map for significant landmarks, intersections, places I’d like to stop, or turn toward another direction…I’ve got my eye on the next turn, the next goal, and the signpost I am looking for reads ‘The Art of Being’. I’m not discontent on this path so clearly marked ‘Practicing the Practices’, and it is an important part of my journey. This is, however, a journey; there is more life to live, more ground to cover.  I am my own cartographer, and I am placing an ‘x’ on this particular spot…right over…here. The Art of Being seems a good direction to head, a worthy goal, and a good place to find myself farther along the way. This is not a journey about destinations as much as it is about steps, and continuance, and walking on…

Taking time to consider the journey, to rest, to observe, to enjoy, all have value of their own; there is no need to rush life.

Taking time to consider the journey, to rest, to observe, to enjoy, all have value of their own; there is no need to rush life, now is lovely.

One of the challenges for me day-to-day is remaining committed to the practices that seem most effective, and not allowing myself to become distracted by old patterns, ineffective programming, and moments of distress caused by the clash between historical expectations and change over time. It is almost inevitable in the context of relationships that (because we are each having our own experience) I may occasionally feel a bit like some mysterious quantum particle – I’m not quite in the place I’m expected to be, as a person, but it isn’t obvious ‘where I’m at’ until a specific outcome is observed – but having made the observation, I may have already moved on to better things by way of that very observation, itself. Similarly, I may have a sense that I’ve ‘come so far’, only to observe that in some moment, the incremental change is far smaller than anticipated, at least right then. It’s hard to keep up with, myself. I continue to practice the practices that are most effective, and I am learning to set aside the expectations altogether and give myself a break from constant criticism, and demands, and enjoy the journey in my own good company.

I am using my current search for a live/work space to promote deeper understanding of where I am in life, now, as well as putting focus on ongoing challenges with attachment; investing willfully in my own needs feels powerful, and provocatively hints at growth to come, in an environment uniquely suited to me. Although it feels ‘overdue’, I don’t allow myself criticism of the relevant decision-making that put it off so long; each of those decision-making points in life have been important, and each one handled in the way that seemed best at the time, based on my understanding of events, and of self, in that moment. Regret and bullying myself over past choices drives stress, feeds attachment, and continues the sort of self-defeating beat down that impedes clear thinking in the present. Besides – I deserve better than that from me. When I treat myself badly, I also make it much more difficult to treat others well.

The weekend was pretty good. I enjoyed it a great deal. I had a couple challenging moments yesterday, both missed opportunities to more skillfully manage my emotional experience, and to more clearly express myself, both very illustrative of how much further there is to go on this journey, and how much value there is in love. Wonderfully, they were both moments, and moments pass, in fact – in the case of yesterday, both challenging moments passed by like spring showers, and didn’t linger. Progress.

There is more to do, and farther to go. There is life is to be lived, and there is pleasure to be enjoyed, and further progress to make. There is a woman I love, to smile at in the mirror. I’ve got practices to practice as I continue down this path, on my way to The Art of Being.

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Categories art and the artist, Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Perspective, Relationships, Sleepless Nights, Spring, The Art of Being, The Big 5, Words

Snapshots, Vignettes, Moments

April 1, 2015 //
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I’ve had so many lovely moments in life. Haven’t you, also? I find myself wondering occasionally how it is that the unpleasant ones so easily get the upper hand in my implicit memory, and biases over time. The ‘negative bias’ of our primate brains is kind of a big downer, isn’t it? The time taken to savor simple joys, sweet moments, pleasant happenstance, and all the bits and pieces of positive experience I enjoy day-to-day is very worthwhile; it helps shift my negative bias to a less negative place. Re-wiring, re-programming, and ‘correcting’ these sorts of things is arduous work, requiring considerable attention to details, and commitment to repetition and structured practices.  It’s the moments that follow all that practice that count so much; the result of the effort to practice my consciousness away from my negative bias isn’t always obvious… but sometimes it is obvious, indeed.

This morning I am enjoying a tasty latte, an unexpected treat made by my traveling partner’s loving hand first thing this morning, and I am considering future moments. I guess ‘daydreaming’ is another way to frame it up. I am contemplating experiences I know I enjoy, in the setting of simply enjoying my life, and letting that vision unfold a bit like a video. What does my life look like, without struggling, striving? With less background stress? With greater moment to moment acceptance, self-acceptance, and calm? If the details of my surroundings suit my taste, and meet my needs? If the colors, textures, and forms in my spaces were selected specifically to uplift, to nurture, and to evoke delight and wonder? To inspire me creatively and to foster creative work? What would my mornings be like? How would my days end? How would the trajectory of my experience change? Where would such a path take me?

Perspective is worth changing, and changing again.

Perspective is worth changing, and changing again.

If the only thing standing between you and the life you envision as most enjoyable for you is your own choices… do you change the choices you are making? Does the answer to that question change if the question is not about what you enjoy, but is more about what supports and nurtures your growth and emotional wellness, and meets your needs over time? It does for me; this troubles me because it implies that I place less value and priority on my own desires and satisfaction in life than I do on others, unwilling to make choices in my own favor unless it comes down to basic needs. It’s not a comfortable understanding of my decision-making, and feels out of alignment with my values, and it’s important to know this about myself; I can’t easily change what I don’t recognize as needing change.

I’m not mired in frustration or feeling heartbroken. It’s a lovely quiet morning. I am smiling and enjoying this time, engaged in this moment, enjoying something I love that meets many needs. This is simply a pleasant morning to contemplate developing a higher level of overall life satisfaction through better choices, more skillful quality of life decision-making about my own needs as an individual, and how best to do that without undercutting the needs and desires of the people who share the experience of life and love with me. A morning to consider consideration, and to contemplate balance, while I sip on my coffee.

I smile as I realize how far I have come that I am so comfortable even thinking about putting myself first in my own experience; it wasn’t so long ago that I would have found that quite difficult, even in thought, and closer to ‘impossible’ than ‘uncomfortable’.

Today is a good day to enjoy myself with a smile – exactly as I am. Today is a good day to enjoy each moment with a beginner’s mind, open to the possibilities, and accepting of change. Today is a good day for The Four Agreements. Today is a good day to change my world.

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Categories Free Will, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Mindfulness, Perspective, Spring, The Big 5

Me First

March 14, 2015 //
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I’m still sick. I’m taking advantage of the weekend to take care of my health. I have no other plans today. I am still hopeful that I’ll be over this in time for my camping trip in a few days…if not, I’ll have to decide whether to cancel or just go and tough it out – maybe find out just exactly what I’m made of under even more trying conditions.

I giggle at myself thinking about my middle-aged, suburbanite, white-collar self considering a few days of camping in a state park very near to home to anything like ‘trying conditions’ or a test of endurance of any sort. Somewhere in the distance of time long past, a much younger, more rugged me looks on with some measure of friendly disdain – not meaning to be mean, but me then was just not that patient with people’s notions. lol

Not quite wilderness close to home.

Not quite wilderness close to home.

So sure, today I am putting me first, but that’s not the point of the title at all. “Me First” is a practice, and it’s one that I am currently turning over in my head to add to my SuperBetter  game; I haven’t decided if it serves best as a ‘Quest’ or a ‘Power Up’. Over my morning coffee, I answer some basic questions for myself, such as ‘is this something I do for a course correction, or an emotional boost, or is it something I need to practice, reach for as a goal, and strive to achieve?’ and ‘is this an experience?’ and ‘can I put a face to it?’ Most of my ‘Bad Guys’ are issues and challenges (personal demons) that I can easily ‘face’ more effectively if they wear actual faces. lol

“Anxiety” 10″ x 14″ acrylic on canvas w/ceramic 2011

“Anxiety” 10″ x 14″ acrylic on canvas w/ceramic 2011

My “Me First” practice is a cognitive tool to improve emotional resilience by building a sense of perspective, improving my ability to respond to others with compassion, and to foster quick recognition of shared human experience, when I may be inclined to react in a judgmental way, or feeling resentful. “Me First” is simply the practice of observing the judgment or resentment with a high level of honesty and acceptance, and mindful awareness of how I, myself, experience a similar circumstance ‘if the shoe were on the other foot’. I put myself in the other person’s experience very deliberately, and challenge myself to understand how it may be something we have in common, and how human it is. Before I start emotionally or intellectually ‘stoning’ someone, I practice looking to myself – is there really room to criticize? (There rarely is.) Is there room for compassion, encouragement, a moment of humor or Schadenfreude? (There usually is.) Instead of being critical – and understanding that criticism is generally a poorly worded request for change – is there something I can do meet my own needs more simply (like making a clear and gentle request for change)? Can I apply that understanding and perspective to this other human being and possibly do something to meet their needs? That’s the lovely thing about my “Me First” practice – it’s not ‘me first over and above whatever you need, and go fuck yourself for your trouble’, not at all; it’s ‘let me take care of me first, work out some of these issues I’ve obviously got, get my head right and see what we can do together, to meet shared needs, and understand each other’.  Before I criticize someone else, I launch this practice and I check myself – and use the object lesson to work on me, first – because realistically, I don’t actually get to work on anyone else. None of us do. Not really – and attempting to take that power of self management, and autonomy away from someone with criticism, judgmental remarks, or intimidation and controlling behaviors is in a category of ‘bad acts’ I consider emotionally abusive. I definitely don’t want to be doing something to other people that I consider abuse.

What a wonderful thing – you get to make all your own choices about these things, yourself, and my notions of what is or is not abusive doesn’t dictate your choices! Fantastic! Ideally, it’s all sort of self-adjusting, isn’t it? If we treat someone poorly, or abuse them (physically or emotionally), surely they don’t stick around for that, and we find ourselves bereft and alone, as we would surely deserve for our bad acts…right? Well, not always, and sometimes tragically so. Learning not to stick around for more abuse is one of the things I work on, myself. It’s not always easy. My sense of loyalty is far more well-developed than my sense of when I may be over-compromising my values, or allowing myself to be mistreated emotionally. As a younger woman, some portion of my identity was wrapped up in whether my relationships ‘succeeded’, but the definition of success wasn’t my own, and I stuck around for some heinous shit. We are each having our own experience, too. What injures me, or hits damaged bits related to my PTSD, or may be of more concern because of my TBI, may not at all be what hurts you as an individual. (Clearly there are some experiences that could universally be recognized as abuse, but this is not about that.)

Learning good self-care, for me, also means learning to recognize when I am treated well, when I am treated poorly – and what amount of poor treatment is unacceptable, rather than an incidental and unintended by product of someone’s humanity. So I practice treating myself well, and I also practice treating others well; because I am not a blameless victim in my experience of life – I am living it, and I too make poor choices, or fall short of ideals, or ‘drop the ball in the big game’. I’m very human. I honestly don’t find it acceptable to criticize someone for issues I have myself, things I am also prone to do, or stuff that’s just shared human experience needing to be managed or learned from; so I am practicing doing something differently, and walking my own path to be the woman I most want to be, myself, on my own terms.

We each walk our own path, paved with our own choices.

We each walk our own path, paved with our own choices.

I’m also not smug about this stuff, and I struggle. These are my challenges, more than my triumphs, and I have more questions than answers. You’re welcome to take whatever value you find in my words; your results may vary. There are verbs involved. 🙂

I tried learning to treat others well, without taking care of me, without addressing my own needs first, without really putting in the time to learn what treating others well really meant. It was not an effective effort.  I don’t find attempting to care for me to the exclusion of treating others well to be a good fit; it nearly always feels like I am treating people poorly as a default decision. Balance wins again, and perspective; treating myself well matters a lot, and treating others well isn’t even truly possible to do with skill if I don’t start with me…but putting myself first by taking good treatment away from others turns out not to be very good self-care at all. It’s quite an interesting puzzle.  I found the realization that ‘good treatment’ is defined by the person experiencing it, rather than the person taking the action being experienced, very valuable; it’s not about the intention of the person delivering the words or behaviors at all, and that’s important to understand.

Endure the journey, or embrace it, this choice, too, is yours.

Endure the journey, or embrace it, this choice, too, is yours.

I am sick today, and it’s raining; today is a good day for puzzles. Today is a good day for first-rate self-care. Today is a good day to treat the hearts of others just as well as I treat my own – knowing that I treat my own heart very well indeed, well… practicing the practices, at least. There’s still a journey ahead. 🙂

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Categories Anxiety, art and the artist, Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Oregon Trails, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, solo hiking, Spring, The Big 5, Words

72 Minutes

February 25, 2015 //
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I had an amazing evening with my traveling partner, last night. It didn’t end as well as it started, and I went to bed feeling off-balance and a little sad. I wrapped myself in my blankets and wept for a few minutes, even tolerantly allowing myself a few ‘it’s not fair!’ and ‘it isn’t me!’ moments. I didn’t notice, but at some point I realized I had moved on; my tears had dried, my breathing was deep, relaxed, and even, and my heart felt calm. 72 minutes. Tears became meditation pretty quickly, and very naturally, and I don’t know quite when, but it was 72 minutes from when they began to fall, to when I began to fall asleep, and realized that I was actually entirely okay in that moment – and that moments being what they are, the earlier one that caused the heartache was long over.

Moments are not a big deal; they are moments.

Any one moment, utterly unique, and filled with potential.

Any one moment, utterly unique, and filled with potential.

Moments do not define me. I define me.

We really, truly, are each having our own experience, moment to moment, day-to-day, and it any one such moment we may each – or all – be at odds with one another, because those individual subjective experiences are our world, and we view the rest through those filters, on the backs of our assumptions, and doing our best to find our way through our very own chaos and damage. “Being right” doesn’t really enter into it, for me at least, because “being right” is just as subjective as our experiences, themselves. The challenge for me, last night, was in figuring out how to stay aware and engaged with my hurting partner, and make room – compassionate, tender, understanding, supportive emotional space – for him to have his own experience right along side me having my own.

I have room for improvement. This is a very general statement I believe to be universally true of my experience.

So often things seem more complicated than 'this versus that'. Perspective matters. Relevance matters. Compassion matters.

So often things seem more complicated than ‘this versus that’. Perspective matters. Relevance matters. Compassion matters.

I found my way last night with the awareness that the moment didn’t define me. The challenge we were having communicating and loving wasn’t a characteristic of ‘who I am’ – it was a moment. A challenge. Sure, it’s pretty easy to take that challenge and turn it on myself as a weapon, but where is the value in that? Growing as a person is more easily fostered in gentle conversation, shared insights, connecting and discussing needs, limits, boundaries with compassion for each other, and present with each other even when/if we are hurting. (It sounds easier than it seems in the moment, at my current skill/awareness level.) Remembering that I define me, and that my experience of myself is 100% reliably true to the self that I am when I allow it to be was powerful.  However hurt a lovers feelings may be, those are their feelings, about a moment (their moment); their feelings do not define me, (and considering how little tie to objective reality emotions may truly have, it seems a very poor practice to internalize someone else’s feelings, or taking them on as characteristics that define me, for myself).

xxx

We each make our way using the perspective we have, and the tools we develop. 

I woke feeling pretty awesome this morning, and very centered. It’s a lovely way to start a day. Today is a good day to be reminded we are each having our own experience, and that they co-exist with equal validity. It’s a good day to reread The Four Agreements. It’s a good day for love.

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Categories Brain Injury, Healthy Living, Love, Mindfulness, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, The Big 5, Words
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