Archives for posts with tag: good self-care

Keep Practicing!

August 21, 2016 //

We become what we practice. I still suck at listening, by the way; it takes more than a day with a friend to gain, hone, refine, and maintain a new skill. It would be quite silly to expect things to be easier, faster, or simpler; practice is a verb, sometimes of the sort that must be used daily. So… I keep practicing.

Listening

August 20, 2016 //

This weekend is planned to be about listening. Well, listening, and catching up with an old friend. I typically don’t listen as well as I could, I think, but as with so many other sorts of things, I suspect practice may help.

I’ll be intent on avoiding some of the massive pitfalls of listening poorly (which is to say, not listening), like…

Waiting to talk (instead of actually listening).
Hijacking the conversation to talk about me (instead of actually listening).
Defending myself or making it ‘all about me’ (instead of actually listening).
Trying to fix things (instead of actually listening).
Making corrections to someone else’s perceptions, emotions, or understanding of themselves (instead of actually listening).

Listening well, listening deeply – really putting my attention fully into what someone else is saying – isn’t one of those things that is difficult from any practical perspective. It is sometimes not the thing I am actually doing. So – a visiting friend is a choice opportunity to practice listening. 🙂 (Besides, he’s a gifted storyteller, why would I miss out on listening!?)

Every day a new journey.

So… it may be that I write less for a day or two, making room to listen a bit more. I hope you don’t miss me… quite likely there is someone around who might enjoy a bit of listening, as well. 🙂 If we really took time for it… if we listened well and deeply each and every day, in every conversation, would it change the world to be so well heard?

Tags be love, be the change, begin again, being and becoming, emotional self sufficiency, good self-care, i hear you, listening deeply, mindfulness, mindfulness for beginners, mindfulness matters, perspective, practicing the practices, relationships, so what happened was, TBI, The Art of Being, The Big 5, there are verbs involved, what are you perfecting?, what matters most?

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

Talking About the Weather

August 19, 2016 //

This morning I woke too early. I say “too early” because I definitely haven’t had enough sleep. The heat made sleeping difficult last night, and although I stayed the course with evening routines intended to coax sleep from the most energetic monkey mind, nonetheless I was still wakeful well past my usual time for sleep. I don’t mean to complain, I’m just observing that my short night was the result of challenges at both ends. This morning I woke, shortly after 3:30 am. I thought I might go back to sleep… I didn’t.

The evening ended on a high note, great conversation and a full moon rising beyond the trees.

The evening ended on a high note. The heat of the day was irrelevant.

My restless mind wasn’t even certain of coffee, and I suppose considering the early hour, that’s more reasonable than not. I held on to the chance I might return to sleep for some time, before yielding to the imminent dawn and making that first cup of coffee. I have my coffee, too hot to drink. I’ve done yoga. Taken time for meditation. Medicated quite sufficiently to address any anxiety or pain. Now… I wait for the dawn. I don’t mean to be waiting for it, but I find myself checking and re-checking the sliver of light appearing at the edge of the skyline, watching hints of pink, peach, and gold begin to crowd out shades of blue, gray, and purple as the night retreats. I feel a bit as if I am ‘waiting for the sun’. I’d rather be sleeping.

…I could go for my morning walk early…

I test my coffee with a cautious sip. Still too hot to drink. Like the night, mocking my sleep last night with the lingering heat of summer, my coffee mocks me this morning… I’d very much like to drink my coffee now. It’s very much still too hot. The morning temperature in the apartment feels cool… well, cooler. Mostly cool. The thermometer tells me it is still 70 degrees (F), much warmer than this hour of the morning generally is (more typically between 53-59 degrees F this time of year).

Yesterday’s pictures seem mostly of sunshine.

I pause to wonder why the hell the United States is still using degrees Fahrenheit for temperature, instead of Celsius? (Our resistance to using the metric system says a lot about us as a nation… and what it says about us is troubling.)

The summer garden is filled with things going to seed.

I’m still fussing about the heat, even though the morning air is comfortable and pleasant. It’s a distraction, nothing more. It’s not as if I have much to complain about, really. It’s quite a lot hotter in many other places. There are other things to contemplate, to plan, to do, today; a house guest (and dear friend) will arrive later, and my traveling partner will be traveling – after himself having a very short night, due to some commonplace planning/logistical sorts of challenges, yesterday. We enjoyed a lovely evening together, and very much a celebration of sorts. The connected, pleasantly social, time together precedes a week apart. Another. 🙂 (He does much of his traveling during the summer, and “this too shall pass”.)

I find myself again and again distracting myself from needless worry about my traveling partner by fussing about the heat. A mostly fairly harmless exchange of stressors, but the risk is that the thing that matters most (my partner’s well-being) is diminished or disregarded by this dodge, and too much weight is put on something relatively unimportant (the weather). I pause. Sip my coffee. Breathe. Allow myself to fully recognize my desire for my partner to always feel his best, to be generally content and merry, to enjoy his experience moment to moment – and I allow myself to experience my subtle concern about the effect his short night may have on his long day ahead. I breathe. I accept my feelings. I smile, reminded how generally competent my partner is, and how skillfully he typically takes care of himself. I breathe. I wish him well from afar, and let my heart move on.

Hours after waking… still waiting for the sun.

The sky is already a clear steady cerulean blue, although the sun has not yet appeared above the horizon. Another hot day in the forecast, and I expect real life will comply. One win about these hot dry summer days… much less pain. Keeping the apartment as cool as I can, and preparing for the weekend in the company of a good friend I haven’t actually seen in… well… years, is how I’ll spend the day. The short night will, hopefully, become a longish nap, later. 🙂 (Taking care of myself is a very high priority, and failing to get enough sleep becomes a problem quite quickly.)

I sip my coffee, and frown at the word count. Too many words. About very little of any substance. Have I really spent 700 words bitching about the damned weather? Heat! In the summer! Seriously? It’s a new day. The sun is not yet up. I can already begin again… 🙂

Tags be here now, be love, begin again, breathe, emotional self sufficiency, good self-care, love and lovers, meditation, mindful loving, mindfulness, mindfulness matters, p.s. I love you, perspective, practicing the practices, ptsd, relationships, sufficiency, taking care of me, TBI, The Art of Being, The Big 5, what matters most?

Categories Anxiety, Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, more than a little bit of bitching, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Sleepless Nights, Summer, The Art of Being, The Big 5, Words

Practical Adulting

August 10, 2016 //

I’d put it off for weeks. (For years?) It wasn’t even a long hike (2.5 miles). It wasn’t rough terrain, just steep (as steep as 6%). As a bus ride, Terwilliger Blvd is long-ish, twisting through forest, around the sides of small-ish mountains, gaining and losing elevation. It’s also quite lovely, with views that are difficult to enjoy driving a vehicle, or to enjoy long enough as passenger. I’ve had my eye on walking it for… years. Yesterday was a lovely cool misty gray morning, suitable for hiking. So I went.

Hey, this isn’t so bad…

I felt rather reassured that on foot, the perceived steepness of the paved trail seems quite manageable. Trail? Sidewalk? Hiking? Walking? Do those distinctions matter? Not today.

In the distance, a city I love.

The first view-point, hiking from my starting point at Sam Jackson Park Rd, was well up the hill and quite beautiful enough that if the hike had been tough going, I could have contentedly turned back at that point and felt satisfied with my progress… maybe. I exchanged pleasant greetings with a nice elder gentleman smoking a large aromatic cigar, and walked on.

A route for another day.

I observe side trails along the way, taking note of each one and considering future hikes as I pass by. Once they are behind me, I return my attention to the path I am on, and this moment, now.

What’s left of us when we’re gone?

Along the road, off in the weeds, are the remnants of a well-planned exercise course laid out along Terwilliger Parkway. It hasn’t been maintained. The signage is rotting away in the weeds. Stations with exercise equipment still in place (like this one with a balance bar) are in disrepair, and not safe to use. We leave bits of ourselves behind as we move forward in life, don’t we? I found myself curious about the vision and intent of the parkway itself, and promise myself I’ll read up on it when I return home.

Nearing the top… and a place to rest.

It would seem amusingly metaphorical some minutes later… but for now, I pause to enjoy a celebratory moment – I can see ‘the top’ just ahead!

The top!

Nope. Not the top at all. Just a peak, not the peak. There’s a lesson to be learned there, something about becoming attached to, or emotionally invested in, some goal or another… 🙂

…And then, too, there’s the part about how it rained softly much of the way.

I have a raincoat, and proper rain gear for hiking. I could have worn it. Or brought it. Or checked the forecast. Instead, I just enjoy the soft mist, and cool fresh scent of petrichor as I walk through the forest.

Another beautiful view.

I look eagerly up the trail… (“No. It’s not the top. Stop asking.” I tell myself.)

Beautiful parks and green spaces dot the trail.

It’s a lovely day, and delightfully, I have the trail (and the day) mostly to myself. It is quiet, aside from the sound of traffic passing me now and then. Good timing… mid-morning on a Tuesday. 🙂

Just beyond the forest, the city.

I keep walking. The trail keeps climbing.

Some of the exercise stations are well back into the trees, and quite overgrown.

Every point of view is subtly different. Each perspective on the city and the world beyond has nuance, and value. The trail just keeps climbing. So do I.

More forest, please.

More acreage has been added to the original parkway over time. The high value placed on green spaces in the community is a characteristic I cherish about living in this area. More forest, more green, more trails… more ways to find a few chill content moments of stillness in a busy world. [Your results may vary.]

A handy side trail down into the dense wetland acreage conveniently at hand.

I stare down the trail into the wetland acreage… It’s tempting… but a lot steeper than I feel prepared for… and I’ve just spent nearly an hour walking a more or less continuous incline. I’m already feeling it. I’m not up to it, standing there staring down the steep staircase built into the bank… but I am thinking about other days, other hikes… I walk on.

Looking back from around the next bend.

I almost reconsider that side trail… I look back from farther up the trail, and see the staircase down through the trees from the other side. New perspective. Yeah… totally too steep for me, in that moment then. I chose wisely. I continue to walk on. My only real destination is to finish the 2.5 miles I’ve planned, and reach the bus stop at the far end. I’ve passed the last bus stop I could take if I cared to shorten the trip; I have to reach the finish at this point.

An exercise station deeper into the forest.

Each exercise station I pass reminds me of other forgotten human endeavors, trips with my Granny to see ghost towns, crumbling homesteads along country roads, isolated cabins left standing in land claimed by national parks… we settle, we live, we move on…

Approaching the final peak on this trail (in this direction).

I laughed at myself when I experienced real relief seeing the final peak in elevation just ahead. Tired, and feeling more committed than joyful at that point, I feel renewed and re-energized by the feeling of achievement. Silly primate – it’s just a hill. lol

Unexpectedly pointless…

I shot a picture standing in a moment of utter stillness. No cars. No voices. No traffic in the distance. Nothing but the soft breeze, birdsong, and one still moment. I breathe. Relax. Exist so gently and contentedly… one moment that put the entire walk into perspective. This. This is my destination. A picture seemed appropriate…

…It was the last picture I took, with half a mile left to go. 🙂 I rounded the next bend and instantly frustrated myself with regret about the way I use my device; the battery died entirely, and my device powered down just as I approached a viewpoint called “Eagle Point”, with a carved wood totem pole standing nearby, and the landmark restaurant located there, The Chart House. I might have considered stopping there for coffee, but I was completely distracted by the sudden lack of camera, my feet were really aching by that point, and the bus stop was just a half mile further, down hill. I got started walking, after a few minutes enjoying the view from Eagle Point.

My bus ticket? On my device, which was as entirely dead and powered down as a device can be and still ever come back to life. lol I’m fortunate that the bus driver was very understanding about it, and my morning hike ending as the afternoon took over. If I took a moment I could remember what I did with the rest of the day… I do remember feeling quite content. That’s enough.

Every day is a solo hike on life’s journey. Destinations come and go, and have only as much meaning as I give them. The map is not the world. The destination is not the journey. I am my own cartographer, and each day is a new beginning. The future is a vast unwritten page in our unfinished story. What will I do with it?

(There are verbs involved.)

Tags a solo journey, are you going my way?, be the change, begin again, being and becoming, breathe, emotional self sufficiency, good self-care, I am my own cartographer, meditation, mindfulness, Oregon trails, perspective, practicing the practices, ptsd, taking care of me, TBI, Terwilliger Parkway, The Art of Being, the map is not the world, there are verbs involved, walk on, walking my own path, what matters most?

Categories Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Oregon Trails, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, solo hiking, Summer, The Art of Being

Irritated and Disappointed

August 8, 2016 //

I woke this morning to a cool gray sky threatening rain. It’s probably an empty threat. I woke feeling okay, but within minutes I was feeling cross with the world, with humanity itself, and disappointed in the world and my fellow human kind most particularly. Seriously? We can’t do better for measures of success than revenue and gross margin? We can’t elevate ourselves as a specie beyond profiting on the suffering of others? Yeah. I didn’t actually mean to open up a news site first thing, and I’m definitely regretting it. It wasn’t even ‘serious’ news, although to be honest I find that news information from sources like The Daily Show and Last Week Tonight regrettably often seem a higher caliber of reporting these days…and Last Week Tonight told me why, this morning.

How about it, humanity, how many more things can we ruin by chasing profit at the expense of substance, meaning, and value? We have so much potential…

Anyway. I’m not exactly angry about it… just disappointed. Disappointed first that I looked at the fucking news – any fucking news – first thing in the morning. I know better than to do that to my fragile waking consciousness. Then too, I am disappointed that as human beings we still hold up “making money” as some laudable skill, and “wealth” as a great goal for an adult life… and I am frustrated at how difficult it is to explain why it seems obvious this is a fairly stupid approach, generally. There is so little worth having that is “about” money.

I’m shouting into the wind. We all want things or experiences that “cost money”, making the money valuable to have. We’re constantly told “the market” sets the price of goods and services based on wholesome supply and demand. We ignore how badly wrong the math is because we like the way our ideas sound, and cave to pressure when we’re told that wages are also set by some mythic “market” and that our value is only as much as the job itself is “worth”, rather than being paid for the value of our expended life force (which is probably a whole lot less variable, frankly, since we are all human beings). Ah, but if I bitch when my bank account is fat, and I’m making a good wage, I’m told that it’s easy for me to say so, but… And if I bitch when I’m broke, why, that’s sour grapes and I should do more, work harder, and surely I will profit. Seriously, people? It’s like I’m shouting at monkeys – the noise is audible, but it is unlikely I’m actually being understood. It is what it is, I guess… what a depressingly pointless human legacy. Fail sauce, fancy monkeys, fail sauce – keep your fingers poised over those typewriters, perhaps you’ll write a novel yet.

…Raindrops on roses…

Sorry. As I said. I’m cross with disappointment in my fellow-man, this morning, and it’s my own doing. This too shall pass. I hear a soft rain falling, and open the window to smell the petrichor of meadow and marsh. I put on some music after a while. Humanity hasn’t changed much overnight, and changing my perspective will be the easier choice, instead of clinging to hope that my few aggravated words will sway even one human being as they choose the course of their life. We are each having our own experience. Looking past money’s magic funhouse mirror is too hard for most of us; we need stuff.

The music carries my heart to a different place as fast as a Mclaren F1 on a straight ribbon of highway. The beat pulls my sense of self out of my head, more firmly into my body, into this moment. Music becomes movement… becomes a bass guitar hanging from my body, and practice, and nothing at all to do with disappointment or aggravation. Am I slowly beginning to work out some of the challenges, incrementally, over time? Maybe…? I’ll keep practicing. Today is a good day for practicing the practices that tend most to improve my experience. 😀

Tags be love, be the change, begin again, being and becoming, breathe, choose wisely, emotional self sufficiency, fancy monkeys, good self-care, I am my own cartographer, meditation, perspective, petrichor, practicing the practices, ptsd, raindrops on roses, taking care of me, TBI, The Art of Being, this too shall pass

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

Keep Practicing!

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Listening

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Talking About the Weather

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Practical Adulting

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Irritated and Disappointed

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