Archives for posts with tag: good self-care
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Life as a Primate

April 4, 2015 //
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My experience of life as a human primate is sometimes fairly…practical…and…gross. Graphic. Real. Biological. These elements of my human experience don’t accept much in the way of argument, denial, or avoidance; we are primates, we are mammals, we are biological creatures made of cells, and systems.

I spent last night quite sick. Today’s plans are no longer relevant; I am fatigued and aching, in pain, and a tad apathetic about the day to come. “I don’t feel well” is a phrase I suddenly recognize as also being characteristic of the ‘phrased in the negative’ figures of speech so common to me. Instead, this morning I will say it differently; I am in pain, and feel a lingering sense of illness and physical discomfort. “I don’t feel well” covers a lot of unstated territory, and isn’t really very specific at all, is it? “I feel ill” – or even “I feel unwell” – is easily every bit as specific (not very), and as polite, and manages to be a more powerful ‘I statement’. Nice bit of curriculum, Life – I could do without the terrible backache, and the nasty headache, they were not necessary to communicate the lesson.

I would write more on some other morning. The backache from being sick during the night is quite distracting. I feel cross and irritable; pain just sucks like that. Seems like a good day to slow down, meditate more, nap some, and be kind to myself. It seems like a good day to relax and watch fish swim. It is also a good day to practice practices, to consider things with perspective, attention, and care, and to read The Four Agreements.

Today I will take care of me. I will take the very best care of me that I know how to do. I will use the opportunity to enjoy some of the lovely qualities of being me that life is often too fast paced to really slow down for day-to-day – and perhaps find new habits along the way that allow me to do so more easily, more often. Today  I will make a point of being kind and patient with others, too, because it is what I want for myself. It is a good day to pass over the chaos, to rise from the damage, and to continue my journey engaged, present, and enjoying my experience with a beginner’s mind. The map may not be the world, but I am my own cartographer on this journey, and it is what I choose to make of it in so many important ways.

Letting in the light, letting in the love, and open to the possibilities.

Letting in the light, letting in the love, and open to the possibilities.

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Categories Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Mindfulness, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Sleepless Nights, The Big 5

Choice and Consequence

April 2, 2015 //
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When I worry, it’s nearly always about something that is a potential consequence of something or other already seemingly set in motion by an action or choice made sometime previously. I rarely feel anxiety, or find myself worrying, about the moment right now. At least for me, that isn’t how worrying works. I wonder, though, if whatever it is that is causing my stress hasn’t happened yet, why am I worried? If the action or choice made that has the potential to result in the worrisome outcome hasn’t yet – why, again, am I bothering to worry? Worry seems mostly pretty pointless, and of less real value than good planning, being engaged in the moment, and making the best choices I know to make, moment to moment.

I woke this morning feeling very groggy, and haven’t quite shaken it off. Interestingly, after some minutes of consideration of the blank page in front of me, the paragraph above is what came of it. No particular reason why, although I have been contemplating some experiences relevant to decision-making, free will, and choices in the past few days.

Wednesday morning flowers, a lovely metaphor for a moment of illumination.

Wednesday morning flowers, a lovely metaphor for a moment of illumination.

Yesterday was a good Wednesday. Better still, it was a good appointment day. Circumstances seem, generally, to be unfolding in a comfortable way. It’s a pleasantly comfortable feeling, and although I woke feeling groggy, I am enjoying the morning’s calm greatly. It feels like a morning to be practical, and to deal with practical things. It feels like a morning to continue good self-care practices, and to handle day-to-day tasks with efficiency. There’s no loss of pleasantness over any of that; the practical things are as much of life as the whimsical ones, and have their purpose and their place in my experience.

Each choice I make does have consequences, some good, some less so, some having no specific quality along that spectrum. I make my choices based on what I anticipate the consequences will likely be; I live my life from the perspective of what the outcomes of my choices actually are [from my perspective]. Expectations are what arise when I am so focused on an anticipated outcome that I don’t notice the unintended consequence that may have also occurred, or the very different outcome that resulted altogether, instead. Attachment is that bit of nastiness when having noticed that the outcome wasn’t what I expected, I don’t let go of the expectation and I create struggle within myself, and the burden of the resulting discontent. All that makes it every so clear how important this ‘now’ moment truly is; I can be awake, aware, engaged in this now moment, observing the developing consequence of previous actions, continue to adjust my perspective, adapt my understanding to the moments in motion, and walk a brighter path altogether – perhaps not entirely free of attachment, nor immune to the power of expectations, but more easily able to recognize my own humanity, treat myself with compassion, and make needed course-corrections in my decision-making, based on best meeting my needs over time. Incremental change – incremental decision-making – and practice.

I’ve spent too many years bullying myself. I finally took notice of how much that hurts me, and how much it tends to reinforce old damage, bad bits of out-dated programming, and how much it interferes with growth and progress. I think I can easily take the time to treat myself well – not just good physical self-care, but really truly appreciate myself, the work I’ve put in so far, the wonderful qualities of mind that I value in myself, and show myself a little self-compassion and simple kindness day-to-day. I’ve been pretty hard on me.

Wednesday afternoon flowers, ending a day filled with light.

Wednesday afternoon flowers, ending a day filled with light.

Today is a good day to be kind – to myself, too. Today is a good day to let worries go; they either haven’t happened yet, or they are already behind me. Today is a good day to appreciate the powerful beauty of a sunrise – or a daydream. Today is a good day to enjoy myself, enjoying my self, enjoying the world.

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Categories Anxiety, Brain Injury, Free Will, gardening, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress

Filters and Lenses

March 31, 2015 //
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Do I see what I see through honest eyes, or is it filtered through my experience, and my own limited awareness and understanding?

Do I see what I see through honest eyes, or is it filtered through my experience, and my own limited awareness and understanding?

I woke this morning to the sound of an audible ‘click’. I often do, but don’t know what the sound is caused by. Perhaps a door elsewhere, or the timer on my aquarium, or some other commonplace occurrence that I simply haven’t placed or clearly identified – because I am asleep when I hear it. This particular morning, when I woke, my emotional world careened around within myself in an almost dizzying way; residual emotions from dreams colliding with in-the-moment reactions to sensations and awaking, leftover random moments of emotion from earlier hours – or days – left piled up in the unswept corners of my consciousness, stirred together, mixed and shaken, as I wake up. It is far too easy to take this bit of ’emotional seasickness’ personally, first thing in the morning, and more than one otherwise lovely morning has been wrecked by emotions that got the best of me – even though I had no idea why I actually felt the way I did.

This morning I am playing a quiet game of ‘being my own best friend’ and sipping my coffee and hanging out with me, unconcerned that my emotions feel unsettled, uninterested in exploring them further, and choosing instead to relax with me for a while, and enjoy some of the very cool things about this woman who I am.

I find myself thinking about a very fancy camera I had once had – long before the age of the digital camera, and back when analog film drove the decisions about how many pictures I could reasonably afford to take, and to get interesting effects, or special shots, I lugged around a camera bag full of filters and lenses. It’s an interesting metaphor. Even in our thinking, we use ‘filters’ and ‘lenses’ to sort through what we see, and to determine how we understand it. More than once I’ve messed with my own head, and caused myself a lot of needless suffering, because my perspective (a filter, right?) or awareness (a lens?) were not well-suited to the experience of the moment.

I don’t really know where it takes this metaphor, but when I take pictures these days, they are most often available light shots, free of effects or ‘fun’ filters; I want most to capture the quality of light – of life – in a moment, just as it is. This, I find, is also a very nice way to treat my own heart – although less simple, once I have stepped from metaphor to action, sometimes. This morning the time taken to get my balance, and my bearings, and secure emotional footing before rushing off to face the day seems like a nice way to start a new day.

Today is a good day to view things through a different filter, and through a cleaner lens. Today is a good day to enjoy who I already am, in this moment right now, and see where the day takes me. Today is a good day for love and lovers – and a bigger picture.

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Categories Brain Injury, Logic & Reason, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Spring, The Big 5, Words

Some Days the Nightmares Win

March 27, 2015 //
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Disclaimer: This post is about emotions. I sometimes work through them more easily with words, in text, that I can see reflecting the experience back at me. It is a way of getting perspective. This post, though, may be a downer – I say that before I even write it, because I am having my own experience, and I feel what I feel in this moment. I am so very human. So…do yourself a huge favor, take a moment for ‘informed consent’; if you are in a place emotionally where someone else’s pain and struggling may wound you, throw off a good vibe you are enjoying, or change your experience for the worse, I recommend skipping this one. Hey, if nothing else, the writing is likely to be of poor quality, and angst-y, and rife with spelling errors and weird grammar fails – who needs that on a Friday morning? I’ll understand, I promise.

Still here? Okay…

Some other morning, a coffee.

Some other morning, a coffee.

I woke crying this morning. I fell asleep crying last night. In between, I found myself ambushed by Demons in The Nightmare City. This is not an emotional space I want to occupy. I am frustrated by my lack of resilience, my lack of emotional regulation, and my lack of perspective. I feel sad. I feel angry. I feel resentful and let down. I feel. Yeah. I definitely feel. I feel mistreated, and mislead. I feel set up and I feel sabotaged. I feel hurt.

“That’s a whole lot of feelings there, lady, what gives?” I’m a human primate. I am an emotional being more than a rational one – it’s a balance. Today it isn’t balancing as well as I’d like. Stress kicks my ass, being hurt kicks my ass, abrupt change kicks my ass – and it takes me a little time to recover, even with some support. Emotions are not criminal actions. Assaulting people with them is, I hear, avoidable. That sounds like fine thing to me, and I turned the little sign on my door this morning to ‘do not disturb’, meditated a while, had a shower, meditated some more… I still don’t want to be as disturbed as I feel, right now. The sign didn’t do much to help with the feelings, but by design it may prevent anyone else from walking through the mess I woke to, within, this morning.

Meditation, mindfulness practices, good basic self-care are all going a long way to improve my experience of me, very nicely. I feel a momentary hurt, recalling with sadness how quickly encouragement turned to criticism, a few months after I began this journey. I was taking a moment to feel proud of my progress, and I was feeling pretty impressed with new tools and practices being effective at helping me on a level nothing else ever had… I got called ‘smug’. I was incredibly hurt. Admittedly, I had been foolishly trying to explain or share the experience with someone else… maybe they hadn’t asked? (I suck at that – put a person in front of me and I will probably just start talking. Are you aware that your executive function manages that for you?) It hurt, nonetheless, and since then I am self-conscious about feeling encouraged by progress, and reluctant to share positive feelings about it in conversations. (Sticks and stones? Fuck right off; words matter.)

I feel confused. “Emptied out”. I feel overburdened by unmet emotional needs piling up over time. I feel like I am not making the progress I could be, right now. It’ll be okay, I think – I hold on to that tightly. I’ve got the hotline number in my pocket, just in case it gets too hard.  I lost a beautiful niece to suicide this year, and I see how it hurts my cousin every day she is without her daughter; I won’t put my traveling partner through that, and I can take the steps to avoid it. Despair is a motherfucker – it is part of our human experience.

...and another...

…and another…

I can’t be certain that the intensity of my emotions this morning reflects something ‘real’ or necessary; they are only emotions. For all I know, this is a 100% bio-chemical experience with no grounding in events or experience. Does that matter in the moment? Well, sure. It matters the way anything true ‘matters’. One true thing is that my emotions are this intense, and unpredictably so. Another true thing is that my emotions, and lack of top-down control, are incredibly uncomfortable for some people to live with. (I don’t get a choice, myself; this is my experience and I live it.) Unfortunately, in a live and unscripted real-life environment, I also don’t get much compassion specific to the ‘invisible’ issues associated with my TBI or PTSD. I rarely fight for it; if it isn’t there to be offered, begging for it, pleading for it or wishing it were there will not make it appear. Compassion can be taught – but that phenomenon also requires an active learner. Change is, but forcing it on someone isn’t appropriate – and generally isn’t effective.

My traveling partner encourages and supports me – he frankly provides a level of emotional support that I can only describe as ‘super human’ – but the environment in the household, generally, is unhealthy for me. I feel aggravated and moody about looking for a place of my own, because I’d honestly prefer to continue living with my traveling partner – he’s wonderful to live with [for me]. I am painfully aware, though, that living with me can be hard on him. Right now so much of what I am working through touches on sexuality, gender, individual identity, boundary setting/management, and relationships with others that it’s harder to treat each other gently in moments when we need it most from each other. So…yeah. I need to be on my own a while – not a break up, not even a separation, just a different living arrangement. It still sucks to hurt over it. I hope by day’s end I am embracing it in good spirits.

I leave other household members out of this, generally; I am writing about my own experience and the other people in it are entitled to be free of public scrutiny of their values and choices filtered through my chaos and damage. But…I am not willing to continue to over-compromise my needs, or undercut my values to keep peace, and the time I spend in the arms of my loves is too precious to taint it with OPD, or games. As a population of individuals, we don’t want or need the same things, and at 52 I have no time to waste on fighting to get the most basic emotional needs met; we are not all equally committed to that endeavor. I don’t yet have the emotional resilience to hold enough in reserve to continue to take care of me when common place bullshit goes sideways, and often find myself without any emotional reserves left to care for me, myself, by the time I have a moment to do so. I feel positive about the choice to get my own place…and for the moment, sad that it is necessary at all.

You know what I don’t feel? I don’t feel guilt or shame over the choice to move out, it needs to happen; I don’t thrive in an environment in which my emotional quality of life is poor. Hell, right now in this moment… I’m okay. (Thanks, Dearheart!) My tears have dried. I’m not feeling social, but I’m not enthralled by Demons in The Nightmare City.  (If I knew that I would have the kind of nightmares that I had last night, in nights to come, I’d never sleep again.) I don’t have the headache that followed me around all day yesterday, which is a huge improvement.  My coffee tastes good – I feel a pang of sadness sweep over me when I realize I won’t have an espresso machine in my kitchen for some time to come after I move; it will be a frugal lifestyle, focused on painting, meditation, and love. Wow. Suddenly that sounds fucking amazing – and all over again I wonder why this hurts at all. I enjoy solitude. I dislike drama. I have musical and culinary tastes that are not shared in the household at large… and I miss a good French press in the morning; it’s a lovely ritual to prepare coffee that way, time it carefully, enjoy the outcome at leisure… I miss living a gentle life. (The most humorous thing about that is how little time I have ever spent living that kind of exceptional quality of life – across years and relationships, I can’t really pin down more than a total of about 18 months that qualify as ‘gentle living’ in 52 years!

I’ve already found my way to a better place. It’s nice. No rushing, either; I’ve made changes to my schedule, effective this week, intended to dial down some of the fatigue-related stress, and don’t have to rush off so soon on Friday mornings. Have you actually read this far? Are you okay? Thank you for being interested, curious, or concerned enough to come all this way with me – whether just this morning, or over these past couple years. I appreciate it. You help me feel heard.

Yeah. Some days, the nightmares win. Today they didn’t. 🙂

Because love matters more. "Emotion and Reason" 24″ x 36″ acrylic on canvas w/ceramic details and glow 2012

Because love matters more.
“Emotion and Reason” 24″ x 36″ acrylic on canvas w/ceramic details and glow 2012

Today is a good day to put down some baggage. Today is a good day to practice good self-care. Today is a good day for self-compassion – first, not last. Today is a good day to enjoy this amazing woman I am becoming without competition, dread, or games. Today is a good day to treat others well, and understand that they are walking their own path; their story, and experience, are not mine to endure, to manage, or to criticize – and participation is a choice.

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Categories Anxiety, art and the artist, Brain Injury, Free Will, grief, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, more than a little bit of bitching, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Rape, Relationships, Sleepless Nights, Spring, The Big 5, women, Words

In Accordance With the Customs of My Tribe

March 26, 2015 //
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Have you ever taken a moment to consider ‘polite’ versus ‘rude’, courtesy, manners in general, and what ‘consideration’ means in a detailed and nuanced way? Have you similarly considered how relative to our individual culture, clan, tribe, family, community, ‘scene’, or region these things all are? It’s these subtleties – and mismatches in practices and expectations – that result in fairly predictable ‘incompatibility’ issues that occur in my own experience. I think about these a lot.

Surely, if we all wish to treat each other well, and we all go forward ‘doing our best’ to treat others well moment-to-moment, and we are all similarly aware that people around us also hold the intent to treat others well, and are doing their best…surely the outcome is that we all feel well-treated? (Are you giggling? Are you frowning? Do you see where I am going with this?) Even if those things are simple truths – that we each wish to treat each other well, and are all doing our best to do so moment-to-moment – we likely won’t see the outcome of ‘everyone feels well treated’; as defined, the premises do not lead directly to the proposed outcome, at all. Good treatment is relative to cultural practices, our own expectations, and how we experience our experience. The understanding that we have treated others well, is similarly biased – and biased in our own favor, generally, because we believe we have ‘done our best’ – whatever that may have been.

That’s a hell of a gap. How do I bridge the gap? How do I treat others – all others – well, with consideration, with courtesy – universally recognized, no fail, always a win, courtesy is what I’m looking for here – and get the result that each person thus treated by me also feels well-treated? I am pondering this because of a longer-term association I have in which I feel fairly chronically mis-treated in willful and overt ways, lacking in any shred of courtesy or consideration – a circumstance in which I am also quite certain that this associate has no understanding at all that the day-to-day interactions are experienced by me as ‘mis-treatment’ in the first place. In some cases, explicit statements by me indicating that some specific behavior/action/language is unacceptable or inappropriate have been disregarded, in others they have been actively dismissed and argued with, but in most instances it is not clear that the conduct is intended to be abusive, lacking in courtesy, or intentionally hostile.

Sometimes well-meaning people are clueless asshats… But… sadly… sometimes they are not actually well-meaning people, based on their practices, choices, and actions. Practicing good self-care means building healthy relationships; abusive or unhealthy relationships do not support my emotional needs.

Words have definitions, and we are each having our own experience. What I consider ‘courteous’, ‘respectful’, or ‘considerate’ may not be quite the same as what another person finds defining about those concepts. Still… I think there are some cross-cultural behaviors that spell out universal ‘good treatment’ – or, I do until I try really looking at practices in other cultures. It’s complicated. “They mean well” is a phrase that matters; the intention of someone’s behavior is what let’s us ‘let it go’ more easily when customs clash. “They mean well” is a band-aid, though, a temporary fix; we build relationships. Choices and compromises over time, clear expectation setting and boundary observing conversations adjust our shared understanding of ‘good treatment’, ‘consideration’ and ‘courtesy’ – but only if we have those conversations.

So…I sit here considering all manner of things to do with manners, and where I got which idea that what notion amounts to ‘polite’, ‘considerate’, ‘supportive’…and how can I best express to others who matter most to me what I want and need – and what counts with me as ‘considerate’, and whether that is reasonable. Eventually, if words are said, ideas are shared, boundaries expressed, terms defined… and I still feel mis-treated… then what? Learning those boundary setting practices, the firmly drawn line in the sand, the opportunity not to compromise and instead politely decline additional mistreatment are similarly guided by custom, ‘manners’, and expectations of consideration… How do I treat others well who do not treat me well? It’s an important question for me to approach, and I approach it with great care. (Let’s get “why would I want to treat such people well?” out of the way; because it matters to me to be someone who treats others well. It’s not about them, it is who I am.)

Sometimes I can see where the path leads, but the way is not easy.

Sometimes I can see where the path leads, but the way is not easy.

Today is a good day for hard questions. Today is a good day for the very best self-care. Today is a good day to skillfully treat others well. Today is a good day to continue to honor and respect my values, in the face of mistreatment, without anger; we are each having our own experience. Today is a good day to change the world.

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Categories Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Love, Mindfulness, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Spring, The Big 5, Words
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