Archives for posts with tag: how to meditate
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Ring, Zing, Buzz

March 24, 2024 //
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I’m waiting for the sun on a Sunday morning. The forecast is for rain, but it isn’t raining here, now. Across the highway, and further still across some fields, suburban lights glitter low on the horizon. This is no wilderness, although the trail I’ll walk feels at least a bit remote, down along the Tualatin river. Daybreak is approaching. Soon. In the meantime, I sit with my thoughts, listening to passing cars and the ring, zing, buzz of my tinnitus. It’s a quiet morning and at least for now, my tinnitus is the loudest thing I hear.

Daybreak on a cloudy morning.

A break in the clouds reveals the blue of the morning sky. Daybreak is not helpful for walking, this morning. Anyway, I am still waiting for the park gate to open. The lower marsh trail I can reach from this parking space just outside the park is seasonal, and off limits until May. Frankly, some mornings (many), it’s tempting to walk the seasonal trail anyway, although it is off limits this time of year, but doing so would come with additional risks; it’s a lowland trail along the edges of the marsh, often muddy and sometimes flooded in spots. It would be just a bit more stupid to walk it in near darkness than I prefer to be. Also, these sorts of community spaces rely on people following the rules in place to protect them (both the spaces and the people using them), to maintain their beauty for years to come and new generations.

… So, I wait…

Waiting, watching, being.

I sit with my thoughts, enjoying the stillness. It’s a mild Spring morning and a good one for walking. The cloudy sky hints at rain. I’m glad I spent time in the garden yesterday. Between the gardening and the weather, it definitely feels like Spring here. I’m grateful for the change of seasons. Another new beginning.

I feel a poignant sorrow that my recently deceased dear friend missed the coming of Spring. No tears. I have the sense that she “chose her time”, and I can only honor her memory and respect her choice. I’m okay; we are mortal creatures. I’m fortunate to have shared so much time with her.

It’s time to begin again.

The park gate opens with a quiet “clang”. There’s enough light to see the trail. The day and this walk are ahead of me, and that seems like a worthwhile direction to go…

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Categories Allegories, breathe, Free Will, gardening, gratitude, grief, Healthy Living, Love, meditation, Mindfulness, Moments, Oregon Trails, Perspective, Practices, Relationships, solo hiking, Spring, The Art of Being, turning 60, women

Quieting a Noisy Mind

March 15, 2024 //
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I’ve been feeling very fatigued at the end of each day this week. Last night I was so tired I crashed rather abruptly, rather early, and failed to complete a couple absolutely ordinary routine tasks I generally do before bed by habit – like laying out my clothes for the next day. So tired. It’s not that I’ve been doing a ton of manual labor or anything of that sort… it’s the “thought work”. Thought work is real work. Cognitive fatigue is real fatigue. Tired is… tired. It’s important to get the rest we need.

I woke this morning from a deep sound sleep, just ahead of my alarm. I don’t know what woke me. I felt as if I could easily just go right back to sleep, but my scheduled wake-up time was just 5 minutes away, so I got up. I pushed myself through my morning routine, which “unexpectedly” included actually picking out clothes to wear; I didn’t even remember that I’d failed to take care of that task before bed, and was a bit taken by surprise by the lack of clothes already waiting for me. lol The drive to work was effortless to the point of being almost surreal – I hit all but one signal light green, and traffic seemed peculiarly light. The entire drive I had a song stuck in my head that made me think of my Traveling Partner, and by the time I got to the office I was missing him so so much!

I sat down with my coffee, and before I even really planned on doing so I was mired in work tasks and getting the day started – and within minutes, my mind felt “noisy” and filled with details. I paused on the recollection of last night’s intense fatigue, and realized (not for the first time) – I’m doing this to myself, and I have choices.

I stopped. Put aside the work tasks for a few minutes. I put the computer on “sleep” (so that the monitor wasn’t on in front of me at all). I sat gazing out the windows, watching day break, and the sun begin to rise beyond the skyline. Breathe, exhale, relax… repeat. I sat in the stillness for some unmeasured while, letting my thoughts pass through my mind, acknowledged but not interacted with. Breathe, exhale, relax… I listened to the cacophony of crows as they rose from the trees to go wherever crows go during the day. The heat wooshed softly in the background. The sunrise slowly developed, from a deep gray blue to a faded denim blue with hints of pale orange and something like green, and streaked with pink. Breathe, exhale, relax… My tinnitus is ever-present, but not especially loud or distracting this morning; I noticed it, and let that go, too. I gently do a “body scan” without disturbing the stillness of my mind. Back pain? Manageable. Headache? Mild, and not a distraction… in fact, almost not a headache. Nice. Breathe, exhale, relax. My mind slowly calms the fuck down, to a chill state of relaxed attentiveness. No pressure. No rush. Just here. Now. Better.

I feel a smile spread across my face, and stretch. Fluffy pink clouds are distributed across the blue of the western sky and the daylight in the east continues to increase. I reach for this page to write a few words, and here I am. Iced coffee. A few words about a helpful practice that I have learned to count on to relax my mind when it gets “too noisy in here”. Will it work for you, too? I don’t know. Maybe? It for sure works for me – and doesn’t require sitting, either. It works nicely on a walk. It’s a practice that really only requires that I set aside everything else and take a moment for myself to simply be, and to simply give myself a moment of my own time, with nothing else in mind but being here.

I breathe, exhale (more of a contented sigh at this point), and relax… it’s time to begin again. 😀

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Categories Allegories, Anxiety, Brain Injury, breathe, Free Will, gratitude, Healthy Living, meditation, Mindfulness, Moments, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Spring, The Art of Being

A Backward Glance

December 31, 2020 //
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The last day of 2020. There’s no point arguing that, and unless we abruptly change calendars, there’s no turning back now; the year is ending. 🙂 I’m okay with that.

This is a season of change. There are choices and plans to make. There are past mistakes to contemplate, to learn from, to avoid in the future. There are future opportunities (and pitfalls) ahead, on which to build still further into the future. My results will surely vary. There will be verbs involved. Practices to practice. Choices with surprising outcomes, upon which to reflect further. It seems like there is almost always “further” to go.

This blog, this humble instrument of expression, these handfuls (fistfuls? bucketfuls?) of words have been incredibly helpful for me, along this strange journey of healing and growth, as I head toward being the woman – the human being – I most want to be. I sip my coffee, flavored with a bit of the buttered rum batter I made this morning, for later this evening, when my Traveling Partner and I toast the new year together. It turned out pretty good, and I’m pleased with the flavors. Pretty good in coffee, too. 😀

I started this blog on January 8th, 2013, as I teetered on the edge of life’s most final decision; whether to go on living. (Breathe. This is all about hope and promise and continuation – it’s not a sad tale.) Since then,

I’ve published 2232 posts here.

I’ve received 10,020 spam comments (blocked by Akismet).

I’ve received 1060 legitimate comments from readers. (Thank you for reading.)

2914 days have passed.

11,304 views of my page were recorded.

When I look closer, I see that some of my posts are hundreds of times more popular than all the others… by far the most popular (in the history of my blog) is “Be My Valentine? How About I Be My Own Valentine?“. It’s followed closely by my reading list. The Parable of the Barking Dog, and The Parable of Poison have also been very popular. When I re-read these, myself, I still find value in them, and room to grow as a person from reflecting on observations made long ago. (That’s sort of how writing works, I guess. lol)

This year, the most popular posts still include my reading list and The Parable of the Barking Dog. Beyond those, the favorites seem to reflect the times rather a lot. Reflections on this journey-of-self, musings about finding balance in challenging times. Thoughts on the passage of time, and shifting perspective, on a birthday.

I take a look at the recorded search terms that took people to my blog this year (it’s always worth a giggle):

…”Don’t be a dick light”? What does that mean?

I find myself mildly frustrated that I can’t see the “unknown search terms” – I bet they are interesting. lol I take another look – search terms over “all time” (I mean, since this blog started, right?)… It is an interesting look at what drives traffic to my blog, and maybe why.

I’m clearly not the only fan of Rick & Morty. I’m interested in what it is about “inspirational word” searches that bring people here… I hope they find something worthy to sustain them on their journey.

2020 has been a wild ride – one of the most peculiar seeming years of my adult life, as far as I can recall. Right up there with 1981 (joined the Army), 1989 (the fall of the Berlin Wall), and 2010 (it’s complicated). It’s not that other years don’t stand out as significant, it’s just that these were “big years” in some harder to pin down way (for me). 2020? Monster year. Plague (well, pandemic). Election year. Black Lives Matter. Australia on fire. California and Oregon on fire. Presidential impeachment. Climate change slowly stops being debated and starts being acknowledged. The “Me Too” movement. RBG died. My Traveling Partner and I bought a home. I mean… yeah. It’s been a big year. I’m glad it’s over.

What about you? Have you taken a moment to reflect on times past? What will you do with the year ahead? Will you fulfill a dream? Reach a goal? Will you persist? Will you let go of old baggage in favor of a new direction in life? Will you change the world?

…I guess we don’t know until we begin again. 🙂 See you in 2021. 😀

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Categories forgiveness, Free Will, gratitude, inspiration, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Parables, Perspective, Practices, Relationships, The Art of Being, winter

Here I Sit

September 26, 2020 //
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It’s a lovely Saturday. My Traveling Partner and his son are in the shop, doing things with tools and wood. I am in my studio, taking time for art, study, meditation, and writing. My second coffee is down to it’s last tepid sip, and sunshine filters through the leaves of the pear tree beyond the window. It’s a nice moment. I sit with it awhile. I don’t need more, or different. This, right here, is enough.

Nothing fancy, just a view.

I don’t know what the rest of the day holds, or the week ahead, or what next year will be like. Right now, none of that matters; I’ve got this moment, here. It’s not fancy or exciting or extraordinary. It’s actually quite simple, a bit unremarkable, and there is nothing much about it significant enough to be especially share-worthy. That’s actually why I am sharing it. We get so used to chasing “happiness”, seeking novelty, excitement, or diversion, we forget to enjoy the simple pleasant moments life offers up pretty generously, much of the time. We wonder when life feels constrained, frustrating, disappointing, or filled with futility and sorrow, why there’s nothing pleasant to rely on… but don’t often acknowledge what we did (or more to the point, didn’t) do to build that “reference library” of personal joy to reflect on, and savor in less satisfying times. I can’t honestly “help you” with that, though, aside from pointing out how much importance your presence in your own experience really has for you.

One moment, experienced thoroughly, savored in recollection. Still nothing fancy. Just a moment.

In the simplest terms, if you want an implicitly pleasant and positive sense about your experience of “life in general” – an “upbeat outlook on life” – you’ve got to cultivate that, and one sure path to that destination is to be truly present, conscious, and involved in living the small pleasant moments in life. There are verbs involved. Practice. Incremental change over time. It’s the sort of thing others will observe has changed about you, before you are wholly aware a change has occurred. Savoring the moments, however simple, of contentment, quiet joy, or everyday satisfaction, builds that database of positive feelings and experiences that become the foundation of our outlook on “life in general”. It’s not all about the extreme joys of great moments; those moments are beyond “every day”, and we know that.

One coffee, one moment – but the picture is not the beverage.

I don’t grudge myself the contented moments “just sitting” with a soft smile on my face, contemplating some little thing my partner said that warmed my heart or supported me. I don’t grudge myself the contented moments “just sitting” watching fish swim in my aquarium, or how the light streams into a particular window in a particular way. I don’t grudge myself contented moments flipping through the pictures and origin stories in favorite cookbooks. The time spent is meaningless out of context, and precious beyond measure enjoyed whole-heartedly on some small thing that satisfies. It’s not the time itself that matters, so much as what it is spent on. 🙂 Time spent content or joyful is definitely worthwhile, however simply spent. My opinion. Works for me. (Your results may vary.)

Still smiling, coffee finished, and having written a few words on a quiet Saturday… I think about the world beyond these walls, and wonder about taking a walk. Certainly, this feels like a good time to begin again. 🙂

 

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Categories Allegories, autumn, Brain Injury, Free Will, gratitude, Healthy Living, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, The Art of Being

One of Those What the Hell Days

August 15, 2020 //
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Yesterday turned out to be a tad… complicated. Emotional. Busy? All of those things and stressful, too. I’m honestly a bit surprised it went so… well. “Just homeowner stuff”, I guess. (What?! Already??) I ended my work day early to deal with it. My Traveling Partner met with the hot tub repair person who was scheduled to be out, and showed up 2 hours early (I don’t think I’m going to complain about that – it was a relief just being able to get that work done, at all), and I focused on the other thing. A leak. In a wall. That caused mold. On paintings. Omfg. I actually don’t have adequate words for the stress in that first moment of catastrophic realization. :-\

…It also is not a catastrophe in any literal sense. Not at all. Small thing, caught very quickly, being handled.

The rest of the day was spent between managing my mental and emotional wellness, and actually handling the circumstances in a way that would successfully (and completely) resolve them. It went fairly well, once the initial heart-breaking emotional blast to my consciousness had passed. It seems a little silly and “overdone” after-the-fact, but in the moment the hurt was very real, the panic very profound. From the vantage point of now, it’s serious, but rather ordinary, and nothing to trouble myself over emotionally. Humans are weird.

The morning starts peculiarly. I’d just gotten up moments ahead of my partner, and was sipping my coffee and beginning my writing after a few minutes of meditation (okay, I was up long enough to meditate, make coffee, and settle in to write…so more than a handful of minutes had gone by since I woke). He got up. I made coffee. Seemed ordinary enough, and the day began pleasantly with talk of a soak…

Obviously, I’m writing, not soaking. (Well, obvious to me, I’m the one sitting here, now, in a moment that is long over by the time you read these words.) He’s behind one closed door, I’m behind another. Communication breakdown. Hurt feelings. Routine human shit. I can’t even take it personally, although I am disappointed to have to deal with it on a pretty Saturday morning, when I could be contentedly soaking in the hot tub with my Traveling Partner. We’ve both got baggage. We’re both quite human. We love each other dearly and still manage, now and then, to hurt each other’s feelings, frustrate each other, or treat each other less well than we’d ideally like to. There it is. Humans being human. There’s a lot of work that goes into doing that well. Results vary.

I breathe. Exhale. Let it go. Well…sort of. So I begin again, with a deep deep breathe, correcting my posture and sitting fully upright. I exhale slowly, patiently. I inhale, making a point to feel the compassion I feel for my very human self – and his. I exhale, feeling acceptance and love, and really releasing that frustrating tendency to take shit personally. I let it go. No attachment to the outcome. No requirement to “be” “right”. Open to enjoying the day. I inhale again, feeling my shoulders relax, aware of the minor headache at the back of my skull. I exhale, content and aware, hearing the sound of the A/C coming on, and taking in the sunshine through the window as it lights the neighbors house. I hold myself here, in this present moment, exactly as it is. Breathe. Exhale. Relax. Repeat. This is my favorite meditation – breathing. Still. Awake. Aware. Quiet. Just sitting. Just breathing. Letting go of everything that is not this moment, here, now.

Search within; it’s closest.

Some moments pass. I don’t know how many. I feel some better. I feel vulnerable to being easily hurt (maybe just a problematic byproduct of yesterday’s stress). I think about my best options for good self-care. I think about how to make things right with my partner. I’d like us both to enjoy the day, whether he chooses to spend it in my company or not. I remind myself of an errand I had planned to run, and one he may still want me to handle (asking would be the thing to do in this instance).

…Anyway. It’s time to begin again. I don’t know what the day ahead holds. No expectations. No assumptions. Open to succeeding.

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Categories Anxiety, Brain Injury, Despair, forgiveness, Free Will, Frustration, gratitude, Healthy Living, Love, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, Summer, The Big 5
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