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Simple Things, Complex Issues

February 19, 2016 //
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It’s a quiet stormy evening. I’ve gotten most of my laundry done, bringing it in warm and dry from the laundry room between rain showers. Between loads of laundry I’ve spent time meditating, as storm clouds and passing showers crossed the view out the patio window. I enjoy seeing the sky, a horizon, a view, and so placed my favorite cushion for meditating just there, where my view of the park beyond the patio is unobstructed.

Potted miniature roses drenched by passing showers don't seem to mind the rain at all.

Potted miniature roses drenched by passing showers don’t seem to mind the rain at all.

Tonight had been planned for love and loving, but love had other needs, elsewhere, tonight. Love isn’t always easy, and needs considerable investment in respect, in consideration, in compassion, and yes, even openness and reciprocity. I’m sure I’ve never felt truly loved in their absence. (That’s why they are my Big 5 relationship values!) Still, I don’t feel any lack of love for love’s lack of proximity tonight. I feel heard, cared for, respected, valued – I feel wrapped in the comfort and warmth of a strong partnership, signal boosted with clear communication and explicit expectation setting. I find myself feeling compassion (his are complicated circumstances), and hoping very much that the evening goes well for my tested traveling partner; his relationship building skills are considerable – love still requires that everyone involved make an equal investment of heart, and will, and effort. No one human being can hold an entire relationship together alone. There are so many verbs involved…mindful loving uses many more of them than I had imagined (and I still have so much to learn). Listening deeply is a practice worthy of practicing – and then practicing more; I’ve learned so much more about love in the silence between my words that gives my lover room to be heard, than I ever did in one moment of something I said myself. Still; verbs. It isn’t enough to wait to talk. It’s the listening that counts, and doing it skillfully requires more than a little practice.

Listening deeply is like looking at something distant, requiring attention, focus, engagement and presence; this is not a picture of branches.

Listening deeply is like looking at something distant; it requires attention, focus, engagement and presence. (This is not a picture of branches.)

The television is off. No background slide show, no cartoons or animation, no favorite series or new hilarious YouTube video, science documentary, or nature show to pull my focus from the quiet evening. I am giving myself my time and attention. There is music playing, but that too is subdued; jazz (‘fusion’) tonight, bass heavy, relaxed, complex, rich, and joyous, and turned down low enough to feel the quiet of evening nonetheless – the sort of easy, inspiring sounds that apparently compel considerable overuse of adjectives and adverbs – the musical equivalent of poetry, but the sort of uplifting simple thing easily remembered and happily shared.

Too many words. This is too many – isn’t it? Is it? I’m not sure. I think I’ve gone a tad overboard here, just now, but I feel content and filled with warm joy and a feeling of security. It’s pleasant – and I don’t feel quite this way very often at all. It’s the security, I think – a sort of calm strength just beneath the surface of the contentment and joy. It’s nice. I’m sure I ‘worked’ to get ‘here’…but I didn’t plan it, or seek it out, I’ve been busy on other practices, other verbs, other concerns in life. Maybe that’s the point of what I am saying tonight; I didn’t chase this down as an outcome. I simply arrived here. Practicing good basic self-care, treating myself truly well, practicing practices that build emotional resilience and self-sufficiency, learning skills that support my emotional balance – whether I am home alone, out in the world, or faced with a moment of someone else’s drama – each incremental change over time has been a step on a journey that brought me here. ‘Here’ is very nice, I must say…and it’s enough.

One moment of many. I am here. I am okay. This is enough.

One moment of many. I am here. I am okay. This is enough.

Today is a good day to enjoy what is – whatever it is, however much it can be enjoyed. Today is a good day to learn from what hurts. Today is a good day to watch storms pass over head, and to recognize the difference between ‘climate’ and ‘weather’. Today is a good day to take a step back from the world, and listen deeply in a quiet moment.

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

Choices and Changes

January 28, 2016 //
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Moving is a process that is pretty much entirely all about changes. Sometimes moving is is also associated with a lot of ‘forced choices’; things decided upon in the moment that are either imposed by someone else’s decision-making, or by details in the circumstances that seem to limit the available options. (I say ‘seem to’ because sometimes I find myself making a choice based on it being ‘the only thing I can do’, which while it does immediately ensure that my perspective is that there is ‘no choice’, in reality ‘no choice’ is a rare condition.)

Last night I slept deeply and well in the old apartment, even crashing quite early, utterly exhausted. I woke earlier than my usual waking time, and although I was contentedly committed to returning to sleep for as long as I needed to rest, the attempt was wasted. I was awake. My thought, when I crashed out last night, was that I would wake later – probably after 7:00 am (the hour at which the community ‘quiet hours’ end). The intention was to immediately finish loading up the van and drive it down the hill, unload it, then have my morning coffee. I woke at 4:00 am, much too early to futz around with moving things, and a noisy truck. People were definitely still sleeping. (Yes, that matters to me; Consideration is  one of my Big 5 relationship values – are not my neighbors also sharing a relationship with me? That of neighbor?) I decided to dress, and take the frozen food down to the new apartment, and have my coffee while I watch the dawn slowly unfold over the park, from the new view.

The darkness before dawn is dotted with bright lights.

The darkness before dawn is dotted with bright lights.

What a lovely morning, and what an excellent bit of decision-making! I returned to the old apartment some time later – after coffee number two, and 7:00 am. The rainy morning has prolonged the early morning gray misty skies, and dim lighting that might put my footing at risk. I choose a healthy breakfast, a few minutes at the keyboard, and no rush; I am up so much earlier than I planned that I am still entirely ‘on plan’ for the moving bits without rushing at all.

The choices I am making with regard to handling the move in this peculiarly slow deliberate way is also resulting in feeling more immediately moved in at the place. This morning felt right; I had my morning coffee ‘at home’ – and that was there, at the new place, sitting on the love seat in the living room, watching the sky lighten beyond the treeline on the other side of the park. Meditation. Yoga. A shower. I make no promises to myself about how this is going; it is enough to experience it.

A metaphor for change: the mantle shelf covered with treasured things that will not remain in this location. Sometimes the choices and changes are momentary.

A metaphor for impermanence: the mantle shelf covered with treasured things, safer on the shelf than on the floor, they will not be here long.

Isn’t that still what this is all about? Choices…changes… enough? 🙂

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

Being Committed

January 27, 2016 //
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Sipping my coffee I look again at the title and chuckle. No, I have not lost my mind, nor am I ‘being committed’ in some involuntary way in some moment of desperation. I meant it as ‘being committed to’ a concept, opportunity, event, plan, or task. In this case, I might even quite reasonably expect that I could be talking about being committed to the move, or to change, or some other loosely move-related experience, since today is Moving Day. Well, a moving day; I’ve got more than one. (A nice feeling.) Actually though, this morning I am taking time over my coffee to explicitly reinforce my personal commitment to treating myself well, and to general contentment and sufficiency.

Boxes, bags, bins, a cart, a van, some help, a sense of purpose, and three days ahead.

Boxes, bags, bins, a cart, a van, some help, a sense of purpose, and three days ahead.

I am excited about the move, and noticed at some point yesterday that the excitement is causing me a certain amount of dithering in my decision-making processes. Silly things like ‘what goes first?’ and ‘should I just go ahead and move the kitchen?’ – when in the simplest most obvious terms, everything will be moved, and it will happen over the next 3 days. There is no need to attempt to prioritize this room, over that; I can literally (if I wish) simply start walking items downhill one at a time. I would be moved in 3 days – I don’t have that much stuff.  🙂  This morning I awoke more clear-headed on the challenge; it’s not about the move at all, as much as it is about feeling fearful of giving up this state of general contentment, comfort, and security which has become my ‘normal’. It is an important realization that has allowed my morning to progress peacefully and without further stress (at least so far).

I continue to sip my coffee without further thought about the move or the moving; no further thought is required at just this time right here, and I very much need a few fearless calm minutes of contentment over words and coffee. Taking care of this fragile vessel and the being of light within is every bit as high a priority as this move. 🙂

I notice the deep quiet of early morning, and listen; there is the usual hushed coming and going of distant commuter traffic, and the buzz of the overhead light in the kitchen. I remind myself to alert the manager that the bulb is ready to be replaced – and realize I am ‘moving’ in my head, again. I breathe, and let it go. I put on my ‘moving playlist’ and enjoy a morning filled with music; I’ll be unplugging things today, and a house filled with music may be a day or two away once I do. lol I remember I’ll want my headphones, and put them next to my phone. Damn it. Still moving in my head. LOL Clearly … I am committed.

It's still 'about' contentment and sufficiency.

It’s still ‘about’ contentment and sufficiency.

Today will be a good day for balance, and a good day to keep checking in with the woman in the mirror. Today will be a good day to take things task by task, and to treat myself gently. Today is a good day for practicing good self-care, and being kind to myself. Today is a good day to change… apartments. 😉

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Categories Anxiety, Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, The Art of Being

So Many Right Ways

January 26, 2016 //
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Another morning. I sip my coffee and breathe through the sensation of unease that begins to develop each time my thoughts land on moving; I have the keys, the lease is signed, and for the moment I live between places, in the thoughts of going from one to the other. It’s peculiar.

One day, one moment, of many.

One day, one moment, of many.

Today moving begins in earnest. Do I move the kitchen first? Maybe the bathroom? Just start with the farthest closest? Patio garden first to get it out of the way of carrying things through the convenient patio door? Across the muddy strip of winter lawn? These are not new thoughts, and they drift past in more or less the same order that they do each time they get my attention, again. The repetition I rely on to firm up good practices is a nuisance this morning; I have been here and it does not need to be revisited. It’s the unease; there is anxiety in the magnitude of changes, and a fear of ‘doing it wrong’, even though the only person making the call on whether it is going well or poorly is me. My home, my rules, my way; I am the sole architect of my joy or discontent on this move – and I’m a tad irritated with myself to be throwing my heart into turmoil over something I approached with eagerness and enthusiasm from the outset. These are the emotional circumstances that develop for me around change, and the greater the change the higher the likelihood that I will find myself, at some point, weeping or raging – lost in a storm of uncontrolled emotion, unable to function until it passes.

I am relying heavily on myself on this move. I generally do, then get tangled up in the help of friends in moments of humanity, things lost or things broken, feeling frustrated when real-life doesn’t meet expectations. This time I am leaning on lessons learned in the most recent 3 or 4 moves; I will handle what I can, and reach out only for the specific help I really need, when that time comes. I have professional coming to handle the very heaviest pieces. The satisfaction in self-reliance is pretty profound, and I am in a place in life where living focused more on contentment than on profit has resulted in household goods of fair lightness, with only a handful of pieces I can’t lift or maneuver on my own. I expect to ‘work my own way’, which often means sipping coffee between tasks, sitting down for a minute quite frequently, and taking my time – but also working in an organized way, and quite continuously at my slow steady pace from waking to crashing at the end of the day, passionately involved in creating order from chaos. Embracing change awake, and aware, and mostly fairly fearlessly… well… except for the occasional moment of nauseating unease.

I am missing my traveling partner. I am not regretting my decision to handle the move without his help, though. Every move we have done together has taxed our relationship during that period of time between beginning the moving, and finally getting entirely unpacked and settled in; I don’t handle change well, and it is uncomfortable to live with. (That’s putting it mildly, based on what I see reflected in my journal notes.) I don’t know what to expect from this particular move, emotionally, and I endeavor to set myself up for success by being okay with the unknown, on this one, rather than attempting to nudge myself in line with some specific expectation or another; maybe this is the move that shows me it doesn’t have to be such a disruptive experience? I’ve come pretty far. Still… I do miss him. I think about him often. Love anchors me to the move with a sense of purpose and security.

New perspective.

New perspective.

One more work day… then, The Move, and only The Move. I figure I’ll be living in the new place more or less full-time by Thursday afternoon… which also means I will be disconnected from FiOS for a handful of days until the provider cuts over my circuit to the new location some days later. I consider it – is it an inconvenience? I can tether with my phone, so it isn’t as if I am facing being without connectivity completely… Funny that internet access feels like a necessity in life, like drinking water and secure housing, or medical care; it is the unimaginable future of my childhood.  Still, maybe some digital downtime while I move is an opportunity more than a headache? More room and time to simply breathe, simply be. There will be time for dissecting lessons learned and having meta conversations later, and there is much to be said for having the experience I am having.

Today is a good day for time…and motion. Today is a good day to ‘walk on’ in life, with eyes wide with wonder and a playful sense of purpose. Today is a good day to remember that plans are not the goal – just as the map is not the world. Today is a good day to live life.

 

 

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Categories Anxiety, Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, solo hiking, The Art of Being, The Big 5

Bliss Point

January 24, 2016 //
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Suddenly the apartment is so very quiet, almost unnaturally still. To be fair, I turned off the stereo some minutes ago, precisely for the quiet and a few still minutes. Silly primate – it  hardly makes it at all remarkable, when it is chosen. 🙂

My traveling partner spent the better part of the entire week with me, this past week, and it’s a rare delight. It’s been quite connected and wonderful, easy, and intimate; we work, and it’s an experience I enjoy greatly. We enjoyed this last morning (at least for some days to come) gently, over coffees and music, and baking cookies together before he took off for the company of other friends in other places. I am excited and hopeful that he enjoys an experience worth having, and I know that his own good choices will put him on that path. On the other hand… I already miss him.

Love in the kitchen.

Love in the kitchen.

I still have work to do, a journey ahead of me, with the woman in the mirror; it is still so easy to thoughtlessly defer immediately to any whim my love may have in the moment without also considering what I need for myself, and too easy to rest gently by his side, doe-eyed, without expectation, wrapped in warmth in some romantic Land of the Lotus Eaters, no needs beyond his presence. I actually have quite a lot more I’d like to get done, day-to-day, as pleasant as that is. 🙂 He left some minutes ago, and for the first several of those it was rather as if I had had something precious torn from me – the pain was quite peculiarly visceral, and very real seeming. So I turned off the music. I sat quietly. I took time to breathe. I took time to enjoy and savor the recollection of the lovely time we’d shared together this past week. I recalled some wonderful humorous repartee exchanged, and some heart-felt emotional moments. I gave further consideration to his gentle suggestions for improvement in the layout of my space, and some efficiency and safety recommendations. I thought over some cool quality of life improvements he suggested I do further research on that sounded quite good to me. I remembered his kisses, his touch, his loving gaze. I began to feel quite calm and secure and steady, and smiled remembering I’ve specifically asked to have some time to get the move out of the way, and that he has graciously made that work in his current plans – he’s that guy; it matters to me, and he respects my ability to plan and execute this move, and understands that there is value for me in handling it for a number of reasons. He is considerate and supportive of my needs. He’s a partner.

I have been putting quite a lot into deep listening, and slowing down and giving my partner room to be, room to talk and to share. I sit now, quietly, considering my partner’s words about his comfort, likes, preferences, needs, and the new place I am moving into. I feel supported and cared for, and reciprocate even in my planning; I look for ways to ensure the space suits his comfort as much as mine, without regard to whether we cohabit permanently or full-time. Whether he lives there is not relevant to my desire that he feel ‘at home’ in my space every bit as much as I do, myself. I don’t think I can explain why I place importance on his comfort, but it is quite important to me, and I have difficulty understanding how anyone can say “I love you” to someone else without also being willing to reciprocate actions of love.

Sometime around mid-morning, I realized we’d simply hit our ‘bliss point’ as humans together; doing things we love with someone we love, having a shared and intimate connected experience unique to this particular combination of humans, only. Not because no one else could share a small kitchen baking lemon shortbread, or because no one else enjoys coffee in the morning with their lover, but because no other combination of human primates would be precisely us, with our values, with our individual and shared histories, with our individual ways of viewing the world and communicating that to each other… we just happened to be, in that moment, the most wondrously, joyously, easily, happily, romantically us that ever tends to be – and it was enough. More than enough. For that short shared beautiful time, it was everything (in its own delightfully limited way). So much so that when the door closed, and he was gone, in that instant of real anguish… there was also joy. It makes sense that I needed some quiet time to sit and smile and let it all soak in. 🙂

Yes. Quietly. Meditation. Study. Rest. I’ve got a busy week ahead filled with change; change is sometimes hard on me, even when I embrace it so eagerly. It will be important to take care of me. This is all happening so fast…

I am walking my path from another perspective, and there is more to learn.

I am walking my path from another perspective, and there is more to learn.

…I smile, and remind myself it is entirely okay to slow it down. I notice the time and realize that aside from having a ‘test cookie’ with my traveling partner, my calories today have been pretty minimal. I pause to hope that he is having the same thought, somewhere along the way, and stopping for a bite, himself – although I find myself regretting that I had not thought of it before he left, I can tell I needed the quiet, having finally reached ‘my bliss point’ and become perhaps even a bit overwhelmed by the power of love. I don’t beat myself up over needing a little space to handle the move; it’s complicated enough handling me handling the move as it is – it’s a lot of small changes, and tasks to juggle, and details. It’s time to be focused on good self-care, and to be reminded that I am enough. 🙂

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Categories Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Perspective, Relationships, The Art of Being, The Big 5, Uncategorized, winter, women, Words
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