I woke early, and in pain. I crashed early last night, after dozing off sitting up, shortly after getting home from work…but didn’t fall asleep until past 10 pm, although I drifted in and out of real wakefulness without any particular schedule. I’d have probably slept, I try to tell myself, if it weren’t for the blast of icy cold water in the middle of my hot shower…but as a long time insomniac with a variety of sleep disturbances, realistically, I know that isn’t necessarily true. Last night, as tired as I was, just wasn’t a night I was going to sleep well. Pain is an everyday challenge, and autumn – my favorite season – is the worst for pain every day.

Mushrooms after rain.

Today isn’t a bad day. I just hurt. I don’t hurt more than what is endurable (see? I’m here, enduring it.), but it isn’t pleasant. Perspective is in the recollection of worse pain on other days, and the understanding that there are other people who hurt more, out there in the world, right now. There is value in not obsessing over it, and in not making it worse with the power of my thoughts; I smile as I observe the phrasing and note that my traveling partner would almost certainly point out that I framed it up ‘in the negative’. He would, perhaps, wonder if there were more positive emotional value in it, if I used positive language. 🙂 (We learn from love. Love helps us become who we most want to be – when we allow it.)

One of my challenges, a small one in the scheme of things, is learning to use more positive language.  I tend to reply to a question like “how are you?” with something like “not bad”.  It is phrasing that lingers from a much more discontent, wounded, fearful time in my life; admitting how good something seemed was a direct path to having it taken from me. Harsh. That’s not my life now, and there’s no danger in saying I’m in a good place today, or that I enjoy something.  Positive language doesn’t come naturally to me. I keep at it; growth and change come with practice, over time. Change is what changes us.

When conditions are right, growth happens.

No coffee this morning. There’s only enough left for one beverage this morning; I forgot to pick up coffee last night. I’m not surprised at the miss. I was so tired walking home from the train station that I don’t actually remind remember the walk at all. I leave the remaining coffee for my partner, who will wake unaware of the shortage. This morning I am enjoying a cup of tea, brewed very strong. It’s not at all the same experience, but it is an acceptable morning beverage enjoyed by millions every day, and I am content with tea this morning. I’ll pick up coffee today.

When I take time to look, I see. When I take time to listen, I hear.

It’s a quiet morning, on a therapy day. My work schedule has caused me to cancel a couple of appointments recently to attend important training. I find myself wondering, just for a moment, ‘important for who?’  It is a worthy question, and answering it is one more small challenge. I was going to add yet another rather mundane challenge du jour, faced with needing to track down some military paperwork…then while I was framing the thought and wrapping it in words, I found the paperwork precisely where it most rationally would be based on the way I organize such things. lol Clearly, that one was only a challenge in my thoughts, in anticipation of the action. The finding of the paperwork was actually a bit of a let down. I find myself smiling at the incongruity; pleased to find the paperwork, and ever-so-slightly irked that it really wasn’t a challenge – it was the anxiety around not finding it that was the challenge, and that turned out to be entirely in my head.

Our storms are not without value; experience teaches perspective.

When I feel overwhelmed, however large or small the individual challenges, issues, needs, or upcoming events may be, every one of them seems huge, insurmountably difficult, and together they seem too numerous to easily manage. Often I find myself later admitting what a small thing most of them were, taken singly. I think for a moment of some common call center advice that seems applicable, “take the calls one at a time”. Yep. The challenges are easier one at a time. Problems that need solving are often much less puzzling taken individually. Decisions that I face are often less complicated separated from all the other decisions to be made. “Each time for the first time. Each moment the only moment.” (a favorite Jon Kabat Zinn quote) Sort of brings me back around to the mindfulness practices that are tending to see me smiling every day, even in the face of challenges. I can’t stop life from adding challenges to my experience, and change is. I can breathe calming breaths, and take the challenges one by one; it is enough.

Today is a good day love, and let love in. Today is a good day to take the challenges one by one, and be mindfully aware we’ve all got some. Today is a good day to be kind. Today is a good day to change the world.