Archives for posts with tag: love and lovers

A Day of Rest

June 21, 2015 //

Rest is important for growth, for healing, and for quality of life. You can look it up if you need to verify it, there’s science on the topic. Yesterday was an excellent Saturday, but ‘restful’ would not accurately describe the day’s fun. Today there is nothing on my calendar, aside the daily sorts of chores that maintain order: dishes, changing the linens, vacuuming. I have not yet made any decisions about what to do with the minutes and hours ahead of me, today. Today will be good practices and taking it easy. The overcast morning was explanation enough for the backache I woke with, although I admit with a smile that yesterday’s fun could also have some part to play in today’s backache. A rest day is clearly in order.

Some other day, some other flower.

It took time to become comfortable with setting clear boundaries with regard to taking care of me. (Your results may vary.) It wasn’t that people dear to me didn’t want me to do the things required to live well, comfortably, and feel good day-to-day, and I don’t find it healthy for me to make that kind of negative assumption about someone else’s thinking. (My traveling partner supports good self-care on a level that shows he understands how important it is, and did so long before I understood, myself, why I needed to practice some of the practices I now do, for example, but if I am trapped in a very dark mood I may lose perspective; I continue to find The Four Agreements a helpful read there, when my perspective on others is bleak.). Sometimes I have the greatest challenge setting the boundaries I need because I am, myself, prone to stomping all over my boundaries in a most inconsiderate and surprisingly callous fashion. There’s definitely a learning curve – and I’m on the slow end. I have improved, however, and I am eager to enjoy a relaxed day of rest, meditation, catching up on correspondence, yoga, reading – or whatever it is the day brings my way that is nurturing, and likely to ‘recharge my batteries’ for the week to come.

We bloom where we thrive.

Generally, any apparent boundary stomping disregard or discourtesy I am likely to experience day-to-day is at the hands of someone with their attention focused so fixedly on their own agenda that others aren’t fully considered, or at all, and occasionally by those that just haven’t reached that point in life where they understand the value of self-care in their own experience, and are thus poorly equipped to respect the needs of others. They need my compassion more than my ire, and I only need to be mindfully aware that my choices matter, and continue to take care of me, communicating explicitly and gently where my boundaries and limits are. Sometimes, far more rarely, people are exploitative abusive dicks who don’t care. My best practice in that situation is to double-check that I am taking care of me, and walk on, cutting my losses without further investment. There have been moments when I have treated someone poorly, myself, or crossed a boundary inconsiderately. I’m not bragging, obviously – I’m just saying; it’s a very human experience. Being the best woman I can be – being the best of the woman I am, and that I aspire to be, means I choose differently with awareness in every moment I can maintain the awareness I need to do so. Practice matters a great deal; it doesn’t make perfect, but it does build incremental change over time. 🙂

Unique and individual as flowers in a garden, each having our own experience, none of us so very different from the others, except for perspective, and all sorts of details. 🙂

Today I don’t fight the world for the rest I need; I fight myself, and the tendency to fill a day with things to do, rather than indulge in rest that stillness has to offer. The reluctance to slow things down and gently enjoy the day seeps in from all corners; I live in what tends to be a very activity-prone culture that places high value on productive output, and scoffs at treating oneself with humane regard for this fragile vessel in which we pass our time in mortal experience. I may go for a walk today. I may do some gardening. What I most certainly will do, though, is take care of me. 🙂

Taking care of the garden of my heart matters, too.

Yesterday was quite lovely, and my smile still lingers. It has the feeling of a tumbler clicking into place on a very fancy lock, or as if a difficult to place puzzle piece happens to fit quite nicely with unexpected ease. Yesterday took me most definitely further in the direction of being more myself, and quite comfortably and contentedly so. My relationships with those dear to me feel comfortable, and meaningful. My relationship to myself is not undermined by my relationships with others. I feel at home in my apartment, and in my skin. This feels good – and balanced. Whether I see my traveling partner or the wanderer today will not change this very nice experience I am building with me – and this is a journey I have been wanting to take, needing to take, for a very long time.

Love matters most – the love I give myself is not excluded.

Today is a good day to be free of baggage – I’ll just set that all right over here. Today is a good day for smiles that linger, and a good cup of coffee. Today is a good day for morning breezes, and birdsong. Today is a good day to enjoy the world as I create it. 🙂

Tags are you going my way?, be the change, being and becoming, choose wisely, emotional self sufficiency, good self-care, how do I love me?, I'm a flower too, if I always love me I always have love, it's a metaphor, love, love and lovers, meeting my needs my way, mindful living, mindful loving, mindfulness matters, my home my rules my way, not all who wander are lost, perspective, ptsd, taking care of me, TBI, The Art of Being, The Big 5, the flowers in my garden

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

Action and Reaction

June 20, 2015 //

Saturday is finally here. It was a longer than usual work week, with longer than usual days. I intend to set very firm boundaries about over-work, but it’s a small team, and vacation time gets covered whatever that takes. By the time I got home last night, I was exhausted, and ready for a quiet night. I managed to push myself through laundry and self-care basics, and spent the rest of the evening quietly, reading. I crashed pretty early, and slept through night – hell, I ‘slept in’ more than an hour past the time my alarm usually wakes me, and woke feeling rested, the work week finally behind me. 🙂

This morning there are a couple of light chores to take care of, and I’ll spend some time in the garden before the heat of the day. I may hang a painting that is nagging my consciousness for a place to be. Sipping my morning coffee, I wonder if it fails to satisfy because I am looking forward to having coffee with the wanderer, later this morning.

A change in perspective is generally worthwhile.

Looking forward to Saturday in good company.

I dither a while over my rather mediocre morning coffee wondering if I should go back and check every use of ‘traveling partner’ – should those all be capitalized? What about ‘the wanderer’? Capitalized? No? I wonder if I have been consistent – it’s the potential lack of consistency that grates on my nerves most. Do I yield to the sensation and let it drive my behavior? Do I allow myself to react to it? If I do, how far back ‘should’ I go? Any? lol I quickly move on to wondering why I am even allowing my consciousness to pick at this point – do I actually even care one way or the other? Well…maybe….if it results in not being understood…am I being understood, I wonder? I sip my coffee and wonder how I managed to make such a relatively poor cup of coffee on such a lovely morning. Then I wonder how important it actually is for each reader to clearly identify the wanderer and my traveling partner in this narrative as specific people identified thus…maybe that’s only important to me? (It isn’t likely I’d forget.) I sit here considering a trivial point of grammar (yeah, I said it), and realize that it is more important to me that the choice be mine, whatever the outcome, and since I already have that I lose interest in the internal discussion and move on.

There have been a lot of things lately where the outcome of some choice was less important to me than that the choice be my own, in the moment. Sounds a tad child-like in some fashion, and I don’t allow myself to be berated (by myself) over it; it also seems a natural enough developmental step to find myself taking on this journey. I am flexing my will a bit, perhaps, but after a lifetime of over-compromise and de-prioritizing myself and my needs, it seems appropriate to take the opportunity living alone presents to live my own life, and the outcome of my own choices, more fully. Sometimes it plays out predictably enough; perhaps I find myself wanting cookies, I bake cookies, I over-indulge on the cookies, I find myself annoyed with feeling over-full on cookies, and moody from too much sugar….all my choices, all my actions, definitely no potential for blame-laying, or being annoyed with someone else, but the actions/reactions lack the developed control and will an adult might ideally show. I continue practicing specific practices that focus on self-restraint – learning skills that limit the effect of having a disinhibiting brain injury, and do so without resulting in frustration or discontent, and rely less on habitual behavior than good decision-making. Yesterday, in the morning, I made cookies, because I wanted healthier sweets on hand. I did not over-indulge. This morning there is a container full of cookies, and they may last days, although I made batches appropriately sized for solo-living. Practicing good practices results in improved outcomes. I like that phrase better than ‘practice makes perfect’, although it is less quippy, and no doubt less effective as an aphorism or ad slogan than the old stand-by.

Sometimes the journey is an uphill climb.

There is no room in my day-to-day experience for guilt, shame, or emotional self-flagellation over the picayune details of everyday life. My rules, my home, my way…and I take a moment over my gradually cooling mediocre morning coffee to consider how long overdue this experience is for me, and how little self-possession and consideration I’ve allowed for myself, from myself, for so many years. Better to indulge, to err, to learn, eyes wide to what my experience can teach me, and prepared with self-acceptance and rational accountability to grow and move forward. This may mean the occasional mediocre cup of coffee – but it also means fresh cookies, sleeping in, long showers, and happy laughter when I master a new yoga pose. Choices matter a lot – giving myself the freedom to enact my will through action is pretty huge, too.

I am finding my way home.

This is a much less anxious place to be. It’s a much less angry place to be. The undercurrent of subtle continuous resentment and the sense of being imposed upon almost continuously by rules external to my own thinking and practices are dissipating. Instead, I smile a lot, and I feel content much of the time. I make my own choices – and sometimes change my mind with new information, or experience a less than ideal outcome, or find my understanding of circumstances has changed. I don’t rush myself to get a faster decision made to avoid inconveniencing someone else. I don’t think I know how to have this experience in the context of living with others – not yet – but I have the glimmer of an idea of what that might require of me. Realistically, cohabitation may not be ‘for me’ with the issues I have – I’m even okay with that, from the vantage point of a lovely Saturday morning, content, calm and smiling over my coffee. For now, this journey is about will and action, action and reaction, and practicing the practices that help me on my way to becoming the woman I most want to be.

Today is a good day to practice The Art of Being – and there’s no doubt in my mind that that needs to be capitalized. 🙂

Tags anxiety, being and becoming, emotional self sufficiency, good self-care, homecoming, it's not a competition, love and lovers, meditation, mindful living, mindful loving, mindfulness, mindfulness for beginners, mindfulness matters, morning coffee, performance to goal, perspective, practicing the practices, ptsd, relationships, taking care of me, TBI, The Art of Being, The Big 5, the map is not the world, the woman in the mirror, walking my own path, what matters most?

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

The Juice

June 18, 2015 //

My first couple weeks living alone I struggled with what felt, physically and emotionally, very much like… withdrawals. It was puzzling, and I rode it out confident that all such things pass with time. I practiced good practices, treated myself with compassion, and sort of … kept an eye on it, from the perspective of a lifetime living in this fragile vessel, and a certain wonder… somewhere between “omfg – what’s wrong now??’ and ‘huh, this is sort of odd’. It did pass, and my heart settled down with settling into new routines. Yesterday, I realized more fully what was driving those sensations, that experience of ‘withdrawal’, and had to admit with some amusement that it was an experience only the digital age could produce…loss of near-continuous communication through digital media of a variety of sorts. Living in my own space now, there is simply less back and forth delivery of words…words about packages, about picking up things from the store, about arrival times here or there, about delays in this or that, expectation setting words in a household of multiple adults… it initially created a feeling of isolation and sometimes of loneliness to lose all that. That, too, passed.

Yesterday, I was enjoying the day on this entirely other level, something I haven’t felt in a very long time. A decade or more, maybe – certainly something that precedes all existing/recent romantic or sexual relationships, until yesterday. The feeling got my attention – I had missed it, I know, because I felt that thought pretty early in the day. “I’ve missed this!” as I smiled through my morning. “I’ve missed this!” as I walked to work. It nagged at me; I didn’t have the words for what I was feeling. Something like happy, something like eager… something with a connection…something with power and delight… present, aware, self-assured, confident… and less about an event or experience I have already had – more about something I might experience soon. I felt it in my skin, in my smile, in the colors of the day…

Sometimes the path is not obvious.

I’m not sure I have all the right words for it, even now. I have some words, though. I got my “juice” back. I know, I know… how helpful is that? Not very. Still, it’s a start. I even ‘get it’ – technology took my juice when it put real-time communication in my hands, during a relationship with someone willing to use it nearly continuously. Habits develop over time, and whatever we practice becomes part of who we are. Over the years I got used to constant check-ins, updates, and expectation-setting real-time, even developing skill at and preference for deeply emotional conversations via email…and lost my ‘juice’. I lost the delight and intensity of anticipation. I lost the utter confidence in someone else’s affection. I began to rely on continuous reassurance and trickling information on tap. It became a character flaw.

Enjoying a busy work day wedged between a delightful evening with a wanderer, and a delightful evening with my traveling partner, and not hearing from either during the day, I realized I didn’t need any additional communication – I was enjoying the anticipation of our next meeting, our future time together, other days, other nights, other dinners, other dips in the pool, other laughter… and I was reminded how much I once thrived with the yearning and anticipation that filled my days before email, before instant messaging, and before smart phones. Oh, I’m not setting aside my pocket brain – I rely on my smart phone quite a lot, and the technology delights me, too – but I am suddenly free of the attachment to the faux connection of continuous near-real-time communication. In letting it go…I got my ‘juice’ back. Fueled by anticipation, by desire, by joy – the very real joy of real connections, with conversation, eye contact, and touch, and the very real desire to feel those things again, without the methadone of less satisfying digital connections, I created the very real excitement of anticipation, and the mammalian urgency to connect, to touch, to talk. There’s power in real. I enjoyed a fantastic day.

I love digital media for connecting across miles, and years. I wouldn’t give up Facebook unless something came along that connects me with faraway friends more efficiently – but the here and now of love and lust are damaged by continuous pinging, and the badminton of trivial words. I get it. As much as anything, this is a thank you note to the wanderer and my traveling partner. I am free! 🙂 I am also laughing – it’s perhaps just a bit silly to celebrate something so small as such a big deal…only…this is a wonderful state of being, and I do love it. The excitement of yearning, of anticipating, of daydreaming…without the insecurity of ‘hasn’t gotten back to me yet’ is really quite deliciously lovely.

Thanks guys, I’ll be pinging on you a lot less. I get it, now. Thanks for the run way lights. I landed safely on the tiny private island of my own ‘now’, in my own experience. ❤

Tags authentically me, being and becoming, emotional self sufficiency, Faux Connection, how I got my groove back, just saying, Keep it real, keeping me waiting, love and lovers, love and lust, mindful loving, perspective, pimp juice, practicing the practices, step away from the device, The Art of Being, The Big 5, the power of eye contact, walking my own path

Categories Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Love, Mindfulness, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Summer, The Art of Being, The Big 5, Uncategorized, women, Words

Then There Was This Other Time…

June 17, 2015 //

I woke this morning, groggy, smiling, slow to roll over and untangle myself from blankets and pillows, to shut off the ceaseless beeping of the alarm. I’ve had this same alarm clock, a small black travel clock, since…seriously? Wow… since 1987. It’s cheap black plastic, and aside from replacing the battery now and then, it’s been terrifically quiet (no ticking) and reliable (with the exception of the occasional inexplicable failure that may have been mine; I sometimes shut it off in my sleep, I think). My thoughts careen carelessly through trivia as I wander haplessly through my morning routine, entirely out of sequence. Aside from being groggy, and I am in a very pleasant state of mind that feels less like a good mood and more like a state of being.

With some discipline, I pull myself back on course, take morning medication, make coffee, do yoga, meditate. I smile considering the evening behind me, and the evening ahead. In some hard to describe way, I feel as if I am ‘getting my life back’ in some way that reaches beyond the chaos and damage and finds me whole and well and making the choices that suit me best and meet my needs over time. I try not to get too excited about it, and just coast on this feeling of being. This smile on my face has lingered since I woke, and it reaches deeply into my heart, coming from a place of contentment, joy and love.

Life isn’t ‘perfect’ (whatever the hell that is) and I am very human. Change is – and it demands my attention, my will, and my acceptance; it isn’t ‘good’ or ‘bad’, and forcing it into such a definition will definitely deliver the experience I choose. That freedom of choice thing? Free will? Yeah – that’s a very big deal, because so much of my experience is indeed entirely self-selected (except the bits that someone else is selecting in their experience, that may ripple across my own). Sure, there’s room for linguistic parlor tricks in life, and conversations about whether free will is ‘real’ or ‘truly exists’ can pass the time most entertainingly…but…I choose my coffee black, and brew it using a pour over method, and it’s a choice I make using my free will, based on my preferences and desires (and resources)… how does it matter in any practical way if that sense of free will and decision-making is somehow somewhat different than I understand it to be, on some metaphysical level that my human cognition is not truly able to grasp with any ease? I assure you, it does not matter one wit. I chose my brew method, my beans, and what I put in it once it was brewed. Those choices are entirely real for me, and entirely my own. Not all of the questions that can be asked benefit from attempts to answer them. Some of the answers don’t provide lasting value… at least… that’s how it looks to me, generally. I like the questions, though. 🙂

Blue sky, perspective, and the freedom to choose.

It is a lovely summer morning. There is music playing in the background. My coffee this morning is exceptionally good. I suspect that my evening with a friend, and the excitement of the evening I will spend with my traveling partner tonight, are responsible for the extraordinary morning, more than any particular quality of the morning itself. I enjoy living alone, but I am confirmably a human primate, a social creature, and greatly enjoy the connection and contact of an evening in good company. Living alone can be a tad short on touch and eye contact – this lovely morning is gently wedged between evenings rich with the warmth of companionship, and connection; the smile is a giveaway that those qualities matter a great deal to me.

Today is a good day to enjoy the day just as it is. Today is a good day to smile, to dance, and to love. Today is a good day to choose good practices, and to face the world with a smile. Today is a good day to look the woman in the mirror in the eyes and say ‘no problem, I got this’.

Tags being and becoming, choose wisely, emotional self sufficiency, good self-care, love and lovers, mindful loving, practicing the practices, relationships, taking care of me, The Art of Being, The Big 5, walking my own path, what matters most?

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

Definition

June 16, 2015 //

I stood in the shower smiling this morning, feeling comfortable, and enjoying the sensation of warm water over skin. The bathroom is small, and the standing room is quite limited. I don’t mind it much at all; the bathtub is quite large, and of a shape and design that allows it to fill and hold water sufficiently deep to properly soak, quite comfortably. The bathtub makes the small bathroom utterly insignificant. The bathtub was a detail I shopped for specifically while I was looking for a place to call home – it matters to me, and because that is the case with regards to the bathtub, taking care of me meant being attentive to this detail.

Soaking in a different tub, on a different day, in another life.

What matters most to you? Small details, too, do you take a moment to consider you while you are planning your day, planning a move, planning your social calendar, your relationships, your choices? Do you also pause to consider love, and what matters to those dear to you? Who is at the top of your agenda? If the person at the top of your list isn’t you…why isn’t it? If it is you, do you maintain that placement at the expense of others dear to you? Questions on a Tuesday.

I am listening to music, and listening to a pop star plead for someone to come and rescue her, to save her life, to turn her on…I love the track, but watching the video and listening to the lyrics is a tad dismaying if I give it too much attention. Even as a metaphor, reaching for an external solution to feeling unsafe, to feeling incomplete, and to be brought to life by some other being troubles me, now; all of that is within my own control, built on my choices and my will. Art doing its thing this morning – and doing it well – I am provoked to think more deeply about love, lust, emotional self-sufficiency, and the defining of self. I find myself asking powerful questions about how I define who I am, and how I answer the questions ‘what moves me?’ and ‘what do I want?’. Who I am is self-defined. This morning I recognize how much and how often I have failed myself by putting that power in other hands.

“Portrait of the Artist’s Tears” watercolor on paper 5″ x 7″ 1985

I am thinking of love and lovers, and giving consideration to what it means to free oneself from external definition. I am asking myself questions about what I want from a lover, and whether it is something I could be providing myself? I am enjoying being so much more free of external definition, and the [perceived, subjective] need to satisfy the expectations of others. I am awakening to the realization that this quality of life is sufficiently important to me that I will likely continue to live alone until I understand it well enough to maintain it even when cohabiting. The freedom of it is intoxicating.

“Joy” watercolor on paper, 6″ x 8″ 1995 (sorry about the camera flare, this delicate watercolor is under protective glass)

I still love the track, and the video, enough to listen to it again. That’s another lovely quality to art; I don’t have to agree with what it says to me in order to enjoy it, and there too, I bring the message with me, the context of my understanding is my own.

“Emotion and Reason” 18″ x 24″ acrylic on canvas w/ceramic and glow. 2012

Today is a good day to put things in context, to ask powerful questions, to move on to other things before answering them – I find it is the questions that have the power, answers tend to impose definitions and limits. Today is a good day to limitless, and free of external definition. Today is a good day to put me at the top of my list, without crossing off those dear to me; they have their place in my experience, too. Today is a good day for verbs – and music. 🙂

Being, and becoming. Having my own experience.

Tags are you going my way?, art and the artist, be the change, being and becoming, emotional self sufficiency, good self-care, love and lovers, meditation, mindful living, mindful love, mindfulness matters, p.s. I love you, perspective, practicing the practices, relationships, taking care of me, The Art of Being, The Big 5, the ephemeral beauty of self-portraits, the map is not the world, what matters most?

Categories Art, art and the artist, Free Will, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Perspective, Relationships, Summer, The Art of Being, The Big 5, women, Words

A Day of Rest

Share this:

Action and Reaction

Share this:

The Juice

Share this:

Then There Was This Other Time…

Share this:

Definition

Share this:

Archives