Archives for posts with tag: love and loving
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Living, Loving

August 25, 2014 //
2

It is a quiet morning, following a quietly productive Sunday. I spent the afternoon between household chores getting ready for the work week, and tidying up the loft for improved space to paint and to create ‘guest space’, and a bit of painting, too. We have a house guest for a couple weeks, a friend visiting for work. I felt strangely aware of how loud the espresso machine really is, as I made my coffee this morning. 

This morning I had that strange vertigo again, that I had yesterday morning. It’s very unsettling, and although it cleared up quickly, I am concerned because it is new. I guess I can expect some bits and pieces to start showing signs of wear; this mortal body is a fairly fragile thing, and I’ve not treated it well over the years. 

When my partners alerted me they were on their way home last night, it was clear they’d be home a bit earlier than I had expected, and my willingness to adjust for that allowed me to greet them when they arrived home. I’m glad I did. It was lovely to welcome my traveling partner home, and feel his strong arms around me, and the warmth and love in his embrace. It was a relaxed, happy homecoming and definitely worth the later bed time. I made a point of heading to bed promptly once they had arrived home; staying on schedule and getting enough sleep really matters for me. Making the effort doesn’t always assure success, though, and I was wakeful until after midnight, aware of the presence of our house guest. I managed not to be irked with myself about it, and eventually drifted off to sleep. It was a short night. I will be mindful of that as the day progresses, and make a point of getting to sleep on time tonight. 

With just one partner at home, I’ve gotten pretty good at ensuring I meditate, do yoga, and take care of me. I’ve been easily distracted in the past, from self-care and practicing what works to maintain my emotional resilience and perspective, when they are both home. I’ve had weeks of practicing practices and perhaps over time I’ve become sufficiently practiced – comfortable with new routines – that they will be an easier fit with everyone home? I’m hopeful. 

It was wonderful to cuddle my traveling partner, now returned home, to find myself experiencing that very particular presence that is his, and to share this love we have. Quite wonderful. This morning, it feels like ‘everything’, and certainly ‘everything’ is enough. 🙂

"Compassion" Harkness 1972

“Compassion” Harkness 1972

Today is a good day for love. Today is a good day to enjoy what feels good without hesitation. Today is a good day to be the change I wish to see in the world. 

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Categories Brain Injury, gardening, Healthy Living, Love, Mindfulness, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress

Downhill Slide

August 15, 2014 //
0

This week has been peculiarly difficult in spots, amazing in others; the challenges seem to outweigh the benefits just at the moment, but that may be a byproduct of whatever new Hormone Hell I am enduring, or simple lack of sleep. My sleep has been disturbed for a couple of days now, and last night I was wakeful until after 3:00 am, the last time I checked the clock, and I needed every moment; the alarm at 5:00 am sounded actually annoyed with me for not being able to wake to shut it off sooner than a dozen or so beeps into the morning. I’m tired. I’m emotional. I’m saying good-bye to my traveling partner, and feeling my own feelings, having my own experience, facing my own challenges; this time around it’s too much, I guess. I am alone, for the moment, weeping quietly as I write.

What’s with the emotional intensity? Why is my emotional experience so uncomfortable for others? Why is theirs so uncomfortable for me? My brain and my heart and the things that I feel don’t ‘feel age’…but my body is sure taking a beating with the whole ‘aging process’ and I find myself resenting the hell out of it, wondering where it leads, struggling to find balance and meet needs. Struggling to feel valued, desirable, meaningful. This morning is an emotionally difficult one. I’m fucking exhausted, and the last shreds of functional intelligence know it, but I’m so tired I also have obviously impaired executive function, and my emotional volatility is through the roof. Hell, I don’t want to be around me right now, why would my good-hearted loves want to endure it if they can walk on?

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Looking up as a positive metaphor, although beauty needs no justification.

I’m doing my best. Pausing for cleansing breaths, meditating, doing my best to be compassionate with myself…but fuck, all this hurts so much right at the moment.  This week has been too much for me…and not the too much of terrible experiences or trauma, most of the week has been filled with amazing highs, achievements, connected conversation, delightful moments… The number of minutes in any given day is the same. This week has been crammed with experiences and emotions, from my amazing solo weekend – that I’ve yet to have a few minutes to really process – to the joy of the travelers coming home, changed by their own experiences. There has barely been time to share any of that, because it is also one of the busiest professional weeks I’ve ever had, filled with long hours, new software, and new knowledge.  I’d be in better shape this morning if I’d been able to sleep last night, I’m sure.

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Practices require practicing

So now what? My coffee has gone cold. My heart feels heavy. Tears just keep streaming down my cheeks… I have to go to work soon. I am alone when I want so much to be in the arms of my traveling partner. My feeling of connection and intimacy and warmth feels sheared off, as if too much happiness just won’t do, and must be cut away before I get too comfortable with it. My experience of self, itself, feels painful. I just don’t know why.  I have trouble accepting that ‘too tired’ could be reason enough, and that ‘too tired’ plus ‘hormones’ is more than reason enough, and that ‘enough’ is a good place to find balance, and stillness, and accept that this what it is, and just be. I want to feel loved, but even in my own heart I feel myself recoil from me, even as I see that desire to recoil from me reflected in my partner’s eyes. This shit sucks.

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There are choices, changing those changes everything…how to choose the better choice is a question.

Our mortal lives are so finite, so brief…it is pure raw unfairness that even one moment would ever feel like this; love exists, I still know that. I wish I didn’t feel so completely cut off from feeling that experience. Like it or not, eventually we all face the evening light.

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Feeling very mortal indeed, this morning.

Today is just one day. Today will teach me something about being the woman I most want to be. Today will be one of many in the rear view mirror all too soon, and it’s part of a bigger picture of precious minutes that cannot be repeated. Today is most especially a good day to change the world.

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Categories Anxiety, Brain Injury, grief, Hormone Hell, Love, Menopause, Metaphors, Mindfulness, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Sleepless Nights, The Big 5, women, Words

What It Is. What It Isn’t.

May 28, 2014 //
0

I woke this morning with a headache, aching knees, aching ankles, aching back… funny, the thing that is on my mind is not the everyday pain of aging, or paying for youthful mistakes. I am thinking about love. Love is precious and peculiar, and for all the years I daydreamed about love, while dismissing it as fanciful bullshit for children, I had no understanding of what it might actually be, if I had it, practiced it, or experienced it. Love is a verb and a noun. Love demands much of us as beings, and the penalties for poor decision-making are very high. Totally  worth it, though, totally worth it.

Love is not what we think it is; love is what it is.

Love is not what we think it is; love is what it is.

So sure, I woke in a lot of pain this morning. That seems irrelevant every time I glance down at the orange knotted-cord bracelet one of my loves fashioned for me as we sat talking, while he packed his hiking kit.  Love isn’t a diamond tennis bracelet. Hell, love isn’t even this bright bracelet of sturdy nylon cord. Isn’t love the movement toward giving, the inspiration, the desire to take someone’s needs, interest, fancy, and delight and make them important to one’s own experience, and then taking action?

How is this orange knotted cord bracelet not the most precious of ornaments, simply because it is love?

This token of love doesn’t go with anything I wear regularly. It stands out boldly from my flesh. I don’t generally wear bracelets at all; I feel it as I move through my morning.  I am moved by, and aware of love with every small motion that brings the orange back into my view, or shifts the cord against my skin.  I feel a little silly, a little giddy, no different from feelings I might have were I 16… love excites me.

This morning, the pain vanishes from my awareness most of the time; because I am reminded so simply, so frequently, of how much I am loved. Love, and loving, are a pretty nice distraction to deal with on a Wednesday morning. I’m sure not complaining about it.

How often do we mess with the goodness in our experience at one moment or another because it isn’t what we expect, or what we dream of? How many tender joys are lost because they were one thing, and not another? Would you turn down orange knotted cord because it isn’t something fancier that you dreamt of longer? Are you truly open to love? To being loved?  I have to admit, to be fair to love itself, all those bitter years of certainty that love was a lie, a pretty illusion, a pointless treasure hunt – I wasn’t open to love, or being loved.  I had defined ‘what love is’ and because it wasn’t presenting itself to me in the form I demanded, I couldn’t see it when it did turn up. That is one of the saddest things about being lonely; it’s often a choice.

So, this morning I am aware of my pain, and in spite of that, I’m choosing love.  Taking a moment to feel the connection to a love nurtured, shared, grown over time; connected by a simple orange knotted cord, on a very early Wednesday morning.

Today is a good day to love.

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

Patterns

May 3, 2014 //
0

Patterns occur pretty naturally, it’s the way repeatable, reproducible things work, perhaps.

The pattern of ripples in water.

The pattern of ripples in water.

I don’t know the math and science of patterns with the sort of detail that would be appropriate for a mathematician or scientist. I see patterns.

Patterns on a sandy beach.

Patterns on a sandy beach.

I see where patterns are broken.

Sometimes it's obvious.

Sometimes it’s obvious.

I’m a pattern analyst by trade, if I narrow down ‘data analysis’ to something more specific, although the sort of thing that I did in the 1980s manually with my brain and eyes is generally done by machines and programming today.

Patterns, and our innate human relationship with patterns and pattern recognition sometimes goes awry; we see patterns that aren’t actually patterns, by connecting unrelated events or experiences. Apophenia is a fancy word for seeing patterns in unrelated things. It’s a very human tendency.

Just in case you're sure you only see patterns that are 'real'... Are you seeing a face in this arrangement of circles and lines? Cuz... this image is not a face, just some circles and lines. :-)

Just in case you’re sure you only see patterns that are ‘real’… Are you seeing a face in this arrangement of circles and lines? Cuz… this image is not a face, just some circles and lines. 🙂

Sometimes patterns are obvious, with obvious causes. Sometimes patterns are quite subtle.  Created patterns and naturally occurring patterns both fascinate me.

Sunlight through blinds - natural? Created?

Sunlight through blinds – natural? Created?

It isn’t always easy to be utterly certain that a pattern is a pattern with patterns that are not visual, auditory, tactile, tabular, charted, or graphed – at least for me.  Emotional and behavioral patterns are much more difficult to be certain of, because the involvement of the observer in the observation is likely to be much higher, and the quality of the data, itself, much poorer.  The time I have spent studying patterns in my own emotional life (for example relative to the ebb and flow of hormones) has been worthwhile for my growth as a human being, but it is a slow process of observation, and error correction. Each observation checked and checked again for verifiable accuracy, examined from multiple alternate perspectives, or against other theories, and any easy or obvious seeming answer questioned to limit and hopefully avoid both bias and losing perspective or compassion for myself. It’s a complicated endeavor.  Before I began practicing mindfulness, it was a hopelessly fast route to frustrated rumination that really didn’t go anywhere.  Now, I’m rather pleased that it seems to fast-track improved long-term emotionally relevant decision-making about my life and behavior that has improved my everyday experience a lot.

There’s that ‘decision-making’ piece, though… Choice is a big part of living well. A lot of people actually choose to live less well than they could; choosing frustration over contentment, choosing wanting over enjoying, choosing righteous indignation over understanding, choosing to be stalled in their life and experience over choosing change. It’s very hard to watch.

Today is a good day to choose well. Today is a good day to be the change I wish to see in my world, and in my life. Today is a good day to choose love, and to choose pleasure. Today is a good day to invest enthusiastically in having a good experience. Today is a good day to change the world.

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Categories Anxiety, Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Words

Quiet, Simple, Loving

May 2, 2014 //
1

I celebrated an anniversary with a partner yesterday; 3 years, married. Nice. It felt good: warm, affectionate, passionate, romantic, connected, present, joyful, delightful, simple, and wonderful. Just that, nothing more. lol

Simple, local, sustainable...

Simple, local, sustainable…

Love, and loving, are possibly life’s most incredibly wonderful wonders… and so available when we’re open to the possibilities.  Like the simplest of delicate garden flowers, sometimes the best moments are hidden in the weeds, but loving care, and awareness, reveal so much! Applying mindfulness practices to love is not the easiest or most intuitive thing for me. I do find that applying mindfulness to love and loving is rewarding beyond predictable value. Worth the effort, for sure.

It wasn’t a fancy occasion; we kept things simple and I am content and satisfied. I feel loved. Dinner out on a lovely spring evening, an exchange of gifts, romance, conversation… lovely.  It was enough to be connected, and present with each other, and talking about life and love and the ‘us’ that is us, and what that means now. It was quite simply a lovely evening.

More isn't necessary.

More isn’t necessary.

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Categories Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Love, Mindfulness, Perspective, Relationships, Spring, women, Words
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