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“Finding Yourself”

March 9, 2019 //
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I remember a conversation I had with my Mother, many years ago. I struggled to communicate to her, at that time, my lack of “sense of self”, and waxed poetic on that topic, attempting to make sense of my experience of adolescence. She was amused, a bit patronizing, and dismissive. Another such conversation, years later, sometime in my early twenties, shortly before a long period of time during which I was estranged from my family (by choice), she was blunt, and frank about her thoughts on that. “Don’t talk to me about “finding yourself”, that’s all bullshit; you’re already all you will ever be.” I felt frustrated, unheard… and crushed.

…Could I seriously not ever be more than the heaping pile of disappointment, ugliness, heartbreak, and wreckage, that I perceived myself to be?? Fuck…

For years afterward, that conversation rang in my thoughts, an echo of being dismissed, and I did try my very hardest to crush my own spirit, to squash any “radical notions” into a very small box, labeled “normal”, with little success…but enough to push myself farther and farther from any deep understanding of who I was – or could become. Not helpful, long-term, honestly. I could have done much better by the woman in the mirror.

I mention it because the result was mostly a lot of wasted time. It’s not time that we’re required to waste, and given the chance to explore the matter of self, over a longer time, I certainly could have, perhaps, learned more sooner, about this human being I am, as I stand here now, and who she could become, given the solid foundation of wise self-reflection, considerate decision-making, and skillful selection of practices to be practiced over time. I learned much, regardless… but… it could have been a different journey. Very different.

Okay, now that’s said, I’ll also say that there’s little time, now, to further waste on spiraling ruminations of what I did not do, or failed to choose, or any of all the things that are now entirely and wholly behind me. I’m done with all of that, and the outcomes are now part of my experience – nothing more. Experience is good for what it is, but it also isn’t “everything”. “Then”, as it turns out, isn’t part of “now”.

Beginning again isn’t an empty suggestion, or just words on a page, it’s intended as an encouragement, as a rallying cry for change, and as a moment to break firmly from the past – however recent, however distant – and start fresh. New thinking. Self-reflection. Improved decision-making. Wiser choices. Heading for a future self, someone who is much more like that self I would most like to be. I mention it because it’s a lovely day for self-reflection, and for taking a moment to pause, and see just exactly where I am on this path – and where I want to go from here. It’s a moment. One of many. The only thing that holds me back from forward progress in becoming the person I most want to be is my own decision-making about whether to do so, and the actions I take that follow up on my thinking.

Are you the person you most want to be? Have you “found yourself”? Do you even have a clear understand of what “finding yourself” could mean?

It’s a good day to begin again. 🙂

Who are you?

Where are you going?

Start with a question. 🙂

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

Adapt, Adjust, and Change

March 7, 2019 //
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I’m still getting used to living with my Traveling Partner again. I apparently forget to write… a lot. LOL Well… there’s some good writing archived here, in older posts, and a lovely reading list… I figure we’re good here, and the occasional miss isn’t likely to cause me (or, realistically, you) any real harm. 😉 I’m still adapting old routines into new routines. Still adjusting to small changes and differences in my day-to-day experience that are part of the new normal. Change is still a thing, and amusingly, remains a constant I can count on. 😀

Most mornings on which I leave for work without writing, I do so promising myself I’ll maybe write on my lunch break, or perhaps after work… then I work through my “lunch break”, head home, and spend a lovely intimate connected evening of partnership, love, and joy, and forget all about it. I wake, notice I didn’t write, and overlook it again. lol I smirk at myself and sip my coffee; it takes me some time.

The city. The snow falling.

I left work early, yesterday, and finished the day from home. It was snowing pretty steadily.

The view from home, still snowing.

It snowed yesterday, all day and into the evening. It didn’t start sticking until later in the afternoon, and although it snowed rather a lot, and the flakes stuck, some, there’s very little cause for concern this morning, and the road in front of my house is only wet, not icy or covered in snow. I could work from home… but it doesn’t seem necessary at all. I sip my coffee and consider which makes more sense today… It’s very nice to have that choice. I take a moment to appreciate that, and seek to begin the day with gratitude.

Ups, downs, complicated plot twists, choices, actions, consequences, circumstances; all of it seems to require the same things of me. All of it requires that I adapt, that I adjust, and that I change – or make changes. Living life is very much about the verbs; there is effort involved, even in refraining from making an effort. There are choices involved, even in refusing to choose. We change, whether we choose change, or whether change chooses us.

I pause my writing, finish my coffee, and meditate. I return to the writing.

I woke ahead of the alarm, and got up expecting it to be a work from home day, but… it doesn’t really look like that’s necessary at all. 🙂 I like the downtown location of my new job, and enjoying a couple hours surrounded by the urban buzz of downtown activity is still enjoyable, for now. The views from the 9th floor windows are still enticing. The convenience of the location still exciting. Besides… the views! Yesterday I began taking advantage of close-to-work parking on the other side of the river (less costly, still provides the convenience of having a shorter commute, puts a lovely walk into my commute) by walking from the parking location, over the bridge, and through the downtown business blocks to the office. It’s not a long walk, less than a mile, actually, and quite pleasant. The distance isn’t a goal, or a limitation, it’s only an observation. 🙂 I find myself noticing I am eager to repeat that experience, and hopeful that the walkway across the bridge is not icy. Eagerness? Huh…

…Eagerness, specifically, is one of the first things I lose in life, when I am depressed, or unhappy, or stricken with anhedonia or ennui, and even when I am stressed out, or overwhelmed, or feeling weighed down with obligations, deadlines, and responsibilities. Eagerness may be a signpost of emotional wellness, for me… I had not previously considered that… had I? I sit with that for a few moments, and decide to make the commute into the office, for the pleasure of enjoying the walk. 🙂 The morning feels mild, when I step outside to reality check my notion against the real-life feel of the morning.

I’m eager to begin again. 🙂

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Categories Brain Injury, Free Will, gratitude, Healthy Living, inspiration, Logic & Reason, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, The Art of Being

A New Day, A New Virus

March 2, 2019 //
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Well, new job… new opportunities for contagion. lol Shit. I’m sick. Oh, it’s not any sort of dire life-threatening sort of thing, just an annoying virus of some kind. It began with robbing me of my appetite night before last, but I didn’t really notice that. Yesterday the tickle in my throat, and a spectacular fit of sneezing heralded the coming of the new virus with more certainty. By midday, in the office with it, the weakness, aching joints, and fatigue, joined the party, and I went home to take care of myself. I think my Traveling Partner may have it, too, but I was too sick yesterday to be at all clear about that; he was an absolute pro at providing nurturing and care, and if he was sick, too… wow. It wasn’t obvious, and as sick as I was, we enjoyed our time together.

…I meant to actually just go to bed, and to do so early. What I actually managed to do was sit around wrapped in a fuzzy blanket staring blankly at the television for several hours, then went to bed. lol I woke too early, but also too… awake. Now? Now I’m up. It’s a new day. I get started canceling plans; I am still feeling ill, and there is no good reason to expose my friends to this. I’m already looking forward to that moment when I… just go back to bed. Self-care first, and some coffee, then I will yield to the call of warm blankets, and a quiet room.

Mindfulness will not prevent a head cold. A great meditation practice will not prevent me from feeling confused, weak, and ache-y, when I’m sick. This is just real. I keep grinning every time I consider the “new love” excitement of realizing that mindfulness practices really were helpful for me – every day, every moment, significantly improved with them – and how easily I was tempted into enthusiastic cheer-leading, and also into gradually slipping into thinking errors about what it was capable of doing for me. Great self-care means practicing all the practices that support my wellness – emotional and physical – without putting any one of them on such a high pedestal that it becomes a set up for failure, over time. I’m not dissing meditation or mindfulness, at all, I’m just pointing out that – as is often also the case even with the medicines we take – no single practice (for mindfulness, for self-care, for emotional well-being, for physical health…) can do 100% of everything we need – for everything we need. Just… It doesn’t work like that.

I’ll still meditate today, if I’ve the mind for it. It’s an important practice, a foundation of my emotional health, and I get a lot out of it. I’ll still practice mindfulness, as much as I am able to while I’m feeling ill, and whether sick or well, it’s a practice I find worthwhile for keeping me grounded, realistic about life, and able to maintain a clear perspective on the things that matter most to me. I’ll shower, and practice good hygiene. I’ll make the effort to eat healthy calories. I’ll drink water. I’ll rest. No one of these great practices will cure the common cold. It is what it is. They are what they are. Only that.

…Imagine how awkward, uncomfortable, disappointing, and frustrating it would be, if I fostered a belief that meditation would cure my cold… and then it just didn’t. I might be angry. I might give up on my practice, and lose the benefits it does provide me. I might lash out at others, or rhetorically, spreading my feelings around my tribe or community, and undermining the practices of others with the festering wound of my disappointment and my sense of failure. I would wonder if I were “doing it wrong” and whether it’s “all bullshit”. What a lot of wasted emotional bandwidth. 😦

Meditation has been a practice that has served me well, thus far. I continue to practice. I value the effect it has on my day-to-day experience. I am emotionally more well, in the context of having a committed meditation practice. It’s still only what it is, and it can’t be more than that.

Today I have a cold. At some point, I’ll meditate awhile, and when I’m done with that… I’ll still have this cold. These experiences are not related to each other, and that’s entirely okay. This? This is not my best writing. It is, however, a parable. A moment to pause and reflect on what meditation is – and isn’t – and what it do – and what it don’t do. 😉

Once I’m over this sickness, I’ll definitely begin again. 😀

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Categories Allegories, anhedonia, Brain Injury, Free Will, health, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Parables, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices

It Doesn’t Work Like That

March 1, 2019 //
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I just finished reading After the Ecstasy, the Laundry by Jack Kornfield. It’s a worthwhile read on the topic of mindfulness. Interestingly, I happened upon an article about “why mindfulness isn’t working for you”, while sipping my coffee. The contrast was worth making a moment to consider.

Why would mindfulness practices “not work” for some people? I read on, and get to the part about mindfulness potentially being “harmful” for trauma survivors… which puzzles and saddens me; I’m certainly one of many trauma survivors wholly supported and helped by mindfulness practices – they saved my life, in quite a literal way.

I continue to contemplate these positions, so at odds with each other. Helpful vs harmful. Effective vs ineffective. Huh. I consider the following points that seem relevant:

  1. Mindfulness and meditation were only helpful for me after I found a specific style of meditation that was a good fit for me personally; it requires a commitment to practice, and it is helpful to select a practice that I’ll actually practice.
  2. “The way out is through” – I didn’t benefit from meditation and mindfulness practices because they were emotionally easy on me; a large part of the benefit was that these practices helped me process old trauma, and find my way to the “other side”. Nothing about that is emotionally easy, and there was (and is) work involved. Emotional work requires effort, and a willingness to do it.
  3. Mindfulness is not a “cure-all”; these practices are effective for what they are effective for, and only that. Beginning a mindfulness practice, or meditation practice, expecting that it will “fix everything” seems as silly as expecting to put on new jeans and be a different human being.
  4. Read #4 again. Meditation is not an escape from our self – or our life, or our need to do self work. We remain the person we are, with the challenges we have, and possibly still lugging around all our baggage, which we would still need to actually work through (if we want to let it go).
  5. Mindfulness and meditation are not “easy” practices. I mean, the fundamentals can be quite simple, for sure, and it is highly likely that those hurting souls looking for a fast fix may drop by and give meditation a try, but it’s also likely they won’t commit to a consistent practice. It’s not that the practices didn’t work, in that instance, let’s be real about that. We’re not all willing to commit to a routine or practice, in the first place.

Effective. Safe. Low cost. Yes, there are verbs involved (omg, so many verbs), and yes, there is a requirement to be consistent – and maybe even studious, if we’re serious about it. (Check out how many books on mindfulness are on my reading list!) Does it have to be hard? Well… we get out of life, frequently, a return consistent with our invested effort, in some regards. Certainly this is one of those, but a futile struggle with something that isn’t working out for you seems rather silly. If meditation isn’t working for you, find something that is? Or study why it isn’t. (Shit. More verbs. 😉 )

What are you really looking for? Are you on the path toward that goal? Those are good questions to ask, I think. If “meditation isn’t working”, it may be worthwhile to give a moment of thought to whether it was actually the most appropriate tool for the job you went into it expecting it to do. Sometimes, we grab the wrong tool, and make the job at hand much more difficult. Ask what you’re really trying to get done in the first place; doesn’t matter what tool you pick up, if you don’t know what you’re trying to get done, it’s going to be harder to finish the job.

I finish my coffee. I begin again.

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Categories Free Will, Frustration, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, The Art of Being, winter, Words

Weird or Not

February 28, 2019 //
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It’s sometimes necessary, I find, to accept what is. No, I mean, really, really push past the clinging and exasperation, the disappointment, the frustration, all of it, and truly accept the “now” I find myself in, and do so quite fully, without denial or blame. It’s not always easy. Words are easy. Verbs take effort. Reality may allow me to delude and deceive myself awhile, but… reality always wins. It is.

…Let’s set aside the also real reality and true truth that we make up a lot of our experience in our own heads, and much of what we “believe” about our circumstances is in no way actually supported by reality. It’s made up bullshit we refuse to let go of. Truth. Mull it over.

Reality always wins, and most harshly, reality wins in some uncomfortable ways when I refuse to accept things as they are, without clinging, without attachment, and without self-deception. It’s snowing again this morning. Well, it was. As has been the case for a handful of days, now, our weird winter weather continues; snow during the wee hours, enough to dust everything and coat the roads. By noon, it will have all melted away in the cold winter sunshine. I’ll head home in the winter chill, across dry pavement, perhaps a hint of rain in the sky. The cycle will repeat. Schools have been canceling on days without any actual snow. Businesses have been closing, or opening later, on mornings with utterly dry pavement. It’s… strange. It is also 100% of what it is, and nothing more; no amount of argument or discussion will change it. Reality doesn’t bow to opinion. Ever. My feelings about the snow are not relevant to the facts, themselves. Reality is not an emotion.

I think over the day ahead, without much regard for the weather. I expect it will be more of the same, as it has been; my expectations still don’t amount to facts, truth, or reality. I contemplate my commute, and think ahead to spring, and maybe handling it differently. Park closer to work, spend less distance/time on the light rail or bus, walk more. The walking more sounds so lovely… I already get more walking than at my last job. I’m not sure what changed besides the address that frees me to do so… a different mindset. Did I make that change? (Probably.) Is the role that different? (It is.) Is the location more enticing for walking around? (Definitely.) Choosing change comes with a ripple effect; when I have chosen wisely, so many details are changed for the better, and when I have chosen poorly, quite distressingly similarly, many small details may change in ways that affect my experience in less pleasant ways. Choosing wisely is worth slowing down for. Fully considering the changes I choose, and the changes those changes may cause, is worth making time for. Change will come, regardless, and choosing it skillfully, navigating life instead of bobbing haplessly along its currents, can certainly alter the outcomes.

Well… here I am. Another day, another beginning – and more change to choose, more choices to make, more life to live. It’s already time to begin again. 🙂

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Categories Allegories, Free Will, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Parables, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, The Art of Being, winter, Words
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