Archives for posts with tag: mindfulness matters
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Detour

February 8, 2016 //
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I am the human being I am, having this experience right here. There are no promises, few ‘right answers’, and the ‘limited life-time guarantee’ is merely that my lifetime will be limited. I enjoyed a lovely quiet weekend, and crashed out at a comfortably typical time, neither late nor early. I woke some 90 or so minutes later, awakened by my own alarmed vocalization, and weeping; I had taken a detour through The Nightmare City. It happens. I once (as in, ongoing, for many years verging on ‘always’) had grimly persistent disordered sleep (nightmares, night terrors, occasional sleep paralysis, some sleep walking, insomnia…), and improvements over time don’t assure me of continued easy sleep ongoing ‘forever’. I’m still very human. I still deal with PTSD. I still have this brain injury. So… sometimes nightmares happen.

How will I "find my way home"? "Daytime in The Nightmare City" 10" x 14" acrylic on canvas with glow, glitter and micaceous oxide. Indoor light, charged. 2014

How will I “find my way home”?
“Daytime in The Nightmare City” 10″ x 14″ acrylic on canvas with glow, glitter and micaceous oxide. Indoor light, charged. 2014

I woke and began the steps and practices to calm myself, addressing the latent hysteria first, moving on to relaxing such that my heart rate would normalize, and the weeping would stop. I did things children do; I got a big drink of water, and walked through the apartment turning lights on and seeing how normal everything is. I did things adults do, too; I took time to reach out to my traveling partner to share a key feeling of insecurity, to seek reassurance and let that feeling of fear and doubt go. I kept it simple and made a point of avoiding grim details that might put me at risk of writing in a very emotive way – which would tend to ‘spread the poison around’ and also stoke my own emotional volatility afresh. I meditated for a few minutes until my heart felt lighter. All that was left was to get past the aversion to returning to sleep – and this is where The Nightmare City has it’s greatest power over me. If I am unable to sleep, I am increasingly likely over time to have more nightmares, lose more sleep, and slowly spiral downward into disorder.

After pleasantly distracting myself with some relatively studious content from favorite YouTube channels (in this case Veritasium and Kurzgesagt-In a Nutshell) while administering an appropriate amount of medical cannabis to keep my symptoms from flaring up again, I returned to sleep. I woke comfortably to the morning alarm, although it took me some time to become fully aware of the meaning of the insistent beeping. The sleep I got was restful, and I feel pretty good. I know to be mindful that I didn’t get as many hours as I likely need to be at my best – by the end of the day that may be more apparent; I check my calendar to ensure I am not over-committed later in the day.

I’m not alone with this stuff (ha! …Neither are you. 😉 ). I have learned better practices for managing it when my PTSD flares up, or my injury is aggravated (and aggravating me in return). There are still verbs involved. My results still vary. There’s no particular reason for distress over that – or futility; it is a very human thing. I just begin again. 🙂

Like moments, the cup of coffee that matters most is the one in front of me now. :-)

Like moments, the cup of coffee that matters most is the one in front of me now. 🙂

This morning that beginning began with the return email from my traveling partner, sent during the wee hours, reminding me that I am loved. It’s enough – and I start the day well.

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Categories Anxiety, art and the artist, Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, The Art of Being

Much Needed Rest

February 7, 2016 //
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It’s a bad idea to get inadequate rest with a brain injury (new or old). I worked hard on the move, and did a lot more manual labor than I am used to at this time in my life. There were deadlines to hit, and there was a cost to my general well-being; I am tired. Less so this morning than I was at the end of a busy work week. Friday night I slept about 12 hours. Yesterday  I added two decently long naps to that – and still crashed for the evening quite early. This morning I am up before 6:00 am, and feeling actually fairly rested. Certainly, I was not able to return to sleep, and the day begins.

"Morning" came early today. :-)

“Morning” came early today. 🙂

Truly excellent self-care requires considerable self-awareness. I feel fairly rested, and I know that once my coffee hits, and I have a shower and start my day in earnest, I may have the energy and enthusiasm to feel impelled to head out for adventure: a hike, some shopping, a visit elsewhere, or just to go or to do. It’s tempting just to think about it, and let my consciousness move beyond the planned additional rest, and mundane tasks that support self-care less directly, like housekeeping and laundry, and preparing for the next work week. This rested feeling, though, is misleading; I’m only barely there, yet. If I grab hold of this rested energy now and run with it, I will predictably run out of steam by midday or so, and when Monday morning comes I’ll have done myself no real service at all. I so commonly miss on this detail!

Today I remain committed to taking care of this fragile vessel and doing all I can to make a really good recovering from the laborious move. That much is behind me. There’s very little yet to be done at all, aside from hanging paintings (a time-consuming slow project that builds on ‘vision’ and settling in over time), and putting the studio in a state of artistic work readiness. There are curtain rods to go up, and curtains to hang. Those are the sorts of details remaining, and I think I may have listed them all. lol The stereo is hooked up, too, except the sub-woofer, which needs a cable end put back on properly. All so very much within reach. I’ll easily be busy enough today doing some housekeeping, and perhaps hanging some paintings, and baking some cookies. 🙂  The goal, though, is not busy-ness – it’s rest. Whatever I do end up doing today, I’ll do it gently, and take care of me.

Coffee time...as with moments, each cup is its own experience.

Coffee time…as with moments, each cup is its own experience.

I am listening to music this morning, and enjoying having an empty unit next door for the time being; I can play the sort of music I like to wake up to at a volume that feels very appropriate to being awake for the day, even though it is not yet 6:30 am. The community here has a firm noise control standard, stated as ‘not loud enough to hear outside your own unit’, with quiet hours from 10:00 pm to 7:00 am, daily. I’m very strict with myself to stay within those guidelines; I calibrate my environment with care, checking and checking again, and at different times of day, then marking the face of the amplifier around the dial with markers for max volume settings. It’s handy, and no one has ever complained about my music, which is sometimes playing comfortably loud for my enjoyment, even at odd hours in the night, and frequently early in the morning. I am fortunate that the shared wall, in this instance, is living room to living room, instead of living room to bedroom, or bedroom to bedroom. I enjoy being considerate of my neighbors; they respond by being considerate of me as well. It’s a community – we build it ourselves. 🙂

Yesterday, I took the recycling out, and on the way back in I met one of my new neighbors. She is an immigrant, from Libya. She gave me a friendly hello, seeming ever so slightly self-conscious, as if uncertain of my response. I made a point to cross the parking lot to be at a friendly distance to build a connection, and we exchanged names, and some conversation. My new neighbor is pleasant, educated, and every bit human. She is part of my community. We talk comfortably together. We recognize cultural differences without focusing on those; she asks if I have children (I don’t), while keeping a close watch on her young daughter at play. I see her assess my solitary living as something noteworthy (an artist? a childless woman living alone? a former soldier in a Middle Eastern conflict?). I notice the headscarf and make a point of respecting her religious freedom (and privacy) by not asking personal questions; I know that people open up when/if they choose to, and that we are each having our own experience. She politely refrains from asking probing questions about my military experiences; she seemed pleased that I know where Libya is, had heard something about the circumstances there. I offer my help if she needs it while settling in, and she invites me to come have a coffee some afternoon, interested in my art and writing. We are people, only that. We come from many places. We all live on this one round speck of molten metal, rock, and mud, hurtling through the cosmos so much faster than our finite lives can truly embrace. It’s all so very temporary, and there is no time to waste on being dicks to our fellow human beings; we’re all in this together. Becoming.

When we limit our perspective on the world, we put ourselves at risk of living in fear.

When we limit our perspective on the world, we put ourselves at risk of living in fear.

My coffee is nearly finished. The clock tells me the day is begun, although the sun is not yet up; it’ll be almost another hour to daylight. Seems a nice time for meditation, for yoga, a shower, and a second coffee… It’s a very good day to take care of the woman in the mirror.

 

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

And Now for My Next Trick…

February 4, 2016 //
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Yesterday the internet was connected, with some effort and a very tall technician from Argentina. Originally from Argentina, I mean – it would be silly to send someone so far, literally, to connect FiOS. 🙂 I found his exotic accent pleasant.

This morning I found my internet connection… wasn’t. 😦 Funny how little stress that ever really causes me, and I find myself wondering if that is a byproduct of having once worked technical support for a connectivity provider in my very first call center job… 18 years ago. I ponder the passage of time and sip my coffee while I power cycle the router and restore my connection to the world. It’s a simple thing, each moment of self-sufficiency in life is another opportunity to chill, to be content, to feel safe. There is something so powerful in self-reliance – without it, what do I have to offer the world reciprocally? There’s something there to think over… maybe another time.

Another day dawns

Another day dawns, and change is.

My desk here is next to a window looking out on the park, and positioned very near to the corner of the unit – and the building – and the sound of rain on the eaves this morning is loud enough to hear very clearly. I go with the stillness and the sound of rainfall this morning, adding only the percussion of fingers on keys. At one point, I find myself ‘feeling it’ almost as music, tapping my toes along with the sounds of morning. Smiling at myself when I notice, it is a moment of pure pointless joy without reason or excuse required. This room feels good for writing, for painting… it is the ‘master bedroom’ no longer. This is my studio. 🙂

I feel pretty settled in and ‘at home’ here already, which is such a different experience for me – is it really just that I slowed it down and moved in more completely while I was moving out, sparing myself weeks of upheaval and disarray? Is it that I did so much of it entirely myself? I grin thinking about the thousands of pounds of goods I moved, and the legion of tiny bruises from bumping this thing, bracing that thing, hauling some awkward bit over here, or over there; I got it done as planned, almost precisely. There’s a strange delight in seeing things unfold as planned. I think briefly of another experience – not the ‘unplanned disaster’ or the ‘unplanned but awesome’ experiences, instead I think for just a moment of the ‘carefully planned experience that becomes completely derailed, fully failed, no effective alternative, shit just going sideways on every detail full on panic’ experience… scary. I realize as my mind veers away from the sense of that experience how very frightening I find it, and far more so than the outcome of anything unplanned. I use the moment to consider how I can better appreciate qualities of the unplanned experiences in life to ease the stress of failed planning in other moments; instead of feeling the pain and fear of the planning going to pieces in some horrible way, learning to take a needed step back, a few deep breaths, and take the opportunity to let go comfortably, to go ‘off script’ in those moments, and let it become unplanned at that point – instead of fervently holding on to the failed planning, grieving the discomfort or turmoil of the changing situation, instead learning to embrace it as a chance to do something wholly new and previously unconsidered – or to find the value in what had been rejected before. I make some notes – real pen and ink on paper notes – to consider this further, later.

Yeah...but still some work to do.

Yeah…but still some work to do.

I pause to make another cup of coffee and return to my desk. I’m very aware this morning, as I sit in this one room that is not yet ‘totally moved in’, that my moving in is not yet completed; this is the one space in which that is quite obvious. There are books stacked everywhere, strange vaguely lop-sided towers of books in varying sizes that show off both some skill at balancing objects, and also some lack of good judgement. Almost on cue, a precarious stack of books topples over. I wonder that I didn’t notice that I’d brushed it on the way by, or somehow shifted it. I laugh, because it’s not as if they’ll be damaged. I feel a moment of appreciation that these were not my first editions (which are already put on shelves) and recall a conversation with someone who asked me ‘why is it a big deal if a book is a first edition?’ It isn’t of course, and that was my answer; it’s merely an unnecessary way of making a book seem special, or ‘collectible’. The words within are truly enough.

Speaking of words… On the other hand, let’s not. At least, not this morning. I do have words and language on my mind lately. Thoughts to think over about how I communicate, why it matters to feel heard, and what it says to me when someone silences me – certainly, I am a studied expert on what I understand it to mean when I am silenced. It’s likely both an experience that is specifically part of who I am myself and how I take the world’s messaging, and also probably very common and very human.

The rain keeps falling. I’ve run out of things to say. The stacks of books, and a couple of small boxes of ‘desk stuff’ that are not yet unpacked now have my attention. I’ve some time before I head to work… and it is a lovely morning to live beautifully and take care of me. I think I’ll do some of that. 🙂

I haven't even left for work, and I am already eager to return home.

I haven’t even left for work, and I am already eager to return home.

Today is a good day to be here in this moment, now. I’ll be getting on with that…

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Categories art and the artist, Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Mindfulness, Perspective, The Art of Being, Words

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
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