Archives for posts with tag: mindfulness matters
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Here’s the Thing, Though

October 30, 2019 //
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Good moments pile up, if I let them. It can be a worldview-altering experience, if I’m open to it. 🙂 (Your results may vary.)

I’m sipping my coffee and thinking over last night. I’m awake a bit early. I woke ahead of the alarm, simply aware that I was awake. Wide awake. So… I got up. 🙂

Yesterday’s cold weather was “the first day of arthritis season” in all the worst ways, and I was in too much pain to go out, although I wanted to, and my Traveling Partner was eager to, himself. I hated to disappoint him, and seriously considered just doing it, anyway, figuring maybe the experience would overcome the pain…? I was pretty miserable, though, and thought better of it, choosing better self-care instead, on this occasion. His job may take him out of town again, soon, any time… I worry about “wasting the opportunity”, and then realize how “FOMO” that sounds… lol Adulting is so hard. 😉

I sit sipping my coffee wondering if I am under-dressed for the weather…? I shrug it off; once I’m in the office, I’ll be quite comfortable. 🙂 It’s probably my last good chance to wear this blouse to work before the weather turns “seriously cold” (c’mon, it’s Portland, Oregon, and “cold” is fairly relative – but it is 32 (F) this morning). I’m enjoying the experience of wearing dressier clothes for work… I didn’t think I would. In all the years since I left the Army, I’ve never taken a job that required me to (and am not required to now), and it’s appropriate for the job, my circumstances, all that sort of thing… I just don’t have to, so I hadn’t been. I’m enjoying it way more than I ever expected to.

I chuckle noticing my dress pants already don’t fit as well as they did when I bought them, less than two weeks ago (two weeks? that’s all??). That’s a “problem” I’m okay having. Losing a few pounds would be good, being fitter would be good, and this appears to be heading that direction. 😀

I feel as good, and as comfortable, this morning, as I can imagine feeling. I hope the feeling lasts, but of course “this too shall pass” also applies to this moment, as much as any other. I eye the warm fleece zip-up jacket I’ll wear as a coat this morning, and think about shopping for a new winter coat. Overdue. I check over my everyday carry items, in my head (keys, cards, purse, phone, vape, batteries for my vape, juice for my vape, hey – a lightweight winter base layer I could slip on under dress pants, just in case I am colder than I expect…), then double-check my backpack to make sure I have everything. I’m minutes away from another new beginning, a fresh, unspoiled day, filled with potential.

Sometimes this whole “adulthood” thing is pretty okay… I smile, finish my coffee, and begin again. 🙂

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Categories autumn, Free Will, health, Mindfulness, Moments, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, The Art of Being, winter

One Moment (or Some Other)

October 29, 2019 //
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I am groggy this morning. Waking up feels more than ordinarily difficult. My thoughts wander, fractured, and disorganized. My coffee is… cold. For real? Am I drinking the dregs of yesterday’s cup, left carelessly on my desk? That’ll teach me. (No, seriously, I learn some of the best and most useful life lessons by way of carelessness, haplessness, and basic fucking up. lol) I take steps to correct my mistake.

I kill some helpless minutes by making a numbered list, simple steps, for learning from mistakes. lol

  1. Experience the error.
  2. Recognize the error.
  3. Correct the error.
  4. Move on from the error.
  5. Learn something from the experience.

I listen to the traffic outside the window. The morning is still quiet. The sky is still dark. Plenty of opportunities for new beginnings of all sorts. 🙂

I refill my vape; trying to do so while driving is poor decision-making, and just not a good choice, so I do it before I get in the car. Strawberry lemonade. I know, I know – all sorts of places are banning flavored vapes. Well, isn’t that fairly fucking stupid? Just saying, people have been vaping since the 90s, and this whole other new storm of fear and controversy doesn’t seem to correlate to the long-time process of vaping nicotine, itself. So… something else? Sure. Obviously, something. Banning flavors, though, (we’ve got to think of the children!) is just… yeah. It’s a little weird to ban a legal substance, being used in a legal form, with the sole outcome of forcing adult consumers to use a form that is known to be harmful to health, and to also require them to consume it at higher doses. No kidding. I don’t “Juul”, though, and I don’t use a “pod system”. (I use what is called a “regulated mod”.) The nicotine in my vape is very low concentration (3 mg per 100 ml of ejuice, resulting in my own daily use being about a half milligram per day, generally, at most). Most cigarette smokers use a lot more nicotine, according to the NIH. I don’t like the taste of tobacco, and I’ve never been a smoker (I tried a cigarette, and thought that was the nastiest thing, ever, many many years ago). I do, however, like the sweet taste of strawberry lemonade, or butterscotch, or pineapple – and the miniscule amount of nicotine I use, since I started (at 56 years of age, and most definitely an adult consumer), turns out to be a profoundly more helpful anxiety medication than anything the VA ever gave me. So… fuck the flavor bans? I mean… children are not legally allowed to purchase or use nicotine products anyway. Making the laws hard on legal adult consumers to attempt to restrict child access and use seems a tad… off the mark? Just saying. I dislike decision-making driven by panic, or media hype, or hysteria; it’s generally quite poorly done.

…At the same time, I also think it would be pretty splendid if all the flavors used in vape products were tested, regulated, and safe for vaping – that seems appropriate, and alleviates consumers of having to pursue chemistry degrees to ensure their individual safety in the marketplace. Have we not had this conversation before, as retail consumers and voters? I mean… I feel sure we have… and possibly, I mean, I think we did, even set up a regulatory agency responsible for, you know… the safety of the food we eat, and the substances we use… you know… something like a… Food and Drug Administration?? 😉 Just saying; the groundwork is laid. The regulatory body exists. Maybe do something wise and reasoned with the opportunity, eh?

Fucking humans. lol We can, each of us, do just a bit better today than we did yesterday. I’ll make it a point to do so, today. Will you? 😀

Well, okay then… let’s begin again. 🙂

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Categories autumn, Brain Injury, Free Will, health, Logic & Reason, medical marijuana, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, The Art of Being, Words

Another Fine Day, Another Beginning

October 28, 2019 //
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Until pretty recently in my life (in years), it was rare to have even one day that was good from beginning to end. It’s not that rare now, at all. It used to be rare to have one such good day in a week, certainly rarer still to have more than one. Most of the time, now, I tend to have mostly good days, most weeks, and most of those days are good from the time I get up, until I finally call it a night. I still have occasional bad days. I’ve had a few lately. That has to be okay, too, and it has to be something I can “roll with” – more than endure, but also accept, embrace, and learn from. New beginnings aren’t all sunrises, great coffee, and contented smiles. 🙂 Some new beginnings are a real relief from anguish, and some are “a-ha!” moments of profound, nurturing, epiphany, born of constant struggle.

…What I’m saying is, sometimes shit’s hard. lol

I’m okay. Yesterday was a generally good day with some ups and downs. I took more time for meditation. It helps, and I knew that it would. This morning, I sip my coffee content with the overall outcome, and curious how my Traveling Partner’s late-in-the-evening business meeting went. (I went to bed before it was over.) We enjoyed a fun outing in the middle part of the day, running errands and shopping. It felt good to get out together, and enjoy the sunshine, and the shopping. It was lovely, and easy, and the sort of thing that reminds me how much we do love and enjoy each other. The day lifted me out of my funk. Helpful.

I face the day with a smile, enjoying these first sips of coffee, and thinking about a new tale to tell, feeling creatively inspired and wondering if that will last long enough to see the project through. Maybe? I mean… I know me. LOL You could wallpaper a house with the writing projects I did not finish, or completed but did not publish. Writing is so very much part of who I am… publishing? Less so. 😉

It feels like a good day. I refrain from looking at my work calendar in advance, and check the weather instead. I am amused to see our second morning below freezing… and make a note to winterize, or be prepared to face regret and broken pipes, some icy morning. It’s very early in the season for freezing temperatures or icy weather, and it means I’ll need to start the day early, to give the car time to warm up, and I’ll want to drive with care; the icy roads in this area are no joke, in spite of how mild the climate generally is. Rain-slick evening roadways become sheets of invisible ice by morning, and it’s a thing we know happens around here, so… mentally prepared. 🙂

…Speaking of which… I guess it’s already time to begin again. 🙂

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Categories Allegories, autumn, Brain Injury, forgiveness, Free Will, gratitude, inspiration, Love, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, The Art of Being, The Big 5

So Cross I Didn’t Recognize Myself

October 23, 2019 //
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Yesterday was weird. Started well. Went well. Then… rather unexpectedly, my mood just went straight to shit in an instant. I wasn’t even sure why. My noise sensitivity got crazy intense, and the frown on my face seemed to “come from within” from this whole other deep deep place that felt like “this is me,now”. It was hard. I looked over my work calendar, and cleared off the meetings I had remaining; none of it really required me, that I could tell, and all of it could be rescheduled. So, I did.

I was still fussing with an analytical question I was wracking my brain over, when I left, and committed to finishing that off, from home. I looked at the days ahead, and determined I could spend this one (today) more wisely as a “training day”, tackling annual “tick the box” training regularly assigned to everyone and due in just a couple weeks, and finishing off some certification training and testing I’d committed to earlier in the year. It seems a practical and efficient way to give myself some room to sort myself out without the risk of infecting my workplace with my toxic bullshit and baggage. 🙂

…Sitting here with my coffee, I feel fairly “grown up”, having managed this piece of self-care adequately well. Yesterday was weird though.

I got home tense and cranky. I stayed tense and cranky long enough for my Traveling Partner to make other plans for his time that evening, while I was in the shower trying to “wash off” my shitty mood. (No surprise, I was not able to wash off my mood. lol) I wasn’t surprised; his self-care skills are very good, generally, and he knows that it does neither of us any good to sit by and endure each other’s bullshit. There are better ways. 🙂 He was heading out for the evening, shortly after I was changed into “comfy clothes”. A few minutes of conversation. A kiss. He was gone.

I sat quietly for a time. Still so cross with… whatever… I was irritating myself without trying. I made a salad. I the dishes in the dishwasher. I sat a while more. Distracting myself was harder than usual; noise sensitive, cross, anhedonic… I wasn’t fit for my own company (and these days I really like me). At some point, I dozed off on the couch, wrapped in a snuggly soft throw. The phone woke me. My Traveling Partner calling, some time later (I never looked at the time)… did I want to join them for dinner? …Italian. Um… I’m sleeping. Deeply. LOL How rare is that?? I thanked him (I think. I hope.) and declined.

…Some further time later, I heard someone in the house… I felt disoriented in the darkness; I had lights on in the living room, where I had been dozing on the couch… I was waking out of context – in bed, no clear recollection of going to bed. I slipped out of bed, still confused, and quietly went to the door. Home intruder? Break in? Um… probably not; I hear the sound of someone using the hall bathroom. I call down the hall way, “hello?”. My partner answers, and I relax, finally pulling myself fully into the present. I’m not really awake though, and hadn’t even put my glasses on. Staying up long enough to connect, to embrace, I went back to bed pretty soon after he got home.

I woke reluctantly when the alarm went off. I feel pretty well-rested this morning, but I’m also glad I adjusted my work plans to make room for self-care. I needed to ease up on myself, and although I still don’t know what the hell went wrong with me yesterday, I’m pretty sure caring for myself in a way that demonstrates that I matter, to me, remains important, today.

Self-care choices are not always easy. It’s taken me years to break habits of self-abuse, self-exploitation, and inwardly directed mistreatment of all sorts. I still practice self-care, because I still need to. It still takes commitment, effort, and deliberate willful consideration, to choose to care for this fragile vessel, and the being of emotion and reason who resides within.

I’ve got a work day of training ahead of me, self-paced, isolated by headphones and the door of my studio. This suits me, although I am already feeling much better this morning. I find myself wondering if my poor sleep is something I need to be taking more seriously at this point… I smile and sip my coffee. The short to do list I’ve got for later seems wholly manageable and it’s not driving any stress at all. So far so good. I finish off my coffee while I rock out to this playlist… it’s time to begin again. 😀

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Categories anger, anhedonia, Anxiety, autumn, Brain Injury, Free Will, Frustration, gratitude, Healthy Living, Mindfulness, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, The Art of Being, The Big 5

The Absolute Worst

October 22, 2019 //
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I’m sipping my coffee, and pondering how it is that so much of the absolute worst of what humanity is capable of makes the news, but the best of what humanity has to offer often does not? Why are we so hung up on directing precious (monetized) views, likes, clicks, and shares of the worst garbage and horror that humanity can devise? Where is the good news? The kindness? (And omg, why aren’t goodness and kindness and compassion and happy endings more news worthy??)

…I move on from that, closing the browser tab with the news on it. I feel pretty much that “I already know all this” and honestly don’t need to be reminded of how horribly human beings are capable of treating each other; I already strive to do better than that – even better than I have done, myself, the previous day, every day. Nope. I’m not perfect. I’m not even going there. We’ve literally all got room to grow. 🙂

What can I do, today, to make the world just the tiniest bit better, myself, through my own efforts? It’s a good question. I sit with it awhile, sipping my coffee.

How about you? What are you doing to be the person you most want to be? Anything? It’ll take verbs, you do know that, right? “…Do no harm…” may not be enough. It may be utterly necessary to take active measures to do good in the world. To do good, even in your own life… feels like it should be easy and obvious…but… what about those acts that are done from good intention, that have poor results? That’s a thing. What do you do to prevent those missteps? How do you know that what you do to live your values, to “stay in the lines” ethically, to “do good” is truly enough? What’s “doing your best” really made of?

I sip my coffee and filter my thoughts through the lens of my work, professionally. I keep sipping my coffee, and thinking. Adulthood is complicated.

I get my “every day carry” together for another work day. (Yesterday I forgot my work badge to get into the building. Hilarity ensued.) Today, I’ll do better to be the woman I most want to be. I didn’t do badly, yesterday, it was a good day. I can still do better. I run the clock back on my day, gently, and think it over, looking for choices I could have made differently, and words I could have used with more skill. Thankfully, I have time to begin again, and that’s definitely worth doing. 🙂

…Oh hey, look at the time… 😉

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Categories autumn, Brain Injury, Free Will, gratitude, Healthy Living, Love, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, The Art of Being, The Big 5
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