Archives for posts with tag: mindfulness matters
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Another Day, More Moving

July 13, 2017 //
3

This is probably my last blog post until after the FiOS is connected at the new place. Although I can write a post from my phone, I generally find it more difficult, and that increased difficulty affects the flow of my thoughts and how easily I put them in rows of words between capital letters and periods. lol So… a break in the writing, probably until Sunday morning, before I head to work on a very new commute. 😀

Getting the keys was exciting. The landlord was there waiting for me. The house is adorable, incredibly clean inside and out, and the environment seems to suit me. I sat for a few moments getting the feel of it, measured rooms and spaces more carefully. Accepted small details that “aren’t perfect” while also understanding that “perfect” isn’t a real thing in the first place, and sufficiency is, by definition, enough. I get comfortable with the simple truth that in spite of the spaciousness of the master bedroom, the king size bed will fit in only one location, only one orientation… and it isn’t where I actually want it. It’s the sort of small detail that could once sending me spinning, or to which I might once have reacted by resentfully insisting on placing the bed differently, in spite of poor fit, awkwardness, or reduced livability…just to make a point about agency.

The living room puzzles me when I consider the bookshelves, the stereo, and the placement of the sliding glass door to the deck, the fireplace, and the connecting dining room space. What seemed obvious at first glance requires more careful thought; where does everything go? It’s not about “feng shui” unless by that I am meaning to suggest that I am seeking the most natural (to me) comfortable (for me) placement of things and objects. In which case, it is; the less I have to struggle with figuring out the layout, or struggling to overcome placement that later “doesn’t make sense” and requires repetition and memorization, the more comfortable I will be long-term.

What about the aquarium?

After some discussion with my Traveling Partner, the second bedroom becomes a creative space, by intent, that can be a guest space when needed. I’ll get to test that concept too soon; I already have a guest. LOL

Everything has to move. Even my routines, and all my practices. 

It’ll be a busy few days. I still make a point to start the morning with meditation. I’ll end each day that way. I’ll be careful to drink enough water, and to manage meal timing, nutritional content, and calories. Exercise is pretty well-built into the activities of the next few days. lol Fatigue hasn’t gotten to me yet, but wear and tear on my busted up ankle halted my moving efforts yesterday; it just needed rest, so I stopped for the day and rested it. Skillful adulting right there! I make a point to observe it, to appreciate myself for taking good care of this fragile vessel, and to notice that it made a difference; this morning the ankle doesn’t hurt. 😀

It’s time to begin again. See you on the other side, writing from a new location. Please take the very best care of  you while I am away – I’ll miss you while I’m gone. 🙂

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Categories Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Mindfulness, Moments, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Summer, The Art of Being

Error Message

July 10, 2017 //
0

I woke from a deep sleep to some kind of noise…a persistent sound of some sort…a beeping, or chiming, or… and it wasn’t stopping… Oh. My phone was ringing. Only one number rings through my “Do Not Disturb” settings; my Traveling Partner. I quickly lurch from bed and careen through the apartment, stumbling on shit that doesn’t match my mental map of my apartment; there are stacks of boxes everywhere. I reach the phone and answer it, delighted to hear his voice. No emergency, he’s just back in town and wanted to hear my voice. 🙂 It was a short call, and a quick return to sleep…

…only…

Nope. Not sleeping.

…I couldn’t so easily return to sleep.  Just as I was about to drift off my brain decided to attack with a barrage of insecure doubt and anxiety and dread, and oh, just all the things available to keep me laying wakefully for some time. I did eventually return to a restless unsatisfying sleep. Nightmares of loss and loneliness occupied my sleeping mind until the alarm went off.

I woke feeling okay. Feeling thoughtful. Feeling… thought-filled. lol This too will pass. I make a point of reminding myself how pointless rumination is, and that anything of substance that truly needs to be considered will still need to be considered later… after I wake up, after meditation, after my morning coffee, and perhaps even just quite a lot later today – after work. Perspective is helpful. Context matters. Oh, and also – brains make shit up all the damned time. lol My imagination is just as likely to work against me as to delight me. So, I shrug off as much of the weird lingering insecurity, anxiety, and doubt as I am able to, and I push on with the morning.

I have a practice for this one, and although it works, it’s not to be undertaken lightly first thing in the morning by a sleep-addled brain. (I learned that the hard way!) My practice for dealing firmly with insecurity and anxiety is to look my fears in the face without flinching. Seriously – I consider as frankly as I can whatever bundle of fears and bullshit that is freaking me out, and I consider it as if it were simply a given and life is no kidding going to deliver on all of it as if it were a promise. Feeling insecure about my relationship? I consider life without it, no bullshit, no drama – what does that look like? Could I still be okay? What advantages might that bring? Is there a future from that point that may still be quite nice? Does it change who I am? What am I truly afraid of? Is there an opportunity for growth, here? This works for any sort of insecurity, doubt, and anxiety, really. Emotions are powerful. It’s a good idea to choose some moment when it feels truly safe to fully consider my deepest fears. Results vary. Scary, tense, anxious, insecure, doubtful emotions can go sideways so easily, plunging me into real despair… but, all the more reason to learn to face them unafraid of the emotions themselves, and there is so much to learn. They’re still only emotions; getting to know them well, becoming comfortable with emotion, generally, and working to develop a measure of emotional intelligence that supports good quality of life is not only completely achievable, I have found that improving my emotional intelligence improves my interactions with others, too, and sort of “tidies up my thinking”. 🙂

So much of what goes on in our heads is actually completely made up bullshit going on in our heads. 🙂 I am as likely to find my anxiety provoked by things that are delightful, or changes that suit me better than whatever had changed ever could, as I am by things that are legitimately worth being anxious about. Silly primates – given both emotion and reason (which work so nicely together), and yet time and again we keep trying to choose one over the other. lol

I sip my coffee and watch the dawn slowly becoming day. I consider my imminent move. Just two more work shifts before that actually becomes a thing happening in the moment…and one of those work shifts is today. This is happening!! 😀 My conversation with my partner last night opened some opportunities in the context of moving that I hadn’t considered, and although I spent some time wracked with anxiety (because changing plans sometimes causes me anxiety), the opportunities themselves are worth considering fully. Later.

The calm of the morning develops like a Polaroid. I feel settled and secure, and focused on changes that meet my needs over time. I feel content. I feel loved. Fears and doubts fade away as the sky lightens, and anything that lingers to day’s end can be fully considered at some later point, in a comfortable, practical way.

It’s time to begin again. 🙂

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Categories Anxiety, Brain Injury, Free Will, Frustration, grief, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, loneliness, Love, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Sleepless Nights, Summer, The Art of Being, The Big 5

Life Sparkles, Too

July 8, 2017 //
2

This morning I woke later than usual, slower than usual, and with a smile on my face. I feel rested. Patient with myself, and relieved of yesterday’s emotional burdens (and baggage). I don’t know with any certainty that any specific action I took made a difference, but there is definitely a difference in the way I feel about life, the move, myself… all of the things feel different today, in a very pleasant way. Change is. Feelings pass. Moments pass. Life is a process and a journey with very little “standing still” in it. “The infinite” is largely a concept that I don’t ever seem to touch directly. lol I’m okay with that. I don’t even want to try to get my head around “infinite sadness”.

I am distracted from my writing moment-to-moment by the dew drops sparkling on the lawn beyond the window as the sun rises, and by the shards of light thrown around the room by the glittery sequins on the light summer top I threw on this morning in anticipation of today’s expected warm afternoon. I’m okay with the mild distraction; I will be more likely to get on with packing boxes when I’m done writing, and less prone to being sucked into Facebook.

It’s a lovely morning, so far. Perhaps yesterday I simply needed to shed a few stray tears that had gotten backed up over time? I’m okay with being gentle with myself over a few tears. Living alone has some emotionally difficult moments. So does every other lifestyle. lol No one is off the hook for being human, and we are beings of both emotion and reason. 🙂

I think of my Traveling Partner off on a weekend adventure with his other partner. Moments we don’t share, and much of the time this extends even to conversation after-the-fact. He rarely “catches me up”, which sucks for me – I love a traveler’s tales! I miss him greatly and yearn to share more of his life – and for him to share more of mine – than he currently does. Conveniently for both of us, enough emotional time has passed that I am not uncomfortable running into my ex casually (she has no power over me, emotionally or otherwise at this point, and I’m done grieving); next year I’ll go to festivals unconcerned about messing with their good time (yes, I dislike drama enough to be considerate of an ex), and take advantage of the happy opportunity to kick it with my Traveling Partner out in the world, each doing our own thing. That’ll be fun for both of us. There are a lot of music festivals in Oregon, Washington, and northern California. 😀

Today there is no hint of loneliness to be found in my experience. I make a point of feeling its absence, and filling my awareness with gratitude. Loneliness sucks. I find it worthwhile to be really aware of its absence, fully. I do indeed thrive, living alone. I smile, sip my coffee, and consider this sweet moment – nothing fancy about it. A woman at a desk. A computer, a keyboard, a cup of coffee. Sunshine bouncing off of sequins, dew drops, glittery nail polish. A smile. It’s enough to start the day here, and begin again. 🙂

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Categories Free Will, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, loneliness, Love, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Summer, The Art of Being, The Big 5

Assorted Extras

June 26, 2017 //
0

It’s been crazy hot this week, so far, and I’m relieved that there are cooler temperatures in the forecast now. The lack of shade on this apartment, now, results in being unable to cool it enough during the night, or in the early morning, to achieve any sort of comfortable indoor temperature the next day. It reached 100 degrees (F) yesterday, maybe a tad more, outside, and inside it reached almost 90. I still managed to smile, and most of that is due to the knowledge that the new place has A/C, and the recollection of hotter places I have lived (the desert… Fresno…). Besides, it was too hot to do more than lay around quietly breathing, sweating, and drinking water. LOL

I managed sleep, which was nice. I feel okay this morning. Somewhat… sticky… even after my shower.

Weird day, and I ride the emotional currents without concern, without fighting it. I’m okay. Today I’m out of the office providing logistical and emotional support to my Traveling Partner, who is having a procedure done. I’m sipping my coffee, alert for that moment when it is time to leave the house to catch the train to catch the bus to be at the place at the time. All very routine, somehow.

Over time, more of the things that once wracked me with anxiety or provoked tears or anger just… don’t. I’m fine – and I’m fine to my very core, without any particular noteworthy effort beyond routine good self-care practices, and meditation. It’s nice. It would have been wonderfully encouraging to have been able to foresee improvements over time, or rely on them utterly with the kind of certainty that comes of knowing things. Clearly that’s not really a thing for me; I’m pretty sure friends and loved ones may even have suggested, helpfully, that I “try meditation”. I’m pretty sure I’ve done so for others, and gotten the very same result my own friends got with me; “I’ve tried that, doesn’t work for me”, “I’ve tried that, I don’t think I’m doing it right”, “I don’t know how to do that”, “if it doesn’t come in a pill at great price, it can’t possibly work”, “if it requires my personal accountability or effort I’m not interested”, “not if I have to change who I am”, “I can’t.” Well, shit. That about covers, doesn’t it? Do you. 0_o

We become what we practice. Over time, in increments, in moments, by way of our choices, by way of our repeated thoughts, repeated actions, repeated words – we become what we practice. We build ourselves and rebuild ourselves, we tear ourselves down, we allow the world to tear us down, too. In spite of that, it seems far to simple – impossibly simple – that this very same notion of incremental change over time could be applied quite willfully. Sometimes the easy answers are the hardest ones just because we aren’t convince-able. We won’t, more than we can’t.

Where is your will this morning? Maybe just some really small thing that would be just the tiniest bit better… that could be doable, right? For me it may have begun, if I follow the thread all the way back, with a gentle suggestion that I try getting up earlier in the morning, and slowing down my routine to give myself time to really be awake before starting my day. No kidding. Sure, I still went through some major changes, bullshit, drama, upheaval, hurting – even hitting the bedrock of rock bottom, emotionally, came after that…but that moment, choosing to change my routine, exploring that one tiny seemingly insignificant change, was a domino, and the rest started falling into place over time.

What are you practicing?

It’s already time to begin again. 🙂

If not this moment, when?

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Categories Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Sleepless Nights, Summer, The Art of Being

It’s a New Dawn, It’s a New Day…

June 23, 2017 //
0

Ready? Let’s do this!

…It’s a new dawn…it’s a new day… it’s a new life for me…

…And I’m feeling…good. 🙂

…I feel right…

…even…happy.

It’s a nice morning. Things to do. I ended the day, yesterday, on a bitter note. I was overcome by sorrow and tears. I’ve no idea why. Tired? Hadn’t meditated? Wasn’t sufficiently well medicated to support needed emotional resilience? All of those things, I suspected at the time, and what was weird is that although I was totally overcome by it, and also utterly unable to lift a hand to help myself – even though I knew what I needed to do – I still somehow managed it, rather by happenstance; I was trying to make an angsty moody sort of post on Facebook, pretty typical really, and quite human, and I went to attach an appropriate picture to that post… I kept scrolling through pictures of smiles, and pictures of flowers, and pictures of forest hikes, and pictures of the way the light hits the water in the summertime, and… I started giggling, just a bit hysterically. I just couldn’t find “photographic evidence” to support my misery in the moment. LOL I’m okay. A fears tears aren’t fatal. 😉

Growth over time. We become what we practice. New self-care practices built over time become default habitual behaviors that support us.

The evening actually ended well. My moody moment was obviously more biology that emotional reaction to things, or events, and I finished the evening taking care of me, and noodling around on my bass, calmly, contentedly – and then crashing out rather later than I intended – so this morning I slept in a bit. 😀

There’s an entire lovely day ahead… I wonder where my path leads today?

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Categories anhedonia, Anxiety, Brain Injury, Free Will, health, Healthy Living, medical marijuana, Mindfulness, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Summer, The Art of Being, The Big 5, Words
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