Archives for posts with tag: mindfulness
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Yes, No, Maybe

May 7, 2014 //
2

Questions, answers, and a hot cup of coffee.  The morning is off to a sluggish and disorganized beginning; my routine is upended by a partner going off on a short holiday in the wilderness with family and friends; I got up much earlier than usual to make coffee, help load the car, and drop him at the rendezvous point. There’s a certain quality to arrivals and departures that seems to be unique to those occasions, and I didn’t hesitate to opt in to the early morning ritual of checking the packing, making sure nothing is missed, figured out what was missed, retrieving it, and eventually – kisses good-bye. It was chill and intimate time, connecting and holding on to a precious ‘now’ moment, savoring love and sharing the morning.

4:00 am is early.

4:00 am is early.

I’m very appreciative of my morning coffee. I slept poorly; sleeping only once everyone else had truly settled into slumber themselves, and waking earlier than I planned to by the restless stirrings of my partner, excited about the trip, and wakeful ahead of schedule. I figure I managed enough to survive the day more or less comfortably; about 3 hours. The coffee is a big deal this morning. I made 4 shots of espresso, in a cup, with a bit of molasses. Fancy was not necessary. lol

The Menopause Countdown continues, and I’ve never been more relieved than when I am watching my other partner struggle with Hormone Hell. I’m ready to be done with that. Yesterday was day 305… 60 days to go and I can officially say I’m ‘past menopause’.  Truth is, though, it’s been 305 days without screaming at everyone around me unexpectedly over bullshit approximately every 21-32 days.  Had I know how much more pleasant life would be without all that, I’d have asked to have my damned ovaries removed years ago!! I suppose that’s rather more than necessarily radical, but if you don’t have the experience, how do you know if I’m being too extreme? It is what it is, though, and what it is – for me – is almost over.

My other partner heads ‘back home’ this week, herself, to recharge with family and old friends back home.  It makes sense. She hasn’t been home in a while and the timing is good.

Spring, simple, and sufficient.

Spring, simple, and sufficient.

I don’t quite have that ‘back home’ attachment to a place. I miss old friends, and yearn for a good opportunity to travel and hang out and reconnect across the distance of years by closing the geographical distance, but this is a ‘taking care of me’ area I am not good at. It’s been about 11 years since I took a step on the other coast, where my family lives. I’ve never seen my niece – 13? 14? – in person*. I last saw my Mother at my Father’s memorial, more than a decade ago. Close old friends live far away, too, and it has been as long or longer since I’ve seen them.  It is time, too, for me to journey ‘back home’ to reconnect and recharge…but other needs are a higher priority, and I am learning to make choices that meet my long-term needs over time.  It’s a complicated puzzle. I know making time to connect with friends and family is important… I’m always eager to encourage my partners and dear ones to make time to see their far away friends and family, how is it that I suck so much at making the time to do it, myself?

I find myself looking at a different question in a moment of inspiration – “What is it about not making time for distant friends and family that seems to meet my current needs more than making that time would meet my needs?” Aha. I don’t have an answer – but that’s a new question. 🙂

Another perspective, a different question.

Another perspective, a different question.

So, a quiet Wednesday morning unfolding, a second cup of coffee, and plenty of time to meditate and simply be. It’s enough.

 

*So…my sister reached out during the day and observed with some amusement that not only have I met my niece in person, we hung out and she remembers it clearly; it was at my Dad’s memorial, so perhaps overlooking the embarrassing failure to recollect such a precious moment can be forgiven, but… yeah. Totally embarrassed, because of course I remember it as soon as I am reminded! Still human. 🙂

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Categories Anxiety, Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Love, Menopause, Mindfulness, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Sleepless Nights, Spring, 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

Sometimes More Than Others

April 18, 2014 //
0

Yesterday was a weird hodge-podge of ups and downs, and challenges and small victories. My physician recommended some changes in my health medication; changes in medication are always complicated and a bit agonizing for me. It’s that the changes themselves are difficult to adjust to. I sure never really contemplated the psychological/emotional effects of everyday health medications – even the OTC stuff often has effects that just aren’t detailed in the literature in any efficient way. So… some emotional ups and downs, and a fairly chronic feeling that ‘something’s off’, on top of headaches, panic attacks, blue moments of nearly suicidal intensity, negative ideations with such power I find it hard to be at all certain my life has meaning or value, or that I have any real worth as a being. It’s pretty horrible.

I will be okay, though – I’m a few days into now, and it’s getting better. I’ve learned more about accepting that some of my experience may not be tied to the part of reality I expect it to be – like the blue moods being part of the medication change, rather than part of anything truly emotional going on.

I haven’t named names – what is this mystery chemical, so readily available, so problematic? Well, see, here’s the thing – you are a different human being. Your issues are not mine, and vice versa. Could be one or another OTC drug does sit well with you – maybe you prefer Tylenol to Ibuprofen, for instance, but ‘don’t really know why’ – could be a preference, marketing, bias, or it could be that you feel differently on one over the other. Most people feel safe enough that the OTC drugs available to them are ‘safe enough’. 🙂  Why rock that boat? I’m not a doctor. I’m just saying, my own experience personally, is that some of the OTC drugs commonly available don’t treat me well – and worse to go off of, than to take.

Anyway… today does feel better. I feel better. 🙂 It isn’t always sunny days on this journey; it is, however, Friday. Maybe I’ll sleep in tomorrow?

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Categories Anxiety, Brain Injury, grief, Healthy Living, Menopause, Mindfulness, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Sleepless Nights, Words

It Isn’t All Ups and Downs

April 16, 2014 //
0

A lot of my studying, my focus, my journey is about a search for balance, contentment, perspective, and sufficiency; somehow that’s ‘all one thing’ in my head, but I don’t know one word for that thing.  We’ll get by with a few more words, that generally works well enough for me. lol

It’s been a strange few days. Even though I’m over whatever odd sickness struck me down last week, I feel somehow a bit ‘off’. Still tired. I hurt more than usual, but that could be nothing more than setting myself up for failure on the expectation that warmer weather would be equal to a reduction in my arthritis pain, simply because in years past that has been true; I know I hurt more than I expect to. I’m cross with the world, but can’t put my finger on any reason I ‘should’ be… I feel vaguely ’emotionally disoriented’ and ‘cognitively disheveled’.  Still, I’m getting by.

This morning was hard. I woke to the morning, eyes gritty, mouth dry, a lingering feeling of panic from a bad nightmare. A shower didn’t refresh me. Instead of finding joy and delight in a partner being up so early to share coffee and companionship before work, I felt distressed, crowded, angry – none of it felt ‘appropriate’ to my experience-in-the-moment, at all. It felt inexplicable. I managed to salvage enough mindfulness and perspective to communicate my challenges, and take the space and time I needed to get my head right… just about when I was feeling still and calm and as I rose, ready to face the world, I kicked over my coffee mug and although the internal turmoil was pretty messy, and not particularly grown-up, I managed to get through it with only a tear or two, and a grim visage – no tantrum, no rage – but endured a moody gray cloud on my experience the entire day. I can count it as a success… I wish it weren’t in me to be so inclined to count it as a failure.  Today it is harder to treat myself well.

I still make the effort to take care of me, to give myself some compassion, to be kinder with myself, in spite of being so incredibly irritable and moody, and that’s where I see the success and the growth; I have the will to act in my own interests, even when I am wading through emotional bullshit, hormones, and wreckage.  That’s lovely and new. I find, to my very great delight, that being able to take care of me, time and again, proves to be an exceptionally direct route to also being able to take care of people who matter to me, and even simply to treating others well, as a general practice.

It’s a good thing, too, because I frankly couldn’t have treated people with the nastiness and raw volatility I had within myself today, it would not have been acceptable, at all.

The calm of approaching twilight. Tomorrow is a whole new experience.

The calm of approaching twilight. Tomorrow is a whole new experience.

 

 

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

A Critical Situation

April 12, 2014 //
0

Words are funny things. The meaning of any given word may vary depending on context, or differences between world maps of speakers. Language has subtlety, and adaptability; it changes over time, based on common use.

Words.

Words.

Consider ‘critical thinking’. I found myself having a challenging conversation with someone about the nature of critical thinking, versus being ‘critical’. It took quite a bit of careful defining of terms, and semantic exploration to figure out where the core miscommunication could be found that resulted in such an adversarial dialogue about a word.

someone else's critical thinking word cloud.

someone else’s critical thinking word cloud.

I’ll probably be spending a lot of time on this one, there is certainly more to understand than I can offer up today with any coherence. When I study, I start with basics. So, this morning it is a refresher on critical thinking, in general, as well as reading up on criticism. Where the two share emotional territory seems to be the sticky bit for understanding and communicating.

Someone else's word cloud for criticism.

Someone else’s word cloud for criticism.

My superficial initial reading suggests that the heart of the matter may be that critical thinking is a process of self, directed inward, and largely ‘about’ developing clear, rational thinking practices that result in a usably correct understanding of the world.  Critical thinking seems less about what I communicate to the world, than about what I understand of the world, myself, and how I got to that understanding.  Criticism is generally directed outward, ideally with an intent of providing a possibility for an improved outcome, improving a process, simply reaching a meeting of the minds, or improving upon a future outcome through communication of observations of less-than-ideal current conditions. (In my less-than-ideal experience of life and the world, criticism is often used for less wholesome purposes: directed at individuals to cause pain, to control behavior, to denigrate, to reinforce ‘place’ in a hierarchy, to enforce one’s own sense of self, or to support one’s own ideas, understanding, or context in life by tearing down what someone else understands. These uses of criticism have nothing whatever to do with building, achieving, or growing. Criticism is a favorite emotional weapon of the callous, the cruel, and the controlling. Emotional weaponry has nothing to do with critical thinking.)

It could be as simple as this, critical thinking has never made me cry, not even once, not ever.

There are ways to adequately, rationally, communicate disagreement without making someone cry. There are certainly ways to share improvements on an idea with hurting someone’s feelings. Criticism isn’t my first choice for either of those communication needs.

This weekend I am balancing my own critical thinking, and my desire to improve on that, and the very different need to communicate if/when I disagree with a statement, an outcome, or see an opportunity to improve on a task in progress. I won’t be using criticism. Today is a good day to change the world.

 

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Categories Brain Injury, Logic & Reason, Mindfulness, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Words
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