Archives for posts with tag: mindfulness
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No, It Isn’t “Easy”

May 3, 2017 //
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“You make it sound easy…” I probably sigh and frown any time I hear that from someone. I don’t mean to diminish the real effort involved…in… anything. Choices. Changes. Practices. Beginning again. Being. Becoming. Nope. Not “easy”. I just keep at it, is all, and hope to notice change when it begins, to savor it as it continues, and to appreciate how far I’ve come. I am enthusiastic about living life – because that, all by itself, is something that has changed about me; I embrace life. It’s sort of new. It’s something I fought myself for, fair and square, and no… it wasn’t easy.

Battling depression, anxiety or rage? Not easy.

Working to lose weight – and I don’t mean that 5lbs you don’t find aesthetically appealing, I mean the sort of excess weight that could be life-threatening – losing weight at all? Not easy.

Struggling to gain weight? Not easy.

Making a change of heart that results in not being sarcastic and mean all the time? Not easy.

Learning to take care of oneself, with real affection and love? Not easy.

Walking away from relationships that don’t work? Not easy.

Building relationships from a place of authenticity, vulnerability, and openness? Not easy.

Saying no? Not easy.

Saying yes? Not easy.

Embracing change? Not easy.

Facing the human being in the mirror, fully honestly each and every day? Not easy.

Going after what I really want from life? Not easy.

Accepting myself precisely as I am, while also seeking healthy growth and positive change? Not easy.

Gnothi seauton? Not easy.

Mindfulness? Not easy.

Practices take practice. I am not making light of things when I remind myself that “there are verbs involved” – it is a literal truth; choices are an active thing. Practice requires efforts be made, and repeated – repeatedly.

I don’t know what your personal goal on this journey is, or even whether you have one that seems specific and concrete. There are no promises that you will get there – but if you just keep at it, you’ll get somewhere. No scorecard. No progress report. No letter grade. No performance review. No fucking guarantees of any kind. Life is just you and your choices out there on the trail. The destination is the journey. Every step is an act of effort, and some experiences feel easier than others. 🙂

Begin again. ❤

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Categories anger, Anxiety, Brain Injury, Free Will, Frustration, grief, health, Healthy Living, Love, Mindfulness, Moments, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, solo hiking, The Art of Being, Words

I Woke Up Crying

April 29, 2017 //
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I don’t know that it is actually an important thing. It’s an experience. A moment. I woke up crying. It’s not the first time. It may not be the last time. I wandered the limited space of my apartment in the darkness as if both seeking out whatever is distressing me, and also, perhaps, attempting to sneak away from it. I pace aimlessly, while plentiful hot tears spill silently down my cheeks, dripping from my face. I flutter a bit. I feel edgy and restless fighting off… what? I feel the mental machinery begin to spin up for a night of over-thinking this.

Then I begin again.

I breathe. I relax. I sit the fuck down and let the pacing and mindless cycles of movement end, in favor of a moment of self-inventory. I briefly take stock; what’s up with me? What do I need from myself? I pull myself back into this moment, here, in the quiet darkness, in the wee hours. I blow my nose. I let the tears fall without criticism. The living room is very quiet. The world feels very quiet from this quiet vantage point. I feel my emotional state shift. My tears dry. I’m okay right now. The moment passes. I meditate awhile longer. Life’s practical burdens sometimes feel heavier than they need to. It’s not about the weight, though – it’s about the journey.

I’ll sleep again, when sleep comes. I’m not quite there as I get up from my cushion, alone in the darkness. I won’t feel like writing about this tomorrow, after waking from some other moment altogether. In fact, maybe I won’t write tomorrow, I think to myself as my feet take me into the studio to while away some minutes wakefully… I’ll write now. I’ll write about this… Maybe I’ll sleep in. I feel calm. Sleep sounds good…

…Tomorrow I can begin again.

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Categories Anxiety, Brain Injury, Mindfulness, Moments, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Sleepless Nights

All of the Pain and Nightmares, too

April 23, 2017 //
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I ended the evening, yesterday, in pain. A lot of pain. Stiff from driving, too. I had an unexpectedly delightful day doing nothing much that was actually productive, which for being a Saturday seems just fine to me.

Yesterday. Lush and beautiful and filled with the scent of flowers, trees, and meadows.

I had a car for the day, and took advantage of that to go hang out with my Traveling Partner and a friend around lunch time. Good food, good times. I spent the rest of the afternoon smiling, driving out in the countryside, through smaller, more rural, more distant (from work) communities admitting that I know damned well I don’t want to reside in suburbia full-time forever, and realizing I am looking for a house that is too compromised for location. (Simply put; it would be worth having to drive the commute, and have that commute still be an hour-long, to come home to a little house in the countryside.) It was delightful to be sufficiently rural to stop the car and hear only breezes and birdsong, rather than the continuous low hum, buzz, and rumble of humanity’s ongoing earthbound conquest of resources. I don’t think I’m ready to live in a bus, or an RV, or a yurt… but I’m probably less removed from that consideration than I think I am. lol

By the end of that delightful day, I was in more pain than I could easily manage, and had gone from “oh, I think I like this particular compact SUV quite enough to get one…” to “damn, I am hurt – I definitely don’t want to get one of these… I need something that doesn’t cause me to feel beaten by a professional boxer every time I spend half a day driving!” I’d rather have something that feels as comfortable to me as my Traveling Partner’s car…but about half its size. lol I find myself disliking the way life seems to dangle shiny things in front of my monkey mind to go wanting for. It irritates me to want more than I need.

Last night I crashed fairly early, being quite sleepy and tired. My sleep was restless, and interrupted by one of the more terrible nightmares I’ve had in a long while. I was trapped in it, too, and unable to “lucid dream” or alter the experience in any way. “Terrifying” doesn’t go far enough, and any detailed description I could provide from the remnants that linger would simply upset me, so let’s not do that.  I found help, within my dream, from our friend’s huge white dog that I met just yesterday – unexpected to have him turn up in my dreams, but I woke this morning smiling at the recollection, with my hand dangling off the side of the bed thinking “who’s a good boy?” and wanting to pet the unseen presence that was not in any way actually there (or actually visible – it was just a moment of dream lingering as I woke).  I woke from my nightmare with no residual terror or stress, aware of where I was, and feeling safe. This is something new. He’s a sweet, but quite colossal, white dog that I find just a bit scary, myself, in spite of his genuine niceness – he’s just that big, and I just have baggage. It doesn’t surprise me, as an afterthought, that my sleeping consciousness found him to be a suitable dream warrior to call upon for help. 🙂

…So… The morning and the day start well, in spite of pain, in spite of nightmares, in spite of sleeping so restlessly. I am eager to face the day ahead, planning to give myself a manicure, do some housekeeping and laundry, and maybe spend some time in the studio, or in the garden. It’s a first-rate day to put my nightmares behind me promptly, and begin again. 🙂

 

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Categories Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Love, Mindfulness, Moments, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Sleepless Nights, Spring, The Art of Being, The Big 5

Yesterday and Today

April 22, 2017 //
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Yesterday quickly descended into further emotional distance, and definite anhedonia. I found myself asking “the” question, too: “Am I depressed?” It had crept over me fairly slowly, then finished with a slam – the house I was going to go see, out in the countryside, went pending right about when I got in to the office. I was bummed.

There are sunny mornings.

This particular source of frustration comes up pretty regularly, and house-hunting is becoming a big downer, mostly because frustration is my kryptonite, and also because the process itself brings me into regular contact with an industry built on corruption, with little in the way of healthy pro-consumer regulation. (Seriously, I’d be pretty appalled to walk into, say, Ross and pick out a pair of jeans, carry those to the register, and have some other customer take them out of my hand, step in front of me in line, and firmly tell the cashier “I’m willing to pay more than you are charging for these, so they’re mine.” That’s hard to deal with over and over again.) I just want to go home. No, I mean, seriously, for me the entire process of house-hunting is 100% only intended to let me “go home” – to a home that is mine, that I can count on, that I can make my own and improve or change, and make more secure and comfy and safe. Having to throw regular exposure to frustration into my day-to-day experience by choice (particularly over something so heartfelt) is … yeah. Hard. Icky. Discouraging.

There are mornings that seem strangely gray.

I reached out to my Traveling Partner and let him know my weekend was upended and as a result quite unplanned. I was mostly venting, and not reaching out to change his plans. He understood – and we miss each other regardless of our plans. He suggested coming to hang out, if that sounded good to me. I was still struggling with anhedonia; nothing sounded good at all.  He helpfully prompted me to consider my experience through another perspective; my physical health. Recognizing my pain management challenges, my poor quality sleep, and the basic frustration of  house-hunting and how that affects my mood, generally, put me in a better place for the day, and I even found my to making new plans that really suited where my heart is, combining some hang out time with scouting other areas for livability, that might be good choices for future house-hunting.

Each moment, however similar seeming in some detail or another is entirely its own experience.

I committed to sleeping in today, and I did – I woke at 6:30 am feeling fairly rested. A leisurely shower felt delightful. My coffee is hot, and I feel fairly chill and merry this morning. Sleep is a very big deal.

Yesterday’s sunshine has given way to today’s steady drizzle. Fuck I hate driving in the rain. LOL Still… lovely day to enjoy a drive in the countryside, in no hurry to get to the end of the day.

A different morning, a different place, another moment to begin again.

…I guess I’ll begin again. There are verbs involved. 🙂

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Categories anger, anhedonia, Anxiety, Brain Injury, Free Will, Frustration, health, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Sleepless Nights, solo hiking, Spring, The Art of Being, The Big 5

Anxiety or Pain?

April 20, 2017 //
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Last night I dealt with my anxiety, and comfortably resolved that. Win! Progress. Practice. It wasn’t any sort of trophy-winning event, and my “victory lap” will be just this handful of words, a later reminder for another day, perhaps, that it does pass, and it can be eased. It wasn’t over anything consequential, but it was very real, very visceral, the sort of mind-binding gut-punch of stress and fearfulness that anxiety is so famed for. Meditation still works. It still wasn’t “easy” – and I’m honestly not even sure I would call it meditation, considering the challenge I had calming my monkey-mind even long enough to take a few breaths…but…I went easy on myself in the moment, emotionally, understanding that the anxiety itself promotes a certain restlessness. I patiently returned my consciousness to the moment, to my breath, to a timeless mental space in which anxiety cannot thrive. No tv. No music. Just practice. It was, after a time, highly effective. There were indeed verbs involved, and even moment by moment my results varied. There’s no fighting it, though; we become what we practice, and continued practicing of calm… I became calm.

I slept poorly last night, although I did sleep more or less sort of through the night (my sleep tracker notes periods of wakefulness, and very little deep sleep, but I have no clear recollection of waking so often). I woke with the alarm, head stuffy, eyes watery… back aching. It’ll be a good day for physical therapy. I hurt. I manage my pain in a similar way as with anxiety; practices that tend to offer relief, practiced routinely, and given still more attention when I hurt more than usual. In this case, appropriate medication, yoga, yes meditation for this too, and a little later, dancing (to sort of force those stiff joints into a state that accommodates movement). I also spend more time considering things that don’t hurt than things that do, and once my symptoms are properly treated, I move on to distraction; shifting my attention to something else quite engaging, and letting the awareness of my pain recede into the background.

It’s a pretty ordinary work morning. Nothing fancy. Nothing noteworthy, really. Ordinary stuff right here. If I let myself get all worked up over a moment of anxiety, or a painful morning, I have the power to amplify both. If I take care of the woman in the mirror in the best way I know how, I have a shot at easing both. So many choices, so many verbs, so many results vary; it’s a very human experience.

It’s time to begin again.

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Categories Anxiety, Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, medical marijuana, Mindfulness, Moments, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Sleepless Nights, Spring, The Big 5
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