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Perspective Shift

December 2, 2016 //
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By the end of the day yesterday I was in so much pain I was showing every moment of my 53 years, and possibly borrowing some extra years, besides. Today, I’ll be kinder to myself and resume walking with my hiking staff, because the additional support is helpful. Winter isn’t my favorite season, and it’s mostly to do with my arthritis. I’m not bitching, really, it’s just a thing that is part of my experience, these days.

One morning...

One morning…

I got home from work, cold, tired, in pain… I put it behind me with a leisurely hot shower, pain medication, and a quiet evening. At some point, I was commenting on my pain to my traveling partner – as I recall, something about it “being much worse than…”, and he gently reminds me that it is always worst just as fall shifts to winter. He’s right, and the reminder stops my aggravated fussing with new perspective. I crash early, but don’t actually fall into a deep restful sleep for hours – I took an Rx pain reliever. I took it knowing it had a fairly predictable risk of messing with my sleep. Two nights in a row without getting the sleep I need; it shows in my typing. My spelling and syntax are off, and I make more grammatical errors even than usual. I am so tired this morning.

...followed by an evening...

…followed by an evening…

It’s Friday. I miss my Traveling Partner… but all I can think about is sleep. And laundry. How is it that there is so much laundry to do (and conversely, so little clean stuff to wear)? Did I not do laundry this past weekend…? Why didn’t I? (Does “why?” matter? Really?) The weekend ahead feels reassuringly planned around the obvious needs: housekeeping, laundry, and taking care of this fragile vessel (sleeping – oh, please let there be sleeping!!!). I can’t recall if I have plans with my Traveling Partner… maybe we do. Maybe we don’t. Maybe that won’t matter and we’ll see each other regardless… His birthday is this weekend. I catch myself thinking I’ve overlooked getting him anything, and then bust out laughing, out loud. I’ve totally already taken care of that – he’s enjoying his birthday/holiday gift in advance this year. 🙂 I know he has plans to go out, to party, something boisterous, something joyful – and I’m stoked that he does. I’m uncertain whether I will seek to join him… for the moment, what sounds exciting to me is… sleeping. lol I take a moment to consider his planning, and remind myself to invite him to come around for brunch or lunch or dinner or something on Sunday…

...a different morning, similarly gray...

…a different morning, similarly gray, still very much its own morning…

I spend some minutes contemplating perspective, and how subtle changes can still seem to change “everything”, and how the “everything” I think I know amounts to so little of all of the everything that actually is. 🙂

...each morning, from the same vantage point, another perspective on life...

…each morning, from the same vantage point, another perspective on life…

There is more to know that I ever will know. More to do than I will ever be able to make time for. More choices on life’s vast menu than I can hold in awareness.

...mornings...

…mornings…

Some days are easier than others. Some are more exciting or stranger or peculiarly without memorable feature.

...evenings. Each very much it's own moment.

…evenings. Each very much its own moment.

Today is a good day to take moment by moment, task by task, opportunity by opportunity. I listen to the rain fall. Each raining morning so similar, each nonetheless its own moment, a unique experience – a chance to begin again. A chance for a shift in perspective.

 

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Categories autumn, Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Sleepless Nights, The Art of Being, winter

Changing a Mood is So Easy!

November 29, 2016 //
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I got off work yesterday in a good mood, tired, enthusiastic about the walk through town and over the bridge at twilight, and looking forward to a quiet evening at home. The commute wasn’t merely uneventful, it was also a miracle of coincidence and great timing. I arrived home, still smiling.

Some enchanted evening...

Some enchanted evening…

What follows is a cautionary tale about emotional health.

As I waited for dinner to cook, not wanting to wander off or be distracted, I picked up my phone, and opened my news feed. I noticed there seem to a be lot of articles about hate, hate crimes, and the general mistreatment of human beings toward one another. I dove right in and read one, then another, and another… over minutes, I read several. I was also cooking, and pretty focused on that. As minutes passed, I found myself no longer smiling. Feeling somewhat discontent. Generally a bit aggravated. A few minutes further on, I was feeling annoyed. Irritable actually. I sat down with dinner, finding fault with small things that typically don’t bother me at all. (Damn, are the guys next door going to be so noisy all evening? Seriously? Is that a leaf on the floor from where I came in, earlier??)

I ate my dinner in a mood of aggravation and discontent. It seemed a mysterious change, and it was some minutes before I connected my roiling stew of negative emotions looking for a fight with reading the news some time earlier. Then I did make the connection. I put down my device. I tidied up the dinner dishes feeling a bit thoughtful and pre-occupied. Had I really made a point of willfully turning a lovely mood sour by my own hand? What was I thinking? I sigh, recognizing the temptation of turning my negative emotions on myself, rather than helping myself into a better emotional place with at least the same effort I brought to wrecking the pleasant mood I was in, in the first place; it’s easier to be hard on myself than it is to change.

I gave the news a rest, and renewed my commitment to not treating myself so badly in the first place. News retailers are in business, and business is focused on profit, and what is profitable is holding consumer attention, and what holds consumer attention is… outrage. Yep. We gobble up news about hate, about fear, about the outrageous and “what is wrong with the world” – and then wonder why we’re angry, outraged, or frightened. We’re some fancy fucking primates – not all that smart about some things, but damn, we’re fancy. We write news, put it in front of other primates, sell what we can – and write more of that. Think about that for a minute – if the point is sales, and profitability, and what sells are the stories about hate, doesn’t it seem quite obvious that more stories about hate will be written? I’m not saying that the world isn’t full up on hate these days, but I am saying that whether or not it were, if stories about hate are what sells the most views, clicks, and subscriptions, then aren’t there going to be just a whole bunch more stories about hate? To read. To be consumed. To set an impression of the world we live in, generally?

I put myself in a gentle time out and spent much of the evening meditating. It was a significant improvement over reading the news. I ended the evening feeling soothed and balanced. Hate in the world is not eased or relieved by fear, or anger, or more hate. Awareness that hate in the world is an issue is something to cultivate, but succumbing to it myself is to be avoided. That seems practical and obvious (to me). I don’t need to read even one more article about some human being treating another badly “because Trump” – I am aware that human beings mistreating each other is a problem. It was a problem before the election, and it will likely continue to be a problem after the next four years is behind us; some people choose some really vile verbs. Hate exists. Fear exists. Anger exists. People having those experiences are probably having them in fashion that seems justified, reasonable, or even appropriate to them in the moment. There are some hateful things going on. There are some scary circumstances (and scarier people) in the world. There are good reasons to be angry, and things worthy of being angry about.  It remains a worthy endeavor to treat people well, nonetheless – including the person in the mirror.

This morning I woke to the alarm. A new day. A chance to begin again. I don’t start with the news. I renew my commitment to myself to choose what I read with great care. Sensational headlines get my attention; that’s why they work, that’s why they are written that way. It’s generally enough to read the headline, sass it silently, and move on. Advertising and color commentary masquerading as actual news can be distracting – and emotive. I remind myself to avoid it. Hell, at some point, continuing to read and reread the same tired bullet points spread across media outlets, being used to stoke new outrage and keep reader engagement high, actually takes time away from taking action on causes that matter… in some cases, the very causes that are so engaging to read about. (How many news stories have you read about DAPL? Have you taken a leave from work to get out there and help? Donated money? Written letters to congress? Any verbs at all – or just reading along? How about the lead in the drinking water in Flint, Michigan? Local homelessness? Foreign wars? Just saying; there’s plenty in the world that could use some well-chosen verbs.)

I’ll point out that all the same choices and practices that soured my mood could be made more selectively, more skillfully, and used to build a great mood from a bad one: intellectual distraction, investment in a specific emotion by choosing experiences that tend to reinforce and enhance it, repetition, and mindfully engaging that emotional experience deeply.

Today is a good day to put down the news, set aside the outrage machinery, and choose some verbs. If the point of life is to live it… why would I be spending my precious limited lifetime reading the news, anyway? 😉

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Categories Anxiety, Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Parables, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, The Art of Being, War and News of War, winter, Words

Beginnings and Ends

November 28, 2016 //
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My coffee is still too hot to drink. The alarm clock seemed very loud when it woke me. I feel a bit as if I am moving especially slowly this morning; the clock corrects my very subjective perception of time. It’s a Monday after a long weekend. As if on cue, my brain launches a salvo of small anxiety-provoking attacks about this or that detail at work; I quash them with a minute or two of mindfulness, breathing deeply, present in this moment here. Work can at least wait until I actually get to the office! 🙂

Summer is definitely over. Autumn nearly over, too. Thanksgiving is done. The holiday season – my idea of holiday season, I mean – has begun. It is a beginning I wait for, plan for, and cherish each year. I have my own traditions, built on my values, refined over an adult lifetime, added to by one partnership, then another, over the years. The specifics are less meaningful or shareworthy, I think, than that I do have my own, chosen with care, selected from the celebratory traditions of my childhood, and then made my own, quite willfully. I like the way I do the holidays. It is rare for me to be overcome by ennui or despair during (or over, or about) the holidays, and I’ve tended to attribute that to doing them my own way… though, I don’t have any cite-able proof of that; it is my subject experience, only. For me, that’s enough, at least on the topic of holidays. 🙂

As days go, today doesn’t stand out in any obvious way. The beginning of a new work week. The beginning of the holiday season. I like beginnings, although they usually follow endings, which I often tend to think I dislike (compared to beginnings), but again, I have no clear evidence of that impression, and find myself wondering if the words truly reflect my thinking, or only some moment in my thinking that will quickly dissipate when my attention turns to other things? Change is. Whether an ending, a beginning, or some transitional point on a spectrum between those moments, change is part of the scenery on life’s journey.

I think of my Traveling Partner and smile. We have different approaches to living life in the moment; I prefer to plan, and to maintain a high level of readiness for many likely outcomes, and to cultivate a benevolent tolerance of circumstances that fall outside my planning, with frequent “rest breaks” from the hectic pace of life when I can retreat to a quiet corner of the world to take it all in, before returning to the busy-ness of life’s default settings. He has the boldness required to freely take life utterly as it comes, seemingly fearlessly and without anxiety; embracing change with a spontaneity that awes me, and often leaves me feeling unsettled.  We handle our emotional lives quite differently, too, both very human, both capable of great depths of emotion, both embracing intimacy and connection, and yet such different people day-to-day, in spite of shared values, shared experiences, and sharing (to this day) our journey in life over years. He finds too much planning constricting, and expresses feeling pressured. I find too little planning chaotic, and feel… pressured. lol We are more similar than we are different. This is likely true of each and all of us; more similar than different. Any human being’s most basic needs are likely to be pretty much the same from one person to the next. So many arguments between human beings are about meeting the same basic need in different ways, informed by prejudices, filtered through individual experience, limited by individual perspective, and individual understandings of definitions of terms. We’re still more similar than we are different – right down to not listening very well when another one of what we are is talking to us about their own experience. 😉

Taking time for simple pleasures matters, too.

Taking time for simple pleasures matters.

My coffee is not so hot now. I drink it down and consider a second one… there is time for that. I look across the table, the holiday tablecloth, placemats, and centerpiece are happy reminders of the weekend spent immersed in a wonderland of holiday memories, colorful trinkets, and tiny lights. The entire room is transformed. The tree stands in the far corner, and canisters of freshly baked cookies beyond that, on the bookshelf in that corner. Everywhere some Yule detail catches my eye. I smile. The soft glow of the room feels like it sources from within me. Sure, I’ll have a second coffee. Today is a good day to take time to enjoy simple pleasures. I’ll go do that. 🙂

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Categories Anxiety, autumn, Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, The Art of Being, women, Words

Embrace It or Change It

November 23, 2016 //
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I woke to the sound of a pounding no-nonsense rain hammering the chimney cover. It sounds like an act of vengeance, all beat and no melody. Because I enjoy rain, generally, I enjoy the sound. What if I disliked the rain, what then? It rains a lot here.

I glance across the table at my winter coat, draped over the other chair, and near to the heater, where I left it last night. I’d arrived after a rainy commute, pleased that my winter coat kept me both warm and dry. I had been thinking, on and off, about needing a winter coat. My last one managed to wrap me in rain resistant comfort (no longer quite waterproof) for 5 years.

Evening before last, I stood at the light rail platform waiting for the train in the rain, in a crowd, and realizing I just did not want to stand all the way home, and this particular train was clearly going to be standing room only, I ducked into a nearby discount retailer on a whim. Out of the rain, warm and dry, I could pass 15 minutes walking the aisles and thinking about life and then take the next train… Feeling purposeful, I walked to the outerwear section, and flipped through the coats. It was the fabric and cut of the thing that got my attention first, olive drab, cotton blend, and a not-quite-an-army-parka look to it. It made me smile. I tried it on and it fit like it was tailored and felt comfortable to move in. Warm. I tried talking myself out of it by trying on other coats. The alternatives did not fit as well, or (to my eye) look as good. I looked at the price tag – doable. It amuses me now that I didn’t wear it for the trip home that night.

Yesterday  morning wasn’t raining, but it was quite chilly. My coat was warm and dry. Comfortable. When I left the office at the end of the day, it was raining. It rains a lot here. I haven’t yet given this coat a water-proofing, and I wondered how well it would stand up to the rain without it? I arrived home, warm and dry, coat wet but not soaked through. A win all around. I even enjoyed the night walk, through the raindrops, across rain-slick pavement, and over the Hawthorne Bridge, wrapped in warmth. I’d have been completely miserable, soaked to the skin and cold to the bone, without a coat. I guess it’s more or less “winter” here now. I mean, the sort of winter we get, which is mostly chilly and muddy and wet, and not very frozen except for a few days in January, generally, and sometimes some snow in December.

The evening passed fairly quietly, in a state of great contentment. My neighbors were partying, which is common and not usually a problem, but the evening’s fun was doing them in with its excesses on this occasion, and at times that was fairly unpleasant to listen to. We usually hang out together a lot more, but since the break-in I have felt much less social, for no other reason than that this is my space and I intend to reclaim it for myself. I made a point to bitch gently about the noise, they were delighted that I am okay, and honestly I felt the same; reassured that they are okay, too, and that we matter to each other. The remainder of the evening was quiet, and I felt asleep feeling safe and content.

Huh. That’s a lot of words about a rainy evening and a winter coat. I’m not sure why. I think the point I was making is something more or less on the order of “don’t stand around being miserable… change something!” 🙂  As true this morning as it was last night, as it was the night before, as it was on election day, as it has been in the anxious days since then… Don’t like the state of things? Change. Change you, or change your choices, or change your circumstances – or embrace the state of things and change your perspective; it is not a requirement in life that we endure misery indefinitely, and certainly there is no requirement that we choose it. So… why do we? I’m not sure taking time out of a day to troubleshoot that is a productive choice. The why, it seems, mires me in a spiral of discontent. Accepting that choosing misery is something people do, something I have done myself, something I remain capable of, is probably much more valuable than knowing why, exactly. I already know enough to be able to choose change. 🙂

Search all the books that matter most to you, there are still verbs involved. :-)

Search all the books that matter most to you, there are still verbs involved. 🙂

I look around this morning with new eyes, more easily able to see the emotional “wear and tear” of the recent break-in. Resilient? Yes. Able to bounce-back? More so than ever before. Unaffected? Hardly; I see the signs of how the break-in affected my sense of safety and security all around me. Small details let go that are usually well-managed: a pile of odds and ends paperwork things has accumulated on the dining table, quite out of the ordinary for me these days, and I have been avoiding the studio entirely in a less-than-ideally-mentally-healthy way. Small signs that I took the violation of my space pretty hard. Reminders exist, too, in the sudden cessation of socializing with my neighbors; I come home, and lock the door. TV gone, which isn’t that big a deal frankly, but the result rather strangely is that I have spent the evenings and mornings quietly – utter quiet, no stereo, no music, no conversation. I feel safer in the quiet stillness, less likely to overlook an intrusion, or be caught by surprise.

Last night, I filled the apartment with music for a while, as I did over the weekend. This morning I am more awake, more aware of things needing to be done that have been let go for a few days. It has been a week. I’m okay now, save for the remaining indignity of being told what my possessions are “worth” by a faceless corporate entity that very much just wants to profit from my fear of disaster without having to pay out for actual disasters that actually happen. I’ll get through that, too. I am capable of great endurance.

A basic morning.

A basic morning.

I’m also capable of great change. Today is a good day to choose change. Today is a good day to treat myself well, wrapped in a warm coat and a smile, walking in the rain like it just doesn’t matter – because it doesn’t have to be endured, naked and alone. I have choices. 🙂

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Categories Anxiety, autumn, Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, The Art of Being, winter, Words

Morning Lands With a Thud

November 21, 2016 //
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Ouch. I woke to the alarm after a strangely interrupted and unsatisfying night’s sleep, and somehow, for some reason, as I rolled over and put my feet on the floor, I continued in that general direction and managed to… sort of… well, I rather clumsily pitched forward and wacked my head on the wall. At this point, it’s mostly amusing and odd. It was, initially, painful and aggravating. What the hell?

I stood far longer in the shower than I generally do, and the feeling that I am not quite awake persists even now. It wasn’t that I went to bed especially late (or early) or did anything unusual in the evening that might have messed with my sleep. My sleep tracker suggests I woke long enough to register my wakefulness 6 times during the night. I recall 3 of those. The last detected moment of restlessness was around 4 am, and when the alarm woke me at 5  am I was deeply asleep – so that’ll be the thing, then. I’d have done well to just get up that last time instead of coaxing myself back to sleep. lol Wish I’d have thought to – on the other hand, sleeping feels so good… 🙂 This morning I am relying on my coffee to ease me into being really awake.  I’ll get there, I know I will.

This morning isn’t the easy morning yesterday was. I’ve now managed to poke myself in the eye with a tissue, and spill coffee in my lap. I’ve dropped a spoonful of oatmeal onto my shirt. (I’ve basically gotten dressed three times now.) Yep – a good day to practice being kind to myself. Yeah… I think I can manage that one without causing myself an injury. lol

I’m so very human. You, too? Yeah. There are some days that rate a “do over” more than others, and it’s rare to get that chance. Instead, in my frustration, I imagine myself a small cork bobbing along in a vast ocean. For a moment, it seems there is nothing much to do about the state of things besides “going with it”, and sometimes just relaxing and being with the moment really is an excellent starting point. Eventually, I’ll feel more awake, more capable, and become more fish than cork in life’s ocean of choices. For now… I sip my coffee, quite carefully.

Taking time, making room for this moment, now.

Taking time, making room for this moment, now.

Today is a good day to practice mindfulness. Today is a good day to slow things down to a speed appropriate to my awareness, and catch up at my own pace. Today is a good day to remember we are each having our own experience, and make time for kindness; we could all use a little more of that. 🙂

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Categories Brain Injury, Free Will, health, Healthy Living, Mindfulness, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Sleepless Nights, The Big 5, Words
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