Archives for posts with tag: my results vary
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »

Results Vary

May 9, 2023 //
0

I’m sipping my coffee, a bit groggy at the start of the work day. I spent a portion of the evening swapping messages back and forth with my Traveling Partner. He was out on the road hundreds of miles away. Connectivity wasn’t great, and we’d already had a couple phone calls interrupted mid-sentence due to lack of signal strength. The gist of it all was mostly to do with terrible weather, and a less than ideally fun experience for this shake-down journey to test the gear and how we load it.

…Some things could be improved, and a bunch of stuff did not turn out as planned…

My Traveling Partner arrived home in the wee hours. I got up to welcome him home, greet him, and hear the tales of a traveler. Unexpected flooding, muddy side roads, and poor visibility due to a combination of things, rendered the experience less than ideally fun or satisfying. It made sense to cut it short, make some corrections, and begin again. 😀 I returned to bed after we spent some chill time reconnecting.

…A new day begins…

And so, here I am with this coffee, and falling back on an existing routine, more or less. I’m not vexed by the change of plans. My Traveling Partner understands the relative importance of getting this “me time”, and he’s suggested that he’ll likely give his away time another shot – with a difference selection of trails and camps, and a different direction of travel, perhaps – in just a day or two. I eye my list of things I’d planned to do with my solitary time. Some of it I can as easily do when my partner is at home, it just requires me to make it an actual priority for myself. That’s a healthy exercise, itself. I definitely need more practice putting myself on my own list. lol Over time, my results have varied.

I watch the sun rise through the windows of the co-work space. I’m still groggy. The beams of morning sunlight illuminate the artificial forsythia on this deck, bringing it to life for a time. I sip my coffee and consider beginning again.

Tags , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Categories Allegories, Brain Injury, breathe, Free Will, gratitude, Healthy Living, meditation, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, Spring

So Many Choices!

April 24, 2023 //
0

I am sipping flavored water this morning. I had my coffee on the commute into the office. It’s a Monday, and these days I rarely go into the office on a Monday, but I woke to a reminder from the VA about an appointment today that I had managed to memorize correctly for the date, but somehow thought that would be on Wednesday. It is not. It is today. LOL So I quickly adjusted my intentions, and hit the road for the morning commute. I expected it would be tedious… but… apparently I’m not alone in not going into an office on Mondays; there was almost no traffic at all.

I am thinking about the weekend, and the time spent planning future getaways with my Traveling Partner. The truck has us both fired up and eager to explore corners of favorite places and new destinations previously unreachable in his sedan, or in my Mazda. We have hours long conversations about camp kitchens, roof-top tents, jet-boil stoves vs all the other sorts, the necessity or luxury of taking a portable toilet, and does it make sense to have a solar generator and a fridge, or is that just ridiculous? There are so many options to choose from, so many approaches to overlanding, camping, hiking, from the gear to the routes to take, to the destinations near and far that we might want to see. It’s a pleasant way to pass time together, talking about the options and our choices, and whether we can tackle them now, or whether they go on a list for future purchases – or is there some other way we can do that thing in a less costly more personalized way, using our skills, time, and materials on hand? I’m getting to know a whole new side of my Traveling Partner – it’s very exciting.

I spent much of my weekend in the garden. Planting alyssum for future mounds of fragrant ground-covering flowers. Putting up a trellis for the peas. “Encouraging” the blueberries and the roses with oohs and aahs of delight that they are doing so well, already. Checking to see if the neighbor’s cat is staying out of the vegetables now that I’ve put that cat-deterring spikey-matt down here and there. Weeding out dandelions from the flower beds and the small bit of lawn we’ve got. (So many dandelions!) It was a lovely weekend. Time well-spent.

The real point here isn’t that I had a great weekend spent in excellent company. The point is that I had choices. A lot of choices. I chose to enjoy the weekend in spite of the pain I was in on Friday evening, and much of Saturday. I chose to go hither and thither with my Traveling Partner for occasional errands (I could have stayed home). I chose to garden. Together we chose to put time into figuring out what we really want of our leisure time – and how we can make that happen most easily. Oh, for sure, sometimes I let myself bob around like a cork on the ocean, and circumstances or the whims of my partner made the decisions for me… nonetheless, even taking that approach is making a choice. There is so much that is truly within our control through our power to choose. 🙂

I think I’m saying “don’t choose to be miserable then wonder why you are miserable; choose differently if you want a different experience”. Misery is sometimes kind of an “easy way out”, isn’t it? There are verbs involved in escaping misery. Results will vary. We become what we practice, though… so… keeping practicing? Choose something different? Begin again?

Choices are not always “simple” or “easy”. Outcomes are not guaranteed. We do have an astonishing number of choices, though…

I guess I’ll begin again. 😀

Tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Categories Allegories, Brain Injury, breathe, Free Will, gardening, gratitude, Healthy Living, inspiration, Love, meditation, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Oregon Trails, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, Spring, The Art of Being

Simple, but also Hard

April 17, 2023 //
0

I’m sipping my coffee and thinking about how often it seems that the solution – or greatest likelihood for that potential – is found within some relatively simple practice or task, and that all that is required is to do that thing. In this instance, I am thinking about my anxiety, which has recently flared up pretty severely – enough to amount to a reduction in quality of life and even a cognitive impairment. Unpleasant, for sure. Wrecks my sleep. Causes stressful rumination and massive thinking errors. Renders me defensive and likely to take dumb shit personally. Kicks over a domino effect of other challenges associated with both emotional and physical health. What is the simple practice that relieves my anxiety, reduces my “second dart” suffering, and restores the joy in my experience? Meditation. Mostly. Self-care, generally.

In my case, this time around, the drivers of my anxiety and my background stress are generally to do with work. More specifically, employment (and the implied day-to-day details of working for a living) and being employed, and spending X portion of my days dedicated to someone else’s agenda in return for cash. So… I took a closer look at two details: my self-care practices as they are, and the conditions at work that drive my stress. I checked for mismatched self-care-to-stress and no surprise, I found it. So, I have room to improve on how I manage my stress. Okay. Good starting point. I began there, with the weekend. Then, I examined the work conditions that are causing the stress and asked myself some basic questions…

  1. Are the current stressful conditions likely temporary, or more likely to be chronic, long-term, or characteristic of the role I’m in?
  2. Do I have realistic expectations?
  3. Are there obvious steps I can take to improve conditions thus reducing my stress?
  4. Is this job my only option?
  5. Is this job truly what I want to be doing – just as it is – or am I committed to the paycheck more than the role?

You can see where this leads. So, I took the time to reflect, and found that it made things “feel less personal” – which is useful, because things of this sort are rarely personal, and getting mired in that feeling can make it so much tougher to practice good self-care, or make skillful decisions about what I do with my time.

Over the weekend, I updated my resume. Looked over some other opportunities. Every new adventure leads to new questions, and new knowledge, and we don’t know what we don’t know. It’s a path. The journey is the destination.

There’s always room for a new beginning. 🙂

I finish my coffee, and sit with my thoughts for a moment. Soon enough I’ll set up the work day. First, I think I’ll take time for meditation, and maybe enjoy a short walk. Then? I’ll begin again. 😀

Tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Categories Allegories, Anxiety, Brain Injury, breathe, Free Will, Healthy Living, meditation, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Sleepless Nights, Spring, The Art of Being

It’s Always a Good Time to Change

April 16, 2023 //
0

I’m sipping a cup of tea and thinking about life. In general, things are good. My anxiety has flared up, though, and it often feels as though “dial is turned up to 11“. My PTSD is reliably aggravated by my anxiety… and my anxiety is aggravated when my PTSD flares up… and around and around I go. My finger tips are torn and my cuticles are ragged from gnawing at them mindlessly. My Traveling Partner notes my overall stress level and suggests various things to help me “relax” – I reliably reply that I am relaxed – I’m not.

My self-care is going to shit quickly… there’s definitely a “mind-body” connection to be considered, too. As my anxiety worsens, I sleep more poorly. As my quality of sleep degrades, my pain becomes harder to manage. As my physical condition worsens over time, my emotional resilience is undermined, and I become more volatile, more easily provoked to anger, and struggle more and more to maintain a rational perspective on circumstances and events. It’s an emotionally painful and demoralizing process.

…I’ve “been here” before. I have tools now that I lacked years ago. I know to address the source(s) of my stress, and to meditate regularly, and practice non-attachment. I have learned over time that my reaction-in-the-moment, at the best of times, is likely to be less helpful that a well-considered, responsive approach, that is nuanced and thorough. I know that I am prone to “catastrophizing” and that this can become a real problem very quickly, robbing me of perspective, and a sense of sufficiency. I quickly “lose my joy”.

So, I am sipping this cup of tea and thinking about practices, and next steps, and how best to take care of myself under the current circumstances. It’s not “easy”, but that’s often the case with stressful situations. I’m fortunate to have a supportive partner, and good quality of life; at least I’m not having to also worry about those details!

I had talked things over with my therapist at my most recent appointment. He made some follow-up suggestions – almost a “homework” assignment, in practical terms. It was just 4 things he wanted me to consider doing. I’ve done two of those, so far. Feels pretty good.

I sigh. I am thinking about how often it seems that when a person expresses a deep interest in a topic, or shares some detail that gives them great joy, there’s often someone lurking in their social network who seems eager to pull the rug out from under them. Weird, eh? Don’t do that. Treat people as people. Treat them with kindness (you don’t know what they are going through). Appreciate that you can’t possibly know life and the world (or the decision-making of others) from the perspective of someone else – even if they choose to share that perspective with you. We’re each having our own experience. Do what you can not to fuck things up for someone else, eh? If we each did just that, the world would be far more pleasant for many more people.

This weekend my Traveling Partner when for a long drive together. We talked about life, and future other camping and cool drives we’d like to take together out in the wildernesses of America. It was lovely. Time well-spent. It’s not enough, however pleasant, to remove all my challenges from my experience of self. I’ve got the issues I’ve got. I’m learning to manage them more skillfully – and sometimes that means “change”.

It’s time to breathe. Exhale. Relax. And begin again.

Tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Categories Allegories, Anxiety, Brain Injury, breathe, Free Will, Frustration, gratitude, Healthy Living, meditation, Metaphors, Mindfulness, more than a little bit of bitching, Oregon Trails, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, Sleepless Nights, Spring, The Art of Being, War and News of War

An Experience, A Metaphor

April 11, 2023 //
0

I got my car detailed yesterday. It’s a small SUV that suits me well. Over the past couple of years, though, as much as I love this car, I’d grown pretty used to using it as more of a tiny pick-up truck than as a “car”. We moved. Started a business. For big needs and small needs, my SUV served us well. We only needed to rent a truck specifically to haul something twice: once for a king size mattress, and again for a band-saw. Not bad. Here’s the thing though; I wasn’t investing time in proper care of my SUV all this time, and aside from occasionally taking out all the bits and pieces of trash and nonsense flung about or running it through a car wash now and then, I just wasn’t caring for my car as though it were a car I love… I was just “using it up”.

…I catch myself doing that with my own reserves of energy far too often…

So, after my Traveling Partner got a pick-up, it was clearly time to put things right with my car. I got it detailed, to give me a head start on keeping it nice, again.

Getting into my car after it was ready to be picked up was… an experience. It was cleaner than it was when I bought it! Wow. Every nook and cranny… clean. Carpets? Clean and deep dark black once again. Upholstery? Clean. Not a single crumb or mote of dust to be found. Super clean. That under-dash panel that popped off a couple years ago (that I was obviously too lazy to put back)? Back where it belongs. That wee clip or cover for something or other? It’s back on, too. The car smells clean. Wow. Just… yeah. Wow.

It was once again a thoroughly enjoyable experience to drive my SUV. Like… a total blast. I do love this particular car. Have since I first drove it. I’ll probably get a new one in a couple years – that good. In the meantime, though, the experience of enjoying this one? Fully restored. No trash or empty coffee cups on the floor. No dust or crumbs anywhere at all. It’s such a cute ride.

This is a real experience – but it’s also a metaphor. If we drive ourselves so hard that we begin using ourselves up, never taking time for self-care, or a moment to appreciate our accomplishments, or to just enjoy our life for a little while, we lose the joy that our experience can provide. We begin to lose a sense of what makes us special as an individual. We begin to take our qualities for granted, and become – even with ourself – exploitative and potentially even abusive (of our own self, and this fragile vessel in which we reside for this mortal lifetime). Life can become a grind. A series of errands.

It’s down to the details, isn’t it? How I care for myself matters; doing so, or not doing so, changes my experience of myself and my life. Worth considering.

I sip my coffee thinking happily about my very clean cute SUV. I think about the conversation my Traveling Partner and I were having last night about making some changes to our shared camping gear to account for the truck – it has vastly more room for things than my SUV! Trying to camp in style with just gear that fits in my SUV is a bit limiting, and fine for a solo experience, less so for the two of us. I grin thinking about my Traveling Partner shopping for a proper camp kitchen set-up. I generally get by with my Jet-Boil and freeze-dried camp meals. lol I’m looking forward to better camp food. 😀 (He’s a super good cook, too.)

A new day dawns. I think about odds and ends and things I need to get done. A quick trip to the grocery store. Put essentials back in the car now that it’s detailed (like, hey, the freakin’ paperwork back into the glovebox!!). Launder my all-weather gear that stays in my car for whenever I need it. Emergency kit. My spare cane. I shift in my seat restlessly.

…It’s already time to begin again…

Tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Categories Allegories, Brain Injury, breathe, Free Will, gratitude, Healthy Living, meditation, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Spring, The Art of Being
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »