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The Most Important Thing Right Now

June 30, 2014 //
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I woke feeling a sense of urgency-not-quite-dread that nearly launched me from my bed at high speed, and that my always helpful brain tried to frame up as ‘feeling purposeful’ straight away, no doubt to keep me moving along productively. My alarm woke me, which is rare. Rarer still, it didn’t wake me immediately, and the strident beeping was likely what caused me to wake in overdrive. Even after stopping myself, slowing down, doing some calming breath work and yoga, I got through my morning routine to the point at which I have coffee and email in front of me in an impressive 13 minutes. (No, I didn’t ‘time it’, I just checked the clock when I grabbed my coffee.) I’m not celebrating that as any sort of achievement; I’m not in the Army, there is no urgent crisis requiring timely action this morning, and I am not ‘running late’. In fact… I may never be ‘running late’ ever again…

I do have a ‘complicated relationship with time’.  That’s how I’ve framed up my issues with it, lately.  Before I started down the path of being more mindful and taking care of me, I referred to it as ‘The Time Thing’.  It was a very big, very ugly, very problematic deal with me. Being late, especially if caused through no action of my own, and unavoidably circumstantial, could set me off on a screaming tirade, real fury and rage, on this utterly inappropriate level that isn’t really describable with words. I wore, at one point in my late 20s, multiple wrist watches, carefully set to the same time. I was quietly compulsive about time and timing, and any suggestion that a work task was particularly time-sensitive could set me off taking time & motion data for days until I stripped the task down to its most pure elements, and mastered the timing completely for a more predictable experience.

Yep. I have a complicated relationship with time.  It hasn’t been as bad as all that for a long while, but planning things remains pretty critical to my every day experience, and although I’m damned adaptable in the face of plans deviating from reality – because they nearly always do – I still experience pretty significant stress from small things like being a few minutes late. (I’m salaried, but in spite of that I walk into the office each day at a very predictable time, with little deviation, quite as a matter of practice, rather than effort.) Many of my other behaviors around habits, routines, and productivity build off my issues with time, and timeliness.

I may be done with that. (I may not be.) This morning, over my coffee and my Facebook feed, someone linked an article with a headline that caught my attention. “The Day I Stopped Saying Hurry Up”  I rarely expect an article to resonate with me on this level. We lose so much when we hurry. Why do I keep doing it? Why all the stress over a moment in time that is not now? Isn’t the first most important thing right now always right now, itself? Find my moment? I’m standing on it. Suddenly, I feel so free.  Has the burden of Time been that heavy for so long?  I’m not saying I want to be late for work, but I think I’m okay with leaving late, early, or at some moment on the clock that isn’t pre-selected.

Taking a moment to observe and experience life unplanned, unscripted, and unafraid is worth 'being late'; it is living life.

Taking a moment to observe and experience life unplanned, unscripted, and unafraid is worth ‘being late’; it is living life.

…And I’m okay with enjoying this feeling and not analyzing it more.

Progress, moment by moment, day by day, like a flower blooming its own way, in its own time.

Progress, moment by moment, day by day, like a flower blooming its own way, in its own time.

I enjoy planning things. Learning the how-to of not over-investing in a specific outcome releases planning from its future job assignment of ‘driving stress’, too, and leaves the fun of planning with the planning, allowing anticipation to be a lovely enjoyable experience all its own. I enjoy anticipation. I dislike disappointment. The only thing connecting those experiences is attachment to an outcome. Learning to plan without attachment to the outcome is an interesting exercise in mindfully balancing past experience with potential experience, and preparing for what could be, while enjoying what is. I’m obviously still thinking about attachment, and clinging, and how much I lose when I let go of ‘now’ and immerse myself in what isn’t, more than what is. I’d like to become very skilled at letting go of attachment, and still loving, still feeling, still exploring compassion and joy.

Each ‘now’ moment is so incredibly precious.

Another work week begins. The weekend was not without its highs and lows. I could be unhappy that I didn’t go hiking yesterday… or delighted that I had such a lovely quiet Sunday and got so much done, and enjoyed my leisure time in other ways; the Farmer’s Market, a pleasant walk, Chinese food for dinner.  I could be blue because of some mistake or misstep or other, and bemoan my essential humanity and how much work it takes to do my best and be this amazing woman I am becoming…or I can celebrate the being and becoming of this amazing woman I am growing to be over time, and the unspeakable joy life sometimes brings me now. I could fuss frustratedly that the moments of love and connection with my partners are so few some days…or be grateful to love so well, and be loved in return, when so many don’t have that opportunity at all, through circumstances, or the choices they make. Perspective matters.

So many opportunities, so many decision-making moments, making choice about time can be very limiting.

So many opportunities, so many decision-making moments, making choice about time can be very limiting. Today is a good day to choose ‘now’.

Today is a good day for a fresh start. Today is a good day for choices that meet my needs over time. Today is a good day for acceptance, compassion, and kindness. Today, the most important thing is right now.

 

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Categories Anxiety, Brain Injury, Healthy Living, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, The Big 5, women, Words

Bread and Circuses

June 20, 2014 //
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It’s a quiet morning, following gently on the heels of a pleasant and lovely yesterday. My mood isn’t as steady or reliable as I anticipate the day to come being; I am considering things.  When I find myself stuck on some detail, forcing it into context, molding it into part of the narrative of the day, of the week, of my life, I remind myself of the recent readings on ‘narrative bias’ and cognitive errors, in general.  I give myself a moment of understanding and compassion; it’s damned hard to let go of explaining everything, and to pursue questions instead.  It’s so easy to be pulled  into drama and bullshit – mine, someone else’s, the world’s.

The loveliness of the day is only a distraction from suffering if we choose to be aware of it.

The loveliness of the day is only a distraction from suffering if we choose to be aware of it.

I saw a meme in my Facebook feed recently, and it was the sort of catchy slogan, delivered at just the right moment for the words to easily slide into the context of my experience, that it has stuck with me.  Of course, after the fact it turns out to be neither new nor recent. “Not my circus. Not my monkeys.”  Still… I find myself delighted by the simple way it conveys meaning.  I like it. I’ll keep it. lol  I’ve found it pretty easily delivers a powerful reminder of the suffering of attachment, of judgement, and of taking ownership of what isn’t my own. Handy.

I am feeling uneasy, this morning. Struggling to find real balance again after rocking my emotional boat in therapy this week, and after a powerful conversation – honest, real, open, and utterly frank – with a lover that changes…something.  For the better? I don’t know. Is it a big deal? I don’t know. Does it really change any possible outcomes? I don’t know. What does it mean? I don’t know. Hell, I don’t even have great questions to consider, yet.  The step forward in therapy is by far the bigger deal, I suspect, but the heart speaks its own language and sets its own priorities, and even there… my step forward in therapy still matters, and remains suggestive of change to come.

What was the big deal with therapy? Well, simply that I am finally able to express my experience as a trauma survivor fairly simply, in a sentence, using words, without collapsing in tears, or being reduced to an animal state of panic, or wordless terror. I used my words. It isn’t more than that, and it is every bit of that, and I’m proud of myself for taking another step forward.  It isn’t time yet to share such a thing with the world.  It’s not ‘for you’, not yet. Maybe we’ll get there, together, one day? Having never just said it, out loud, so simply, to another real human being, I didn’t know what that experience would be like. Hearing the words said, hearing them hang in the silence and safety of a pleasantly calm office, isn’t really describable, either. I cried – healthy tears, honest sadness, regret, hurt, suffering…and more confused and astonished than angry or terrified. Confused that human beings can be so cruel. Astonished that I said words aloud that I had once been assured would result in my immediate subjection to a long, painful, lingering consequence – and nothing happened to me, aside from feeling all those hot tears slide quietly down my cheeks.  Well. Not ‘nothing’. Something did ‘happen to me’. I know – because I made the choice to make it happen. I don’t have words for the happening, and it is a very subjective thing. Worthy of my attention and consideration, and so, this morning, I consider it.

I’m not too interested in feeling sad this morning, which is a bit irksome since I clearly do, now and again. I find myself rather idly wondering how long this feeling of unease will last, and what it will take to drive it away…then notice with amusement that the idle wondering is much more low-key than the one-time state of panic and dread that would have saturated such a morning, as little as a year ago. Progress. Small steps. Good choices. Good practices.  Focused on what nourishes me, and keeps me headed down my own path, toward my own goals, and meets my own needs over time… Today is a good day to be.

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Categories Anxiety, Brain Injury, Free Will, grief, Healthy Living, Hormone Hell, Love, Menopause, Metaphors, Mindfulness, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, The Big 5, women, Words

More of an Edge Than a Line

June 8, 2014 //
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I slept in this morning, greedily immersing myself in more sleep after each moment of waking, until the morning light through the curtain, and the glow of the aquarium, had become too much to sleep through.  I crashed early last night, fatigued with hormones, hot flashes, emotional volatility and promise threat promise likelihood inevitability of largely unpredictable change future happenings. It’s been that sort of week.

It's still a journey. There's still no map.

It’s still a journey. There’s still no map.

Again, I find myself quite human. Indecisive. Fearful. Bolting from circumstances toward the unknown without patient and thorough consideration; traveling through life as a victim (again) instead of… well, whatever better options there are, and there are many (any of them would indeed be an improvement over panic).  Stress walks my PTSD down the aisle with my TBI and the resulting marriage, like many, is definitely not ‘made in heaven’.  In the middle of a terse conversation about entirely other matters, a partner observed in a frustrated tone that I could take a moment to show myself some compassion.

Well…yeah. Why wasn’t I?

This morning, over my coffee, contemplating recent events and conversations, thinking about needs, looking to understand ‘what matters most’ for me, looking to identify anything that could be tripping me up simply because it is unattended to… I read this in my newsfeed.  Purportedly an article about patience, it spoke to me on a deeper level, and although each and every numbered point is a reminder, rather than new information, the reminders were timely, and utterly relevant.  Meditation. Practice. Acceptance. Recognizing the infinitesimal line between the stories I tell myself, and what is – or may be.

There aren’t many things that calm me the way meditation can. How do I ever miss on that one? Still human.  I make choices, and in a brief moment on a sunny morning it can seem ‘no big deal’ to skip a few minutes of meditation… right? Free will… “I’m a grown up, after all”… “It’s such a beautiful day, and I’m in a great place…” “I just have to get this one thing done…” “It’s not like meditation is medication…”  My TBI already causes me a great deal of difficulty with building habits; not staying firmly committed is careless risk taking (for me) of the highest order.  My ability to show myself some kindness, some compassion, and to recognize my own needs and accept that meeting them is both critical and challenging, snuck off without my noticing and I dived into self-directed anger, resentment, disappointment with myself, berating myself for any decision that could have been hasty or in error, each moment of clouded judgment or poor reasoning… Yep. Still quite human. Still battling my demons, fighting my hormones, fighting the chaos and damage, fighting to go being enduring to achieve thriving. I sure don’t make it easy on me.

I do have ‘needs’, legitimate, non-negotiable, take-care-of-me, value-based, this-is-what-it-takes-to-thrive sorts of needs. Everyone does.  I have not always made it important to recognize and understand what those needs really are, beyond the survival basics, and it’s slow going learning what matters most to me.  I sometimes stumble on an issue, boundary, limitation, or need as an unexpected byproduct of some other event or decision-making; the undiscovered need becomes an unanticipated confound in reasoning that had seemed simple and clear, or becomes the thing that throws a beautiful plan completely off track. It’s inconvenient and inefficient to learn things in this haphazard fashion, and I rather pointlessly resent the crap out of it, wasting valuable time that could be spent understanding more that could be understood.

Patience is hard sometimes. Taking a step back and saying ‘this may not make as much sense as I thought it did’ can be very humbling. Looking into the face of an unmet need that has evolved over decades, as much because I have treated myself callously, and without regard for my own emotional wellness, hurts a lot. However much any one human being has ever hurt me, their efforts do not measure up to the pain and suffering I have inflicted on my own heart. That’s a hard thing to accept first thing on a lovely Sunday morning… but there it is.  How do I move on from the damage inflicted by others when I don’t allow myself to move on from the damage I inflict on myself?

For a few moments last night, I sat alone, still, bereft in my solitude, hurting, sad… frozen. I was immobilized by pain. The evening light began to fade… I sat quietly for uncounted long minutes, heart thumping evenly, breathing. Without planning it, I allowed my state of being to evolve from being emotionally paralyzed to a gentler place. Breathing. Aware. Letting the ‘weight of it all’ fall away.  I made room for my pain, for my confusion, for the simple basic needs of being human: resting when fatigued, comfort when emotional, healing when injured, sustenance, compassion.  I reached out to one partner, then another, open to healing, open to… being open.  Trusting and vulnerable.  They, too, are human.  We all understand the feelings of urgency, fear, need. We all make mistakes. We all struggle to make sense of out of our confusion.

Another perspective.

Another perspective.

I am standing on the edge of something…feeling a little as if the hike I took yesterday could have resulted in more clarity of thought than it did…wondering why it didn’t… feeling open, aware, trusting events to unfold as they will, for things to turn out in some fashion that allows for each of us to grow, to feel calm and secure, to discover and nurture ‘what matters most’ for our own hearts, to gently nurture and support what matter most for the hearts of others.

Today is a good day for calm, and  a good day for comfort.  Today is a good day to meditate, and show myself ‘a softer side’.  Today is a good day to be aware, content, and compassionate.  Today is a good day to change the world.

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Categories Anxiety, Brain Injury, Free Will, grief, Logic & Reason, Love, Menopause, Mindfulness, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Sleepless Nights, The Big 5, women, Words

Words Are Like Bullets

June 2, 2014 //
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Sometimes life is easy, sometimes it’s hard. Tonight, I sit sweat-soaked, tired, worried, strained, tearful, confused, and honestly – just not happy to be away from home.  Hotel rooms, many of them, have a certain… ‘quality’. Let’s be honest, more a ‘characteristic’ than a quality, perhaps? It is easy to become immersed in the dreary, the grim, the fatiguing, the sad, the low… I wonder how often someone has sat, morose and alone, in a hotel room and written great tragic poetry, gritty urban thrillers, or words of disconnection, loneliness, and pain? Probably a lot.

What it is, what it isn't.

What it is, what it isn’t.

I’d rather not succumb to the dingy yellows and ochres of the decor, and hoping to provide some relief from the strangeness of the air, the windows are thrown open to breezes and the sounds of traffic. I am, nonetheless, very much alone.  The sweat that poured off me so freely in the afternoon heat as I made my way to the hotel is now chilling me through the dampness of my shirt. My head aches.  I was as efficient as I could will myself to be in the moment, purposeful, gentle, wasteful of neither time nor movement; there were other needs to meet than my own. Still, efficiency is only as useful as it is skillful, and my ankle throbs quietly reminding me that my ankle brace is still in my pack, from yesterday’s hike, forgotten in the joy of achievement and fun, and overlooked in my purposeful rush to pack and make a timely check-in to this solitary, rather cramped room peeking at the street below, through fluttering leaves.  I like the view much more than the room.

The world waits outside this room, and the world has no stress over any concerns of mine at the moment. I’m hungry. The evening is pleasant. There is no need to succumb to sorrow and pain by an effort of will, and I realize that I’m hungry.  The bottled water in the room is ‘courteously’ provided at a ludicrous mark up. There is a grocery store down the street, and in the frenzy of human beings handling human affairs I may find, too, a moment of kind contact, a brief connection, a reminder of all the good that is…

Do I take the red pill – or the blue pill? [cue Matrix theme, cut to clip of sexy people in shiny black clothes doing stuff in slow motion]

I will watch South Park tonight, and I’ll laugh – and in laughing is perspective, and healing, and a reminder that we’re all in this together, each having our own experience, each doing the best we know to do, mostly, when we can, generally, or at least…we’re probably trying, and god damn – all most of us want is to be heard, to feel visible, to know that the people who matter to us find that we matter as well.

Today is a good day to wonder ‘what can I learn from this’.  Today is a good day to consider this woman I am, and who I want to be. Today is a good day to be the change I want to see in the world.

 

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Categories Anxiety, Brain Injury, Free Will, grief, Love, Menopause, Metaphors, Mindfulness, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Sleepless Nights, Summer, women, Words

Gratitude & Pain

May 9, 2014 //
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(I began this post last night, on the train as I rode home…)

Today I hurt. I want to write meaningfully, thoughtfully, and there’s plenty going on in everyday life that is noteworthy, thought-provoking, or warrants further consideration, perspective, and critical thought…but I may not have what it takes, tonight.

I’m grateful for this broken brain. Well, less so for the damaged bits, but in general very grateful; it serves most brain sorts of purposes nicely, and although it lets me down on some basics most people take for granted, it wows me in some ways that few are fortunate to share. So… yeah. Grateful.  This amazing brain keeps right on going, thinking, wondering, analyzing, imagining… long past the point of fatigue.  The creative thing is awesome. Words are fun. Numbers, too. Emotions are also slowly becoming more of a playground than a trap, or betrayal.

Today I hurt. There are things to understand, and although they’ll wait if they must, it isn’t ideal. There are decisions, choices, opportunities, challenges… brain at the ready… but I hurt and I lose focus again and again with the pain.  I worry about my knees… even to extremes, wondering if the end of walking is on the horizon.  I take some deep breaths, I keep right on walking – slowly, with a cane – because if I wake up tomorrow unable to walk, I would surely regret not walking today.

Pain is such a personal thing. I don’t take many steps to ensure that people around me get it, really understand that I am hurting. I expect to be able to simple call it out once and have that be ‘enough’. That only works for strangers, though. People closer tend to forget in minutes or hours, because we’re having a good time, or because I’m in a good mood.  I can’t see letting the pain make the rules all the time.  I’ve learned something over the years, too; everyone hurts, and everyone’s pain is simply the worst they can imagine.  Pain is not a friend of cognition, and while I may be able to salvage a good mood out of a day of hurting, between the pain itself and the medication for it, my senses and my intellect are blunted. I generally work on as little medication as possible… and because it is work, and I am a professional, I don’t say much about it.  It seems weak to bitch (that’s my own baggage). I hurt, but I think better than if I were heavily medicated and didn’t hurt. lol. What a choice.

Choices. I know more about what I need over time, what I want – what I want, without regard to the desires of others, and in the context of my own values, my own needs, my own particular singular dream of a good life, based on sufficiency, contentment, and quiet joy. Getting there isn’t difficult because of the costliness of what I want and need, myself. Getting there is difficult because we human primates are as different one from another as we are similar, and I’m only just learning to set clear rational boundaries, and to observe and respect the boundaries of others.  It’s a new-ish thing for me to both have an awareness of what I really want/need in life – and also have a clear awareness of what is in my way.  (Which is predictably useful information to have, on both counts.) Newer still to be able to recognize, acknowledge, and even embrace what others want and need, and understand what I may be doing that could come across as ‘being in their way’.

I’m tired. I hurt. I want to write, and I urgently need to finish thinking some things through and make a clear choice and follow through on it.  Have you ever observed how much more difficult that can be when the choice that seems most obvious carries with it some short-term negative experience?  Choosing pain – even to experience profound positive changes – is difficult. I know pain hurts.  Pain is quite a deterrent.

If I were offered many millions of dollars – and in return I would have my back and arm broken, a skull fracture, my ankle shattered, and oh… migraines, perhaps – would I take the deal? I’m betting if I had experienced those pains it would be much harder to go for those millions, while if I had never experienced those sorts of pain, I likely would opt in for the cash pretty quickly.  I have not applied the scientific method to these musings, I’m just saying; it seems likely based on what I know of myself, and my human experience.

An uncompleted post. A night of uncomfortable sleep. The dawn of a new day.

An uncompleted post. A night of uncomfortable sleep. The dawn of a new day.

I finished the evening with yoga, meditation, and crafting a birthday gift for my mother, after dinner out with my partner, who is headed to NYC later this morning for a few days reconnecting with friends and family.  The meal was excellent and the service exceptional. What made the meal was definitely the company and the conversation. The remaining hours were spent gently; my knee just didn’t allow for more energetic recreation, and my evenings are usually chill time for study, writing, and quiet conversation, anyway.  The pain didn’t change those things.

I woke this morning, after a strange night of dreamless, but brief sleep. I didn’t really ‘get sleepy’ until far into the wee hours, and woke ahead of the alarm by 44 minutes. I don’t feel especially fatigued by the short night, and I’m hopeful that I’ll be alert and still feeling sufficiently rested to enjoy my other partner’s homecoming from the his wilderness adventure. I’m eager to hear about it. Eager to share my own experience.

Right at the moment, life feels very good – and it feels very genuine. It’s a feeling and a context in which I thrive.

Simple things matter so much.

Simple things matter so much.

Today is a good day to smile back, and a good day to be kind. Today is a good day to step boldly into the world, open to adventure. Today is a good day for love, compassion, and joy. 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, Sleepless Nights, Spring, Uncategorized, women, Words
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