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The Game Of Life

April 29, 2014 //
0

Life can feel pretty chaotic, happenstance, random, coincidental or strange. I’ve got my free will, you’ve got yours, we’ve all got circumstances. Somewhere in the recesses of my fragmented memory I hear a memory of myself screaming at someone “This is not a fucking GAME!”

Isn’t it?

Is it?

What if it actually were, and we could know that going into it, and as with any game, even have the rules in front of us, and a moment to get set up? There are lots of sorts of games that life is rather like. Games make good metaphors of life for that reason, and many games creep into our language as figures of speech. (I’m looking at you, Baseball!)

If you had a stack of chips – call it your savings – and cash flow that replenished that supply – call it ‘a job’ – and some goals to reach with those resources, and some challenges and hurdles to overcome… that sounds a lot like life. The only thing missing is a system of winners and losers, and a way to keep score. And a timer. Games always end.

Here’s your first goal, first round of the game: acquire suitable housing. lol Yep. There are a lot of options. Do your chips cover what you want most? No? I guess rethinking that makes sense then… What can you afford? Meet the need as soon as possible, improve over time; it’s a common strategy. What if you are fortunate enough that you don’t want or require more than the basics? Your chips pile up! Is that important? No – they’re just chips. lol  A lot of people miss that detail.  We primates are a competitive bunch – what we grab up and keep close doesn’t have to have real value, it just has to be more of whatever it is than that monkey over there has. Hell, in some groups, even having more pain, more misery, amounts to riches.

Every choice we make matters. Every opportunity for a decision, or indecision, or action or inaction, takes our piece another step around the game board.  We progress toward our goals, or move away from them. Sometimes we stand still.

This morning, I’m playing The Game Of Life in my imagination. I’m starting with the chips I’ve got, the job I have, and mentally rebuilding my experience with those resources. Not personally my own? I’m not counting it.  What do I really need? What do I want? What contributes value to my experience? What do I keep, what I do I let go? What can I have? What is out of reach? What matters most?  At the conclusion of this morning’s game, I’m hoping for a clearer picture of the life I would like to be really living. A good map makes any destination easier to reach.

What will I choose to fill my life, my home, my experience?

What will I choose to fill my life, my home, my experience?

Few challenges are as challenging as they seem. Few hurdles stand as tall as we fear. Our choices matter – even our choice about what matters, and what the choices may be.  Today is a good day to make good choices.

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Categories Anxiety, Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Love, Menopause, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Spring, Turning 50, women, Words

In the Garden

April 28, 2014 //
0

This weekend was well-spent on healing and wellness, gardening, love, meditation; it was a delightfully quiet weekend.  In spite of aching knees, juggling a cane, and the frequent heavy rain showers, I spent much of the weekend in the garden, hands in the earth, feet on the ground, eyes skyward or focused on some tiny wonder.  The fresh spring air, and dampness of raindrops on my skin as they loose from where they had collected, when I brush by unconcerned, soaks into my skin, into my heart. I feel refreshed and whole and free.

There have been few places or times in my life when I had no garden at all.  Even in apartment living, I’ve generally had at least some potted herbs, perhaps a rose, or a potted tree of some sort. In 32 years of adult life, I’ve been without a garden for only about 5 years. Some gardens were a continuous struggle with drought, heat, rain, drainage, bugs, critters, in-laws, distance…something. It isn’t always easy. Actually, it’s rarely ‘easy’. Gardening is work, and commitment, and planning, and more of all that and trouble-shooting on top of it.  Long before I heard the word ‘mindfulness’ used in a sentence, I found ‘now’ in my garden. Healing perspective is in my garden. A breath of fresh air, that too, I can find in my garden. A few minutes of stillness, some wonder, excitement, a bit of novelty, a sense of home, peace and contentment, adventure…all in my garden. Lush greens, dark corners, hidden corners of peace and loveliness, and the occasional stray flower of a sort I don’t recall planting; my garden has been the foundation and safe deposit box of whatever sanity I could hang on to, in many years of my life.

Remember the gazing ball that was broken last year? I replaced it Sunday.

The new gazing ball, honoring the hold one; this one already broken, a mosaic of shattered glass.

The new gazing ball, honoring the hold one; this one already broken, a mosaic of shattered glass.

It was that sort of weekend in the garden. I puttered around tying off loose ends, finishing projects, following up on things, taking a second look… it was a weekend for pleasure and perspective.

...And a new bird bath.

…And a new bird bath.

I sometimes overlook how healing I find the garden. A moment of OPD or weirdness, a flare up of my arthritis, or a trip to hormone hell, and even though I know how healing the garden can be, it isn’t always my first destination on that journey. Still human. I checked.

Beauty feels so good.

Beauty feels so good.

It’s worth taking the time to ‘be’ in the garden. Permanence is not relevant. I had allowed myself to be distracted by impermanence, somehow. Perhaps tomorrow, or next year, or 5 years from now, this will not be my garden. Is that important now? Now is the garden as I stand in it. It needn’t wait for another day, or more certainty, or something better, or more of… it needn’t wait at all.  The garden has planning and future, and daydreaming, of course, and all that is as lovely as soap bubbles on a spring breeze. The garden is a very ‘right now’ place nonetheless.  It has my history, my present, and my future along stone paths, and held in bright pots, unfolding each moment as a seed of some ‘next time’.

My history. "Splish-Splash" rose [Moore. 1994] I've had this miniature, this very plant, with me since 1995.

My history. “Splish-Splash” rose [Moore. 1994] I’ve had this miniature, this very plant, with me since 1995.

I have moved a lot. I’ve had more than one garden. I’ll likely have others. Each is precious to me, and each is ‘my garden’ for all the days I tend it. I hold nothing back; I garden now, even though the future is not assured.

The garden is my future, as well as my now, holding my daydreams gently. Seedlings of the California poppy border I planted this spring are just coming up now.

The garden is my future, as well as my now, holding my daydreams gently. Seedlings of the California poppy border I planted this spring are just coming up now.

This weekend I enjoyed the garden and let life’s small drama’s pass me by as much as possible.  It made for a beautiful weekend, and a lovely ‘now’.

Today is a good day to smile and make eye contact with strangers. Today is a good day to listen to the answers to questions, and hear more than words. Today is a good day to enjoy the spring. Today is a good day for kindness and wonder. Today is a good day to change the world.

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Categories Anxiety, Brain Injury, Free Will, gardening, Healthy Living, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Roses, Spring, Turning 50, women, Words

The Perfectly Miserable Man

April 9, 2014 //
5

There’s this guy…

…Oh, hey, some ground rules, first. I’m pretty human and I have my share of petty moments; it matters to me to be compassionate, to be aware that we are each having our own experience, and to do my best to be non-judgmental. I see human behavior. Being human, myself, I have some. I don’t always understand it, and liking words I often want to describe it. Today, too. So, this one is more a character study than a judgement, and I’ll do my best to attend to my phrasing. 🙂

Each of us is having our own experience.

Each of us is having our own experience.

There’s this guy I see regularly on my commute to work, in the morning. I usually see him near the coffee stand. Days when I see him, I’m struck by how much I want to ‘type-cast’ him. He has a very ‘East Coast vibe’. He also strikes me as the essence of The Perfectly Miserable Man. I feel a bit sad for him, generally, because on any given day he seems stressed to the breaking point, and entirely and completely miserable. He also conveys some other things through his discontent tone. He seems angry, disagreeable, and entitled. I wonder each time I see him what it is about life that sucks so much for him that he finds the will to be that miserable.

I’m not being mean. A day or two ago, I walked up to the coffee stand, and gave the gentleman who runs it my order, a latte. Between my words, and the barista’s reply, The Perfectly Miserable Man rushed up, inserted himself physically between me, and the counter, and barked at the barista “Do you have half and half?”. It was obvious the barista was as startled as I was, and didn’t quite hear what this other potential customer had said. He replied, courteously enough, “I’m sorry?”  The Perfectly Miserable Man doesn’t have time for polite trivialities, and went on a tirade about the intelligence of the barista, his honesty, his work skills, then turned attention to the sorry state of the world, and his own misery that he could be treated so badly by one and all. It was damned eloquent. Part of me also found it… hilarious. It was illuminating. I could see The Perfectly Miserable Man building his exquisite misery in front of me, a word at a time. Escalating emotionally in the absence of any stimulus outside his own creation – highly efficient. Sad, too, because he could choose differently, and have a very different experience.

Once the barista understood that The Perfectly Miserable Man was asking for free half and half for coffee he hadn’t purchased there – actually, he hadn’t purchased anything on that day – the barista politely, and rather graciously, apologized that he didn’t have the stock on hand to give away half and half.  The Perfectly Miserable Man wasn’t satisfied with that and flung more than offered a dollar for some half and half. The barista asked how much he wanted, still being polite, and when The Perfectly Miserable Man indicated about a tablespoon, the barista handed over the carafe of half and half.

The story doesn’t really end there. I might not have been sitting around mulling this over if it had. The Perfectly Miserable Man accepted the half and half, managing to be rude, dismissive, and confrontational about it. Then he poured about 6 ounces of half and half into an empty cup, and put it into his lunch box, for later. He crossly muttered the entire time about the service, the cream, the day, having to pay for cream as a customer, the weather, the timing of the bus, and quite a few other things it never occurred to me qualified as complaints. He doesn’t mutter quietly, either. His words are obviously intended to be heard – and any overt recognition, eye contact, change of expression, is likely to result in a more directed bit of misery. He is so completely miserable.

I don’t actually get it, and I’ve started to look for him on the way to work. Some qualities and characteristics can be difficult to study, to understand, because subtleties require some prerequisite knowledge. I’ve certainly been miserable. I’ve grown to understand how much choice is involved in that.  Growing further, and learning to make different choices and not live an experience steeped in misery is worth doing. The Perfectly Miserable Man gives me some interesting life curriculum – he works really hard at misery, and is clearly very successful at it. I don’t need to know why to appreciate the rare opportunity to see it, study it. Seriously? This guy’s misery is on a level of real craftsmanship! Without fail, every time I see him on the way to work, he is miserable, and acting on it with his will, and demonstrating it for his community… I wonder each morning that I don’t see him, if perhaps I can’t recognize him if he isn’t miserable, and I overlook him when he’s having a good day? lol.

Not judging; it sucks to see him suffer, and I want to share that it doesn’t have to be that way.  I also recognize that he’s his own being, on his own path. He gets to make his own choices. I hope he gets some good days. I appreciate that his misery is a powerful demonstration I can study from afar.

I’ve been miserable. I don’t like the feelings that are part of misery. When I am not miserable, I can see quite clearly how much will and choice go into maintaining misery. When I feel miserable, I find it very hard to make choices that free me, even when I can clearly see it is a matter of choice. Misery is some nasty shit. I definitely want to learn the skills, and build my will, to improve my ability to be resilient in the face of moments of misery. It doesn’t look like The Perfectly Miserable Man enjoys life.

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

Moved, Aware, Not Discouraged

March 27, 2014 //
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It’s been an interesting few days since my homecoming. Having returned home feeling focused, committed to specific goals, clear-headed and purposeful, serene and balanced, I was unsurprised to walk into an emotional hurricane at home; we are all having our own experience. We’re human, we have emotions, and life serves up hearty helpings of what drives them. They are no more unexpected than a hurricane, and nearly always visible on the horizon.  I’ve been in real hurricanes. Generally, savvy folks don’t stand around stunned letting everything around them go to hell, and they don’t seem unaware that there is gale force wind blowing them off course, or torrential rain on their parade.

So, I face the hurricane myself, moved by the experiences of others, aware of the destructive potential of the chaos, and not discouraged from my own goals or from seeing to my own needs. I am experienced with the weather we were having. lol.  I would find value in some sort of vast check list of experiences and circumstances that were once entirely outside my ability to endure, withstand, negotiate, enjoy, manage, cherish… and as each such occurs anew and I face it, experience it, with new tools, I could check it off the list. I like checking things off lists, actually. It gives me a sense of progress.

I’d still love to be able to share more about my beach experience and certain other bits and pieces; there is a lot of amazing stuff going on in my life as an individual, and I’m often frustrated that I lack the skills to really share them with my loves.  If I gave myself a chance at it, I could wallow in disappointment and discontent when I find that some wonderful bit of wonder ends up disregarded in favor of OPD.   Still, everyday life manages to keep my brain busy, my heart alive, and my calendar full.  Even what hurts or feels uncomfortable or seems inexplicable, is stuff to study, and to which I can bring mindfulness, and new practices very much worth practicing.  I am a student of life, not just visiting or passing through.

One view of the horizon.

One view of the horizon.

One very small thing I considered over the weekend at the beach was my health and fitness. What now seems a very long time ago I was much heavier than I wanted to be, and heavier than what feels comfortable on my frame. My weight was contributing to health problems, and even I could see that. It was also a significant driver of personal discontent and feelings of unworthiness.  I took matters in hand – and it’s an entirely other story than what I’m really on about this morning – and I dropped a lot of weight in a year.  It has stayed off. I’m much fitter, and healthier – but I haven’t reached my goal, and I’m still heavier than would be ideally healthy, and my fitness could still use improvement. I could moan about my weight loss progress being stalled for two years and launch a barrage of small contributing factors, but seriously? I wasn’t as committed as I needed to be to reach the goal I had set for myself.  I am accepted and loved by those who accept and love me, and mostly not very aware of haters moment-to-moment, and it was pretty easy to slow it down, relax, and lose focus. It doesn’t require more analysis than that. 🙂

I needed time to reflect.

I needed time to reflect.

So, I recommitted to my goal, with some study, and some celebration and waving good-bye to unhealthy favorite treats that had crept in over time to become pretty frequent. I took note that even a small glass of white wine with a meal didn’t treat me well emotionally or physically, and decided feeling good and being healthy is more important than wine with a meal – ever – and gave that up. I wasn’t exactly ‘a drinker’ at this point in my life, but I decided to give it up completely – although I’m not bragging or being smug about it, it’s just that it wasn’t hard to choose to give up empty calories (wine, gummy candies, sweets made primarily of butter, sugar, and flour) to keep my health.  It is, however, a choice. There’s a verb in there. Actions are involved and I am already taking them; strict about my caloric intake, the nutritive qualities of the food I eat, the amount and type of exercise I get each day.  I probably won’t say much about it day-to-day; this blog isn’t a diet, weight-loss, or fitness blog. For me the more important item is the goal>choice>action>outcome piece. There are always details, ups and downs, challenges to face, but generally it really is as simple has being sufficiently committed to a goal to enact the required verbs to reach it.  I’m wondering what will be different bringing mindfulness into the mix. Am I full of shit? I’ll check in, in September, and let you know. 😉

Planning to stay on course.

Planning to stay on course.

Other small things, well – small for the world, they loom large in my experience. Spring continues to unfold.  It’s lovely to see, and I enjoy the scents of spring without the agony of allergies; I make a point to be specifically mindfully grateful about it. Love, too, unfolds and grows and shows new facets of intimacy, connection, and delight. I still feel a moment of awkward discomfort when I’m aware of how dependent that has turned out to be on connecting with myself, treating my own heart well, and being intimate with my own emotional experience. The discomfort always passes, and the joy and contentment and deep meaningful connections that are within reach are certainly worth learning to accept how utterly necessary it is to nurture myself and treat myself well and with loving kindness.

Where the river meets the sea.

Where the river meets the sea.

I thought I had more to say. Since it isn’t about a word count… well, enjoy Thursday! It’s a good day to love and be loved. It’s a good day to be considerate and to be kind. It’s a good day to change the world.

So much horizon...

So much horizon…

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

Changes

March 5, 2014 //
0

“I don’t want to change who I am!”  An interesting quote that recently got my attention.

Why, yes, I think I shall...

Why, yes, I think I shall…

Really? Don’t want to enjoy new experiences? Don’t want to meet some specific person: a celebrity, an artist, a musician, an intellectual notable in your field of interest, and have a potentially life or perspective changing conversation? Don’t want to live a more contented, happier life? You’ve achieved all you can, met all your goals, gone everywhere, seen everything? You have answered all of life’s questions – or at least those that matter to you? You grok all, and have fulfilled your life’s purpose? You are entirely finished with personal growth because you are exactly and precisely in all respects 100% the person you most want to be, fully aware, and ideally empowered in your experience, confident, and self-assured, secure and content?

This was a big step...

This was a big step…

Everything we do changes ‘who we are’. So… what does someone who says “I don’t want to change who I am!” really mean by that? What do they mean by ‘who I am’? What immutable qualities of self exist that they are so terrified change will cost them their entire identity?

I am a student of life.

I am a student of life.

I’m not being mean, snide, dismissive, flippant, smug, or superior – I am puzzled. I have said those words, although it seems now it was some lifetime ago, in another place, in a very different context, and with a very limited understanding of what ‘self’ may be. I even meant it, at the time, in a wholly sincere way, feeling very threatened that I might somehow sacrifice my existence as a being to make even one more change to ‘my self’, however small.

At this point, that seems a very odd position to take, having finished a year of nearly continuous growth and change, and finding myself – from my own perspective – to be, still, entirely me. lol.

This matters more than I understood when I started.

This matters more than I understood when I started.

What does ‘Who am I?’ mean, as a question, and when I answer that question with a statement of ‘who I am’, what does that ‘mean’ for me, or convey to others? Are the qualities we associate with “I am…” statements actually definitive of who we are as beings? I am learning that when I define myself, I am also placing limits on my choices, and potentially accepting a much more restrictive experience – filled with things and qualities I may reject because I ‘am not’ those. How do I choose which qualities I have or am, and which I lack, or am not? When I set my jaw and insist on being an unchanging self, immutable, inflexible, and unbreakable, without accountability or responsibility for the qualities I accept as defining me – don’t I also stall any chance at growth, progress, and learning in every area of my experience? How would I reconcile such a thing against the obvious existence of change, itself? Or…do we get to dictate how much we are willing to change, on what axis, to what degree of magnitude, and with regard to what characteristics? Is it that easy? We do have a lot of room to ‘customize’ who we are, through our choices. If we can ‘customize’ who we are (and oh, yes, we can)… doesn’t that take away the option of saying “I don’t want to change who I am!” – unless we are indeed exactly and precisely the person we most want to be, in every respect? And if we are that person, (fulfilled, content, satisfied with our sense of self…) and yet our relationships are confrontational, hurtful, contentious, unsatisfying, joyless, or unhappy in a long-term everyday way… are we saying that the responsibility for growth and change rests solely with our partner(s), and that we have no obligation to examine our own nature, choices, and character? That seems a tad lopsided,  and not reciprocal… it also doesn’t sound like something I’d expect to hear from a human being who had achieved all their goals, is precisely the person they most want to be, fulfilled, content, and satisfied with themselves, at all. Are we saying we prefer to exist in problematic, painful, or unsatisfying relationships, because that is preferable to change? Or that if change requires our willful constructive decision-making and action, that we’re just not interested? There is a missing piece here. Like assembling a jigsaw puzzle from which some practical joker removed a handful of unrelated pieces, I find myself frustrated, and unsure that I can ‘complete this picture’ at all easily, but I continue to fuss with it restlessly, needing the satisfaction of solving the puzzle.

There's even science about change, and self...

There’s even science about change, and self…

I write through the lens and filters of my own experience. I’m a student of life, and have my own baggage, my own biases, my own expectations of life, love and the world. Change is. I don’t realistically see a way around that. Fight it or embrace it – we have little control over the existence of change. If my choices and the changes associated with them are so powerful as to be the difference between happy/unhappy, content/discontent, positive/negative, considerate/inconsiderate, or success/failure, and growth/stagnation – why would I ever make willful choices to be unhappy, discontent, negative, stuck, inconsiderate… or any of a very long list of things that suck in life? If I were suffering something that unpleasant, painful, causes me to suffer, feels bad, or takes my experience in an unpleasant direction – and have a choice to do differently, or have a different experience – why would I not make the choices to enjoy my life, more? It’s a question.

...I've come so far...

…I’ve come so far…

I’m still more about questions than answers. This is a lot of words, on a quiet day. Today is a good day to be the change I wish to see, in my self. How else?

It can be as simple as this.

It can be as simple as this.

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