Archives for posts with tag: perspective
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »

Snap, Crackle, Pop

October 29, 2014 //
1

I slept heavily last night and woke with effort to the insistent beeping of my alarm. My joints snap and crunch as I move through my morning routine; I’m stiff and have a headache. I feel vaguely aggravated, but aware that it is all biology, and there’s really nothing ‘wrong’ aside from the simple realities of aging, and paying the price of youthful misadventure. My coffee seemed to go cold as soon as I pulled the shot, which, while irritating, is irrelevant; I swallow the bitter brew in spite of that, preferring to avoid the headache that I could expect later if I chose to dump it out. I suppose I could have started over…

I feel far removed from a sense of contentment.

Yesterday evening was lovely. Dinner out and family time hanging out at home afterward. The evening looked promising for romance, too, but without any real agita it didn’t go that way after all.

I feel restless and annoyed, although there doesn’t seem any real reason for it. Yesterday, too. Hormones most likely, and at the tail end of things there’s no easy way to be certain of that; I just accept what is, and practice good practices, and hope that in simple practices of mindfulness, and continuing to return my attention to what is good and satisfying, I will perhaps let go of what is not with greater ease. Can I learn to be satisfied with less and less of what I think I want and need, until only satisfaction remains, whatever I may actually have?

I feel so human.

In a photograph of flowers it always looks like spring.

Let’s take a moment for something else…

Imagine yourself anywhere at all, right now, doing…something. Whatever you like. No limits. Sink into it. Make it real. Build it in your imagination with words and feelings; you know you can, it’s how thinking works, and most of our experience in based on this, more than what is ‘real’. So. Where are you? What are you doing? I am sitting at a small bistro table, on a pleasant morning, with a very good latte and enjoying the sunshine and flowers of my cottage garden, on the edge of some small friendly village. I’d be relaxing with my partner, conversing about whatever, feeling the breezes and waving to passing neighbors, and maybe sharing a warm scone while we talk about love. At least this morning, that’s where I’d be…some days I yearn for something different. Today I yearn for love, Love, and romance, and a quiet cottage garden.

Today is a good day for honest heartfelt yearning, and also a good day for contentment and satisfaction, and recognizing that what is can be amazing when I am not chasing what isn’t. Today is a good day to seek perspective, and for recognizing it when it is found. Today is a good day to smile in the face of my challenges; life’s curriculum would teach nothing if it were too easy. Today is a good day to accept that the challenges of this day become the strength of character I rest on tomorrow. Today is a good day to take another look at how I see the world.

Tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Categories Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Love, Menopause, Metaphors, Mindfulness, pain, Perspective, Relationships, The Big 5, Words

Free Will…and Won’t

October 17, 2014 //
0

I woke early. Very early. “Too” early. I woke in pain, although it’s “just” my arthritis; however much pain I am in, I’m reluctant to make a big deal about it (or generally, even to mention it aloud), because it is such a constant presence in my autumn-winter experience. Life isn’t easily enjoyed as a test of endurance…at least…I don’t find it so, myself. I woke, and went from waking to moving gently through a yoga sequence that improves my flexibility and reduces my pain somewhat. My consciousness settled early on a moment of ire from the day before; it takes an effort of will to disengage to and move on thoughts of things that have positive value for me. Note that I didn’t say the troubling moment was unimportant or insignificant. Deceit, inconsiderate treatment, risky behavior, and disregarding explicit boundaries set and agreed to in shared conversation are all things that I find ‘significant’ – in a negative way – and ‘important’ inasmuch as disregarding those sorts of things generally has later consequences; I’m not interested in investing my emotional bandwidth or precious mortal time on a quiet morning in deep contemplation of circumstances or experiences that were hurtful, or negatively affected me. It’s not necessary. I know my values. I know my feelings on the circumstances that irk me (see? said it right there – I’m ‘irked’. lol). I don’t need to know more at present. I may consider the matter more at some other time, but for now… I won’t.

I also won’t dwell on the pain I’m in, although I’ve learned that attempting to truly ‘ignore it’ tends to push it to the forefront of my consciousness, where compassionate awareness, and taking care of me in a considerate and kind way tends to allow it to reduce more or less into the tolerable background of everyday life. That’s a vast improvement over fretting and obsessing on it, until I am near tears from being unable to escape it. We create a lot of our experience through choices and small acts of will we are not mindful of. I’ve been studying, and I have yet to find any support to the idea that the entirety of our experience is external and visited upon us. It just isn’t so; a great deal of what I used to understand as being ‘on the outside’ turns out to be, in a clearly demonstrable and simple way, quite entirely on the inside. We create who we are through our thoughts and action – our choices determine so much of who we are, sure, but beyond that – our choices also create the very world we live in. Sometimes it is as simple and obvious as legislation…sometimes it is insidious, a byproduct of disordered thinking, poor decision-making, and projecting our own internal narrative on our understanding of the world, in lieu of awareness and observation. I make a point of double-checking – reality checking, really – my view of the world around me in moments escalating toward stress, panic, rage, or sorrow. I’m stunned how often my view of things is really just my view of things, and nothing more.  I’ve learned that changing my view is often simply a matter of looking at something else – and not just metaphorically speaking, often quite literally a matter of pointing my eye holes at some other object, another horizon, a different perspective, and observing that changed view, mindfully, aware, and open to observing, only. It’s quite a lovely bit of soulful ‘magic’ that has turned around my mood more than once. (All those sky photographs? Not a coincidence; that’s me, taking ‘things are looking up’ quite literally.)

Exploring the words with actions; things are looking up.

Exploring the words with actions; things are looking up.

So. Awake early. In pain. Hot coffee. The usual, right? Less so than some mornings, actually, but I am exerting my will – and my won’t (lol) to move in a positive direction as much as possible. I can’t emphasize enough how important my physical experience can be for managing my mood; when I hurt, and don’t find a way to alleviate that pain, I am quickly at risk of being in a pretty sour mood, and prone to anger and irritability. That even makes sense; pain hurts. I have less difficulty with all the other bits of my experience if I take steps to manage my pain effectively. I am learning not to take on emotional matters, or potentially confrontational conversations, when I am in pain. It’s not fair to me, to the other people involved, or to the achievement of a desired outcome to filter everything through an experience of pain; it colors my experience in a pretty profoundly negative way.

Perspective matters.

Perspective matters.

Back to the positive pieces of morning, then? Sure. 🙂 It’s Friday, and the morning holds the promise of every new day; the potential is as yet unlimited, and the opportunities are many. There are choices to be made for later, the weekend to consider (according to my calendar I lost my mind and didn’t plan anything at all – so unlike me), the evenings, the mornings, the days… there’s an exhibit at the art museum I’d like to see, and I haven’t been to the big farmer’s market downtown in a while. There’s laundry to do; weekends are all about the laundry. lol I find myself smiling, and the pain isn’t so bad this morning…the familiar nausea of morning medications, and the sweating and trembling of an unexpected hot flash don’t seem worth more than a moment of awareness and then moving on. Other levels of cognition slowly come online as I become more awake, and in the background I find I am quietly listing things I intend to get done today or in the upcoming imminent future, checking off things I’ve already done with some satisfaction; I nearly always add things to lists that are relevant but also already completed, because I enjoy the momentary sense of accomplishment, and the reminder of how much I do get done. 🙂 It’s a very positively reinforcing practice. That’s one of the coolest things about adulthood, too; I get to make my own rules about most things in my experience. I choose my behavior. I choose what I like and what I enjoy. I choose what I will not stand for. I choose what matters to me. I choose what I will… and what I won’t. It’s a bit deceptive, as human beings, to go around on the assumption that legislation actually regulates behavior – it doesn’t; our choices do. We even choose whether to comply with laws, traditions, cultural norms. All choices. We choose consideration or callousness. We choose kindness or cruelty. We choose openness, or we choose otherwise. We choose what to focus on first thing in the morning. 🙂

Mindful awareness, and observing without judgement, reveals so much.

Mindful awareness, and observing without judgement, reveals so much.

When was the last time you paused for a moment to consider how amazing it is that you even exist at all? Today is a good day for that. Perhaps it’s been awhile since you have been treated with real kindness? There are a lot of people feeling that way, I bet. Today is a good day to be kind, too. Today is also a good day to respect people’s boundaries, to be considerate of the needs of others, and to set clear expectations explicitly; even if they are not honored by others, I find I do myself a significant service to respect my own boundaries enough to state them clearly. It’s a lovely morning to pause and observe the sunrise; we are mortal, and will see a finite number of sunrises in our human lifetime. Today is a good day to be mindfully aware of each small pleasant detail, and to linger over pleasant sensations and ideas. Today is a good day to breath deeply the fresh autumn air [geographical location probably matters a great deal on that one!]. Today is a good day to remember that however irksome the behavior of others, they too are human, and having their own experience; we each have a choice in whether we participate in a shared experience, or walk on. Today is a good day to switch things up a bit, to be daring and adventurous, to be willing to trust myself, and recognize that I know me, better than anyone else can. Today is a good day to change the world.

 

Tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Categories autumn, Brain Injury, Free Will, Logic & Reason, Metaphors, Mindfulness, pain, Perspective, Relationships, The Big 5, Words

Ouch, Where’s My Soft Landing?

October 15, 2014 //
2

Yesterday was…difficult. Every boundary I have in the work place was stomped on. Every inconvenient moment was as inconvenient as seemed possible. Things broke. Things went wrong. Timing was poor. Sometime shortly after 2pm, the day took a hard right turn toward being a totally shitty experience, and it was downhill from there. Looking back I can see how much pain had to say about how the day went; I was off my meds. :-\  Not on purpose, let me be clear about that, it was mischance that led to me missing my afternoon painkiller, and there wasn’t a thing I could do about it. As I got further and further from the last helpful moment provided by my morning medication my mood got worse. I didn’t really make the connection between my shitty mood, my challenging experience, and the lack of pain relief until I was almost home in the evening. I might have behaved differently if I had.

Thankfully, new practices aplenty did actually work – although in the moment I wasn’t necessarily certain of that, or appreciative; I felt taxed, overburdened, and aggravated and couldn’t see much past those feelings. I alerted my partners before I got home that I was in a state. They were careful with me when I got home. I took my medication, managed needed calories, shared hugs and some quiet conversation, and took care of me. The evening ended well – no tantrum, no tirade of bitter invective, no total loss of inhibition resulting in vile things being said that just didn’t need speaking… it was a fairly ordinary quiet night, each of us involved in our own experience, gentle on each other. I call it a success, after the fact, regardless how it felt in the moment. 🙂

We view "reality" through the veil of our own experience, our thoughts, our very individual understanding of what we see.

We view “reality” through the veil of our own experience, our thoughts, our very individual understanding of what we see.

I slept well, woke to the alarm, and feel okay this morning. I am sometimes both irritated and astonished at how much my physical experience weighs in on my emotional life: well-managed blood sugar, medication, pain management, enough sleep, good hygiene, regular exercise, a satisfying sex life… these things may very well have more to do with my general emotional climate than any moment of my life, however delightful or traumatic, actually has long-term. That seems odd to me, and worth being mindful of.

In the background I’m fussing with something that bothers me; it’s a small thing. I shared something emotionally relevant with a partner…and wasn’t heard. Or didn’t feel heard. I said words, and the reply clearly indicated a lack of understanding of the significance of what I shared, to me. Trying to explain started things down a difficult path, so I let it drop; few things are less pleasant than romantic tension over something that feels incredibly powerfully positive. lol. Not worth it. Still, my brain returns to the moment again and again, wondering how it is that the significance – or at least some appreciation of the observation, if not actual understanding – was so easily missed. It left me feeling somewhat disconnected from my partner in the moment. I am often surprised at the subtle differences in what I value and understand as valuable, and what others around me find similarly worthy. Still…it was only a moment.

It’s another day. A new one. Today is a day that holds all the potential of any day. Today is a day open to possibilities and filled with opportunity. Today is a day when a smile really matters, and a vote counts. Today is a day to speak simple truths, and recognize that whether someone is listening isn’t relevant to what is spoken, itself. Today is a day to listen carefully. Today… is a good day.

Tags , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Categories autumn, Brain Injury, Healthy Living, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, pain, Perspective, Relationships, Words

Covering Some Distance on Foot

October 13, 2014 //
2

It could be a metaphor, although I did actually walk rather a lot this weekend, and had an eye-opening moment of perspective while walking from one point on a map to another.

Beauty is in the details, so are awareness, understanding, and love. So is growth.

Beauty is in the details, so are awareness, understanding, and love. So is growth.

It’s a quiet Monday morning, and I didn’t notice that I hadn’t been writing until the weekend was already over. I was kept busy by life and love and the doing of actual things. I was in a lot of pain, and also living well, and generally in a good state of awareness and with a pleasant demeanor. It was a pleasant weekend, generally. Life’s lessons this weekend tended to be more of the ‘slog through the exercises carefully and check your work’ variety than the sometime intensity of grand eye-opening moments or epiphanies of some more exotic sort.

Another side of beauty.

Another side of beauty.

While I was out on Saturday, I saw some younger girls tensely discussing their appearance and how to lose ‘enough’ weight; they were all very lean, wearing very fashionable clothes, and a lot of make up for such young girls. My initial reaction started out as one of active resentment and irritation. I struggle with my weight, too. As I passed one of them made an unkind comment; I’m not ‘thin enough’  – or ‘young enough’, whatever that means to them.  I contemplated the destructive power of the standard of beauty that is culturally enforced in the media, and wondered if these girls have any idea how ugly mean is, or how little someone else’s idea of beauty matters to ones own contentment?

I made a long trip Saturday to a store on the other side of town that I favor, and being willing to travel for what matters to me the journey was pleasant and necessary. I stopped for lunch on my way back and spotted a sign at the counter that got me thinking…

It's a sign...

It’s a sign…

I contemplated ‘food insecurity’ (my Granny would have called it ‘going without’ or ‘privation’) and leaner times in my own life, and later struggles with my weight. I let my mind roam, and considered other times and sorts of deprivation, shortages, and hard times, and later challenges with ‘greed’ in those specific areas. I was still standing at the counter, trying to order lunch. I made a connection in the moment between my recent success in managing my weight, and the ease lately in making decisions that are moderate, and appropriate to my resources. “Greed” is something I find I have difficulty feeling any compassion for… in myself or others, and I realized I still held on to some repugnant (to me) binge/purge programming deep in my operating system. I let my shoulders relax and smiled at the girl at the counter as I stepped up to order… a half portion of a healthy sandwich, and a bottle of water. I felt satisfied to be able to take care of my needs, and content not to go further. That’s been a big deal lately: sufficiency. When I stopped – really stopped – trying to fill some desperate feeling hole in my experience labeled ‘I don’t have enough to feel like I have everything’, I found myself utterly content and satisfied so much more often. What matters most, truly? If you live alone, is 4000 sq ft of penthouse with a view of the world necessary? Whether it is affordable is a different question. How many of us experiencing ‘food insecurity’ or some other form of privation put ourselves there by choosing excess in some other area of life? Too much house? Too much car? Too much credit? Too many pets? Too many dinners out? For most of us our individual resources, however plentiful, are finite. I am learning to make wiser choices with my resources, and my needs. Sufficiency, I am finding, often feels lavish, when I simply enjoy what is enough. Excess, as with a Thanksgiving meal, overshoots that mark so far that sometimes it neither satisfies nor sustains me…and is, itself, unsustainable.

A foggy morning heading somewhere...

A foggy morning heading somewhere…

Every journey begins. I don’t always have a clear view of where it will take me. It was that kind of weekend. One choice at a time, one step at a time, one opportunity to connect at a time… I’m building who I am tomorrow with each choice today. Today is a good day for choices, and a good day for consideration. I may be having my own experience… but life, love, and the world are not all about me, ever. We’re all in this together.

Perspective matters, too.

Perspective matters, too.

Sometime in the past, men did work. It was valued, and lauded, and a monument built to the work and to the men. Interesting details are celebrated and noted in life, and in this case one detail stood out for me, a connection across time…

Yep. They drank a lot of coffee.

Yep. They drank a lot of coffee.

So here’s to you, working people, on a Monday morning…

Coffee. Any form, every morning. Here's to you, Monday!

Coffee. Any form, every morning. Here’s to you, Monday!

Today is a good day to be a better human being than I was yesterday. Today is a good day to consider what I have done, and what I want my legacy to look like when I’m gone. Today is a good day to be the woman I most want to be. Today is a good day to love well, and to love honestly. Today is a good day to change the world.

 

Tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Categories autumn, Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships

What Time is Love?

October 6, 2014 //
0

I think the answer to the titular question is ‘now’. Excellent. We can move on…

Night.

Night.

I woke ahead of the alarm. That’s no surprise. I felt awake. I got up. That’s how it generally works. Before I’d even finished dressing and brushing my hair, after assorted other morning activities relevant to starting the day, I felt tired and sleepy and totally able to go back to bed. Unfortunately, it’s also Monday, and that means the weekend is over and today is a work day. I couldn’t be more disappointed if I were a kid and summer just ended unexpectedly when I thought I had another week. lol I’m mostly sitting here yawning and wondering why I am so groggy. I slept through the night. I slept deeply and woke feeling rested. This hardly seems at all reasonable.

So here I am feeling tired and especially uninspired, sipping my espresso, and considering the lovely weekend. End to end this one was pretty excellent, and I smile over the details, and over my  coffee. Pain Management was complicated this weekend, and I’m in more than usual pain these past handful of weeks; autumn is here, and the changing weather generally has this result. Maybe I am just groggy as a byproduct of having relied on Rx pain relief more than usual? That’d be all it would take, and I’m satisfied to accept as being so, and move on.

I took time to meditate this morning, feeling content and serene, and instead of having to steady my mind with meditation through a series of distracting internal attacks on myself by my own brain, tempting me into sorrows with invented nonsense and insecurity, I found myself more gently distracted by ideas for paintings. lol I’m okay with that one. After meditation was concluded, I happily took notes. Artistically, I’ve been very productive lately, which is complicated joy; I paint enough that wall space, storage, and practical details like selling things quickly become concerns. In the past, I’ve often been too disordered to do much about it, besides crowd more on my walls, sell what I could, and tenderly put away what there is no room for. Good choices about taking care of me find me in a better place. Over the weekend I worked on a more commercially user-friendly web page, my Etsy store, and making my image archive more useful for me. (Selling my paintings is rather hard for me; I want to keep most of them, myself. LOL)

Just about the most important artistic moment this weekend occurred on Saturday, later in the day. I had an inspiration, a moment of eye-opening wonder and delight, for a self-portrait of incredible importance to me that I could not have painted even 5 years ago; transcendence. I want to paint a powerful self-portrait that frees me from the anguish sometimes hidden in the details of living with my injury, by blowing that myth to pieces with the beautiful truths of the strengths I also gain from the sort of injury it is, and the growth I am experiencing on this journey. I want to paint the singularity that is now, on my timeline. Yeah. From here on, anything I say about the idea itself pretty quickly becomes garbled; it isn’t about words.

There are quite a lot of experiences, feelings, and moments that just aren’t about the words we attempt to use to describe them. I get caught on that a lot; I want to share, I have some words, surely somewhere in all those words are the right words to share… something. Too late I sometimes find that the experience is beyond sharing – in words. Doing so, and being forceful about trying to make a course correction when it begins to go awry, is a handy shortcut to an argument in the middle of a pleasant experience. Hardly fair to anyone involved. I’m learning to remind myself that some of what we experience is truly made of up “you had to be there” moments that can’t be shared in words at all, but can be shared in the subtle companionship of wordless emotion. Just chill with it. Just be that experience, softly. Just hold that moment, enjoy it, let it simmer there in my consciousness long enough to become the look I wear on my face, and the way I carry myself through space, available to be enjoyed and shared in my very presence. It’s nice – it’s more difficult than it sounds, sometimes. Occasionally, I or a loved one will make a specific call for a moment of stillness…living with me, living with this injury, does require that effort now and again. 🙂

It’s a still and quiet morning. The household is so quiet that the loudest thing I hear in the background is my tinnitus, which is mildly annoying. I’m more awake now. Awake enough to be very aware of back pain, but before I start feeling cross about that, I notice I’m already immersed in gratitude that it isn’t worse, that I don’t also have a headache, that my ankle doesn’t feel like it’s on fire, and that my heart feels light and I am content. No bitching required. That’s another nice change to take note of; I am less inclined to bitch about stuff, generally, that I used to be. I’m pleased with that. I think about ‘change’ and I think about how often I have felt wounded by a call to change ‘who I am’ in prior relationships, lifetimes, or circumstances. It hurts to feel that I’m not good enough or that I am somehow broken, defective, or lacking in real value as is. There’s a whole library of books to help people get past that and understand their worthiness as beings… often at the expense of understanding how awesome change can also be.  Demands for change from others can feel so critical and accusatory… but truly, there are things about me I’d see changed ‘if I could’, and of course I can. That’s a choice. If I choose change because by changing I become more the woman I most want to be there is no reason to discourage change. Hell, I enjoy change when it brings me the joy involved in being more who I am. That’s good stuff. I even get to decide who that is – no one else can. So what’s to be mad about? I change what I want to change, what I choose to change, in order to become more who I am interested in being – based on who I already am. Magic. Being told to change, ordered or directed to change, pretty nearly always sucks. Being asked to change can sometimes carry with it some baggage about the forces of change, and it isn’t always easy to determine whether the requested change is one I actually want to make, in that moment, for the requested purpose. I’ll still make those choices; it’s best to do so eyes open, and willing to admit the change has value, or the strength to say it isn’t one I wish to make. The real demonstration of skill, for me, will be to easily hear a demand for change, recognize the feelings associated with the implied criticism, not take that personally and be able to evaluate the change itself on its own merits and determine without pressure whether it suits my own needs, meets my own goals, and results in taking care of me and meeting my needs over time – to be able to put down the baggage, the hurt, the resentment, and honestly evaluate the suggested change, and make a reasoned choice for myself, outside any context relevant to criticism, or hurt feelings. That would be powerful.

An unexpected hot flash, and sudden wave of nausea end that moment of contemplation. Practical matters of being a human primate intervene, and I notice the time. I’m awake now. I’m feeling ill, and in pain, but I am awake; good enough to hold down a job. lol

Today is a good day to be human, and be okay with that. Today is a good day to recognize the humanity of each individual I meet, and consider how difficult life can be for any one of us, on any day. Today is a good day for consideration, for kindness, and for a smile shared with a stranger. Today is a good day to lead by example and treat each person truly well, including myself. Today is a good day to be imperfect, and a good day to be uncertain. Today is a good day to be okay with who I am, and delighted to have opportunities to improve on that my own way. Today is a good day to change, and to change the world.

Morning. (Not this morning, but a morning, nonetheless.)

Morning. (Not this morning, but a morning, nonetheless.)

 

Tags , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Categories autumn, Brain Injury, Free Will, Logic & Reason, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, The Big 5, Words
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »