Archives for posts with tag: practicing the practices
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Enough

October 24, 2014 //
0

This morning, my coffee is tasty and hot, and I’m pleased with how lovely the espresso shots I pulled just happened to be; I am not a professional barista. I do my best, and even first thing in the morning I try to pull each shot mindfully, with great care, exactly as I have learned to do it. I enjoy the result.

This morning, the trickle of the aquarium in the background is soothing, and calls to mind little brooks and creeks. I enjoy some moments watching fish swim, and observing their awareness of their environment and each other. I contemplate free will, intention, consciousness, and wonder again what fish might ‘think about’.

Stormy weather.

Stormy weather.

I consider the day ahead, in the context of the day behind me. Yesterday went sideways in a most peculiar way, but very telling. It would be difficult to share much more about it without sharing too much, which quickly becomes both tedious, and riddled with rampant emotion of limited perspective. Let’s not do that. Let’s talk, instead, perhaps, about how much our values actually matter – to ourselves, to each other, to our relationships. Having a clear understanding of what we value, ourselves, is challenge enough; having an understanding of the values of others, enough to really ‘get them’, has so much to offer… and sometimes seems very hard to come by.

Can you answer this question: “What are your basic relationship values?” I answer it with my Big 5 (Respect, Reciprocity, Consideration, Compassion, and Openness). I have some important personal values, too, upon which I am attempting to build the life I want to live: Mindfulness, Perspective, and Sufficiency. That I know my values doesn’t ensure my choices are always based on such, and this is the nature of adult value decisions; we choose our values. The values of our childhood are instilled in us through education, example setting, and experience. Adulthood allows (requires?) us to re-examine them, and choose wisely based on what we have learned, values that represent the best of who we are. We have the opportunity to make those choices, make changes, and live well. We have other choices, too. The values we demonstrate, whatever values we say we hold, are the values we communicate to others through the power of our actions, as well as the clarity of our words.

I guess the test of success is ‘do your chosen values support the life you really want?’ As we are each having our own experience, the choices, and the evaluation, belong to us individually. In that legendary ‘perfect world’ so many laud and yearn for, our relationships are with others who share our values. We’re human beings. Each having our own experience, and making our own choices, and it is most assuredly not a perfect world. Still, we could do worse than choosing our relationships based on the values we truly hold.

Beyond the storm.

Beyond the storm.

Today is a good day for love, and for living my values. Today is a good day to make my best choices to meet my needs over time. Today is a good day to recognize that everyone makes their own choices, chooses their own path, and that the map and the journey are customized; we rarely see the world or our circumstances quite the way someone else does, however dear they may be. Today is a good day to respect the path someone else chooses to walk. Today is a good day to change the world.

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

One Challenge at a Time, Please

October 22, 2014 //
1

I woke early, and in pain. I crashed early last night, after dozing off sitting up, shortly after getting home from work…but didn’t fall asleep until past 10 pm, although I drifted in and out of real wakefulness without any particular schedule. I’d have probably slept, I try to tell myself, if it weren’t for the blast of icy cold water in the middle of my hot shower…but as a long time insomniac with a variety of sleep disturbances, realistically, I know that isn’t necessarily true. Last night, as tired as I was, just wasn’t a night I was going to sleep well. Pain is an everyday challenge, and autumn – my favorite season – is the worst for pain every day.

Mushrooms after rain.

Mushrooms after rain.

Today isn’t a bad day. I just hurt. I don’t hurt more than what is endurable (see? I’m here, enduring it.), but it isn’t pleasant. Perspective is in the recollection of worse pain on other days, and the understanding that there are other people who hurt more, out there in the world, right now. There is value in not obsessing over it, and in not making it worse with the power of my thoughts; I smile as I observe the phrasing and note that my traveling partner would almost certainly point out that I framed it up ‘in the negative’. He would, perhaps, wonder if there were more positive emotional value in it, if I used positive language. 🙂 (We learn from love. Love helps us become who we most want to be – when we allow it.)

One of my challenges, a small one in the scheme of things, is learning to use more positive language.  I tend to reply to a question like “how are you?” with something like “not bad”.  It is phrasing that lingers from a much more discontent, wounded, fearful time in my life; admitting how good something seemed was a direct path to having it taken from me. Harsh. That’s not my life now, and there’s no danger in saying I’m in a good place today, or that I enjoy something.  Positive language doesn’t come naturally to me. I keep at it; growth and change come with practice, over time. Change is what changes us.

When conditions are right, growth happens.

When conditions are right, growth happens.

No coffee this morning. There’s only enough left for one beverage this morning; I forgot to pick up coffee last night. I’m not surprised at the miss. I was so tired walking home from the train station that I don’t actually remind remember the walk at all. I leave the remaining coffee for my partner, who will wake unaware of the shortage. This morning I am enjoying a cup of tea, brewed very strong. It’s not at all the same experience, but it is an acceptable morning beverage enjoyed by millions every day, and I am content with tea this morning. I’ll pick up coffee today.

When I take time to look, I see. When I take time to listen, I hear.

When I take time to look, I see. When I take time to listen, I hear.

It’s a quiet morning, on a therapy day. My work schedule has caused me to cancel a couple of appointments recently to attend important training. I find myself wondering, just for a moment, ‘important for who?’  It is a worthy question, and answering it is one more small challenge. I was going to add yet another rather mundane challenge du jour, faced with needing to track down some military paperwork…then while I was framing the thought and wrapping it in words, I found the paperwork precisely where it most rationally would be based on the way I organize such things. lol Clearly, that one was only a challenge in my thoughts, in anticipation of the action. The finding of the paperwork was actually a bit of a let down. I find myself smiling at the incongruity; pleased to find the paperwork, and ever-so-slightly irked that it really wasn’t a challenge – it was the anxiety around not finding it that was the challenge, and that turned out to be entirely in my head.

Our storms are not without value; it is after the rain falls that mushrooms grow.

Our storms are not without value; experience teaches perspective.

When I feel overwhelmed, however large or small the individual challenges, issues, needs, or upcoming events may be, every one of them seems huge, insurmountably difficult, and together they seem too numerous to easily manage. Often I find myself later admitting what a small thing most of them were, taken singly. I think for a moment of some common call center advice that seems applicable, “take the calls one at a time”. Yep. The challenges are easier one at a time. Problems that need solving are often much less puzzling taken individually. Decisions that I face are often less complicated separated from all the other decisions to be made. “Each time for the first time. Each moment the only moment.” (a favorite Jon Kabat Zinn quote) Sort of brings me back around to the mindfulness practices that are tending to see me smiling every day, even in the face of challenges. I can’t stop life from adding challenges to my experience, and change is. I can breathe calming breaths, and take the challenges one by one; it is enough.

Today is a good day love, and let love in. Today is a good day to take the challenges one by one, and be mindfully aware we’ve all got some. Today is a good day to be kind. Today is a good day to change the world.

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Categories autumn, Brain Injury, Metaphors, Mindfulness, pain, Perspective, Relationships, Sleepless Nights, 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.

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

Finding Balance, Facing Change

October 2, 2014 //
1

Sometimes it is the smallest details that teach me so much, and so often some choice that is a win, or generally awesome, comes with some interesting opportunities to lose balance, or lose my way. I didn’t last night, and I so easily could have. [envision me, high-fiving myself, here] New practices making a difference.

Under the right conditions, growth happens.

Under the right conditions, growth happens.

Changes, even good ones, can be disruptive for me. I have a frontal lobe brain injury that gets in my way a bit. I build a lot on a handful of habits that ensure I take care of me, and take care of what I am responsible for, and changes sometimes disrupt those habits, and my emotional balance. I won’t add ‘unexpectedly’ because although it once was, it no longer is; I know the risk is there, these days, and I watch for the effects in my experience that are the byproduct of change, and make time to shore up good practices, and get re-balanced. Moving my creative endeavors to the loft doesn’t just provide me with active studio space… it also resulted in the household media and networking infrastructure being in ‘my room’…in a place regularly occupied by someone not wishing to be disturbed, and it was easy for my partners to anticipate that might be inconvenient at some future point – though like a generous child I said “I will share with you!” not understanding that it would inevitably lead to discord. Rather than wait for all that, a wiser choice was made – one that changes my environment, and some small routines. (Oops…changes small routines? Right. I’m on it! Autopilot switched off, and I’m compassionate with myself as small changes swirl around me, probably over days or weeks, and when things settle down I will have new routines to rely on in that space. )

…It will probably be months before I feel like I know how to use the stereo again. lol

It’s a lovely morning. My traveling partner stayed up late with new – and moved – technology; it’s ‘his thing’, and although I expected him to sleep in, he is moving about the house restlessly – he is excited by change, stimulated, and enjoys the fun of it. My generally-at-home partner is readying herself for another work day, and these are not changes that result in turmoil for her. Life and love feel… pleasant. I enjoy this. I don’t need exotic destinations, expensive goods, or exciting tales of adventure to be content, to be happy, to be loved… or to enjoy a quiet morning. Sufficiency. I like ‘enough’.

It’s such a lovely quiet morning I am already well beyond any effect of poor sleep last night, although I didn’t really find good sleep until sometime past 1:29 am, the last time I looked at the clock. My coffee is tasty and hot, and although I am in pain I already know this is the least of it today; I take a moment to reflect on that, and enjoy how little pain I am in right now.

I’m hopeful that the small changes, the ripple effect of taking on the loft as studio space, don’t result in some shit-tastic childish tantrum on another day… so far so good.  I recently read some fairly eye-opening material on child development, discussing toddlers and tantrums. Apparently frontal lobe development and function is a big deal for emotional balance and control; my TBI [frontal lobe] is a big deal in the area of emotional balance and resilience. Yeah. Ahem. [awkward moment with myself reading that and reflecting on what life might be like for the partners of a 51-year-old some-time ‘toddler’ with PTSD… it does not sound like fun to me]. I find myself very grateful that love makes me desirable enough to tolerate my bullshit – and I hope I work through the worst of it in some more or less permanent way before they decide I’m not!

So…a lovely morning. A hot coffee. A good hair day. A day to remember to take the recycling to the curb – and hey; I remembered without a note! (I call that a success!) Some time hanging out with my loves before the work day. Today is a very good day for this to be enough. 🙂

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Categories Brain Injury, Healthy Living, Love, Mindfulness, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, The Big 5

With Bells On

September 30, 2014 //
2

…Or at least with this ringing in my ears that is always with me. I woke with a wicked headache this morning. It creeps up through my arthritic vertebrae to the base of my skull, and the ringing in my ears seems both louder, and more distinctive; it’s actually several tones, frequencies, and noises, and it differs left and right. lol. This morning, the headache being what it is, I am listening to the ringing in my ears; the sound of my fingers on the keyboard serves reasonably well as percussion. I can’t change it, I may as well….something.

My coffee is good, and hot. I slept badly and it meets a need this morning, more than suiting an aesthetic of mornings in general. No nightmares, I just struggled to fall asleep, slept restlessly, woke often, and just didn’t rack up enough hours of rest. My traveling partner has expressed concern that I am pushing myself to hard at work. It’s a fair concern; I am. It’s a thing I do, and I frame it up as ‘playing to my strengths’ but I am aware I need to ease up and treat myself as a human being, and consider other needs, my own needs, too. Work kept my mind busy last night, and I did not rest well. That’s enough of that; it has to stop.

Right at the moment, from the perspective of the delicate new day, still unfolding, all potential nothing yet actual, today has a lot to offer. I hope it lives up to its potential.

Utterly unrelated to this moment and its beauty, right here, I’ll pause to observe that I continue to be concerned about the increase in spelling mistakes and difficulty finding the right word since my TIAs (transient ischemic attack) at the end of July. Painfully obvious to me, actually, and concerning way beyond vanity; this is my health, my life, and I exist in a fairly fragile vessel of flesh and mortality. I haven’t had another since mid-August, and it was ‘just’ those three… doesn’t stop me wondering what caused them, why now, or will I be okay. Especially on days with other headaches. I want to be around a good long time…I’d like to see 2083.

I take much better care of my  health these days. Doing so doesn’t take away the pain of earlier misadventure, or later aging, but it sure helps me maintain vitality and fitness well beyond what I’d manage otherwise. The meditation helps soothe me, builds emotional resilience, and teaches me balance and perspective; great for my blood pressure. The yoga helps me maintain a healthier weight, good flexibility, bone and joint health, and keeps my arthritic joints moving; great for reducing my pain, and building my fitness level for more, other, activities. I take a good multi-vitamin, and the supplements my doctor says I need, individually, based on testing, to maintain good health on a another level, and I manage my calories. I try to get enough sleep to really rest each night and wake refreshed each morning. I walk 5 miles a day, pretty nearly every day, sometimes more. Every small choice I make to take care of me adds up to a better experience of being who I am. I’ve gotten here one practice, one choice, at a time; it would have utterly overwhelmed me to try to tackle it all in one list of resolutions or commitments to myself. Being patient with myself, showing myself compassion, has been huge for reaching some of these goals; there’ve been many missteps along the way. I often learn best through my mistakes (like finding out some months ago what a weekend of eating sweets will do to my mood and temper after months of eschewing sugars!).

I’m just writing. Making observations. It’s a moment. I have a headache. I’ll call this one ‘doing my best’ this morning and find myself content with it.

Today is a good day to treat myself with compassion and take care of me. Today is a good day to be practical and real about pain – and pain management. Today is a good day to recognize we’ve all got our hurts, our own situation to face, our own individual personalized baggage, and we’re all in this together. Today is a good day to smile and understand that physical pain doesn’t have to be an impediment to happiness. Today is a good day to change the world.

Change is okay; it's not as if I can do anything to stop it. :-)

Change is okay; it’s not as if I can do anything to stop it. 🙂

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Categories autumn, Brain Injury, Healthy Living, Mindfulness, pain, Perspective, Sleepless Nights, The Big 5
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