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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

Hold On Just One Minute There

October 1, 2014 //
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Or…let go. Either way, your call. We’re each having our own experience. (I say that a lot.) This morning is one such customized, personalized, choice-defined, observation-limited, individual experience. I’m having it now. So are you.

A picture of a moment; evening at the train station.

A picture of a moment; evening at the train station.

It’s a lovely quiet morning after a very pleasant evening. My traveling partner cooked dinner last night; his cooking is very good, and I was fortunate to arrive home in time to share the evening meal with both my partners. My work hours often get in the way of that simple joy, and that is a recognized trade-off so many of us make in adulthood; we give up some small pleasure in order to convert more of our limited precious mortal time into… cash. That’s really all a job is for many of us – it’s a way to convert time into cash money using effort and skill to make the exchange ‘fair’ (in theory). Looked at that way, it’s so important that we not be wasting our most precious, most finite personal resource on something that doesn’t support our basic needs, or something that is a bad (or hurtful) experience, or even simply one we don’t enjoy. When the pay off is good, it’s sometimes hard to remember to choose to treat myself well, and make choices that truly meet my needs over time. That surprises me a little, thinking about that challenge in light of the observation that employment is basically a conversion process of turning my time into money…because that would mean that every cent in value I am paid was already mine – in time, and the potential to make use of it – and the exchange rate may  not be that fair, considering how precious time actually is, for each of us.

Something to think about; I matter to me. The time I ‘spend’ on someone else’s needs (particularly for their profit) needs to be truly worth it to me; I can’t get the time back. Every minute ‘spent’ is simply gone…and I’m not exactly keeping a budget. Have I balanced my ‘checkbook’ and made sure I know where my time is going?

Metaphors – just one more way I entertain myself while I learn. 😉

I read a friend’s manuscript last weekend. I’m fortunate to be asked to do such a favor – not only because it was an exciting read, and I enjoyed it, but also because it inspired me on another level.  As I was walking to work yesterday, a character developed in my thoughts, her experience began to draft itself, her history and family began to become ‘real’, and a plot started to gel in my imagination. Manuscripts, though, are a bit like unfinished sentences; most of them stay that way. Unfinished. (I have a decent beginning of a novel somewhere in my files… never finished. lol) This, though, feels different… So, I made some notes yesterday, and this weekend I’ll do some research to flesh out the bits that need that attention. I may even write. Sometime down the road I may even finish it. 🙂

My coffee is slowly growing cold. I don’t have more to say this morning, really. I’m in a lot of pain this week and it sends my thoughts skittering away from deeper subjects, as often as it pulls me into sorrows. Meditation is both helpful and difficult. Yoga, the same; nearly necessary for freedom of movement, slow going, and although worth it, quite difficult. Words are easy, but I don’t seem to have so many this morning…

Today is a good day to take care of me, and a good day to consider the discomfort of others, too. Today is a good day to enjoy small pleasures and a to take a moment to really value them. Today is a good day to hear compliments, and enjoy them with humility and gratitude.  Today is a good day to cherish my skills, my experience, and my decision-making, most of which serve me well, much of the time. Today is a good day for enough, and a good day for contentment. Today is a good day to change the world.

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

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

One Small Part of a Greater Whole

September 29, 2014 //
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There’s very little we human primates do that is truly isolated from the rest, so unique and strange as to be impossible to relate to or identify with, so much so that when we behave in a fashion that is ‘out of the ordinary’ within the context of our experience not only do our friends, loved ones, and every day associates notice, so do strangers. We are interdependent, inter-associated, and interacting with each other – even when we are alone, generally, unless we sit utterly silent, motionless, and disconnected from all technology as well…which doesn’t happen for many of us, or doesn’t happen often, certainly not by choice. (I suggest it might be healthier for our own being if we did step away more than once in a while to be truly alone, and free of distraction…)  What my point is, though, is that we see each other, even when we are not really watching, and when an individual in the herd, pack, band, tribe, or community deviates from recognized norms it is noticed.

Just sayin’. You are not invisible. People notice. They probably care – what they don’t have is a window into your experience. Opening up and being who you are, because it is who you are, can be a scary process – particularly if you’ve made your way in life by wearing a mask, telling a story, or hiding your truth.

Life and love, linked and entwined, they are what we make of them.

Life and love, linked and entwined, they are what we make of them. [TBA ‘untitled’ M.R.H. 2014]

I spent the weekend painting. In that respect my weekend was entirely and completely about me. It was quite lovely, filled with wonder, and I’m pleased with the new work. I’d leave it there, but I am a human primate, loving other human primates, and living in a family, a small band of friends, a community of people; there’s more to it than me. There’s always more to it than ‘me’. Saturday was lovely, easy, and felt natural and right pretty nearly end to end, and seemed so for all of us. Sunday less so. Other people, other choices, and there’s always room for more than one experience. I had a remarkable day painting, nonetheless, and enjoyed sharing time with my traveling partner, reading, hanging out, talking… it was lovely. My other partner was doing her own thing.

Yesterday had been planned differently; I planned to go hiking in the morning. The lovely Saturday evening, though, resulted in a request for a morning at home together, shared as a family. I happily changed my plans. Things went sideways early, and I’m pleased at how easy it has become for me to roll with changes; I like planning things, and function most comfortably when I have some loose idea of what’s to be expected. It is a powerful piece of growth, and marvelously powerful, to be so able to smile in the face of unwanted drama, change, and the randomness of life itself. There is so much less turmoil within, now.  I’m still not skilled at getting at the root of OPD and making the changes I need to, to ensure I can easily and with great contentment avoid being sucked into someone else’s drama. I can’t – and don’t want to – control someone else’s experience, choices, values or behavior; I have all the control in the world over my own. Choices.

For me The Big 5 really matter. Respect, and Consideration are huge. Openness is non-negotiable. Compassion and Reciprocity are essential to treating others, and myself, truly well. Nothing short of treating myself well, making choices that meet my needs over time, and treating others in accordance with my own Big 5 – as a minimum standard of decency for me – is acceptable at all these days. I am building my own experience on principles of mindfulness, perspective, and sufficiency, sure – but it’s my Big 5 on which I build my relationships with others, and what I require from others to build one with me.

What we build, what we destroy, are made of our own choices in life and in love.

What we build, what we destroy, are made of our own choices in life and in love.  [TBA ‘untitled’ M.R.H. 2014]

It’s a quiet chill Monday morning. My coffee is hot, and the tone of the morning is gentle. My traveling partner is up early, and I’ll enjoy the time I share with him, before heading to the office for a very different experience – one that I still base on my Big 5, because it’s a good way to treat others, and to be treated myself.

Today is a good day for choices that meet my needs over time. Today is a good day to stand on my strengths as a being, and as a woman. Today is a good day to smile and enjoy the small delights that are always there in the moment. Today is a good day to appreciate any connection I enjoy with another; our connections are what it is all about. Today is a good day to change the world.

"Namaste" 8" x 10" acrylic on canvas. 2014 It's about the intention as much as the words.

“Namaste” 8″ x 10″ acrylic on canvas. 2014 It’s about the intention as much as the words.

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

This One’s for Me

September 28, 2014 //
0

This weekend I’m taking time with me, doing something I love, and enjoying the sensation of time slowing down as I linger over what feels good in life. I’m in the studio this weekend, between other bits of this-n-that, laundry, time with family and friends, yoga… All of it quite pleasant and wonderfully positive and enjoyable; the outcome is in the art work. I had planned to hike this morning, and even looking forward to it at the very moment that first one, then the other, of my partners spoke up that they would each, and both, enjoy a morning with family, hanging out and being in shared space. I still smile thinking about that moment; I felt very wanted, included, and valued.

It didn’t hurt that of the paintings I did yesterday, 3 of 5 of them are already spoken for by enthused and delighted partners. I can’t describe how wonderful that feels, every time it comes up. It takes being appreciated to another level. 🙂

"Where There's Smoke" 8" x 10" acrylic on canvas with India ink; it's hers. :-)

“Where There’s Smoke” 8″ x 10″ acrylic on canvas with India ink; it’s hers. 🙂

"You Always Have My Heart" 8" x 10" acrylic on canvas with glow; it's his. :-)

“You Always Have My Heart” 8″ x 10″ acrylic on canvas with glow; it’s his. 🙂

I’m not disappointed about not hiking; I’ll likely still go for a walk with my camera, or stroll over to the Farmer’s Market. It’s a lovely day for all those things.

"Summer Breeze" 8" x 10" acrylic on canvas with India Ink; it's his. :-)

“Summer Breeze” 8″ x 10″ acrylic on canvas with India Ink; it’s his. 🙂

The weekend has offered some moments of amazement, wonder, and great depth. In meditation, deeply involved, aware, and present in some moment I “walked the streets of The Nightmare City” by daylight, feeling safe and walking in wonder and observing all I could before twilight could over take me.  Imagination? Fantasy? Scripting? I don’t know those things. I recognize it is not the same order of ‘real’ as being awake, here-and-now, and able to touch what I see…only…it still matters, because thoughts matter, and what we fill our implicit memory with matters, and emotional content matters, too. Later today I’ll spend time writing a bit about my visit, as though it were something others could book a trip for, and get there, stay and visit for themselves.  I am hopeful that my own next visit to The Nightmare City is very different that my last, and even perhaps willing to allow the thought that it may truly have been my last visit to drift through my consciousness without clinging to it in despair and anxious yearning.

"Daytime in the Nightmare City" 8" x 10" acrylic on canvas with glow, glitter, and micaceous iron oxide. 2014

“Daytime in the Nightmare City” 8″ x 10″ acrylic on canvas with glow, glitter, and micaceous iron oxide. 2014

Today is a good day for love, for lovers, for sharing the morning and for enjoying a lazy Sunday. Today is a good day to move beyond words. Today is a good day to smile. Today is a good day to face my fears fearlessly; in most cases I invented them both, myself, and can as easily let them go. Today is a good day to contribute only love to the world’s conversations. Today is a good day to change the world.

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Categories Allegories, Art, art and the artist, autumn, Brain Injury, Free Will, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Parables, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Words
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