Archives for posts with tag: ptsd
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Wait, what?

March 1, 2013 //
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It’s a lovely morning. Another good day, too…that makes almost a week now, but I am not really keeping score…just enjoying the experience. A late evening of watching TED talks left me tempted to skip my budding meditation practice before bed, and I am glad my resolve to take care of myself held up, because in spite of less than 5 hours of sleep, I feel good. Calm. Content, in the moment, and engaged with my experience…this is an improvement over most of my experiences with missing out on sleep. I think the content of my dreams is being improved, too. Was that the science show? The TED talk about vulnerability? That one is quite exceptional, and I will watch it again…

So…onward, Friday! Show me what you’ve got. 🙂

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Categories Healthy Living, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Sleepless Nights

A Thought on a Subject

February 26, 2013 //
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I’ve struggled so much for so long ‘to feel heard’… and frankly, we have built a global culture that commonly overlooks the voices of women, and that hurts all by itself, but it hit me…  If I live my own life, on my own terms, treating myself well…choosing my values based on my own judgement and understanding of my experience and circumstances, and living them… building healthy relationships based on mutual respect, reciprocity, and treating each other well… and experiencing my life in a ‘mindful’ way… will I still ‘feel unheard’? Is the person who is not hearing me… me?  It certainly seems like a thought worth pursuing.

Have years of rage, despair, and frustration actually been entirely about me, treating myself well, feeling compassion for my own experience… hearing myself?  It feels a little… selfish. Me, me me… and I hear others reminding me ‘it isn’t all about me’… but some of it is ‘all about me’… and I find myself facing conflict head on within myself. The battle for real understanding of what is ‘all about me’ and what is not… learning to heal, learning to exist comfortably in my own experience of life, and learning who I am, and how to treat myself well… maybe once I am done with that, I can learn to love well, too. 😀

I’ve managed to turn a few other odd notions on their heads in the past couple days… just at the moment I am awed at what an amazing experience this really is. (Nice job, Brain.)

A very good Tuesday…

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Categories Anxiety, Brain Injury, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Menopause, Mindfulness, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Turning 50

Mindfulness… Interesting

February 26, 2013 //
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It’s a good Tuesday. It’s a good day for any day of the week. Nothing extraordinary about it, just chill and good… The mindfulness practices and reading that I have been doing seems to be getting me… somewhere. Somewhere good. For now I don’t have a lot more to say about it – I don’t know enough.  There is a part of me that would like to say ‘Mindfulness, eh? Who knew?’ but I can’t even form the words without thinking about thousands of years of mindfulness practices, traditions, philosophies and beliefs that exist. I am getting to the party rather late. lol.

Will ‘everything be alright’? I don’t know. Will I find peace and happiness, or at least lasting contentment? I don’t know that either. I do know that asking myself different questions, and being more fully aware in my experience has value for me right now. I’m good with that – it’s a nice start to something better.  There are a lot of things going on around me to enjoy, observe, and experience.

Yesterday was good – pretty awesome, actually, and I have the sense that I gained understanding on a couple of things that are very relevant to me right now.  Today is, too, a nice reminder that setting internal expectations has the potential to alter experience itself, or color it consistent with the chosen definitions and map; I didn’t ‘anticipate the day’, and I am exploring just living it. Less dread. Less fear. Less doubt. Nice change.

Enjoy your Tuesday, you only get one this week. 😉

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Categories Anxiety, Brain Injury, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Menopause, Mindfulness, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Turning 50

The Brain Attacks!!

February 25, 2013 //
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Welcome to Monday. A good one so far, and I’m glad for it. I thought thoughts walking in to work, and some of them may have been profound, possibly share worthy, but by the time I got to work there were really only two things, distilled from almost an hour of walking meditations, that I still wanted to share:

1. It was an overall good weekend – except for the sucker punch my brain delivered to my heart, soul and experience on Sunday morning. Wow. Lethal. I am more thankful than words can express that I have partners with the will and ability to ‘be there for me’ as much as they are, as often as they are, and considering how easily I can, and how often I have, hurt them. I am also extremely appreciative, this morning, that I am alive today – funny thing to say, perhaps, but if you could know the experiences I have already survived across 49 years, it would seem less surprising that I might feel so grateful that existence – mine – continues today. 😀  It is certainly something to cherish, celebrate, and enjoy – even the difficult bits.  So that’s one thing to share.

2. A metaphor… I love music. I started thinking about life and music… and I got this.  There is more than one sort of musician. A skilled studio musician may be a virtuoso with an instrument, or style, well-versed in technique, reading music, bringing ‘a sound’ – and creates music with those tools and skills, but perhaps doesn’t compose or create.  A DJ makes music too – using other people’s music, samples, their own creativity at mixing, bringing elements of varied styles together to create a sound, but perhaps doesn’t have the technical expertise about music theory that might be expected or found more commonly among very technically proficient musicians, or virtuosi.  There are also ‘rock stars’ – gifted performers, composers, musicians – beings of amazing style and ability to capture or drive the zeitgeist, to influence or herald social and cultural change, and I’m sure we’ve all noticed they are not always exceptional or gifted musicians.  In life – which of these am I, I wondered? I realized pretty quickly that although there are qualities of each of these I would very much like to embody, I am probably that guy in his garage with a beat up instrument he got cheap in a pawn shop, who hears music in his head, loves to listen to his favorite tracks and sings along with all his favorite songs… and can’t read a note, and barely picks out a modestly recognizable rendition of the guitar riff from ‘Smoke on the Water’, slowly. That’s not a good or bad thing… but it is sure important to know that about oneself. 🙂  If that guy sticks with it, learns some basics, and figures out what he really wants out of music (life), and applies himself to achieving those goals, he’ll probably get somewhere worth going… on the other hand… if he struts around like a rock star, telling his friends he’s awesome, and showing off what he doesn’t understand… well… I know that guy. You probably know that guy. In life and love, I think I am that guy… and I have a choice to make. I choose to be a humble and honest student of life and love… there’s plenty to learn.   (Thanks, Brain, this one almost makes up for your shenanigans yesterday.)

…and now back to our usual Monday line up… 😉

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Categories Anxiety, Brain Injury, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Menopause, Metaphors, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Sleepless Nights, Turning 50

Easy, Light, Calm

February 13, 2013 //
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Today is better. Today is good, actually. What makes the difference? Hell, I guess if I knew that I’d write a self-help book and rule the world! (Instead I blog) Things calmed down yesterday… that is to say, I calmed down yesterday. Coasted through the remainder of the evening quietly with my family.  It was nice. Some odd vibes here and there; I’m extremely sensitive to, and aware of, other people’s emotional state, but inconveniently enough that often doesn’t include a real understanding of what that state may be, or an understanding of its relevance to me.  Still, an enjoyable evening overall, and I took steps to take care of me, and that seems to have worked out inasmuch as today is good.

This morning I read some interesting articles that seem apropos of life in general – mine at least. One article about the benefits of Love for stress reduction put a smile on my face by confirming my own experience with Love, which is that I’m less stressed overall, less anxious less frequently, more positive, and generally good-natured and fun to be with when Love is good.  I smiled a bit sheepishly reading an article about whether ‘positive people’ are annoying… and was delighted to find it is also a good article with some tips on breaking negative thinking cycles. I sometimes get ‘stuck’ in some negative thinking, myself, and I know how hard I find it to recognize and accept help breaking the cycle. It’s as if, for me, the chemical experience of a specific intense emotion has a ‘half life’ – like being on a drug – and it takes time to finish its course or break down in my blood stream, or… damn it, Science, help me out here! Speaking of Science (weren’t we?) I also read an article today supporting therapeutic use of cannabis for PTSD; the State of Oregon is considering a senate bill (281) to add PTSD to the list of ‘qualifying conditions’ for their medical marijuana program. That’s good news for a lot of people in emotional pain and turmoil, since anything at all that actually works is better than the entire rest of everything that doesn’t actually work much at all.

So…here it is, another day. So far a good one. What will I make of it from here? How will I deliver my best effort to the world, and to my lovers? How do I hang on to what I love most about myself, and build on that, and leave behind what sucks most about me? How do I take other people, and their emotions, needs, and experience, less personally and still honor and respect them? Friday is just two days away… and there is so much to learn about who I am, about living mindfully, about loving well…

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Categories Anxiety, Brain Injury, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, medical marijuana, Menopause, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Turning 50
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