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Investing the Best

January 20, 2016 //
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There was a time in my life when I was pretty certain that I was so entirely broken, in some fashion or another, that any contribution I could possibly make in my relationships would be a material one – or sex. That was the limit of what I thought I had to offer the world, or a partner; if I couldn’t buy it, or provide the manual labor, or do the sex thing, what else was there, really? Well, art. There was art. I am hopeful that I don’t have to point out what an incredibly limiting – and self-fulfilling – perspective that was.

Be love.

Be love.

I say “be love” as though what I mean is obvious. Perhaps it isn’t, and maybe a gentle morning over a good coffee is a nice time to clarify? It isn’t as if “be love” is something I came up with – because, if  it were…first, what a tragic state for the world to discover love so late, and second… well, damn, what about all those love songs? So, yeah, not my original thoughts, and surely there are other people who have written more better words with greater clarity on the subject of love, generally. So…if you’re after more better words with great clarity about love, I suggest Thich Nhat Hanh, Leo Buscaglia, or, if you’re ‘not there yet’ any of a number of books on loving the person in the mirror, which does have to come first, as it turns out, to love another with any real skill…have you checked out my reading list? 😉

The love thing is a big deal. It drives a lot of marketing, and therefore a great deal of profit-making goes on associated with love (I’m looking your way Valentine’s Day!). It’s clearly something human primates favor. Are you ‘getting your share’? Are you still thinking of it in those terms? I spent a lot of years stuck on the idea that if love were ‘real’ – and I wasn’t convinced it might be until well past 30, and couldn’t seem to figure out ‘how to have it’ until I was well past 40 – if love were real at all, why wasn’t I ‘getting my share’?? Ouch. Well, in fairness, there’s so much media pressure on us all regarding love we easily succumb to the visions of love we see in advertising, on television and in movies – how can what we see at home compete or compare? We are each so human – and no one is providing us handy re-writes of our script; our best moments are at risk of going unnoticed because we are so busy looking for something very different. How suck is that? You see where this is headed, right?

Mindful love. Yep. I couldn’t fathom it for a while. Mindfulness… check. Meditation… check. Awareness… check. Present in the moment… check. Treating myself well… check. Each concept falling into place, building on each other, and more than once I returned to my therapists office with this question “how does mindful love work?” It sounds like a simple enough question, and I couldn’t quite answer it in words – however many books I read. I didn’t understand that it wasn’t the part about mindfulness that I wasn’t fully grasping… it was love. 🙂

Now we’re getting somewhere! Is this the hot sexy part? With the tips for pleasing a lover? W00t!! Go sex!!

Oh… wait… nope. Sex is sex. Love is…

Love.

Love.

By moving into my own place, while also maintaining a romantic loving relationship with my traveling partner, I did something wonderful for me; I opened my eyes to some experiences about love that I hadn’t been able to understand so simply before. Some of the lessons have been complicated. Some of them have been so simple that they tripped me up while I sought to understand them as something more complicated than they were. Love matters so much that I figured I’d share some of the things I am learning – I expect that as with really first-rate self-care, learning to love well is likely a lifetime of practice, and similarly many of the practices themselves are so simple they mislead one into thinking they are also effortless – nope, in loving too there are verbs involved. Here come some verbs now…

Invest the best in your relationships that you have to offer. This is so simple and fundamental on the surface, but it is a rich deep practice that has kept me on my toes for months now, and until this past weekend, I didn’t have simple words to describe what I might mean by it. So here it is – invest the best in love. Kindness, a welcoming approach, listening deeply, and ensuring that the assumptions in my day-to-day thinking regarding my loving relationships are positive ones have nothing at all to do with money, with sex, or with material goods – without these things, though, no amount of money will buy me love.

An easy example, and common, if I am short-tempered with a loved one in a brief moment, surely it can be understood as part of being human, and an appropriate apology and making it right allows everyone to move on. If, however, my short-temperedness is a character trait that is recognizably ‘who I am’ it will likely undermine love over time. Other things work that way too; sarcasm, mockery, meanness, and cruelty have no role to play in love – defending their use by saying “it’s just who I am”, or by calling it a joke, may not be enough to stop love’s erosion over time, particularly if the user of such behaviors is unaware of the hurtful effect. (If the user is entirely aware of the hurtful effect of such things, and uses them for amusement or in anger without regard to the hurt they cause – that’s not love.)

This weekend, I mused with regret at some point that I don’t have money laying about in capital amounts with which to support my traveling partners endeavors – how wonderful it would be to be able to invest heavily in a solid business proposal, see it get off the ground, and watch his success and independence grow! I felt, ever so briefly, that I ‘don’t have enough to offer’. In material terms, that may be true (it also may not be true; ‘enough’ is a slippery concept). I realized as we talked through that particular conversation that what love asks of me has nothing whatever to do with money, and it’s never been money that was the strength of this relationship; emotions don’t work that way. Love is an emotion. Suddenly, I felt unsteady in my understanding of the world – I awoke to the vast riches I have to offer my relationships (and they are vast indeed).

If love isn’t looking for a cash investment, what is it looking for that I do have plentifully? How about – are you ready for this, because we’re all a lot wealthier than we realize, if we choose to be so – kindness. Yep. Day-to-day kindness and gentle words. Patience. Deep listening – really put myself on pause to hear what my partner is saying without ‘waiting for my turn to talk’. Hearing – really hearing my partner, the words, the intent, the meaning, the emotion – really ‘getting it’, because they matter, and it doesn’t cost a thing besides my good intentions, and a verb or two. Isn’t the basic willingness to do these things sort of implied when I say “I love you”? Making room in my experience to share the journey with another – graciously, generously, merrily – and making the good moments of greater value by savoring them, sharing them, exploring them, and giving them more of my precious mortal time, than I spend ruminating over some momentary misunderstanding, or hurt feelings over thoughtless words. How about vulnerability, too? Sharing life from the perspective that we are each very human, and being open to sharing our selves and experience in a raw and honest way – still being kind, still speaking gently, still listening deeply… it sounds easy. It’s worth practicing. It takes practice – invested, willful, engaged practice. And more of that, again and again.

Yelling, irritability, contentious disagreeable conversation, argument, fussing, insults, anger – not a bit of this is love. The love is in the quiet spaces in between, and in the laughter – and if we don’t invest the best we have to offer in the love we wish to enjoy, the love will slowly be squeezed out by thoughtlessness, negativity, anger, attachment to expectations, and disappointment when our assumption that love ‘should’ overlook our nastiness and bullshit doesn’t turn out to be true. Love isn’t a tantrum; it’s the long-term investment in what is best within ourselves.

Before we go too far, I want to be clear about one small detail – I don’t know of any way to actually ‘fake love’. This isn’t a ‘fake it until you make it’ sort of area of life, and a saccharine smile and a terse insincere “I’m fine” when that is clearly not the case isn’t love, either; it’s a lie. It is possible to speak honestly and sincerely – and also gently. (Listening helps with that.) Seriously. It is. Try it out sometime. It’s quite a lovely experience, I find. Yep. It does take practice. 🙂

Love is in the small things - strange for such a big deal.

Love is in the small things – strange for such a big deal.

Today is a good day to be love. Today is a good day to invest the best of what I have to offer in the relationships that matter most to me. Today is a good day to practice loving well. I’ll start with the woman in the mirror. Love can change the world.

 

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Categories art and the artist, Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Love, Mindfulness, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, The Art of Being, The Big 5, women, Words

It’s Probably More Complicated Than That

December 10, 2015 //
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I am sipping my coffee slowly this morning. It’s very good. The morning is in all obvious ways a very relaxed morning, steam rising from my coffee mug, holiday music on the stereo. There is a subtle undercurrent of tension that I feel lurking just out of view of the obvious. I let my awareness expand to include that feeling, without diving into it.

I am aware of small details that seem to be provoking my subtle feeling of tension: the awareness of not hearing from a friend with whom I’ve been sharing an almost daily exchange lately, some concern for my traveling partner’s well-being and how he is treated in another relationship, and some background stress lingering in my awareness due to the adjustment to my long-term schedule that I’ve sort of avoided dealing with since it would not affect me until – tomorrow. Small things can become big things if I don’t treat myself well, so I take them one by one; I find that the assumptions and implicit expectations I hold onto unaware are the most likely thing causing me stress.

I consider my correspondence, and my dear friend I haven’t heard from ‘in a few days’ – how long has it actually been? Not very. A day or two. We also have an explicit understanding that our email exchange is not a reliable everyday thing. So… yeah. Nothing to be stressed over. I move on.

My traveling partner’s well-being is something that matters to me greatly, and I actively invest in my own growth in order to be the woman I most want to be – and the best possible lover and partner that I am able to be with my love. I am very sensitive to both explicit and implicit communications of stress from my partner, although he is very careful not to load me down with drama from his other relationship. There are no secrets between us, and the challenges I left behind when I moved out still live there with him – it’s more complicated than the simplified narrative that tends to drive background stress. That’s an entirely different relationship than the one he and I have with each other, and my partner is a grown man with free will, and an emotional investment in that human being over there. I take a moment to be aware of his skill as a partner, and how much I value his investment in us. It has taken time to learn to love well, and it’s not exactly something we teach in schools.  I pause to quietly celebrate the powerful love I share with my traveling partner, and to wish him well in his difficult circumstances, with his difficult Other. I wrap my thoughts of my traveling partner in my love and find myself smiling. Just smiling – because there’s nothing at all wrong with the relationship he and I share, and love is wonderful to enjoy – and to support. There’s nothing here to cause me stress this morning.

That one last small detail, left for last because it is likely causing me the most stress, honestly – my schedule. It’s such a small change, and the price to be paid to get the best possible fit for schedules for my entire team. In order to meet the most needs (for the team and for the business) I need to go into the office earlier on Fridays than the other days of the week. That’s a potential challenge for me; variable start times are often a very poor fit for my TBI. Avoiding thinking about that is an ineffective success strategy because it undercuts planning that could result in improved outcomes. So, I take a few minutes to breathe deeply, to contemplate what I most need out of my mornings, and my days, and what works best for me. I make a decision to adjust my waking alarm 15-minutes earlier, long-term, every week day. It’s a 15-min add to my morning the other 4 days, and pretty close to my most common natural wake up time. More to the point, it is enough additional time to prevent my one ‘short morning’ each week (Friday) from feeling rushed; I’ll have enough time to wake, to shower and dress, and head to the office without hurrying through things like taking medication, and making coffee – although I’ll be drinking that coffee on the walk to work, instead of chilling over words, or music.

The stress I had noticed in the background of my experience dissipates; I addressed ‘the real issue’ – and it wasn’t the most obvious thing, or the significant portion of my thoughts. It was such a small thing. Small things matter, too, and what I am inclined to ‘face’ in moments of stress is often not the thing really bothering me. We’re just a bit more complicated than that, aren’t we? 😉

Be love.

Be love.

It’s a lovely gentle morning, free of stress at this point. I listen to Giftmas carols in the background – ancient classics from my childhood and modern re-imaginings on a mixed playlist with other very non-traditional modern holiday music of a less ‘serious’ sort. I like nearly all of it; it sets a mood. I find myself still smiling, thinking of my darling and I, we’ll be sharing Giftmas some weeks from now – I am on the edge of my seat, eager with anticipated delight; I think I nailed Giftmas this year with a balance of fun, easy, and welcoming.

Every sunrise is a chance to begin again.

Every sunrise is a chance to begin again.

Today is a good day to take a second look at small stressors, and take a step back for better perspective. Today is a good day to be mindful that common enough situations may still be more complicated that we see them initially. Today is a good day to love well and to love mindfully; we are each worthy of love. Today is a good day to change the world.

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Categories Anxiety, Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Love, Mindfulness, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, The Art of Being, The Big 5, winter, Words

Suddenly Aware

November 18, 2015 //
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For the moment I am painfully, heart-wrenching-ly, poignantly aware of the emptiness of my small apartment after my traveling partner’s departure. We had a lovely time. I already miss him greatly. I sit here quietly considering how better to have handled the evening. I had managed to bring things to quite an abrupt end, rather by mistake honestly. No confusing it – he asked me if I was done for the evening, or words to that effect, and I very clearly and plainly – quite simply – said “yes”. Within minutes he was gone, and my heart ached to see him walking away. Fuck. Seriously?

I don’t know how to reverse course on something like that. “Please stay.” That could be a place to start. I could hang out with that man for hours – have – and I miss living with him. I don’t actually understand why I chose to end the evening, really. Did I mis-speak? Well…I hurt. A lot. I’m in pain. By the time he’d gone I was in enough pain to be really regretting not doing yoga when I got home, and wondering if I really had taken that last dose of pain medication, my recollection of doing so seemed less clear, now. After-the-fact none of that seems at all relevant, and I wish I had spoken up before he left – simply, plainly, and clearly, and asked him to stay.

We've all got baggage.

We’ve all got baggage.

But that’s the bit about me…and I can get past that pretty easily and give myself a break. It’s nagging at me that if I feel this way – missing him so much it literally hurts – have I also caused him that pain? That’s actually not okay with me, and I make a point of trying to apologize…by email, because he’s driving…not entirely certain that my perception of having hurt him is even accurate, but trying to use simple kind language to say I’m sorry anyway – because I’m sorry that I might have hurt him in that way, and if I didn’t actually hurt him that would still be true. I’m not actually very good at that kind of thing, and it often ends up misunderstood. Still… It matters to me when he apologizes because he feels he has wronged me in some way, even if I didn’t have the experience of being wronged, so it makes sense to say I’m sorry – because I am.

Love.

Love.

Now it’s this quiet evening, alone. I’m okay with that, just taken by surprise by the unexpected choice. I sit quietly considering why I did not take action to change course in a firm practical way? I sit with the emotions I feel as I play it back like a video. There! I spot the fear that stalled me, off in a dark corner of my thinking, tangled up in the chaos and damage… but it’s not that big a deal, and I am not a puddle of tears, or freaked out with anxiety, insecurity and dread. I am loved. Sometimes I’m cluelessly hurtful in spite of meaning well – and in spite of that, I am loved. I think about my traveling partner, and something he said about a t.v. show he likes, and I smile hoping he has his feet up, watching it, and enjoying the evening. I roll out my yoga mat, and put my playlist on.

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Categories Anxiety, autumn, Brain Injury, Free Will, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, The Art of Being, The Big 5, Words

Another ‘Now’

November 17, 2015 //
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Morning again. I woke ahead of the alarm clock, a bit wistful that it wasn’t much earlier; I’d have enjoyed going back to sleep for a while. I woke, showered, made coffee, and wondered all the while at how easily our fears can change our minds, or our behavior. Mine, too, I’m not immune. Sure, I’m not feeling backed into a corner over recent terrorist attacks, lashing out in anger underscored by fear against an ‘enemy’ I don’t know and can’t define. Instead, my fears hit me very close to home, in the night, frozen while I listen to a neighbor wail. It was last night, and it was the sort of cry in the darkness that sources with terrible grief and pain. I have made such sounds, and felt feelings that project such sounds into the darkness… but I took no action last night. I laid quietly, very still, feeling distant fear wash over me, wondering…locked in the past, and fearing someone else’s moment, until quiet came and sleep overtook me.

I hesitate to load myself down with ‘should haves’, but I find myself facing the woman in the mirror with a firm question this morning. “Why did you not act?” Because, I could have – I live next door. To dress and knock on the door and ask the simple question “Are you okay? Can I help?” could mean so much to someone in distress. I didn’t go and I didn’t ask the question. My distant ancient fear got to me first, and I lay still in the night, frightened and wondering. I am able to make choices that result in being a better person than I was yesterday. I take a moment for gratitude that I live, really, such a singularly peaceful life day-to-day, these days. It’s hard to spell out how much that matters, or how much I value it. Contrasting experiences, like my neighbor’s distress in the night, are powerful reminders how far I have come since those long ago years when I was the one wailing in the darkness, terrified and wounded.

I sip my coffee and prepare for the work day. Here too there is room for gratitude and a moment of appreciation; I’ve gotten past much of my work stress, and regained my balance by restoring my perspective on having a job, in general. I have a good action plan for making significant improvements in my overall experience of working, and yes there are verbs involved, and change. I’ve remembered to shift the emotional investment in my experience back into my own experience of my time and life with myself, and firmly away from the tasks required during working hours to meet the needs of employment; it’s a job, and only that. Allowing my professional commitment in return for a well-earned paycheck to become anything more significant than that in the way I view myself holds so much potential discontent and frustration, for me personally. I am excited about the future, and although I don’t expect most plans to turn out as planned when life unfolds, I do find a bit of planning quite nice as a starting point. A plan is a map with which to begin again.

Every sunrise is a chance to begin again.

Every sunrise is a chance to begin again.

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Categories Anxiety, autumn, Brain Injury, Free Will, grief, Healthy Living, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, The Art of Being, The Big 5, Words

Can I Have Mine With the Fail Sauce on the Side, Please?

September 26, 2015 //
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I woke smiling this morning, although in pain, and feeling light-hearted, balanced, and calm. This would seem almost commonplace, except that last night, at the end of a wonderful evening with my traveling partner, some particular turn of phrase, repeated several times in conversation in relatively quick succession, triggered my PTSD symptoms. My emotions quickly spiraled out of control, and somewhen in the midst of it, I directed my dear love to go, to leave, to walk on…and found myself alone and crying; he respected my boundaries, which sucked then, but this morning it is something I cherish. I can count on him so utterly.

p.s. I love you.

p.s. I love you.

He phoned me after he left, upset and concerned. He pointed out my symptoms (because I am not always aware that I am interacting with some other experience). We talked.  Afterward, I took time to meditate. I calmed and soothed myself – relying on emotional resilience and self-sufficiency that I am building over time through all manner of practices (like meditation). I reflected later on what went down, and how and why. Moments like last night are outstanding for monitoring growth and progress – but they still suck completely and entirely. I emailed him an unreserved heartfelt apology, making no excuses for my behavior (let’s be real here, it’s been much much worse in the past, and that’s not relevant to treating someone I love badly now!), which was uncomfortable for both of us, and unpleasantly emotional. I was already over it such that I could also express gratitude and appreciation for what he was attempting to discuss and help me with, and I had taken time to follow up on our shared concern and the practical relevant details… like a grown up. 🙂

I made a note for myself to follow up later on developing more effective ways to gently communicate that some particular detail, phrase, approach, or behavior has the potential to trigger me – not in the hope of having it avoided, but because in real life these things come up, and one by one I must move past them, for my own emotional well-being, and as a loving investment in my relationships, and wouldn’t it be nice once in a while to just say ‘Oh hey, could you rephrase that one this time? I’m still working on that and I’ve got some challenges with that verbiage’. It takes time, but I no longer view improving on these things as unachievable; I may have some measure of PTSD for the rest of my life, but there is nothing about that which suggests I can’t continue to improve, to grow, and to become the woman I want most to be.

We've all got some baggage.

We’ve all got some baggage.

When my traveling partner had gone, and I was sifting through my chaos and damage, it was quickly very clear that the entire problematic exchange wasn’t at all about or with him (or us) in any way at all; I could feel my violent first husband standing in the room with me. It was an eye-opening moment to be so able to clearly sense the anachronistic miasma of ancient fear and pain. It was also part of what allowed me to move past the moment – and my symptoms – so quickly last night, once I was alone. I could really feel that it didn’t source in my real experience of the moment in any way at all. I had been triggered – and I don’t mean mainstream press too-pc-for-adulthood-don’t-say-things-I-find-discomfiting- “triggered”*.  I mean no bullshit, I was having a post-traumatic stress flashback. Generally, in the past I have had no way of clearly discerning that such is the case until well afterward. This is growth. I don’t know what to do with it, but it is very promising, anyway. I haven’t had a flash back in a long while (months, and well before I moved into my own place, back in March).

Every moment of growth is as a rainbow in a stormy sky; a promise of better things.

Every moment of growth is as a rainbow in a stormy sky; a promise of better things.

Last night – and a couple of times early in the day – I was having a strange very severe headache in a weird location, that throbbed with a deep dull nauseating ache that pulsed every 10-15 seconds or so. I’ve no idea if it was related, causal, or worth consider a serious concern… except that any headache that is unusual is also of great concern for someone with a TBI and a family history of stroke. This morning I made a point of emailing my physician to make note of the headache, and ask if I should make an appointment. I haven’t felt it yet today, so perhaps it was just a headache.

Today I'm not making this complicated.

Today I’m not making this complicated.

I am okay right now. Love is okay right now. Human beings persist in being human, and life offers opportunities to learn, to fail, to grow, and to connect our hearts through what is difficult more often than through what is easy. It’s worth becoming skilled at managing my worst moments more skillfully; I can count on most of the best moments to take care of themselves.

It helps to have the right tool for the job.

It helps to have the right tool for the job…

Today is a good day to practice good practices. Today is a good day to take care of me – and to take care of love. Today is a good day for listening deeply, and connecting honestly. Today is a good day for authenticity and vulnerability. Today is a good day to say thank you, when love shoulders the heavy load my post-traumatic stress carries every day. Today is a good day to walk on, and enjoy blue skies. I am okay right now. 🙂

...and perhaps a change of perspective.

…and perhaps a change of perspective.

It's a journey. Each step I take is my own.

It’s a journey. Each step I take is my own.

*Just an afterthought…Can I just say that I find it damned inconvenient that people have undermined the value and meaning of the word ‘triggered‘ by diluting it for their everyday over-sensitivity or bad-tempered moments? For someone with post-traumatic stress the experience of having symptoms triggered is not a mildly uncomfortable moment, or inconvenience – it’s a pretty big deal, associated with brain chemistry, volatility, mood, physical experiences, and isn’t something that can be easily turned away from or ‘managed’. By mis-using the word to cover feeling uncomfortable to read the ‘fuck’ in a news article, or because a moment of provocation caused a bit of temper, people who really need to express an experience are robbed the language to do so. Knock it off – go find your own words. Seriously. There’s a big difference between being a bad-tempered over-sensitive little bitch, and being having one’s post-traumatic stress triggered – trust me, I’ve had both experiences, and I’m pretty clear on the difference. 🙂

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Categories Anxiety, autumn, Brain Injury, grief, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, The Art of Being, The Big 5, Words
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