Archives for posts with tag: savor the good stuff

Another Deep Breath, and…Relax

January 21, 2015 //
2

It’s already Wednesday. Only Wednesday? Test results are in! I’m aging. Well, shit. I knew that already. On the positive side, I’m not headed for death any faster than I was before. So, okay. Moving right along…

I slept well last night. I woke feeling rested, and calm. I am out of the office today, but it’s not ‘a day off’ in the leisure sense. I feel mostly fairly prepared, although a little self-conscious about how much difficulty I have been seeming to have the past 3-4 days with keeping track of things that are in progress. Signs of aging? Sure, okay, why not? Absent-mindedness is the stuff menopause jokes are made of. Right at the moment, I’m okay with that. I smile at myself, my limitations, and this morning they don’t seem particularly important. I feel loved.

I woke feeling loved, and I probably slept the night in love’s embrace; I don’t recall my dreams, but I woke smiling. Love is a big deal. It’s odd to recognize that I had so little capacity for love and loving when I was much younger. I carried a heavy burden of dread and anxiety, and wrapped myself in the gloom of futility and helplessness. Those emotions do not make fertile ground for love to grow. I’m glad I am taking a different path these days, because love is just about the best thing ever.

Taking a moment to watch fish swim.

Taking a moment to watch fish swim.

…I catch myself just sitting here, watching fish swim, and enjoying this pleasant moment. Hot coffee, quiet morning…enough. I’m learning that the qualities of life I most enjoy, myself, aren’t about more, better, sooner, faster, or even ‘other’ – I enjoy life most when it feels like ‘enough’. I’m finally figuring out that ‘enough’ is a product of my thinking, and my being, and is so very much about ‘now’. Simple joy and presence, now. Being focused on love and loving, and on creating a context in which love can easily thrive, is tending to result in contentment, joy, and a feeling I don’t have a name for that starts down low, and feels warm and uplifting, and fills me up with smiles from the inside. There’s a big self-care component to finding and embracing this experience, too. There have been so many challenges, choices, and changes just finding this one still, calm, lovely moment filled with love…I rest here, awhile, soaking in these good feelings. I’m learning to make a point of savoring every pleasant moment I have, and it actually does tend to shift my ‘default settings’ and implicit memory in a more positive direction, further improving my general experience over time. Investing in love makes sense, the return on investment is wonderful.

I hope you have the very best possible day, today, and I hope you notice, too, and enjoy it fully. Today is a good day to smile. Today is a good day to smile back. Today is a good day to enjoy the world.

Tags , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Categories Healthy Living, Love, Menopause, Mindfulness, Perspective, Relationships, The Big 5

Level Up!

July 6, 2014 //
0

This morning I woke slowly, a second time, having returned to sleep upon waking much early during the wee hours. I woke feeling pretty good, and pretty balanced. I still do, which is nice;  not everyone in my immediate vicinity is similarly fortunate. We are each having our own experience. Interestingly, so far this morning I am feeling content to enjoy mine without struggling in the face of experiences other people are not enjoying so much. It goes further, this morning; I have a certain flippant desire to say “That’s all you’ve got, Universe? You hit like a bitch.”

I experience the small emotional triumph alongside my immediate irritation with myself that I still use idioms that make light of the experiences of women, cast us in a bad light, frame us up as weak, ineffective, powerless, unskilled or unworthy.  It’s not okay.  I am struggling with language, with my emotional dictionary, with the assumptions I make, with hurtful old programming, and with ancient biases still lurking in the shadows that I have yet to address. This is a very human experience.

It’s been an emotionally complicated weekend. Unmet needs outnumber needs that are met. Moments of discord and pain have been far more frequent that moments of great contentment or joy. Small successes often haven’t been the successes I most desired – or needed.  Small failures have felt larger than life.  I’ve been in great emotional pain much of the time since my last therapy appointment. Mindfulness doesn’t mute that, in fact I seem to feel my feelings far more acutely but with far greater self-compassion and a willingness to accept that emotions are simply that: emotions. They have no greater weight or import than I grant them. I am learning to make peace with my emotional experience, and to be more comfortable with my feelings, and less willing to compromise the integrity of my experience. I am learning to make room in my own heart to be who I am. As I said, it’s a very human experience.

Today is a good day to be open to what the moment may offer.

Today is a good day to be open to what the moment may offer.

Today I’ll keep to myself, and savor the small delights a sunny Sunday has to offer. It’s enough.

Tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Categories Anxiety, Brain Injury, Healthy Living, Love, Menopause, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Summer, The Big 5, women