Archives for posts with tag: sufficiency

Taking a Moment

April 8, 2019 //

I am getting over this cold fairly quickly, and chose to work a partial day from home to balance the urgent needs that are to do with work, with the also urgent need to care for myself. So far so good. 🙂

I woke to a misty rainy morning. I stood in the open doorway to the deck with my coffee before dawn, feeling the cold Spring draft coming up from the seasonal stream beyond the yard. It was lush. Lovely. Chilly. So very quiet, at least until the early commuters began to make their way down the road toward the city.

I worked awhile. I enjoyed my coffee, and laid plans to see work in progress through to completion, based on new information. I considered open projects, and took on tasks I was up to. I worked, comfortably. I can reliably say I didn’t get anyone else sick with this, today. 🙂

In between the work spaces, tasks, and actions, there was Spring. The misty pre-dawn twilight became a rainy gray dawn. It is now a soft neutral gray morning, a steady rain falling, small stinging Spring droplets, almost just a mist, but falling densely enough to soak through clothes rather quickly. I watch it from indoors, smiling. The garden doesn’t mind the mist, the chill, or the rain at all. Seedlings sprout. New shoots break through bare soil. Birds and chipmunks explore the changes since yesterday, hoping for a bite of breakfast.

Spring.

I answer emails from friends once I’ve ended my few hours of work for the day. There is so much satisfaction in doing so. I feel connected, visible, enriched, and grateful. Hell of a good start to the week, in spite of being sick.

Spring. Today. This moment, right here. It’s enough. 🙂

Tags ACT, are you going my way?, be here now, be the change, being and becoming, choose wisely, emotional self sufficiency, good self-care, mindfulness for beginners, perspective, practicing the practices, rainy mondays, relationships, sufficiency, taking care of me, there are verbs involved, what matters most?

Categories Free Will, gardening, gratitude, Healthy Living, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Practices, Spring, The Art of Being

The Big and The Small

April 5, 2019 //

An excellent cup of coffee in the morning, and random thoughts chasing other random thoughts. I sat down with my coffee, and without a plan. Cars start up in other driveways, and there is a steady shhh-shhh on the road beyond the driveway as earlier commuters than I make their way toward whatever job they do. They’ve got theirs. I’ve got mine. Another day.

I’m not blue, or anxious, or fretting about some small thing of little actual consequence. I’ve still got this “headache” – let’s call it a headache. Convenient to have a word for it. lol Life is… life. Choices are made and acted upon. Promises are made, and kept – or broken. Trust is established, then breached. Humans are being human. Everywhere. All of them. There is no point in catastrophizing some one detail; it is fairly commonly the catastrophizing, itself, that is the stress and the drama. Still, we seem wired for it.

A flower, a morning, a beginning.

I yawn. Let all that go. Sip my coffee. Listen to the rain fall. Sit, present, in the morning stillness, waiting to begin again.

Tags be here now, be the change, begin again, choose wisely, emotional self sufficiency, I am my own cartographer, meditation, perspective, practicing the practices, relationships, sufficiency, taking care of me, The Art of Being, the map is not the world, there are verbs involved, we become what we practice, what matters most?

Categories forgiveness, Free Will, gratitude, Healthy Living, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Practices, Relationships, Spring, The Art of Being, The Big 5

In The Garden

April 1, 2019 //

I have a wee garden. It’s a container garden on a decently large deck. I currently have no new pictures of it, although I spent much of the weekend in the garden, doing Spring sorts of things. There’s not yet much to see.

In the same moment that I consider the words “nothing to see here” as I sit down to write, and enjoy my morning coffee, it occurs to me that it is a matter of perspective whether that is really the case. There are containers large and small that have been filled with soil. Older containers have been carefully weeded. Rose branches that died back last year have been pruned away. The thyme and the oregano are looking very fresh and healthy. Containers have been moved into their Spring-Summer-Autumn locations, here and there and on deck rails. From the base of one of the “dead” miniature roses, a couple new shoots prove me wrong. So much to see! I just didn’t take any pictures. Too engaged in the moments spent living to think to take a picture. There are metaphors here. 🙂

It’s already Monday, and already time to return to work, for another week. I don’t feel hassled, or regretful, just ready for it. 🙂

Quite a bit of the weekend was spent in the company of friends. The smile on my face lingers from a weekend of jovial connection, and contented intimacy. Hearing rain beyond the window, I decide to ride the light rail today, and find myself – still smiling – appreciating the options.

A life well-lived isn’t necessarily about Lamborghini’s, mansions, jewelry, or money; it’s about moments. 🙂 That’s at least my own perspective on the matter. Of course, I don’t have a Lamborghini… so… what do I know about that? (Aside from enough to avoid getting hung up on expensive things I don’t actually want or need. lol) My genial contentment in life definitely finds some basis in sufficiency and non-attachment. 😀

Well… my coffee is gone. It’s already time to leave for the train, to do work things, in work places. 🙂 It’s enough. It’s also time to begin again. 😉

Tags a well-earned smile, are you going my way?, be here now, be the change, begin again, being and becoming, choose wisely, emotional self sufficiency, enough is enough, good self-care, keys to the Lambo, MBSR, meditation, non attachment, perspective, practicing the practices, ptsd, relationships, sufficiency, TBI, The Art of Being, there are verbs involved, time to go to work, we become what we practice, what matters most?, where does your path lead?

Categories Allegories, Brain Injury, Free Will, gardening, gratitude, Healthy Living, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, Spring, The Art of Being

Are You Ready?

March 29, 2019 //

I woke drenched in sweat. Unexpected. It was early. I got up and made coffee with shaking hands, disturbed by… what? Nothing much, I guess. Brain working over time. Short day in the office, today. It’s not really “time off”; I’ve got a medical appointment. Is that stressing me out? I sip my coffee and wonder. I take time for me.

It’s such a human experience being this creature of emotion and reason wrapped in this strangely fragile meat sack. lol My coffee tastes good. My body feels uncomfortable, otherwise. It is what it is. Fuck. At least I got some sleep.

I enjoy the companionship and presence of my Traveling Partner on a most peculiar level. Always have. He’s my friend. My love. My buddy. My partner. The one person I reliably enjoy being around, at my best, at my worst, when I’m ill, when I’m feeling restless; this is a human being with whom I fully enjoy living life. Perfection isn’t a thing – it’s more about how complementary our individual challenges are. We understand and respect each other. We have shared values. We lift each other up. We demand our best from each other – so gently and with such kindness that it doesn’t feel like a demand, at all. It’s nice. I sit and sip my coffee thinking about how fortunate I am to enjoy this relationship, with this person. No particular reason to mention any of it; I’m just sipping coffee and feeling loved. 🙂 It’s a pleasant start to the morning, after a rather emotionally rude awakening. 🙂

Working, living.

The work experience is interesting. I am an engine, firing on all cylinders, accelerating from a definite starting point, with a destination in mind. How long will that last? Sleep and self-care are important. So important. Sometimes love and life feel like a distraction from the energy needed to fuel the work. It’s odd that this is so; don’t I also need the sleep and the self-care? Rhetorical. I know I do.

We make strange mistakes in our thinking, as human creatures. We try to run from our emotions by taking drugs or practicing all many of escape tactics, even though our emotions indisputably go everywhere with us. We conflate satisfaction with our professional lives with enjoying our actual lives. We confuse marriage with love. We adopt convictions and beliefs without examining their basis in fact, then cling to them as if they are going to save us, even when we are shown clear evidence that they are bunk. What strange creatures we are!

I sip my coffee. I think about work. I think about love. I think about life. Then I notice I am thinking, and set my thinking aside to simply drink coffee for a moment, just being. The cup, mostly empty now, is still quite warm in my hands. I feel the subtle warmth rise from the contents within, though it has cooled too much for steam to rise. I taste the dark warm liquid; earthy, with hints of chocolate, of forest, of morning. I breathe. Relax.

My waking moment was difficult, and disorienting. In spite of that, the morning goes well. It feels like a gift to be so easily able to bounce back. It is, more accurately, the win that follows commitment to self-care, a reliable meditation practice, and the result of rather a lot of work specifically done to get this (or similar) result… and a lot of restarts, do-overs, and new beginnings. 🙂 Worth it.

My coffee is gone. It’s time to begin again. 🙂

Tags be here now, be the change, being and becoming, breathe, choose wisely, emotional self sufficiency, good self-care, meditation, perspective, practicing the practices, ptsd, relationships, sufficiency, taking care of me, TBI, The Art of Being, there are verbs involved, we become what we practice, what matters most?

Categories Anxiety, Brain Injury, Free Will, gratitude, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, Spring, The Art of Being

That’s Not How It’s Done!

March 28, 2019 //

Groggy and fussy, this morning, sipping my obviously too hot coffee with considerable care, and still burning my tongue, and letting my mind scroll through the recollection of the week, so far, and yesterday, specifically. I’m feeling irritable in those places where life or work shove me outside my “comfort zone”, forcing me to reconsider my expectations, assumptions, and knowledge. What works? What doesn’t work? Is this thing that once worked well no longer going to work at all? Is this new way of being or doing or thinking going to last? Does it fit? Does it work?

…I find non-attachment most difficult when it requires me to let go of a long-standing practice that once was the clear choice on my path to success.

…No, that isn’t some hint that I’m thinking about not writing. lol Stay with me. Here. In this moment. This is a safe space, here with the words, and the coffee. 😉 (Well, I mean… safe for me; I may occasionally be less than ideally comfortable for someone else.) I’m just saying – it’s hard to let go of things I think I know well.

Sometimes we have to let go of something we think we really know, something we accept as “fact”. It’s to do with so much of our “knowledge” being built on internal narrative, bits of memories, things we think we heard, and our runaway need to be certain about things that are not easily defined with certainty, at all, perhaps. I do know that I occasionally notice I’m “knowing” something with a firmness of conviction that is, all by itself, a warning klaxon of belief. Gotta let that go. Sometimes it’s hard.

I’m chuckling because I have not made it clear that in this particular instance, I’ve gone all meta on a practical fucking bit from work, of all things, because it became very clear yesterday that I need to let some assumptions go, and either re-test their validity in my (forecasting) model, or allow myself to explore new ways of thinking about it, entirely. It managed to become a life lesson, over a night’s sleep, and my morning coffee, and here I sit, thinking about queuing theory and forecasting. Some other part of my less-than-ideally-awake consciousness mews pitifully about not having finished my coffee… lol

I take some time to continue the data entry of updated details from friends, from Facebook, into my Contacts. This process is tedious, and also heart-warming. I absolutely admit I expected maybe 5 or 6 people would actually act on my advisement that I’d be leaving the realm of Facebook… instead, I’m facing a couple hours of actual work. LOL S’ok. They are, and I am, quite worth the time. 🙂

So is this. So are you.

I smile into my coffee, and take a deep, cleansing breath. I hear the soft breathing of my Traveling Partner in the other room. I feel content. Wrapped in love. I sit with this lovely moment as I finish my coffee… as moments go, it is quite perfect precisely as it is. I’ll sit with it awhile longer, before I begin again. 🙂

Tags be here now, be love, be the change, begin again, being and becoming, breathe, choose wisely, emotional self sufficiency, good self-care, I am my own cartographer, perspective, practicing the practices, relationships, sufficiency, The Art of Being, the map is not the world, there are verbs involved, walking my own path, we become what we practice, what matters most?

Categories Free Will, gratitude, Healthy Living, inspiration, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Practices, Relationships, The Art of Being, Words

Taking a Moment

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The Big and The Small

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In The Garden

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Are You Ready?

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That’s Not How It’s Done!

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