Archives for posts with tag: sufficiency

When I think it over with great care, that’s really all we’ve ever got; an outsider’s perspective on each other. We’re each having our own experience. We’re still all in this together… and somehow… still looking at each from the perspective of being “someone else”. It’s fairly ludicrous to be so frankly similar, and also behaving like we’re each so very different from each other. “Us” versus “them” is much easier if you really do believe there’s a difference. (Isn’t there?!) (Is there?)

This morning I take a moment – before I scroll through any feeds, or check any news sources – I take time to be aware how very similar we each other, even to our pettiness, our small heartbreaks, our fears and doubts and insecurities, our sense of glorious triumph over… trivia. So human. Our hate is as human as our ability to love – and much easier to tap into, by the time we are “adult”. I shrug off the moment of bitterness that tries to gain a foothold. Breathe. Relax. Exist. There will be time later to look at the news. Right now, I just want to feel that feeling of connection and shared experience… without connecting right now, or sharing this one. 🙂

Today I’ll make a point to be open, and to listen – really listen, not just wait for my turn to talk – and to put some verbs behind understanding a speaker’s point of view, instead of just fighting a battle of words, based on my assumptions – and my outsider’s perspective. I’ll use questions to find my way to a real understanding – and seek that understanding authentically. Understanding each other matters more than sharing each other’s opinions. Once we understand, our own position becomes more clear without undermining the opinions we don’t share. It’s not about being right.

Having said that – there’s no amount of being agreeable that remains appropriate if someone is specifically bent on doing me harm. Or Nazis. No point seeking agreement with Nazis. It’s not necessary to worry about having a greater understanding of hate – once you recognize it, get the fuck out of harm’s way, or do battle. Don’t feed the online trolls. Don’t promote fascism. Don’t nurture Nazis. Fucking vote. (Did you?)

I’ll look at the election results later. Right now, I’m enjoying my own company quietly, feeling content, and ready to begin again. 🙂 It’s enough.

It’s the Monday after Daylight Savings Time ends. I woke up an hour earlier than my alarm was set, because, of course I did. It’ll be weeks of it before I adjust. I got ahead and get up though, and take advantage of the opportunity to more gradually delay my morning medication. It’s the sort of thing I should take at the same time each day, so I’m sure it’s helpful that I am making that change gradually.

Seated on my meditation cushion, enjoying that quiet time soaked in contentment, my mind strayed ever-so-briefly to the recent work project consuming my consciousness for so many weeks. Well, shit; my blood pressure increased, and now I have this knot in my stomach radiating tension through the rest of my body. Oh yeah. Probably gonna be weeks of that, too. Fucking hell. I breathe. Relax. Repeat. Bring my mind back to meditation, and do that again, repeating the whole sequence a number of times. Working to steady myself in this moment right here, instead of allowing my consciousness to creep forward in time, preventing it from creating a new reality of disaster that doesn’t exist. Halting the process the terrorizing myself using my own insecurities and anxiety and stress about change.

I begin again. Actually, I begin again a couple times, in a very short period of time, before I am really back to meditating.

Weird morning. There’s no real way to determine how much of my anxiety this morning is truly about the completed work project, and how much is actually the literal physical experience of the end of DST. Quite probably a mix of the two, with some extras thrown in. Sitting here at my desk, I’m forced to consider more of the minutiae of what is driving my anxiety when I get a polite automated reminder from my healthcare provider to schedule some routine maintenance. This, too, causes my anxiety to flare up in the back ground. So much adulting to do! Fuck.

Did you vote? Will you? Please? Fucking hell, please don’t let’s have to go over, again, why it matters (so much). I know, I know, it’s a rigged system – but if you don’t at least vote, you get literally no opportunity to participate in the most basic of processes that is useful to change it! Just vote. Then do all sorts of other stuff, too: write letters, emails, make phone calls, protest, vote with your dollar by supporting the merchants who also support the candidates and changes you do – right now even fucking businesses count as people, so support only those that truly support you.

Another Monday. Another moment. Another chance to begin again. 🙂

An important work project completed, and as is so likely for me, the intensity of the past several weeks finally truly catches up with me (as I slow down and let it). I crash hard, shifting from “forgot to write” due to cognitive overload to “didn’t write because I was unexpectedly sleeping”. Most of yesterday is… gone. Relegated to memories of dreams, and an amused chuckle is all that is left behind. I woke this morning laughing out loud in the stillness and quiet of this pre-dawn moment. Between 1 pm yesterday and when I woke this morning, shortly before 6 am, I slept. I napped. I rested. I dozed. I slumbered. I woke to pee, to drink water, to wander aimlessly and groggily through the house without a purpose, thinking I was perhaps “awake” (I was not) before returning to bed. I took time at some points to exchange words with my Traveling Partner… had he said he was thinking about coming up to hang out? Well, damn. I’m glad we both recognized that I’d be… sleeping. LOL

I woke this morning feeling basically rested, and I’m already thinking about going back for more. I expect the weekend to be blown, spent on sleep and rest (that I do genuinely need; I have pushed myself far too hard for far too long, lately). Yield to the impulse, I wake rested Monday morning ready for more. Fight it, and I will struggle with Monday. It is what it is. Caring for this fragile vessel, and learning to do it skillfully, seems to be rather a large portion of what there is to do in life, generally. lol

…We’re really not very good at self-care, as a species, or as a society. We could do better. I know I certainly have to practice with great commitment and awareness, and I’m regularly failing myself, nonetheless. lol It’s a good thing I have learned to begin again.

Are you taking the very best care of yourself with the resources you have? Are you putting the need to care for yourself high on your list of priorities? Maybe it’s worth trying? Maybe it’s worth practicing?

It’s definitely worth beginning again. 😉

Another morning. Another day. Another opportunity to change what isn’t comfortable, or doesn’t suit my needs over time. Another moment to be present. Another chance to choose wisely, and to begin again.

Honestly, it’s also just a Wednesday. 😉

I take a deep breath, and relax. Life is exceedingly busy right now, almost unpleasantly so, although still manageable. Uncomfortable at times. Other times intensely rewarding. Goals, and plans carefully made, achievements within reach, and strange unexpected twists in circumstance sending other whole towers of carefully built plans cascading down into… just memories of plans. Life.

I sip my coffee. I’m back to carefully crafted pour overs after a summer of chilled infused cold brew in cans. lol. More frugal? Hardly – well-selected, locally roasted coffee beans are still a bit of a luxury, honestly, aren’t they? Hell, generally, coffee beans aren’t even sold by the pound any more; 12 oz is the standard bag size now, and it’s easy enough to spend $20 for 12 oz of coffee. More for something really special. Commonplace to spend $15 for 12 oz of whole bean coffee. I could, instead, choose a 30 oz can of some name brand, pre-ground, medium roast finely ground coffee manufactured for a very consistent reliably modestly awful drip coffee experience for less than $7. The difference in price per cup is pretty staggering. It’s 60 cups of potentially great coffee, compared to 180 cups of potentially (definitely) not-as-great coffee, but the difference in how those experiences compare isn’t actually about the money at all. A rushed expensive latte handed through a drive-through window is both costly, and also far less likely to deliver a noteworthy moment, than a fairly terrible cup of bad drip coffee taken in a quiet place, present, and able to immerse myself in a moment of contemplation and contentment. It’s not about the money. Really. It’s time to let that shit go.

Choose your experiences wisely.

Take time for moments that matter. Pause to reflect.

Morning coffee as a metaphor for choices? Every day. 😉

Today I’ll make my choices in a thoughtful way. It’s time to begin again.

The weekend was relaxed and I spent it mostly in a state of general contentment, hoping to get over the latest ick going around, before the few symptoms I was beginning to experience could fully develop. The focus on self-care may have been worthwhile; I’m feeling okay this morning. 🙂 Definitely well-rested.

One last autumn rose in my garden

The foggy autumn mornings became sunny warm-ish afternoons, which then led to orange-glow sunsets that filled my living room with hints of gold. Twilights were chilly, in shades of mauve, deepening to night fairly slowly. Days are shorter. Sunrise comes later. Sunset surprises me by arriving so soon. Seasons change.

I spent the weekend reading. Taking care of myself. Getting enough rest. Bringing order to chaos. Even turning inward now and then, and reflecting on how best to become the woman I most want to be. It was a lovely weekend, well-spent.

I miss my Traveling Partner. I’m still glad I took the weekend for self-care instead of travel. 🙂 Hilariously, I am already looking forward to next weekend; I’ll probably make the down/back round trip, then. 😀

I look around my studio. No spiders. That’s a relief, actually. lol I’m eager to get some things done, artistically. Feeling well-rested also finds me feeling inspired.

This feels like an easy morning to overlook the potential in a new beginning; I could coast on this now, right here, and be content. There’s more to do, though. More to learn. A better human to be than the one I was yesterday. It’s a journey, and as lovely as life is in this moment, right here, there is more living to do in the moments ahead.

It’s time to begin again. 🙂