Archives for posts with tag: taking care of me
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Breathe, Relax, Repeat

June 6, 2019 //
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I woke early. Ridiculously early. 2:22 a.m. early. lol Doesn’t wreck the taste of my (early) morning coffee, and I am content to be here, in the early morning quiet, a bit earlier than usual.

…To be fair, I went to bed early, too, as a result of not really sleeping the night before; I was just wiped out, after a busy day of working through the fatigue, and the extra work of seeking to manage my moment-to-moment behavior in the context of shared work, all day, with colleagues I respect, and who see me as both adult, and as a management professional, well… yeah… I was exhausted by the time I got home. My Traveling Partner kindly suggested I just go ahead and go to bed, fairly early in the evening. Realistically, I was a bit too stupid with fatigue to think of that. LOL “Bed time” came early last night. I’m up early this morning. No surprise. No stress. Good coffee.

I sip coffee. Breathe. Relax. Let the stray thoughts come and go. Let fears and doubts go. Another breath. Another moment. 🙂 I think back on moments from yesterday – not the work moments; the work moments will take care of themselves in the context of work, when I am in the office and on the clock, once again. Nope. Those don’t need my attention right now. Instead I am thinking back on flowers, on the scent of the early morning breeze, the smile of a friend in passing, a hilarious joke I’d already forgotten; this is a moment for building a firm foundation of emotional resilience through a favorite practice. I am “taking in the good“, and enjoying my morning coffee, contentedly.

Even the flowers in urban landscaping can become a meaningful moment of delight, contentment, and joy.

I think back to an earlier starting point on this journey, and how much misery filled my moment-to-moment, hour-by-hour, day-to-day experience of living. It often felt so entirely pointless. It was, at first, a major challenge to “find” even small moments of anything wonderful, beautiful, uplifting, joyful… and here I am, a couple years down this very strange path, and in spite of the often overwhelming seeming miseries and hardships of the world, I can find a moment of joy to savor, almost any time, almost anywhere. It’s a nice change. (Yes, of course, there were verbs involved, and a lot of practice. Worth it.)

A moment of will, a decision to “let it go”, and the choice to turn attention to something small, something beautiful… can change the character of an entire day.

I breathe. Relax. Repeat. Moments to contemplate simple beauty. Moments to savor a good cup of coffee in the chill of morning. Moments to enjoy being, without an agenda, without the stress of time or timing. Moments, so often, are enough. Stuck in a shitty one? Breathe. Relax. Let it go. Just let that shit go. Take another breathe. Sky still blue? Are you okay, right now? Another breath, another moment. Repeat as needed. Take a walk. Keep breathing. Let the stressors weighing you down fall away for a moment – you can pick those up later, if you really feel you must. Another breath, another moment. Another choice.

…I catch myself thinking about a singularly unexpected (and challenging) moment, yesterday; a colleague’s emotional investment erupting to the surface, catching me by surprise. I value their opinion, and experience. I spend a moment considering a question; what do they need to feel heard, on this? I make a point to set a reminder to follow up, to take time to listen deeply. I don’t know everything. This is a shared journey.

…Then I let that go, too, and return to this quiet moment, and this delicious cup of coffee. Soon enough it will be time to begin the day, for now, this moment here is quite enough. 🙂

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Categories Free Will, gratitude, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Practices, Relationships, Spring, Summer, The Big 5

Best Rx for Pain, Ever!

June 5, 2019 //
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Well…actually, no. I woke up in pain this morning, just like I went to bed in pain last night. I’m still smiling, still mostly merry, and definitely not taking it personally, at this present moment, which is a pleasant detail. The peculiar pre-dawn gloom has begun to lift, and even though it’s not yet 5:00 am, there is sufficient light to see the garden. I take my coffee on the deck, and spend a few minutes listening to birdsong and breezes, before the commuter traffic begins to take over.

…Soon enough, a new work day will begin…

The blue skies aren’t my doing; how I choose to face the day, is.

I sip my coffee and sigh contentedly. Another day ahead. I’m good with that. 🙂 I take a moment for meditation, less out of any hope of significant pain relief, more about being emotionally well for the day ahead. Yesterday was a long day, and by the end I was struggling to manage my pain, and very happy to get home. I’m back to having a pretty steady motherfucker of a headache, on top of my arthritis pain, in addition to my torn up ankle… still have to work, still have to stand up to the day-to-day. Hell, even if I didn’t work full-time, I’d be having to tackle the effort involved in routine self-care. LOL Aging sucks.

…It’s better than the only currently available alternative, though, right? 😉 I take a moment for gratitude.

A quiet moment passes. Breathing in. Breathing out. Letting go of the clinging and bullshit attachments. Another breath. Another moment. Another sip of my coffee.

Yesterday’s sunshine has a lingering effect; I find it in my smile, in a relaxed moment.

I remind myself not to leave my cane behind as I prepare for the day. Still yawning, still rubbing sleep out of my eyes, still reminiscing about the rather shitty night’s sleep just behind me, and the long work day ahead; it’ll feel long, regardless, that’s how pain works, and I’ve yielded to it before the day has begun. I shake it off, and let that shit go. I remind myself to speak gently, and be mindful we are each having our own experience – pain isn’t unique to my experience. We could all use a bit of kindness.

There’s quite a bit to be learned from yesterday’s experience. This morning, I find myself present in this moment, here, and I’m okay with that. I quash that weird “what am I forgetting to do??” sensation as likely just an illusory disruption in my senses, and I move on from that, too. I take some deep breaths, and make a point of just… letting shit go. This? I let it go. That? Yep, that, too, I let that go. Over there? Oh, hell, yes. Gone. 🙂

…Another breath. A glance at the clock. I finish my coffee; it’s time to begin again. 😀

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Categories Brain Injury, Free Will, gratitude, Healthy Living, Mindfulness, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Spring, Summer, The Art of Being

Choose.

June 3, 2019 //
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Initially, I wrote it off as coincidental; the rise of negativity, the more intense emotionality, the unpredictable temperament, while it could have been the new Rx… why would I assume it necessarily was? I mean… I’ve got issues. lol Then, my Traveling Partner noticed, largely by way of being hit with an unhealthy dose of it on the receiving end. Then, a couple of friends noticed it – one of them by way of the negative affect of my posture, and facial expressions. Oh. Hell. No. I am not putting myself through that. I’d only been on it a handful of weeks, and already struggling with nightmares, weird shifts in mood and/or perspective, and a powerful (slow) spiraling negativity that was definitely worsening. I follow up with appointment making, and begin to taper off of the new Rx, (after getting some relief, but not nearly enough to make the trade-offs worth it).

…24 hours later, the bleak gray “certainties” that had been rapidly becoming my perspective began to lift. Yesterday was a lovely day, and it was easy to enjoy, and the smile on my face felt real, not forced, and although I’m dealing with pain, this is me… dealing with it. So. Some better. Much better. Pain sucks, but pain along with feelings of muted despair, terrible mocking nightmares, and moody bullshit…? Worse.

I didn’t write over the weekend. I was definitely aware that my thinking and emotions were increasingly colored by this prescribed, regulated, managed, and also notably not working out well for me, personally, prescription drug experience. (I was definitely “on drugs” – which happens to any one of us far more often at the hands of a physician than a street dealer!) I’d ideally rather not drag everyone else into the muck with me. Making the choice to recognize and act upon the problematic symptoms sooner than later is merely a byproduct of being well-supported in my relationships, and having already experienced the outcome of excessive trust placed in someone else’s judgement over my own first hand knowledge, of my own first person experience. Seriously, though, if you’re on a medication with a problematic effect, please talk to your doctor – don’t just quit! Some drugs have a very particular or difficult withdrawal effect, and you’d want to be supported properly with appropriate care. 🙂

I woke easily, this morning, no nightmares chasing me. The alarm was unwelcome, and honestly, I expect this on a Monday morning after a lovely weekend; I’d rather stay home, in the garden, enjoying another coffee, and hanging out with my Traveling Partner, or a friend, or the squirrels and chipmunks if everyone else is busy. 🙂 Not gonna lie; I think work is highly over-rated. Still, it gives a certain structure (and cash-flow) to my day-to-day experience. 😉

So, it’s a routine Monday, after all that, following a lovely weekend of sunny days, gardening, and running errands. I’m sipping coffee, and looking ahead to the work week. I have the thought that it will be a busy one. Then I wonder about the impact of the Google outage… holy shit a lot of everyday life goes through the internet somewhere, these days. I sit with that thought for a moment, feeling grateful I don’t have all my household electronics controlled by way of an internet connected device. I actually didn’t notice there’d been an outage until my Traveling Partner read about it on the news. lol We were contentedly busy being people, in real life. Most enjoyable. 🙂

I look at the clock. Yep. Choices. Every choice I make is a whole new beginning. From the small things like “shall I have another coffee?” to the bigger things like “who am I and how do I want to live?” – the answers send my experience along a new path. I grow. I become. Journey-as-metaphor works, because it’s just so close to accurately describing what life, experienced along a timeline, is really like. There’s still no map… but these are my own choices, nonetheless. 🙂 I become what I practice, and it’s time, already, to begin again.

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Categories Brain Injury, Free Will, gardening, gratitude, Healthy Living, Mindfulness, Moments, pain, Parables, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Spring, Summer

There’s More To It

May 23, 2019 //
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I’m thinking about the way social media tends to give us each the impression we know all there is to know about what’s going on around us, and with the people we know, or observe from afar, as though eavesdropping a conversation in a restaurant booth behind us holds any potential to give us context and depth of understanding of the unseen faces having that conversation. It’s a misleading sense of the world, at best, and at worst… we participate in lying to ourselves, and dumbing down the world. Frustrating to attempt to have a deep conversation with a human being heavily invested in the world-via-tweet or yeah, even Instagram – my last remaining social media account. lol

…At this point, I’ve unfollowed every “influencer” (I hadn’t followed many, to begin with, because I don’t know them), and anyone who re-shares spammy bullshit, or advertising, or memes. I have limited my feed to direct relationships with people I actually know “irl”. No exceptions. It’s not about them. It’s about me; I don’t want to build shadows of relationships with distant entities who hold no potential to be “real” in my experience. I may not always like every one of the people around me… but I like them all 100% more than I hold any affection for a twitter account. LOL I mean, seriously? An ever-loving-fuck-ton of celebrities don’t even “manage” their own social media. They hire people to take care of that “workload” for them. They definitely don’t “care” about me – or you. They care about their brand. 😉

I can’t save anyone else from the impersonal science fiction abyss of dystopian disconnection. Sorry. You’ll need to crawl out on your own, if you can. It’s not actually hard, exactly, but it does require your will, and honest intent. So… verbs are involved. Choices. Practice. I kept Instagram, at least for now, simply because I enjoy sharing my photos with my actual friends, and enjoy seeing theirs. Innocent. Authentic. Rather unworldly, inasmuch as I guess I think that’s something I can have… Maybe it isn’t? I sip my coffee and wonder about that. Instagram remains a profit-generating social media platform on which I am not the consumer… I’m the product. Yick. I may need to rethink even this. lol

Snail mail, anyone?

I have been writing letters lately – a bit like the “elderly aunt” I seem to be becoming, slowly, over time. Hell, I’m okay with that. 🙂 I write a lot of email. I receive far less, but it’s not likely that a handful of emails and letters can provide a societal course correction in any detectable way. In my own experience, though, it’s quite a lovely relief from the fuss and bother, and anxiety, of a life in which every possible moment is “connected” via social media. That’s not really being connected at all, as it turns out. We’re all just shouting our opinions at each other, and sharing the ones that agree with our position, hoping to be rewarded with attention, with likes, with clicks, with a boost in personal status, or a large collection of “friends” or followers. How is that not toxic as fuck? lol

There is much less bullshit and drama in a life that is mostly pretty starved of social media. 🙂 Maybe take it for a test drive? If you were born in any year after about 1980, chances are good most of your life has been tangled up in the digital world. Take care of yourself if you do a really serious digital detox; you may be surprised to discover how actually dependent on it you are. Social media has some very drug-like qualities, and you may even be an addict. Be kind to yourself. Be patient.

I laugh for a minute. Quitting wasn’t anything like easy, and the world is just… yeah. My bank uses hashtags on their social media posts. Some of the merchants I do business with have specials that are only presented using digital coupons. Some of the artists and craftsman whose work I favor have contests that require “liking”, “subscribing” and sharing of social media items. It’s everywhere. I still walked away, because I’d rather live very authentically in the real world, such as it is, rather than become a (cognitively) fat shapeless media-fed caterpillar… without at least knowing what I will become, later on. (Pretty sure it won’t be a lovely butterfly of emotional wellness… just saying.) 😉

I finish my coffee. My thoughts continue to rattle around in my consciousness. I’ll spend time on my meditation cushion this morning, making a point to let all of this go, before I begin again, here, alive, awake, and aware, a solitary human being living in the world. ❤

A rose in my garden. You can’t smell it from a picture, or feel its silky petals – that’s only available in the world. 😉

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Categories Allegories, Anxiety, Free Will, gardening, gratitude, Healthy Living, inspiration, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, Spring, Summer, The Art of Being, Words

Flavor, Color, Scent, Sound

May 21, 2019 //
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I’m awake. Rested. Sipping hot coffee. All the usual morning stuff, in the morning. It is a Tuesday. I’ve got an appointment before work, and I’m working very hard at not forgetting that. 🙂 I’ve been trying for awhile to get this appointment, so I definitely do not want to just… forget I have it. (Yeah, that’s a thing. lol) I sip my coffee, meditate, scroll through the news, and consider the day ahead.

Blossoms near a train station. Some other moment of observation and awareness.

When I find my thoughts wandering off, to events and moments that are not “now”, I pull myself back to this present moment with observation of some detail here, now. My breath. This cup of coffee, and the mug warming my hands. The glow of the monitor, illuminating a photograph. The scent of early morning flowers on the pre-dawn breeze filling the apartment through the open patio door. Sounds of my neighbor, through the wall, starting his own morning. Sensations. Awareness. Experience. First person, present tense.

Mmm… this really is a good cup of coffee, this morning. 🙂 I sit quietly, hands wrapped around the warm mug.

Roses don’t mind the rain.

Minutes pass. I am content. Relaxed. Enjoying this particular moment, for no obvious reason besides it being a pleasant one. Isn’t that enough? 🙂 The clock ticks slowly. I sip coffee and listen to the sounds of morning as the sky turns from darkness to a moody gray overcast sky. Rain today? I’m okay with that. I don’t mind the rain.

My mind wanders to daydreams of futures unknown and unknowable. I pull it back to this moment, right here, already rich with potential. My mind wanders to recollections of the past, fraught with inaccuracies and emotional baggage. I pull it back to this moment, and make room for these feelings, and this experience. I sip my coffee, and glance at the time. I remind myself of my appointment, again. I wonder, for a moment, if I ought to drive into the office… and deal with the chaos of downtown driving and parking. I chuckle out loud, facing the obvious; there is no need to drive downtown. Public transit will get me there, just fine. 🙂 Less stress. No parking cost. It seems the smarter choice. I sip my coffee feeling grown-up and practical, capable, and prepared for the day.

I think over my “everyday carry” items, and the day ahead. I make some changes, mentally, trusting myself to make those changes, in fact, before I leave the house for the day. It’s not a given, and I remind myself to double-check the details before I go. Backpack. Keys. Work badges. Card case. Cell phone. The book I’m reading. Some relevant paperwork for this appointment. My vape. Spare batteries for that. There’s a nagging feeling that I’ve forgotten something – but I nearly always feel that way, and the sensation is not reliably associated with an actual experience, so I make the attempt to let that go. I remind myself that my earbuds are laying loose on the seat of the car; I’ve forgotten to grab them several times now, and I’d really like to have them for the train ride.

None of this planning or preparation is the future. It’s all “now”. Maybe it improves the future in some way, maybe it does not. It’s easy to conflate the planning and preparation with the future moments themselves. They are not really related in such a direct way. I take a deep breath. I let it out. I notice that I feel sleepy, or fatigued, or… distant. I feel as if I am avoiding the moment, just ahead, when I step out the door, into a new day. Suddenly, I’d rather go back to bed. Inconvenient. There are things to do. I shake off the sensation, and finish off my coffee.

It’s time to begin again. 🙂

 

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Categories Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Spring, Summer, The Art of Being
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