Archives for posts with tag: taking care of me

Being Where I Am

April 13, 2017 //

I only just noticed I was already “at the office” and working, rather than fully here in this place, in this moment. I left the office with an important piece of work completed, but with room to take it further, to correlate more details, to consider more variables, to increase the complexity… and was so deeply involved in it that my day ran well past the usual time, quite by mistake. I spent last evening continuing to think about work, barely aware that I was, but I certainly wasn’t fully in that moment, either. Eventually, I went to bed. This morning I woke from dreams of working, and filled my head with further thoughts of work. An hour after waking, I notice. Coffee cup is empty, no recollection of drinking it, half-finished email to myself (addressed for my work email address) with some notes for further work waiting to be sent. I take a deep breath and step back from the work, and make a second cup of coffee.

This mindfulness thing takes practice. 🙂

Another couple deep breaths, a few minutes spent pulling my consciousness from the sticky mud of this enticing work assignment. A second cup of coffee. Time spent becoming awake and aware and present here, now. I notice, too, that I’m still in my jammies and fuzzy spa socks… how have I not showered and dressed for work?? I am startled by the realization, and spill hot coffee on my keyboard and in my lap. Some fun time with swear words, and then it’s off to the shower to properly get ready for work…

This self-care thing, this adulthood thing… yep; they take practice, too. lol

Once the morning routine is back on track, I sit down to write, and catch up on things-not-work-related. The weeks seem to race by since I took on the new job… 7 months in, I guess it doesn’t count as new so much any more. lol I smile, and sip my coffee. I chuckle to myself – how fast was that shower? What’s left of my coffee is still warm.

I sit quietly sipping my coffee, and thinking about life, generally, and feeling rather content with things as they are. The house hunting is just dreadful and although I am taking a patient approach, I am entirely made of human and have some moments when I feel very discouraged. Yesterday was an example of how that can so easily develop; I noticed a listing that had sat without much interest for quite a while. Okay, why? I noticed it is listed as a HUD home, which generally means it is a fixer that my VA loan won’t be suitable for, and I don’t even go so see those… this one, though, was in fair shape, and my inexpert eye just couldn’t see a reason it wouldn’t qualify for a VA loan, so I asked to see it. It was definitely (and comfortably) in my price range, good location, and met all my minimum needs… we arranged for me to see it after work. Within an hour of firming up plans to go see it, it went pending. LOL This has happened a couple times, in a way that seems to defy likelihood. It’s every bit as irksome as making an offer on a house at several thousand dollars over list price, just hoping to have that offer considered at all, and find out later it sold to another buyer who could afford to pay not only thousands over list, but offering tens of thousands over the appraised value, which is tens of thousands of dollars over list price. I try to avoid being angered by that, but also struggle to understand why that buyer wasn’t looking at nicer homes they could afford at a higher price point? I find myself beginning to fuse with that other emotional experience, even though, here, now, everything is calm and quiet. I take a deep breath and let that go.

Being present in this moment, takes practice. 🙂

I smile over my coffee and think about going to lunch with my Traveling Partner and a friend, yesterday. It was a lovely break from the day-to-day routine, and I definitely needed a break from that work project. I laughed at the end of the day when I noticed my departure from work was delayed from my usual time by almost exactly the length of my lunch out. I felt a moment of satisfaction, as that seemed to me to be exactly as it should be. 🙂 Pleasant recollections definitely feel better than fussing and feeling discontent and aggravated by the frustrations of house hunting. Then, I notice the time. The work week is not yet over, and here it is, time to go, already.

Today is a good day to be present. Today is a good day to be and to do. Today is a good day to begin again. All of that takes practice. There are verbs involved. 🙂

Tags be and do, be here now, be present, be the change, begin again, being and becoming, breathe, choose wisely, doing all the verbs, don't forget to dress for work!, emotional self sufficiency, good self-care, I am my own cartographer, life beyond work, meditation, mindful living, mindfulness, mindfulness for beginners, mindfulness matters, perspective, practicing the practices, ptsd, sufficiency, taking care of me, TBI, The Art of Being, there are verbs involved, work life balance, work life imbalance

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

Coffee, Thank You

April 12, 2017 //

This morning just a shout out to the farmers, pickers, processors, roasters, and workers of all sorts, unnamed and uncounted, who contributed in some way to my morning coffee. I am all kinds of grateful for it this morning. lol

I stayed up later than usual last night, enjoying a quiet evening of conversation with friends. Time well-spent, sure, but resulting in… consequences. My routine being thrown off a bit, further contributed to the lateness of the hour at which I went to bed, and then my sleep was not only short, but somewhat restless and unsatisfying… and here I am, frittering away the time before work looking at kittens on the internet, cartoons, and pictures of friends, because frankly I’m not up to much more quite yet. I am still on my first cup of coffee.

…I wasn’t even sure I’d write at all this morning. So tired, groggy, and… still waking up, more than an hour after waking up. 🙂

Random photo I took last night as I arrived home for the day. No point to it, no relevance, just a whimsical moment in life.

Today is a good day for kitten pictures, good-natured humor that doesn’t hurt anyone, and a second cup of coffee… it won’t change the world, but it’ll probably keep me going through the morning. 😉

Tags be here now, begin again, being and becoming, choose wisely, emotional self sufficiency, experience, good self-care, I am my own cartographer, mindful living, my home my rules my way, perspective, practicing the practices, ptsd, relationships, sufficiency, taking care of me, TBI, The Art of Being, the map is not the world, there are verbs involved, walk on, walking my own path, what matters most?

Categories Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Sleepless Nights, Spring, The Art of Being, Words

Sing Your Own Hymns

April 11, 2017 //

Music starts the morning. Dancing to ease arthritis pain before beginning the work day makes sense today. The music I chose is, for me, emotional and value-connected. It’s all very subjective, of course; I may listen to rap tracks that are implicit attacks on some other rapper, but I focus on the meta-message of the words, finding profundity in my subjective listening. I may listen to EDM and hip-hop, house, and funk tracks that may have little in the way of lyric content, but some short phrase or another, or the images in the video, communicate something of value to me. It’s a small thing, but it puts music to work for me cognitively, reinforcing things I want to reinforce, and undermining old out-of-date programming.

What is “sacred music“? Whatever music moves you in a sacred way. 🙂 I found my own. You probably have your own, too. Maybe it really is “church music”, maybe it isn’t at all. All of those things are completely okay; we’re each having our own experience.

As I dance through the morning, managing ferocious pain, still smiling, I find myself just a little astonished by this woman in the mirror. When I did become her? Me. I sometimes find it disorienting to read old writing, or look back on very old Facebook posts. Some things still resonate with me in a way that feels aligned and familiar, but very commonly I feel more than a little out of sync with that other woman in the mirror… and old mirror, a reflection on a woman I am not, now. I have grown. Maybe a lot. I sometimes wonder, when I write, or post or share something, if friends of old “get me” now… and whether they understand. I wonder if the differences are jarring, or cause irritation or resentment; I did not always think the way I do now, or have the values I now hold. I’ll likely spend a lifetime making amends for some of the choices, words, and actions of a much younger woman I no longer am… or for being someone different now.

My consciousness is pulled back into the here and now by the music. Track changes sometimes seem peculiarly well-timed. I recognize this as a “feature” in my consciousness, attributing significance to things and moments that may have none, in order to “make sense of things”. I dance on through the morning, through the dishes, through some tidying up before work.

Yesterday’s only a memory…and it is a happy one.

I enjoyed a quiet evening at home with my Traveling Partner yesterday. He was at my place shortly before I arrived. It was tremendous and warm and connected and lovely. We hung out with friends for a while. We chilled alone together another little while. I was in way too much pain for romance, but the intimacy and connection are welcome and profoundly significant in a lifetime that has held so little authentic intimacy between lovers. I used to complain a lot about “not getting enough” sex…but… being real about it for just a moment, I’ll admit that I’m pretty certain I was using sex to meet needs that were emotional (and specifically not actually sexual) for years and years. Being both “past menopause” and more emotionally intelligent than that much younger me, I am comfortable noting that the non-sexual emotional need for connection and intimacy is likely the deeper and more important emotional need than the primate need for sexual contact. I’m not dissing sex – hell, I enjoy it quite a lot, and sufficiently so to inconvenience partners with less appetite for it, even now, but… yeah. Those quiet connected minutes with a lover that are intimate, close, comfortable, and nurturing, turn out to be a way bigger deal. I wish I’d understood sooner; it’s probably a great deal easier to satisfy emotional needs with truly relevant emotional connection, versus insisting that sex do all the emotional heavy lifting in life. lol

I wonder what today holds?

The morning continues, track by track, and I dance on to another thought, another moment…

“Wubba-lubba-dub-dub!!”

Today is a good day to dance. There’s more than one way to deal with pain. 🙂

Tags be here now, be love, be the change, begin again, being and becoming, breathe, dance away the heartache, dancing for pain relief, emotional self sufficiency, good self-care, I am my own cartographer, just dance, love and lovers, make a joyful noise, meditation, menopause, mindfulness, mindfulness for beginners, my home my rules my way, p.s. I love you, perspective, practicing the practices, ptsd, sacred and beautiful, singing hyms, so you think you can dance, taking care of me, TBI, The Art of Being, the power of music, there are verbs involved, what matters most?

Categories Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Spring, The Art of Being, The Big 5, weight loss secrets, women, Words

A New Week…

April 10, 2017 //

A new week, a new day, a new moment… this “now” thing, with some practice, becomes firm and reliable. Here it is Monday. The weekend is quite clearly behind me. I woke ahead of the alarm, feeling sufficiently rested, and definitely awake. The morning is leisurely, and gentle on my consciousness. Facebook is a playground of birthdays, kittens, and throwback pictures. I don’t yet bother with the news; reading the news would be a poor way to treat myself on a pleasant morning.

I sip my coffee. Yep. I did make it up the hill yesterday, returning home with coffee. 🙂 I spent the morning on laundry, tidying up, and looking forward to the planned visit with my Traveling Partner (that was later cancelled, when it was obvious he wasn’t up to the trip over). The rest of the day was restful, calm, and quiet. I meditated. I read. I watched Rick and Morty. I drank coffee. I gardened and planned the week ahead. By Sunday evening, the weekend was firmly fixed as a very pleasant memory – even the power outage of Friday lingers in my memory as a good time (having to replace most of the perishable groceries was a mild inconvenience on Saturday, spent pleasantly in the good company of a similarly inconvenienced friend). The weekend was sufficiently social and connected to meet those needs… and sufficiently solitary to meet those needs… Indeed, the weekend was in all regards quite sufficient, generally.

It was a lovely day for meditation, and chilly enough to light a fire. 🙂

So… here it is Monday morning. Somewhere out in the community, a future new colleague will get an offer to join my team. Somewhere else, someone will make a choice that changes their life in some important way. Unrelated, elsewhere, someone will give up in frustration, and discover that letting go makes a difference, and that everything will be okay. There are so many human experiences to be had, and we are each having our own. That’s pretty awe-inspiring (for me)… the vastness of our available choices is so broad and varied that we generally reduce it to just two or three things, walled off by “can’t” (really, “won’t”) or “have to” (really, “choose too” or “insist on”). Like going to a diner with a huge accordion-folded menu, and having to order quickly, we narrow things down to simplify our problems, decision-making, and choices… for convenience? For cognitive ease? Because it’s faster? I don’t know. I’ve been trying not to short-change myself in that way, for a while now. I like to “read the whole menu”, and maybe try something new now and then. 🙂

Today is a good day to live. Today is a good day to take my time with life’s menu, and consider it with great care, and eyes wide with wonder. Today is a good day to walk my own mile with a smile, even though there is no map on this journey… and if there were? The map is not the world. 🙂 It’s time to begin again.

Tags are you going my way?, be here now, be the change, begin again, being and becoming, emotional self sufficiency, experience, good self-care, I am my own cartographer, listening deeply, meditation, mindfulness, p.s. I love you, perspective, practicing the practices, ptsd, sufficiency, taking care of me, TBI, The Art of Being, the map is not the world, there are verbs involved, walk on, walking my own path, what matters most?

Categories Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, solo hiking, Spring, The Art of Being

Distractions

April 9, 2017 //

It is in the nature of a distraction to be sufficiently engaging to pull my attention from something planned, or meaningful, or needed, or… well, you get the point. There’s what is to be done, and there are all of the things distracting me from it in the moment. Sometimes big important or urgent seeming things distract me from smaller less urgent or important seeming things that I’d simply planned to do at a specific point. Other times, something small and inconsequential, but highly engaging or very entertaining pulls my attention from some large meaningful task or moment that could have been experienced quite differently. Some distractions are every bit as “important” as the thing from which I have been distracted. Some distractions are quite trivial, but sometimes the thing I’ve been distracted from is too.

I’m living my life, sipping my coffee, and realizing I have been distracted, rather amusingly in fact, from taking care of a small quality of life detail that I ordinarily handle in quite a timely way… I’m out of coffee. lol Well, damn. At points along the way, this week, I have been briefly aware, more than once, that I was “getting low on coffee”. This morning I wake to the solid, firm, very real-life awareness that indeed, I’m down to just two servings of coffee. I meant to get coffee Friday on my way home from work. I forgot. I meant to get coffee yesterday while I was downtown. I forgot. I included it in a grocery order for this morning. They’re out of it. I can’t be irked about that in any reasonable way; I had ample time to get coffee supplies handled, and got repeatedly distracted from completing that task. This one’s on me. Ah, but what to do about it? It’s not that big a deal; there is coffee a walk away, barely an inconvenience, it is only a matter of taking the time to make the walk, and shift gears on the day to make that happen before my Traveling Partner comes over. We both enjoy a good cup of coffee. 🙂

There’s no critical inner voice to be heard on any of this. It’s not that kind of issue. It’s not that kind of day. 🙂 I’m just out of coffee, and that’s a situation with an obvious remedy.

I am fairly easily distracted. I sometimes rely on that characteristic when I’m in distress; a good distraction is a great way to lift myself out of a difficult moment. Other times, I work to overcome my distractibility to ensure that needed tasks are appropriately completed on whatever timing is best for the purpose. As with so many things there is a balance to be struck.

So this morning I seek the ideal balance between doing laundry, and making the walk up the hill to get coffee, and between being a good hostess by being home when my Traveling Partner arrives, and being a good hostess by having coffee on hand. lol Which one do I apply myself too? Well… I gotta do both. lol

Today is a good day to be practical. Today is a good day to smile. Today is a good day to get more coffee. Perhaps there’s a metaphor in there, somewhere, or maybe I’m just getting past a distraction. 😉

Tags begin again, being and becoming, choose wisely, distractibility, good self-care, mindful living, mindfulness matters, out of coffee, perspective, practicing the practices, sufficiency, taking care of me, The Art of Being, the map is not the world, there are verbs involved, what matters most?

Categories Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, Parables, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, The Art of Being, Words

Being Where I Am

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Coffee, Thank You

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Sing Your Own Hymns

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A New Week…

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Distractions

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