Archives for posts with tag: taking care of me
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With Bells On

September 30, 2014 //
2

…Or at least with this ringing in my ears that is always with me. I woke with a wicked headache this morning. It creeps up through my arthritic vertebrae to the base of my skull, and the ringing in my ears seems both louder, and more distinctive; it’s actually several tones, frequencies, and noises, and it differs left and right. lol. This morning, the headache being what it is, I am listening to the ringing in my ears; the sound of my fingers on the keyboard serves reasonably well as percussion. I can’t change it, I may as well….something.

My coffee is good, and hot. I slept badly and it meets a need this morning, more than suiting an aesthetic of mornings in general. No nightmares, I just struggled to fall asleep, slept restlessly, woke often, and just didn’t rack up enough hours of rest. My traveling partner has expressed concern that I am pushing myself to hard at work. It’s a fair concern; I am. It’s a thing I do, and I frame it up as ‘playing to my strengths’ but I am aware I need to ease up and treat myself as a human being, and consider other needs, my own needs, too. Work kept my mind busy last night, and I did not rest well. That’s enough of that; it has to stop.

Right at the moment, from the perspective of the delicate new day, still unfolding, all potential nothing yet actual, today has a lot to offer. I hope it lives up to its potential.

Utterly unrelated to this moment and its beauty, right here, I’ll pause to observe that I continue to be concerned about the increase in spelling mistakes and difficulty finding the right word since my TIAs (transient ischemic attack) at the end of July. Painfully obvious to me, actually, and concerning way beyond vanity; this is my health, my life, and I exist in a fairly fragile vessel of flesh and mortality. I haven’t had another since mid-August, and it was ‘just’ those three… doesn’t stop me wondering what caused them, why now, or will I be okay. Especially on days with other headaches. I want to be around a good long time…I’d like to see 2083.

I take much better care of my  health these days. Doing so doesn’t take away the pain of earlier misadventure, or later aging, but it sure helps me maintain vitality and fitness well beyond what I’d manage otherwise. The meditation helps soothe me, builds emotional resilience, and teaches me balance and perspective; great for my blood pressure. The yoga helps me maintain a healthier weight, good flexibility, bone and joint health, and keeps my arthritic joints moving; great for reducing my pain, and building my fitness level for more, other, activities. I take a good multi-vitamin, and the supplements my doctor says I need, individually, based on testing, to maintain good health on a another level, and I manage my calories. I try to get enough sleep to really rest each night and wake refreshed each morning. I walk 5 miles a day, pretty nearly every day, sometimes more. Every small choice I make to take care of me adds up to a better experience of being who I am. I’ve gotten here one practice, one choice, at a time; it would have utterly overwhelmed me to try to tackle it all in one list of resolutions or commitments to myself. Being patient with myself, showing myself compassion, has been huge for reaching some of these goals; there’ve been many missteps along the way. I often learn best through my mistakes (like finding out some months ago what a weekend of eating sweets will do to my mood and temper after months of eschewing sugars!).

I’m just writing. Making observations. It’s a moment. I have a headache. I’ll call this one ‘doing my best’ this morning and find myself content with it.

Today is a good day to treat myself with compassion and take care of me. Today is a good day to be practical and real about pain – and pain management. Today is a good day to recognize we’ve all got our hurts, our own situation to face, our own individual personalized baggage, and we’re all in this together. Today is a good day to smile and understand that physical pain doesn’t have to be an impediment to happiness. Today is a good day to change the world.

Change is okay; it's not as if I can do anything to stop it. :-)

Change is okay; it’s not as if I can do anything to stop it. 🙂

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Categories autumn, Brain Injury, Healthy Living, Mindfulness, pain, Perspective, Sleepless Nights, The Big 5

What We Practice

September 24, 2014 //
0

Overtime, what we practice regularly – whatever it is – becomes what we tend to do by default. “Neurons that fire together, wire together.”  I first read that observation, myself, in Buddha’s Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love, and Wisdom, by Rick Hanson. It was one of those ‘light bulb moments’ for me, reading those words. A lot of things fell into place with reading those words, in that order, presented in the context of that book, at that time in my life, and I’ve held on to it through numerous small ups and downs, transitions, and changes. Very few things are easy or ‘over night’ or ‘like flipping a switch’ with regard to changing habits, programming, or long-standing behavior that once coped well for…something. I keep at it. Sometimes I feel discouraged, or fatigued, or frustrated. I experience doubt. I keep coming back to this idea that the neural plasticity that is such a big part of what makes me the adaptable being I am can be harnessed by will to make changes I want, not just changes along the way.

Reading the books does not create change. It is our actions that change us, even the action of thinking differently.

Reading the books does not create change. It is our actions that change us, even the action of thinking differently.

Some very worthy words.

Some very worthy words.

I continue to practice the things I learn that ‘work’, and by ‘work’ I mean that they are practices that improve my everyday experience of life, result in improved emotional resilience, perspective, and a high level of general contentment, and tend in general to improve what can be improved and don’t do any damage to me as a being or an organism. It does take practice, though. Practice is just what it sounds like, too; a verb. A repeated, continuing application of specific actions, at regular intervals, made with effort, and will, and continued in a deliberate way in spite of obstacles – a verb. Or several. The exercises in Just One Thing are more practical, and there’s less science. I keep practicing. Picking up Hardwiring Happiness: The New Brain Science of Contentment, Calm, and Confidence, over the weekend, and finally taking a look inside was a really first-rate choice. Within the first page or two I had already highlighted some eye-opening paragraphs and turns of phrase that framed up reliably positive next steps in a powerful way.

“The brain is the organ that learns, so it is designed to be changed by your experiences.”

Or how about…

“Connected by the neural equivalent of a four-lane superhighway, your activated amygdala commanded your hippocampus to prioritize this stressful experience for storage, even marking new baby neurons to be, in effect, forever fearful. Vicious Circles Over time, negative experiences make the amygdala even more sensitive to the negative. This snowballing effect occurs because the cortisol that the amygdala signals the hypothalamus to call for enters the bloodstream and flows into your brain, where it stimulates and strengthens the amygdala. Now the alarm bell of your brain rings more easily and more loudly. Making matters worse, even after the danger has passed or turns out to be a false alarm, it takes many minutes to metabolize cortisol out of your body. For example, you may have had a close call while driving and still felt revved up and shaken twenty minutes later.”

Another important observation that got my attention, specifically regarding how PTSD ‘works’

“Implicit memory includes “procedural knowledge,” which is how to do things, from riding that bicycle to navigating a delicate conversation with a friend. It also contains your assumptions and expectations, emotional residues of lived experience, models of relationships, values and inclinations, and the whole inner atmosphere of your mind. It’s like a vast storehouse holding most of your inner strengths as well as most of your feelings of inadequacy, unfulfilled longings, defensiveness, and old pain. What gets put into this storehouse is the foundation of how you feel and function. Its contents usually have much more impact on your life than the contents of your explicit memory.”

I’m not finished with this one, yet. I’ll definitely read it a couple of times, and I’m already practicing many of the simple practices it outlines. Some were so obvious the first time they were described I couldn’t believe it hadn’t just occurred to me…to everyone…like the simple enough idea that lingering mindfully in a pleasant moment, really enjoying that experience with awareness and not rushing through to the next thing, makes the positive experience more important in our own recollection, giving it greater weight in who we are and how we experience our life. Powerful. It seems pretty obvious after thinking it over, that the content of our mind and thoughts will color how we experience everything. (Right? Sure. Of course.) How is it I didn’t take the next step without help and understand that focusing on trauma, on negativity, on the chaos and damage, to the point of making it the focus of my consciousness…makes it the focus of my consciousness. O_0 Well, okay, that actually seems easy enough to do something with… so, I have been. I’ve been taking time to really enjoy the small pleasant moments in life with real awareness and appreciation, for many seconds, even minutes, and letting the delights of my life seep into all the moments I have. It’s been, predictably enough, as obvious a success as the ideas seemed obvious themselves.

How did this turn into a book report? It wasn’t intended to be. These are books that have made a real difference for me, though, bringing light to the darkness, and showing me some better ways of being. That’s a pretty big deal at 51, and looking back on some of what I have endured. Sharing it may be useful for someone else…although, perhaps if I’d been ready sooner, I’d have found my way here one way or another…

Today is a good day to make an effort to be who I most want to be. Today is a good effort to smile and share the journey. Today is a good day to change the world from within. Today is a good day.

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Categories Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Mindfulness, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Words

I’ll Add That to My ‘To Do List’

September 14, 2014 //
0

Sunday already? Yesterday managed to feel both busy and leisurely, fully occupied and still including many lovely chill moments of stillness and contemplation. Sometimes I find that harder to manage when the house is filled with people, and I have to untangle shared or overlapping agendas and somehow still take care of me. The occasional solitary day, evening, or weekend often serves, as much as anything, as an opportunity to check in with myself and ensure that my needs remain my priority, and that I’m not allowing them to be swept away by someone else’s moment, or needs. Does that sound ‘selfish’? It did to me, too, for a long while – and well beyond when I’d moved past ‘selfish’ being some sort of secret swear word. I sometimes struggle with a hell of a gap between intellectual understanding and putting something in practice; mindfulness practices are a powerful way to close that gap.

This matters more than I understood when I started.

This matters more than I understood when I started.

This morning the day will be gently balanced between the things that must be done – adulthood is filled with those – and the things that I will do to support, nurture, and indulge myself, before another work week begins. I have a list. Keeping – and efficiently using – a ‘to do list’ is an important detail for me, otherwise I just don’t remember moment to moment what it is I intended to do. I rarely forget what I am doing mid-task, but while I am completing task A, however mindfully, I am highly likely to completely forget the existence of tasks B-Z altogether, or perhaps just one or two of them, and in that case without any predictable pattern to what is forgotten. Important things are as easily forgotten as unimportant things. Things I offered to do for someone else, that they are counting on, are as likely to be forgotten as something I promised myself, and that my heart is set on in some other moment. It can be very frustrating for me – I don’t doubt it is maddening for others. So. A list. This morning my list is filled with all manner of practical things; my partners are away, and no one likes to come home to a house not ready for the next week. I know I don’t care for that, myself.  Similarly, I dislike the experience of suddenly giving up on everything important to me, myself, to rush through a quantity of house work in a day that would impress a superhero if it got done in week; it drives anxiety, panic, and discontent, and I inevitably end up not doing some one thing that will prove to be the only thing the person I wanted to impress ever noticing. Fuck that. I prefer to clean as I go, as much as I can, and tidy up in a calm and mindful way, doing my best, and being satisfied with that. Simple basics that I would usually get done on a weekend will get done today, and I’ll still paint. I’ll do some nice things for each of my partners, small stuff that matters to them, each, as individuals, and I’ll still take care of me, too, ensuring that my needs for the upcoming week are met as well as the needs of my partners. It’s enough.

An opportunity to reflect in stillness and solitude.

An opportunity to reflect in stillness and solitude.

Next weekend I am solo camping. Learning to take care of me has also meant a frank acknowledgement of how my PTSD affects me in some circumstances that previously I would have just gritted my teeth, and endured things, hoping for the best and trying not to be a jerk, or lose my temper. Next weekend is the weekend of a local airshow. Rather than take Rx pharmaceuticals for the anxiety that the military aircraft overhead for 3 days causes me, I’m going camping and taking advantage of the time to invest in other needs. Fall camping feels different from summer camping. I’ve continued to build strength and bring new life to old skills. I’m eager to tackle more forested trails, and meditate under the stars. Camping is more practical, too, than a weekend getaway in a coastal cottage, and I am far less tempted by the world. I’m eager to have the work week behind me so I can head into the trees – so much so, that I am already entirely packed. lol. I’ll finish work Thursday, load my gear into a vehicle, and go.

See, the thing is, my Big 5 relationship values aren’t just about building relationships with other people, they are simple basic good treatment of humans; I try to apply them to myself, too, through my actions, my thoughts and my words. Can you see it? Let’s take a look together…

1. Respect is one of my Big 5. I respect my need for solitude to recharge, gain perspective, and invest in me creatively and emotionally by allowing myself to take advantage of rare solo days and weekends utterly guilt free, and without over-committing to things other people would like to have, or have done.

2. Consideration is possibly the most important of the Big 5; without Consideration, how is Respect even possible? I am considerate of my needs and experience, and of others, and by taking that approach I ensure I do small things that matter without stress – like taking out the trash and not overlooking the small trash cans in each bedroom, or work area, and ensuring the dishes are done and all put away before the house fills with people again, and making sure the household linens are washed, dried, and restocked in bathrooms and linen cupboards. Small things matter, and generally fit neatly between things I am doing for me – like writing, painting, meditating, or yoga. When I consider my own needs, and the needs of my partners, mindfully and in gentle service to hearth and home – without excluding me from my loved ones in my thinking – so much more of what matters gets done, and far fewer projects that don’t really matter end up on my list. When I am treating myself considerately, I also know when to stop and accept that I’ve done my best, confident that my partners will be content, and considerate of my limitations in return. (That’s the ideal, anyway… and when humans are human, and fall short of the ideal? Ah, yes…)

3. …Compassion makes the Big 5 because we’re all quite human. Lacking perfection I turn to compassion, for myself and my very human limitations, for my loves and their own humanity. They will return home tired, and possibly very late in the evening. It’s so easy to get home, relieved just to stop driving, and quickly unload the car into the living room without taking a look around. It’s easy to collapse into bed after a shower, and an exciting weekend, without taking a look around. To wake, thoughts still buzzing from events, and eager to share those…still not taking notice of the small details that make a household ready to welcome travelers home, or understanding that the reason everything is lovely and tidy is that an actual person took time out of their own agenda to  make it happen. Compassion is what lets me smile without a thank you or a word of acknowledgement, and gives me a secure heart, content that the effort mattered regardless of a lack of words. Compassion is what I bring to my own experience, a gift to me from me, if I feel a moment of hurt or doubt if I feel ignored or lacking in importance. I will have done my own best, which is the only piece that is really ‘about me’.

This serves me well, again and again, on the path of treating myself, and others, well.

This serves me well, again and again, on the path of treating myself, and others, well.

4. Reciprocity is a big deal for me, and it makes my Big 5 because it is powerful. Reciprocity speaks up when I prepare for my solo camping next weekend with an equal priority to any piece of housework intended to make a traveler’s homecoming comfortable. I matter to me. Reciprocity is what results in my own return home next week being as comfortable as my partners’ homecoming at the end of this weekend, now. Ideally, we exert equal will, and invest our efforts in each others needs in a way that is consistent with love and loving. Reciprocity doesn’t necessarily mean “I did dishes Tuesday, so you must do them Wednesday” – it could mean “I really hate doing dishes, and seeing them done promptly is a big deal for you, and I know you detest cleaning the bathroom, which I don’t mind – if you’ll take care of the dishes, I’ll similarly keep the bathroom clean.” and then investing a similar effort in those tasks.  Reciprocity in a relationship is pretty easy to determine, too; look at sex. Any sex act that one person benefits from far more than the other and isn’t balanced by ‘returning the favor’ in some clear obvious way is a decent indicator that the relationship itself may not be reciprocal. Some people may not need reciprocity in their partnerships…for me it is non-negotiable, and the lack of it is a strong early warning indicator a relationship will end, although I’ve actually only ever had one relationship, one partnership, that was truly reciprocal, on a relationship defining level.  It was such an incredibly positive defining characteristic, that all my relationships since that one are measured against that standard, and it is what I look for in partners, and strive for in my own actions.

5. Openness makes it all work. Openness to conversation, openness to sharing emotions, openness to shared experiences, openness to considering another view-point, openness to trying new things; openness is an act of will. If my relationship is failing, openness brings my concerns into the open. If I am struggling with my own experience, openness allows me to share it frankly and be comforted. If I feel disrespected, or that my needs are not being considered, openness brings will and words together to express those feelings compassionately and with consideration, and the understanding we are each having our own experience. Openness is even there for me if I must consider that my needs are not met to the point of having to consider other choices in order to respect myself, or treat myself well. Openness is important.

"Some Distant Sunrise" 16" x 20" acrylic on canvas w/glow 2014

“Some Distant Sunrise” 16″ x 20″ acrylic on canvas w/glow 2014

The Big 5 are good relationships values, but they are not the only relationship values. Other people make other choices. Your results may vary. What I have found, myself, is that perspective and balance are important, too; my relationship values are what they are, and if I don’t value myself enough to also apply them to my experience with myself, and show myself the same courtesies I show others, or expect them to show me, the outcome is resentment, anger, and discontent. None of that sounds good to me at all. This weekend I’ve been taking care of me, treating myself well, and enjoying the one relationship I can’t escape, or walk away from, and I’ve been doing it using the same Big 5 that I practice in my relationships with others. It’s been nice.

Am I just stalling? This is a pretty long to-do list… 😉

One choice. One change. One moment.

One choice. One change. One moment.

Today is a good day for action. Today is a good day to get a few things done. Today is a good day for mindful service to hearth and home. Today is a good day to love. Today is a good day to change the world.

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Categories Anxiety, Art, art and the artist, Brain Injury, Free Will, grief, Healthy Living, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Oregon Trails, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, The Big 5, women, Words

Solitude

September 12, 2014 //
4

I like the comfortable safety of solitude. I know being alone is a different experience for each of us; for me solitude feels safe, calm, and vastly soulfully nourishing. The few times my anxiety has found me when I was solitary, it has been likely to be driven by fearfulness of others in my periphery, undetected, or uninvited, or imminent. In my worst freak outs, the best thing that can be done in the moment is provide me with solitude and stillness; for years I did not understand how easy it could be to calm me. I have the weekend to be solitary. I need this time very much right now; grieving is hard on the one grieving, and harder still, perhaps, on those near who are not themselves grieving, but cannot stem the flow of tears. I prefer to grieve in solitude, although… I like hugs a lot, when I’m crying…so…there’s that. Human beings are social creatures. I am, myself, even fairly ‘extroverted’…but I do love solitude, and crave substantially more of it than many people seem to…and rarely have enough.

This weekend my partners are away at a festival. I find myself smiling and wishing them well; I hope it is amazing. Work changed my plans and I am staying home. At this point in the week, I am not regretting the change. Festival attendance hardly seems appropriate to grieving – at least not for me. This week the world lost a young woman with all the potential in the world, and an entire future ahead of her. She was just 13. My cousin’s daughter. Yesterday, an Army buddy moved on to something beyond his mortal existence, at 60-something, having completed his mission in some sense, I suppose. I am not ashamed to grieve these losses. I still go to work. This is my way; in the midst of grief I grab onto what is practical and routine, and hold on to it. I tidy the house after work very attentively and mindfully, cherishing the sensations of touch, the subtle feel of space I am in, the motions of cleaning, straightening, moving from task to task. I commute, enjoying the sensations as summer shifts gears to fall, and people-watching with a curious and open heart. I work. Task after task, I follow each small routine of work and life with greater than usual care, walking a sort of emotional balance beam. As I do, I consider life and death, and grief, and honor the departed in my own way, silently eulogizing them, honoring the memories of shared experiences, questioning, reflecting, and celebrating what they brought to my experience. I am very aware of my mortality and the brevity of life when I grieve. This is my way. There are highs and lows, of course. It’s a process. There are tears. These are emotional experiences. It’s difficult, but feels fairly natural to me, the sense of loss, the hurting, the contemplation…and the pain diminishes over time. I am satisfied with the way I grieve. I suppose, now that I’m over 50, that’s going to come in handy.

Here it is the Friday ahead of a solitary weekend. Here in this still moment I am content and serene. This ‘now’ is just fine, thank you. I will be, too. It’s a choice, and there are verbs involved.

Grieving is a very human experience. Detail of "Emotion and Reason" 18" x 24" acrylic on canvas w/ceramic and glow, photographed in dim light. 2012

Grieving is a very human experience.
Detail of “Emotion and Reason” 18″ x 24″ acrylic on canvas w/ceramic and glow, photographed in dim light. 2012

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Categories Anxiety, art and the artist, grief, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Love, Mindfulness, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, The Big 5

A Little Bit Different

September 4, 2014 //
2

Here it is a day later. I got through yesterday without even one moment of tears, not one tantrum, and precisely and exactly just one moment of unexpected irritability in the afternoon, and I caught that before it flared up into something worse! Go me! (Is it appropriate to be this pleased about it?) I managed each detail of my self-care attentively, and when I arrived home after my work shift – shorter on Wednesdays, thankfully – I continued with meditation, a shower, some yoga, some calories, and crashed out prepared for the alarm to go off at 5:00 am today. As it happened, I woke a couple of times before then – once because I hadn’t figured out that although I was tired, I was also a bit noise sensitive. I got a drink of water, and whined about it briefly before returning to bed. I woke again in the evening… early enough to enjoy some refreshing slices of deliciously ripe mystery melon with my partners and our house guest, share some conversation and laughter, and hang out a few minutes before, one by one, everyone but my traveling partner retired for the night. I slipped off to bed ahead of him, too. I wasn’t surprised that I was tired enough to go back to bed. I gave Tuesday night 100%.

I woke this morning, ahead of the alarm, by a lot less than I guessed I had in the darkness. I woke with a song in my head and a smile on my  lips. I feel good. I have a slight headache – a residual effect of not being able to drink water in my sleep, I think. This morning I switch back and forth between water and coffee as I catch up on email (how do I get this much ‘real’ email in just one day?) and the world.

I had a very cool experience touching on perspective, love, appreciation of self, and all manner of nice self-directed feelings yesterday. To share it I need to share one detail about myself before I go further; I have poor facial recognition. Seriously poor. I can stand next to someone I love, scanning a crowd frantically to find them, and not see them next to me. I can walk up to a man I have been sexually intimate with, and not recognize him. I am more likely to recognize people from photographs, I think because of the higher involvement of pattern recognition ‘circuits’ versus face recognition, but I don’t know. Not my area of expertise.  So… there’s that. Then there’s the moment…

I was waiting on the platform for the commuter train yesterday, and when it pulls up, I did my usual thing; I watched commuters disembark and head on their way. There reaches a point when I am looking at them through the windows, instead of as they exit the door. I see a woman smiling, relaxed… she’s sexy. Not young, but confident, comfortable in her skin… she’s.. wow. Yeah. I’m standing there smiling back at this woman and we make eye contact… only… I realize as my eyes focus differently, and I’m really looking ‘at her’… she is merely my reflection in the window glass, not actually another passenger.  I didn’t fight that moment, as tired as I was I simply went with it, awake, aware…and feeling strangely ‘in love’ with this amazing woman I am looking at – even knowing she and I are one. I’ve felt a bit differently about me, since that moment. It’s a nice feeling, worth growing into and exploring further. It feels like a homecoming, and a welcoming back to something I have missed for a long while.

Where does my journey lead?

Where does my journey lead?

Today is a good day to enjoy progress. Today is a good day to enjoy love. Today is a good day to enjoy change and growth and things that seem scary from a distance – like change and growth. Today is a good day to enjoy the world.

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Categories Brain Injury, Healthy Living, Love, Mindfulness, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress
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