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Less and More

August 6, 2014 //
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I’m groggy this morning, and fighting fatigue and arthritis pain. Well, not ‘fighting’ them, so much as acknowledging and accepting them, doing what I can to improve the situation, and moving on. Yesterday was one of those busy sorts of days that pushes the limits of endurance, and skill, and ends with a feeling of profound satisfaction in job well done, which was awesome. This morning, however, I am groggy. I was so tired after work yesterday I crashed much earlier than usual. After a couple of hours of deep sleep, I spent the night waking more or less hourly in response to my brain tossing work-related questions at me all night, which I dutifully woke myself to answer, before returning to sleep. It was not the most restful night of sleep I’ve ever had, and waking to the infernal beeping of the alarm, which rarely happens, isn’t a pleasant experience for me.

I feel ‘behind’ on everything this morning. My consciousness feels fuzzy and somehow always arriving late for the moment I’m in. There’s not a lot to say about this state of being. It is what it is. It will pass. It is relevant but unimportant. It’s ‘weather’, not ‘climate’.

Yoga, meditation, a shower, espresso, correspondence, Facebook… and now, a few moments, a few words, the rhythmic sound of fingers on keys; a new day begins.

I have no keen observations on my very human experience this morning…only observations of the most mundane sort: my room is untidy, in spite of my love of order, and this is telling. I tend to descend into disorder under stress. My hands are not as neatly manicured as usual, and I’ve bitten my pinky nails down to the quick; this also tends to be limited to times of stress. In the past 10 days, I’ve had two headaches that felt like transient ischemic attacks, which I had fairly regularly for many years, but which I’d not been having for a long while (about 4 years, I think). I associate that experience with stress, too, although it could perhaps be something else altogether.  Interestingly, I don’t feel – emotionally – as if I am under a lot of stress.

A moment of stillness can change so much.

A moment of stillness can change so much.

I take time to meditate a few more minutes, and return to writing feeling calm and content and soothed. Keeping an eye on stress matters. It’s not generally necessary to exist under that amount of stress; I have choices I can make to alleviate a lot of it. It helps to know where it is coming from. In this case? Work. Yep. Simply that.  I experience some internal conflict over it, because on the one hand – it’s amazing work, I’m good at it, and I’m valued… but feel some performance pressure, nonetheless, to really ‘wow’ the company I work for.  Pretty common, I’m sure. On the other hand? Well, frankly… I don’t place a high value on being an employee, on ‘gainful employment’, or on ‘having a job’, because these are not experiences that define me as a human being. There is so much more to me than work! I’d happily retire this very moment, if I were financially prepared to sustain a simple life of sufficiency for the 30-60 more years I might be around. I’m not, so I can’t… the stress I’m experiencing comes from being aware of how little I actually ‘care about’ work, in the face of how much pressure there is to do it very well right at the moment. Quite a balancing act.  I find myself surprised every time I meet someone who claims to really want to be employed. I’ve been working on figuring out how to be retired since I was about… 18. I have stuff I’d like to do, and so little time for me…

My at home partner becomes a traveling partner tomorrow.  I’m sure I’ll miss her.  There’s a small amount of stress there, too… both partners away for days means a weekend of painting, and I’m so excited about that time for myself, that I have the sense of it being ‘inappropriate’ or somehow unkind. Silliness, and I recognize it as such, but there it is. I am so very human.

I take another moment or two more for meditation, self-compassion, loving kindness, and awareness of how good it feels to have this time to meet such an important need for myself. Content solitude is a precious gift of love, and I’m eager to honor it, savor it, and take advantage of it creatively.

Awareness and presence need no excuse, but do require practice.

Awareness and presence need no excuse, but do require practice.

Today is a good day to be who I am. Today is a good day to be considerate of myself, and others. Today is a good day to celebrate small successes, small victories, and everyday joy. Today is a good day to appreciate that we’re all experiencing our own pain, and to be mindful that a moment of compassion can make a big difference in the world. Today is a good day to be gracious, and to be generous. Today is a good day to change the world.

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Categories Anxiety, art and the artist, Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Sleepless Nights, The Big 5, Words

Pop Quiz in the School of Life

August 5, 2014 //
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Yesterday feels very far away from this morning. For me personally, it was eventful and busy. For the world, filled with turmoil, conflict, confusion, suffering…and not much more if you rely on the news for your information. Babies were born, though, and are loved. People find each other, connect, experience passion, romance, and love each other. The vast quantity of human knowledge grew a little more, although it’s hardly going to make a dent in the even more vast quantity of knowledge we don’t yet  have. There was sunshine, and storms, rain and breezes; there was weather. Some people shared what they have. Others guarded their assets closely. Sick people were cared for, and the dead were mourned. The living thrived in various degrees, struggled, faced challenges, grew as individuals, made choices great and small. It was a day, and it is behind me now, in the past.

We exist in the context of our experience.

We exist in the context of our experience.

Funny how our choices and experiences build our future out of that past bit we’ve already had. We’ve got right now, if we need to make still  more choices, tweak things a bit, or reach for some desirable moment or object on the horizon. My yesterday has a ripple effect well into the days ahead, that much I can see and is very real to me. What about days further out? Or years? Those, too, may be affected by yesterday, but when I get there will I have any awareness of the moment of yesterday that I’m standing on?

My traveling partner is heading to a festival next weekend. My at home partner is taking advantage of an exciting opportunity to join him there, and have an experience. I am excited for her; it will be a very new experience. I’m happy for him to enjoy the companionship of a loved one at the event. I am not suffering, because the ripple effect washes over my own experience most pleasantly; I will have an uninterrupted weekend to paint. It’s a rare treat, and already a stack of new canvas waits for me, and I am immersed in inspiration, and eager to begin work. It’s still days away. Days of delightful anticipation, and planning, and considering the moment to come with great joy. (I hope my partners have even half as much joy and wonder in their weekend experience as I get from painting.)

The artist within is already hard at work.

The artist within is already hard at work.

These days of planning are important for me. Taking care of me, and being self-sufficient as an artist with a brain injury, means taking steps to ensure I do stop painting to eat, care for myself, and handle daily chores (like feeding the pets and attending to their needs).  Without some structure, I lose myself in inspiration and put my health, sometimes my safety, at risk. (I once filled my apartment with smoke and almost asphyxiated myself while doing sketches and watercolors of… smoke; a neighbor broke in on my reverie, and possibly saved my life.) So, the next day or two is about supportive infrastructure – alarms, reminders, notes to myself stuck here and there, little attention-getters to ensure I eat, sleep, and take care of what must be done, so I can be free to paint. For days. I’m very excited.

I can be amusingly impractical. My at home partner is eager for my needs to be met by this change of plans, herself, and excitedly pointed out that I’d have the car all weekend. I felt puzzled about the relevance of that, and it was not until this morning, in the shower, that I realized that although I know I am not likely to go anywhere while I’m painting, that may not be obvious to anyone else. lol Perspective isn’t just helpful, some things are not understood without it.

Balancing the practical and the emotional is part of the ongoing experience of studying perspective, of being mindful, and of understanding sufficiency.

Each moment, each experience, utterly unique, and entirely our own making. Choose wisely.

Each moment, each experience, utterly unique, and entirely our own making. Perspective matters. 

Today is a good day to be a student. Today is a good day to consider choices, and choose wisely. Today is a good day to treat myself well, and kindly, and show the world similar care and good treatment. Today is a good day to move softly through shared space. Today is a good day to consider how I can help ease someone else’s burden, even if for only a moment. Today is a good day to change the world.

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Categories art and the artist, Brain Injury, Healthy Living, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Summer, The Big 5, women, Words

Monday Monday

July 28, 2014 //
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I’m  not blue, and it is Monday. I was allowing my mind to coast a bit, considering first this, then that, hoping this morning’s writing would coalesce into something coherent, at least. I thought of songs I know themed on Monday and went to Google. It still hasn’t stopped surprising me how much coincidence, chance, and serendipity gently bring my attention to things that support my growth, my progress, or enhance it somehow. This morning, my Google adventure resulted in finding a blog with a post about songs themed on Mondays.  An interesting find, worth exploring further, and another traveler’s narrative.

The weekend was mostly about exploring spontaneity, and practicing doing so mindfully. For me, this proved to be an exercise in strangeness, and overall I enjoyed it enough to find it was well spent, although I don’t care to utterly abandon my preference for planning. 🙂

Flowers and sunshine.

Flowers and sunshine, whether I plan them or not.

Yesterday morning I shared breakfast with a dear friend, and took a stroll through the local farmer’s market, and beyond that spent the day in study and contemplation. I took a chance on a lovely day and did some yoga outside. In the afternoon, I lost track of time, meditating in a shady spot for what turned out to be a couple of hours well spent. Later, studying spontaneously became napping, and while I’m sure I needed the rest, it resulted in being awake far into the night, hyper-vigilant and overly aware of our house guest, my partner’s Dad, staying over.  I’m hoping I am sufficiently well-rested that the short night doesn’t come at an emotional cost later. Of course, there are choices that matter; choices affect thinking and behavior.

A new week begins. In these first moments of Monday I gently remind myself of the work ahead, of the professional self I carry to the office, of how that does or does not fit in with supporting my needs over time. I no longer allow an employer to call my shots as a human being; I am more than the sum of my professional skills.

I miss my traveling partner fiercely. There’s nothing to be done about it, of course, besides tend my heart with care, and honor and respect my emotional experience.

The resident feline models ideal behaviors for 'how to miss someone'; she takes care of her own business, until they return.

The resident feline models ideal behaviors for ‘how to miss someone’; she takes care of her own business, until they return.

I feel vaguely unsettled and uneasy this morning. It’s a small thing. The morning is a quiet and delightfully still morning…but there is a stranger sleeping in the room next to mine. I know, I know… my partner’s Dad. That’s family, right? Well…yes and no. Her family. For me, he’s a man I’ve met a number of times…3? 4? Hung out with briefly. I don’t actually ‘know’ him. I take my partner’s word for it that it is safe to have him in the house – that’s the simple truth of it. He is her family, she vouches for him as a human being. I don’t actually know him. I must have given her an odd look in the evening when she said something pleasant in passing about me having my quiet morning, this morning, since she’d be gone by… because, really, although the morning is quiet, the subtle tense awareness of a stranger in this space is palpable. I don’t really know how to communicate to someone else that this is an uncomfortable feeling for me. I am on alert, waiting…watching the clock.

I remind myself how unlikely it is that anything alarming, dangerous, frightening, or unexpected might happen due to his presence. I take some deep calming breaths. I return my awareness to the moment and cherish my wounded heart that will most likely never trust a human being solely because they are a parent, even of someone I care for (perhaps especially of someone I care for; I know them, and the damage left behind in childhood’s passing).  What reason do I have for that sort of trust? Then in a moment of beautiful perspective, I think of a friend and our broader circle of shared friends, all on ‘baby watch’; she’s past due and eagerly awaiting the birth of her son. How beautiful and wonderful to see a child already so well-loved, waited for, prepared for, who will be received in such total love! She is a woman of remarkable heart and grace, and wholly suited to motherhood, not because she has nothing else to offer the world, but because she chooses to offer her love as a mother, in addition to so much more, and does so skillfully. If I could have chosen someone to mother me, as I headed for mortal form, surely I would choose such as she. So… parents, not all bad. lol

Choosing awareness. Choosing presence. Choosing 'now'.

Choosing awareness. Choosing presence. Choosing ‘now’.

Balance. Mindfulness. Perspective. Sufficiency. Today is a good day for big ideas that require only one word. Today is a good day to change the world.

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Categories Anxiety, Brain Injury, gardening, Healthy Living, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Sleepless Nights, Summer, The Big 5, Words

For Better, or Worse…

July 23, 2014 //
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…In sickness and in health…

Life's simple glory, complicated, simple, strange, wonderful, new or familiar; it matters every bit as much as it doesn't matter at all.

Life’s glory, complicated, simple, strange, wonderful, new or familiar; it matters every bit as much as it doesn’t matter at all.

This is a pretty fragile vessel I occupy. Backaches, tendonitis, headaches, sore feet, bumps, bruises, bad days, and…head colds; being human isn’t pain-free, convenient, or particularly easy some days. Today is one of those, and I do indeed have a head cold. Worse, I have a head cold on the handful of days that my traveling partner is visiting home. I have a cold instead of hugs and lovemaking, because I choose to take responsible steps to prevent the spread of illness, where I can. I find employment, generally, in call centers. It’s humble enough work for an analyst, and head colds go with the territory – in fact, I have numbers on that, and some trending. lol  Love isn’t hindered by a head cold, though, and I enjoy the companionship of my partner in spite of it.

Annoyingly enough, this is also an extraordinarily busy week at work; as much as I’d like to, taking the day off to be sick isn’t an option. From my perspective, neither is getting all my coworkers sick, however trivial the illness, so I am working from home today – for as long as I can bear to toil over numbers. Every choice we make matters, in some context or another, to our own experience, or to someone else’s. My sleep was disturbed and restless last night and I woke from some surreal dreaming meditation on this particular strange thought; it all matters so very much, and it’s so interconnected, I lose sight of how irrelevant and unimportant any one detail really is. Perspective, balance…and the strangeness of the observation that ‘the opposite of what you know is also true‘. Is it? Isn’t it? Certainly it is an idea, for me, that sparks contemplation on perspective.

What we face, what we turn away from; we choose the world we see.

What we face, what we turn away from; we choose the world we see.

I can focus on the head cold if I choose, certainly it tends to be in the forefront of my thoughts and awareness this morning, or I can choose to be aware, awake, and observant of other details. The taste of my coffee, the trickle of the aquarium in the stillness of dawn, behind me, the internal glow of being well-loved, the moody gray sky outside my window…being present and in the moment, for me, still involves choices; what do I attend to, and what do I turn away from? For a lot of my life, I have ‘turned away from’ myself, and anything else I could turn away from, that built on ancient pain. I didn’t understand that by ignoring myself and my own needs, by showing myself no compassion, by disregarding my hurts in life and treating myself callously I was teaching myself that this was an acceptable way to behave towards others, and that it was also acceptable for them to treat  me poorly. It set up a see-saw of emotional abuses over time, many of them self-inflicted through assumptions, thinking, and internal story-telling that have done a lot of damage to my relationships, and my own experience of life, and myself.

Lately, I am making it a point to treat myself well. I don’t mean lavishing myself with expensive trinkets, costly vacations, or inflating my ego; that doesn’t work for me, personally. I am learning better habits about treating my heart well, though, and studying the neuroscience of emotion, practicing nurturing behaviors, learning self-compassion…and the results are more valuable than sparkly jewels, by far.  As with meditation, there’s a verb involved and practicing requires actual practice. Having a head cold, I rather expected it would be pretty easy to treat myself well…but being human isn’t really different just because I am feeling ill, and the requirement to be aware, present, mindful, and making choices that meet my needs are over time still requires small, continuous acts of will. It is, admittedly, harder to care when I feel ill…but surely in that case it matters even more to make the effort?

We create beauty by seeing it, we create love by loving; so much of who we are is what we choose to be.

We create beauty by seeing it, we create love by loving; so much of who we are is what we choose to be.

So. Yeah. I have a head cold. I’ll try not to be cross or irritable. I’ll choose to treat myself and others well, in spite of feeling poorly. Today is a good day for choosing wisely. Today is a good day for kindness and consideration. Today is a good day to change the world.

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Categories Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Summer, The Big 5, Words

Turn and Face the Strange

July 22, 2014 //
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It was wonderful to welcome a traveler home. I missed my partner while he was away. Interestingly, there was no real stress to it; I knew where he was, that he was safe and in the company of people who wish him well, and had I needed to reach him, I easily could have. “I need a chance to miss you once in awhile.”  He said it to me early in our relationship, and it resonated with me. We all need a chance to ‘miss each other’ now and then, perhaps…like a favorite food, or a favorite book, or a favorite movie; eventually it is necessary to do other things, if only for variety.

I like routine. I admit it. My life becomes emotionally and logistically incredibly chaotic without it, in part because of the TBI; it effects how my memory and thinking work. I work hard to build habits that care for me, that care for my environment, that keep things orderly and keep me ‘on time’; without them, I am all over the clock and all over the calendar without any particularly predictable result, and a lot of things just don’t get done.

On the other hand, creativity isn’t especially ‘routine’, and inspiration isn’t tied to a calendar event, and intimacy and connectedness don’t always follow through on an invitation. Routine can easily slip from ‘planned’ to ‘stale’. Routine can as easily halt growth as support it.  Change and choice and novel stimuli all contribute to being interesting, fun, engaging, and ‘having something to say’. Once again I am faced with a balancing act…

interrupted by an unexpected moment of clarity

interrupted by an unexpected moment of clarity

…And a poorly chosen metaphor. My consciousness is jarred by how often we dismiss what is important in our lives with a diminishing word. We express so much of our experience as ‘an act’, ‘a game’, ‘going through motions’, ‘measuring up’ or ‘checking a box’. How serious am I about who I am and what matters to me? Serious enough to be honest with myself? To be vulnerable with other people? Am I serious enough to look a coworker in the eyes and say “Actually, I’m having a terribly difficult time with life, these days, and I’m not sure I’m up to it” when that is what is true and real in the moment? If we can’t be honest with someone else, what supporting evidence is there that we are honest with ourselves? How honest are you with yourself about who you are, and where you are heading in life, and what you really want out of you? Every day.

Balance is a big deal for me, personally, and I’m suddenly irked with myself for allowing the trite figure of speech to diminish how important it actually is – in my own thinking! Words have immense power to guide us, and to mislead us. We quickly learn to continue to punish and hurt ourselves, furthering the damage done by others, through the use of language. It’s no wonder I still feel so much pain from events in the past; I continue to hurt myself through the use of language. Guilt, shame, social anxieties, fear, resentment, chronic anger, chronic frustration, a sense of being held down, held back, and diminished – all these things can be byproducts of the shitty way I sometimes treat myself…out of habit, having learned to do so from others who also treated me badly. I see it in others, too, and while it can be tempting to criticize or judge, or suffer the pain they inflict as intended; we’re all so incredibly human. Each doing what we think, in the moment, is ‘right’ or ‘good’ or ‘necessary’ or some other combination of still more words to justify the shitty way we’re treating that other human being. Very few people think of themselves as ‘the bad guy’, however heinous their actions.

What are your relationship values? Have you chosen them wisely? Do you practice them willfully? Can you state them in simple language? Are you ‘one of the good guys’ – or are you…not? If your relationships are generally contentious and unpleasant and fraught with anxiety, perhaps embracing and cultivating different values is something to consider? Choice. Change. It isn’t really likely you can control or change the behavior of another human being, unless they choose to allow it. Certainly you have no particular direct influence over their thinking, but no one out there has as much power over yours as you do. I’m just saying…make your choices for you.  Unhappy? Choose change, but choose it for you; you have no real right to force change on someone else.

Don’t forget Wheaton’s Law. “Don’t be a dick.”

Today is a good day to remember that other person over there is a human being, too, with all the rights I have myself. Today is a good day for kindness. Today is a good day to be who I am. Today is a good day to appreciate what I have to offer the world. Today is a good day to choose wisely. Today is a good day to change the world.

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Categories Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, The Big 5, Words
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