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It’s Just a Suggestion

February 2, 2014 //
4

It has been a lovely quiet Sunday. I’m enjoying it without reservations and finding it satisfying and tranquil. There have been opportunities to make choices that could take me in a very different direction. Choices and verbs. We have will, we have intentions, we make choices, we act… Or we don’t actually act, then wonder why our will is ineffective, our intentions lack value, and our choices don’t take us where we expected or hoped they would. There is no arguing with a verb.

The air plant on my desk at work, a metaphor for thriving under difficult circumstances. :-)

The air plant on my desk at work, a metaphor for thriving under difficult circumstances. 

 

Thinking about that, this morning, I wondered what I would say to myself, if I’d asked me ever so long ago, what I could be doing differently…to be ‘happy’? If I could have written myself a note, sent it back a couple of years, a few, or even decades, what would I have suggested I do, or change, to get here sooner? Something like this, maybe?

  • Please take care of you. I’d say more, but in the end the choices and will are yours.
  • Please also consider others, not because they do or don’t deserve that from you, and not out of obligation. Please consider others as a mark of your own good character, and because it has every day value in your experience.
  • Please be kind. Kindness isn’t weak, kindness isn’t costly, and however cynical you’ve grown over the years, you’re likely able to see that ‘kind’ feels better than ‘callous’ or ‘cruel’, so what harm is there in being kind? The harm in callousness and cruelty is easy to spot.
  • Please take a moment to pause in stillness and consider how unlikely it is just to have this one precious moment…
  • Please do your best. It’s not about competition, there’s no winner’s circle at the end of life, and the person most damaged by a half-assed effort on your part will generally be you. Your best may not be ‘good enough’ by someone else’s standard. It may not set records, or net huge bonuses or cash windfalls. Your best may not achieve all you hoped to achieve. Your best may not be what you expected it to be. Your best, though, is every bit of all that you can do…and that is enough. Always enough. There’s still a verb implied there… and… the bad news is that you don’t fool yourself if you do less than  your best, while insisting to someone else that you did do your best. Maybe there will be times when your very best effort turns out to be the humble admission that you didn’t do your best, when you could have, when it mattered, when someone is counting on you? Are you that strong? (Please, do your best.)
  • I’m not ‘telling you what to do’. It’s not about that. I’m learning some wonderful things about living a rich and pleasant experience, and it feels good – and I really want to share that.  It has taken so long to get this far. It’s been hard, more than ‘sometimes’. I’ve failed a lot. I expect to fail plenty more – I learn pretty fast that way, myself.  I’m pretty sure that more than one friend made some of these suggestions to me, along the way, and I wasn’t ready to hear them.  I am grateful that when I found myself ready, the words and ideas and experiences that have helped me find my way in the darkness were still there. So. I’m passing them along. In case you are ready. 
  • Good luck with your journey; there is no map, drink plenty of water.

So hey… Thank you for reading. Thank you for writing.  Thank you for being. Good luck with your journey.

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Categories Anxiety, Brain Injury, Free Will, gardening, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Turning 50, women, Words

Life Needs a Caution Sign

January 30, 2014 //
4

Or two, or three, or hell – let’s just pave it into something comfortable, predictable, and mapped, settle into easy contentment, and call it a day?

I had a great day at work, yesterday. Sometimes I have the strange sensation that ‘work life balance’ may actually mean that when things at work suck, things at home are lovely, and of course…the inverse of that would then be true as well. That, thankfully, is fanciful bitterness with struggle, and with the simple ups and downs of life.  We’re each having our own experience. The experiences we have are not all uniformly pleasant, or comfortable. I guess I’ll keep practicing the practices that seem to build a life that is more up than down, more content than not, easier than hard, more pleasant than unpleasant, and see where all that goes.

This morning isn’t my best morning. I woke crying from dreams that contained content ripped from the most difficult moments of the prior evening. It was nearly an hour before my brain would even acknowledge that the evening had ended on a relatively positive note – or at least finished somewhat supportively. My heart feels heavy, and tears are queued up waiting for a reason to spill over. This is one of my least favorite emotional states.

The bottom-line is that I want more than I have in life, in love, emotionally, sexually, even financially (although that one is very low on my list, and exists more to bolster the likelihood of other things I value being attainable).  I think wanting is probably pretty commonplace.  It takes wanting to reach a sense of being without, after all.  I even understand the connection between craving and discontent, and how difficult life can become when we desire only those things that are out of reach, or when we lose sight of the wonders we already have in our life.  I started 2014 knowing that ‘sufficiency’ is a big deal for me, and that ‘contentment’ is an emotional experience I enjoy, and a quality I would like to develop and support.  What I don’t know is where the subtle distinction between genuine contentment and ‘settling’ for something is, and how to recognize it. Is there a difference?

I struggle to communicate with the people nearest to me. Setting boundaries, sharing needs, speaking calmly and explicitly about what I want, what supports my needs over time, being honest about how I feel in the moment, or in general, these are all very difficult for me to begin with. Doing them well is something I find myself working so hard at, and still not succeeding with any reliability. At least, if I am succeeding, the outcome is incredibly unpleasant much of the time. This morning I woke wishing I could just stop talking at all. No more words. No speaking. No writing. No.More.Words.  I seem to have a gift for saying too much, or phrasing something in the worst possible way.  I rarely feel actually understood, or even heard. (It makes it so much ‘worse’ that there was a time and a relationship in which I did feel understood and heard, making it something possible in life that I just don’t have now.)

This morning I have a lingering feeling that the things that matter most to me are simply things I can’t have, or will experience only very rarely. I want very much for that to just be okay, if it is true. If it isn’t true, I’d like that emotional cocktail to just go away. I would like to have a better understanding of ‘sufficiency’. Enough. What is ‘enough’. How to I get that? I have the nagging suspicion that even intimacy is easier/better when approached mindfully… but I’m not sure I ‘get’ how to approach it at all. I suspect I may not have correctly labeled whatever the hell I think the experience of intimacy feels like, and am chasing an unknown experience, or ‘shooting at the wrong target’.

I am grouchy and things suck this morning. I am very human, and even though my intellect politely reminds me that ‘this is a construct of your own thinking and you can choose differently’ and my recently-more-mindful-and-learning-more-all-the-time heart tells me ‘this too shall pass’, I’m hurting now, and it is hard to stop picking at it. Soon I’ll head to work, and the process of getting there will distract me for a time, and maybe it will be forgotten when I head home tonight?

Right now is right now. Right now I feel like giving up. I’m frustrated, hormonal, and cross. I spent the night with my fears and nightmares and woke feeling sad, tired, and crying. Right now is harder than it has to be, and right now I’m struggling. This too – quite inevitably – shall pass. Time runs out, moves on, and brings change. So. Yeah. (I hear myself laugh out loud, it sounds a little worn down and bitter, and I think about how lovely yesterday was – that passed, didn’t it? Yep. So…this will as well.)

Some lovely pictures from yesterday…

We can build serenity.

We can build serenity.

No matter how much I am hurting in the moment, there is more to life and the world than my pain.

No matter how much I am hurting in the moment, there is more to life and the world than my pain.

Things can seem so complicated and overwhelming...

Things can seem so complicated and overwhelming…

Getting right up close doesn't always simplify our view of things.

Getting right up close doesn’t always simplify our view of things.

I am grateful that my experience this morning is largely subjective and a construct of my brain. I can find my way to something different. Compassion first, then, this morning? I pause with a certain surprise to realize that as I typed those words, my internal critic was hurling invective at me, launching emotional weaponry, and rallying my demons… I’m not always fully aware of the nasty bits and pieces of old hurts and old programming ‘going live’ to defend themselves in the background. Grim. Definitely compassion first…well… sort of first. Okay, not even a little bit first – that would have been a more positive start. Still human. I tested me. lol

Compassion, then, this morning – now that I see how much I need it.

Today, I am human. Today I face my hurts with self-compassion, and my certainty that emotional states rely on choices, too, however inevitable or permanent they feel in the moment. Today I change the world.

 

 

 

 

 

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Categories Anxiety, Brain Injury, Free Will, grief, Love, Menopause, Mindfulness, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Sleepless Nights, women, Words

One Year, One Journey, Many Moments

January 8, 2014 //
0

Well…here we all are. Here I am, anyway. There are opportunities to wonder about the rest of it. It’s been a year, to the day, since I started this blog. I was somewhere very different as a person one year ago. My understanding of myself was – and remains – incomplete, but certainly I am in as different a place with that as a journey of 365 days could possibly make, for me. Very different, indeed. Change, as comical as it looks on the page, is a constant.

People do change, therefore they can change.  It is not a given that they will change. That last is rather dependent on their own desire to change, for their own reasons, succeeding based on their will and actions.  These seem obvious enough observations, but I did not have that understanding a year ago.

We are each having our own experience. That, too, seems damned obvious to me in 2014, but I have an understanding of myself that recognizes and acknowledges that this was not ‘always’ my understanding of things.  It’s difficult to be certain quite when I became really sold on that understanding – that we are each all having our own experience. It feels like I ‘always’ understood this – but I can prove in my own journals and past writing that I did not, and also that the lack of this understanding in prior years was something that really had an effect on my ability to learn compassion, to build intimacy, to provide emotional support – even impeded my ability to listen well to others and respect or value their perspective.

Every step I take illuminates another step to be taken – like walking with a flashlight in the dark. I can recall, at some past points, saying something casual or flippant about ‘being a work in progress’, generally to minimize some mishap, or the consequence of some poor decision. This past year I’ve spent a lot of time learning what a very active thing progress actually tends to be – there is so much more to it than being aware it needs to happen, or reading up on some process for getting it done.  ‘Work in progress’ is an incredibly active thing, with a lot of verbs involved, and a hearty helping of will and action, and practice doesn’t lead to mastery, it leads to good habits and improvements over time.  I do not always feel up to the task, and I am surprised and even satisfied with myself for how far I’ve come in a year.

I feel powerfully committed to myself (that’s very new), and to building a good life, good relationships, a good heart, a compassionate nature, and to leave when my time is up able to say the world is, in some small way, the better for having endured my humble efforts. This is the most concise statement I know how to make about ‘who I am’ at the end of this one year.  I doubt I’d have made such a statement in any earlier time in my life.

Words like ‘mindfulness’ and ‘compassion’ have become everyday parts of my vocabulary over the past year.  I am learning new things; listening, caring, understanding, empathizing, sharing – no strings, less baggage.  It still seems strange to me that so much of what I’ve needed all along has come from within… and that ‘taking care of me’ isn’t about being ‘selfish’, defensive, territorial, or confrontational, but is very much about living a contented life, and enjoying a sense of well-being, by ensuring I see to my own basic needs with as much commitment and skill as I do the needs of others.

I am spending time today contemplating this one year journey because, as journey’s go, it’s been it’s been one of the most meaningful I’ve ever taken, and one that I understand more clearly now to be both ongoing, and worthy of more active participation. It’s my life, after all.  Sure, had I understood some things more clearly earlier in life, I’d have made some different choices perhaps, or had some very different conversations, but there is still so much ahead – many more moments, opportunities to choose, to talk, to act – to change. My will is truly my own – when I use it.

So are my words. This year I’ve used this blog to explore my world of words in a more honest way, with greater vulnerability, learning to share my experience without using emotional weaponry, and with consideration of possible outcomes beyond words on a page. Using my words to understand my experience more clearly, myself, without endless rumination or becoming mired in some momentary drama, and without over-burdening the emotional resources of my loved ones has been eye-opening regarding the limitations of words and language, and how it can direct my experience – and how I can learn to use those words to direct my experience,  myself, from within.  (Thanks for helping with all that, by the way, I appreciate you, and the time you’ve taken to share this journey with me in some small way.)

Soft jazz in the background, a latte gone cold on the side table, a soft gray morning sky on the other side of the window, the household sleeping… just one year? The distance between where I was a year ago, and where I am this morning can’t really be measured in time or distance.  The journey isn’t even completed – there is so much more to learn, to do, to experience, to share, to understand, to contemplate, to enjoy… This is just one moment of many. 

There is a lot to enjoy. This has definitely been a year to explore how very true that is.  There is a lot to enjoy.  Enjoying life is also a choice.

Here's to free will and good choices!

Here’s to free will and good choices!

Today I…

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Categories Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Love, Menopause, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Uncategorized, Words

Busy Within the Stillness

January 4, 2014 //
0

It is some moments after a pastel frosty dawn. The sky is still pink with it, lightening to a chilly gray-blue. Winter. A new year unfolding, each new day its own, and I have not spent much of it writing.  That is not a complaint; my time has been well spent.

My coffee this morning is smooth and sweet on my tongue. The house is quiet. I feel content.

I celebrated the New Year with an interestingly 3-dimensional, very hands-on, sort of meditation; craft work, building, as a physical metaphor for investing in myself, of being the change, of building a future aligned to my values, that supports my needs over time. I assembled a desk, re-arranged my space, and ‘moved in again’. I did each activity as mindfully as I was able, which was ‘mostly’, investing care, commitment, and love in assembling the desk, the chair, moving a bookcase, arranging ‘things’, eliminating clutter…  I can’t own the idea, it developed during a conversation with my partners about my challenges making my time really count for me.  I have not found it easy.  We discussed the nature of the challenges, and one partner suggested – and had before – a more dedicated writing space (I generally cozy up on the sectional, and perch my laptop in my lap). There was real wisdom in many of the observations and suggestions, and the outcome was a shopping trip out to Ikea, and a New Year’s Day project.  It was a powerful experience to build a solution in full awareness, mindfully, and with great care – as a treat for me.  It brought me face to face with the reality that I rarely treat myself with the same quality of good treatment that I am inclined to deliver to my loved ones. In the abstract, I had thought I was past that. lol.

The changes result in some small amount of upheaval, of course. These days I have some understanding why that is, and it didn’t linger longer than needed to get my attention to the matter, and I take time to be in the changed space frequently to chill and be, allowing it to return to a level of familiarity that feels comfortable. I have been sleeping very well since I moved the bookcase, and put the desk in my room. The room seems much quieter.

It is always interesting to rethink a space, and configure or use it differently. Having made these changes, like elaborate dominoes others now seem necessary, and the tight efficient arrangement of objects in a small space will require a high level of attention of detail and tidiness to stay beautiful and cozy, but last night when I stepped into my room at the end of the evening, it felt rather like a homecoming in a very visceral and supportive way.

The new year is off to a good start, for me.

Another lovely metaphor, eggs on a leaf in my aquarium. Happy New Year.

Another lovely metaphor, eggs on a leaf in my aquarium. Happy New Year.

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Categories Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Parables, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, winter, Words

The Parable of the Rain Barrel

November 26, 2013 //
1

Emotional strength and resilience don’t seem to be limitless in my own experience. I got to thinking about it as I walked home last night quite exhausted following a rather ordinary day.  I thought, too, of watering my garden with rain water next year, collected in rain barrels, very green friendly… the thinking got all jumbled up, and of course, a parable resulted from the cognitive disarray.

A rain barrel [image from lifehacker]

Consider the rain barrel.  Rain falls plentifully in some places, less so in others. Collecting rain water allows it to be used later, and applied where most needed – I would water my greenhouse with rain water.  If I set up my rain barrel well, and it collects water efficiently, and I have plentiful reserves, my garden remains lush and well-watered, nurtured and capable of supporting life.  The rain barrel must be open to receiving the water, and must also be able to contain it – to build a reserve.  If I set up the barrel to collect water, but I leave it open, too, at the bottom, so that the water is continuously used as soon as it is received, no water is stored, no reserves are built, and when a dry time comes and no rain falls, my garden is dry and at risk of dying, and unable to support lush and fertile life. Crops would be bitter and less flavorful.

Don’t our emotional reserves, the strength of our heart, and our ability to ‘bounce back’ work similarly? If I am constantly at war within myself, or having to buoy loved ones in times of personal turmoil, with no support for myself, my own heart, my own needs, without taking time to ‘refill my rain barrel’, I become bitter, exhausted, and unable to support life. The very real personal rewards to growth and change are powerful, and capable of nurturing my heart on a profound level – unless I am unable to rise beyond constantly ‘spending my savings’, using the rainwater as it comes, instead of building stored reserves for dryer times.

Today I will love well.  Today I give myself as much compassion as I show others. Today I will also take care of me.

 

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Categories Brain Injury, Free Will, gardening, Healthy Living, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Parables, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships
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