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One Very Good Day, Generally

March 29, 2018 //
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Yesterday was lovely, generally speaking. Good start to the day sort of morphed into a pleasant commute that became a productive and jovial work day that finished softly with an errand, a slightly different route home, and gentle conversation with my Traveling Partner, before winding down and becoming a peculiarly early bedtime that was also a night when I did not easily fall asleep. lol All in all, a lovely day.

I make a point to take a few minutes to look back on yesterday, specifically because it was a good day. We so easily fall into the habit of obsessing over the details that were raw, or annoying, or didn’t work out, or which trouble us, picking at those moments like sores – we can’t help but keep fussing with them, but allowing that to become who we are results in a fairly poor quality of life experience, and I’ve been practicing differently. I let myself contentedly gloss over most of the small moments that “missed the mark”; I am entirely unconcerned with those. I focus on what worked. I contemplate good feelings. I smile and remind myself about the bits that were unusually pleasant and replay those in great detail while I sip my morning coffee. I practice “taking in the good“.

I smile again when I remember I just ordered Rick Hanson PhD’s new book, too; “Resilient: How to Grow an Unshakable Core of Calm, Strength, and Happiness“. I chuckle when I also recall the remnant of youthful cynicism that suggested, last night, that there “wouldn’t be anything really new in this…” in subtle discouragement… but… I can’t help but also be very aware that “we become what we practice”, and that whether this is fully 100% new material is not actually relevant to having a good experience of living life. It matters more to practice the practices that support me on this journey to becoming the woman I most want to be. 🙂

So far, today is another pleasant day, in a life that is largely characterized by contentment, these days. It’s hard to want to “begin again” when “now” is, in this moment, quite easily enough. 😀

I’ll just be over here practicing. 😉

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

This One Moment

March 28, 2018 //
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It’s still quite dark. It’s early. A Wednesday. A work day. A quiet morning. This moment, right here, is characterized by any number of individual details. This moment is its own. “Now”.

This moment is now. It won’t remain so. Eventually, it will be a memory – if it’s lucky. Most moments simply pass, insignificant, unappreciated, unnoticed.

I pause for this one. I listen to the pre-dawn traffic beyond the window. I feel the shiver across my skin and up my spine as the heat kicks on. I sip my coffee. I breathe. Relax.

I could do more, or differently. I could “make something” of this moment, if I chose to do so. This one, I choose simply to enjoy, quietly. Taking notice. Observing. Aware. Without criticism, or judgement. For this moment, I simply am.

Soon enough, it will be time to begin again.

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

A New Day, A New Week, A New Beginning

March 26, 2018 //
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Well, here it is Monday… again…already… What a good weekend. So good, actually, it’s hard to look back on it without some measure of guilt, knowing my Traveling Partner did not have such a good experience with his weekend. Hard to look ahead to the day, too; I’ve got another doctor’s appointment, another diagnostic procedure. An entire work week ahead, beyond today, too. I’m already less than excited about that. lol Clearly, new beginnings have value – and I could use one this morning.

I am already feeling a little aggravated, and it’s foolish – exceedingly foolish. Honestly, any time the word “aggravated” finds its way into the same sentence with the brand “Facebook”, well… yeah. Totally foolish. I laugh and let that dumb shit go. New beginnings are often as easy as letting something go. 🙂

With my morning quickly restarted, I still find that I am less than ideally engaged with the concept of “work”, generally. 🙂 I have so much of my own stuff to do. I learn that all over again every time I take a long weekend, a vacation, any kind of real break from the day-to-day grind. The reminder is writ large and in bold strokes. Life exists beyond our employment. We are not defined by (or limited by) our occupation – the world is so much larger than a job. 🙂

A few minutes exchanged with my Traveling Partner. How does this one human being so easily nurture and support me, treat me well, value me, and respect my heart, from such a great distance? I still crush on this guy like a teenager. Hilarious. 🙂 We talk briefly about the weekend. The present. Our future. Friends. A pleasant conversation with my partner over my morning coffee. The world feels… right. I finish my coffee smiling. It’s a good beginning.

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Categories Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Love, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Spring, The Art of Being, The Big 5

Just Go With It

March 25, 2018 //
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I woke feeling well-rested, well before the sun rose. The sky is just now beginning show a hint that day break is approaching. My first cup of coffee was quite good. It’s also quite gone, now. I have yet to make another. It doesn’t seem the sort of morning to rush, at all. I keep reaching for the cup, nonetheless.

It’s been a proper vacation. I invested the time in myself, just as I would have if I had stuck firmly with my original plans, and purely as a byproduct of location, that investment in time and self has resulted in quite a lot getting done right here in this place where I live. Each time I pass through a room that has gotten a lot of that attention, like the kitchen, or the living room, or out onto the deck, I feel a surge of satisfaction and contentment. I enjoy living well. I enjoy a living space characterized by a certain measure of order. I find tidiness sufficiently aesthetically pleasing to do that work, for myself.

Today is the last day of my vacation. No doubt I’ll tidy up a thing or two; there always seems one more thing that I could do to snatch some tiny bit of additional order from the chaos that is living a human life. There will be more coffee to make with loving mindful hands, and to sip with great delight. There will be time spent reading, time spite in meditation, time spent on yoga, time spent in the garden – all things that nurture me.

Nurturing one’s self is a critical point of adulting skillfully, apparently. The first step on that path (for me) was to discontinue the notion that I am not worthy of my own time and attention, my own care, my own loving affection. 🙂 It was a harder step than it sounds like it could be. lol The rest seemed fairly effortless by comparison; it was all just practicing practices.

Today is a lovely day to enjoy… myself. By myself. With myself. For myself. Totally okay. Nothing about that subtracts from my high regard for those dear to me, or my general kindness and consideration of others, moment-to-moment. We tend to treat others only as well as we are able to treat ourselves, however much we protest to the contrary. To learn to love well, I did have to allow my own self to be part of the set of people I love. That may not be good news if you happen to continue to maintain a significant investment in self-loathing (that’s a choice you’re making, there). On the other hand, you can certainly dismiss my observations out of hand, they are, after all, only a reflection of my own experience. Your results may vary. But… if you find yourself failing to succeed again and again, in life, in romance, in love, in various relationships, please do consider, just maybe, it may be to do with how you feel about (and treat) the human being in the mirror. How we treat ourselves, how we regard ourselves, what we expect of ourselves, what we accept from ourselves… all of this has great potential to affect how we treat other people. So… if that’s a thing that matters to you, I’m just saying, maybe consider treating yourself with great kindness, consideration, and regard – and see where that takes you. 🙂 Today is a good day for it…

…If it doesn’t work out today, you can always begin again, tomorrow. You may need practice. 🙂

It’s been a strange unscripted spontaneous mostly-not-even-planned-at-all long weekend (short vacation?), and it isn’t even over yet. I smile at the soft homogeneous gray sky. I’ve no idea what today holds… rain, probably…

…I know I get to begin again. 😀

 

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Categories Brain Injury, Free Will, gardening, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Spring, The Art of Being, The Big 5

What’s the Point?

March 24, 2018 //
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As questions go, this one, “What’s the point?”, plagued me for a long while. I mean… what is the point? Is there a point at all? And, yes, even “what is it?”

Where does this journey even lead?

Hell of a transition right there, sorry about that. Here’s the thing, though, both metaphorically and in life, it’s sometimes those unexpected changes, abrupt edges, and unscripted plot twists that really lead us somewhere profound, if only we are willing to follow them. I mean, realistically, we have choices. If we’re fortunate, we’ll make choices that take us in the direction of greater wisdom, of living well, of loving with our whole hearts, and of being ready to accept the love of others… Or something very similar. 🙂

Wisdom comes with time. If we allow it.

It’s been an interesting weekend. I’ve consumed quite a lot of coffee. Strangely, it hasn’t seemed to affect my sleep… but… I haven’t been trying to stick to any sort of regular habits, so maybe I wouldn’t notice. 🙂 I spent Thursday on self-care. Friday, too, more or less, and getting my hair cut certainly counts. It was a lovely experience, and I’m delighted with the adorably subtle misty mauve shade of my hair, now. I spent today hanging out with an old friend, even enjoying my garden together for a few minutes (and it was nice to have stronger hands than mine helping me with the big bale of compressed garden soil, and his good-natured company). Together we planted three biggish bins of flowers, dividing up the seeds by color and sowing them such that summer will be festively adorned with big blooms and bright colors. 😀 More coffee. Ran some errands. It’s a been a restful weekend opportunity to reconnect with what matters most (to me) (in my own experience of living well).

Hints of drama swirl like distant storm clouds on the horizon of my weekend awareness. It’s nothing to do with me. I exchange conversation with my Traveling Partner on and off, hurting when he hurts, feeling frustrated to be far away, and feeling relieved to be distant from it, too. I’d help if I could, but… it’s very true that there’s not actually much I can do. He is having his own experience. So is she. So are they. So are we all.

I hear from him in the afternoon. I smile for almost an hour.

I contemplate a future in which a weekend down home requires no cancellation – because I will have my own space, and can easily take my ease (and whatever distance) I may need without any inconvenience to another. I let my imagination wander to carpets and cushions and a tent cozy with amenities. I imagine Turkish coffee and misty morning views. I imagine meditating as the sun rises, or sets, undisturbed except for the distant sound of bass thumping, and the nearer sounds of chipmunks, hummingbirds, or crickets. How delightfully easy it will be for my Traveling Partner to enjoy a coffee with me, if I’m only a walk away! How deliciously connected and intimate it will fill to be so near, so conveniently at hand. 🙂

I sit smiling for some rather long while recalling my first authentic Turkish coffee, enjoyed in the desert, in the early 90’s. It seems so very long ago from this moment here, and it’s much too late to enjoy yet another coffee, today, although suddenly I very much want to. lol The late afternoon light begins to fade slowly to evening, and I’m definitely not in the desert. I smile, and begin again.

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Categories Brain Injury, Free Will, gardening, Healthy Living, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Spring, Summer, The Art of Being, The Big 5
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