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All I’m Really Saying…

March 18, 2016 //
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…In the simplest terms, is…

It isn't always blue skies overhead, but we can choose to look up, at least.

It isn’t always blue skies overhead, but we can choose to look up, at least.

And…

Although life is often no bed of spring flowers, we can plant the seeds, and nurture growth, any time.

Although life is often no bed of spring flowers, we can plant the seeds, and nurture growth, over time.

Don’t we serve ourselves – and our loves, our community, and our world – when we take care of ourselves well, with an eye for our longer term needs, and what matters most, doing no harm, and living mindfully? No, it isn’t without effort. My results vary. There are tons of verbs involved. Growth seems slow. Change is incremental. I often find myself beginning again. Isn’t all that worth it, to find lasting contentment?

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

Building Instead of Destroying

March 17, 2016 //
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I have to keep turning off the news lately. The election year propaganda machine is running at max capacity to generate stress, hysteria, fear, and anger, feeding us divisiveness and outrage in servings so large it actually seems to be tearing the culture apart. Maybe we’ll build something better from the wreckage? Maybe the wreckage will be what’s left when we’re finished?

I have some simple practices I get by on pretty comfortably for dealing with the media feeding frenzy:

  • Avoid speaking in slogans and sound-bites, and use my own words to share my own thoughts, with care and consideration.
  • Test assumptions, and understand that I am human, and untested assumptions are generally just made up shit in my head.
  • Don’t be mean. (Seriously, at all, it’s just not useful or necessary.)
  • Don’t argue; I’m not likely to change someone’s mind, and arguing sucks. A calm reasonable statement is sufficient to communicate.
  • Be open, and really listen; many people have built their opinion over a lifetime of consideration, and have their reasons. We don’t all think alike, or have the same life experiences.
  • Turn off the news. (Be a selective media consumer.)

It’s not fancy stuff, but I’m getting by on it pretty well. I can’t take credit for any of it; as with most practices, suggestions, recommendations, or rules guiding behavior, someone else came up with it first and it eventually reached my thinking by way of printed or spoken word, observation, or coincidence. Knowledge is one of the most powerful things we can share… It’s tragically – and comically – difficult to tell apart from bullshit.

Welcome.

Welcome.

Bits and pieces of things on my mind. Thank you for taking the time. 🙂 I have building and destroying in my thoughts today, and not generally because of the contentious media circus revolving around the swarm of presidential candidates, although it is painful watching an entire nation squirm with the slow recognition that as a country we maybe aren’t who we say or think we are… and that we are divided. No, it’s not ‘about’ that – it is about love, and life, and work, and the future. Building makes more sense, generally. Even the process of growth and change isn’t about destruction – when I undertake practices that change and develop the woman in the mirror, I’m not seeking to destroy the woman who already exists; I am seeking to become her more fully, more authentically, and leveraging the full measure of her potential to do so efficiently and beautifully. If I face that as a process of destruction, how can I be surprised to discover later that I am wounded, damaged, limping through life feeling beaten down?

Love, too, benefits greatly from building, from the constructive practices that build intimacy to quiet evenings with my love building furniture together (a powerful living metaphor for cooperation, intimacy, and good communication). As I worked step-by-step through the instructions provided, feeling soothed by the process of building something beautiful and functional after a fairly crappy day in corporate purgatory characterized by feeling dehumanized, implicitly criticized, and under-valued, I was also sharing productive collaborative time with my traveling partner. He doesn’t deliver a stream of criticism, or expect me to be superhuman; he is aware of my challenges. A gentle observation as I begin to assemble a drawer incorrectly spares me a lot of frustration later, and I don’t have to deal with taking it completely apart because it is just wrong. Later, I get to a point where the required task is one I know is a weak area for me; I ask for his help. We share the project with open hearts, listening to each other, and demonstrating skilled use of The Big 5 (respect, consideration, reciprocity, compassion, and openness). We have a great time with it. The finished nightstand is well-made, and represents a lovely experience we enjoyed together.

I sometimes find the choice to ‘walk on’ from stress a challenging one. I could so easily have spent the evening complaining and venting about work… but… I already know I am not where I want to be professionally – so does my partner. I had already said, simply enough, that the work day was aggravating and unpleasant. We both know I am looking for something else that suits me better, and is a better fit for where I am in life. What else is there to say that doesn’t keep me tethered to the work day that is now behind me? I don’t get paid for those hours – why would I spend them emotionally still at work? There are, however, verbs involved and choices to be made. It was nice to find that the practice of building was a good way to move on from what was troubling me, and find a firm place to stand, content and wrapped in love.

Sharing the love, and sharing the building. Destruction is far less joyful.

Sharing the love, and sharing the building. Destruction is far less joyful.

The practice of building (instead of destroying) isn’t limited to sharing the experience with someone else. I can choose to build (my experience) when I am alone, too, by enjoying any constructive practice, task, or process that wholly supports my own emotional well-being and being fully engaged in that, whether it is sketching note cards, building furniture, tidying my patio garden, mindfully attending to household chores, coloring, reading… So long as the thing I am doing supports my emotional wellness and engages my thinking on something that is not the thing stressing me out. It is a way of letting go by specifically embracing what has greater value.

Here it is morning. I’ll head to the office soon enough, and I am more well-prepared this morning for having gotten some real rest last evening, and a good night’s sleep undisturbed by stress. I’ll remind myself, as I arrive at the office, not to make assumptions, to be mindful, to communicate clearly, to take my time, to set clear expectations and boundaries – and to avoid taking things personally. It seems a lot to be reminded of, but every small commitment to living my own experience my way and taking care of me is another step on a journey in a profoundly positive direction, away from what stresses me out, and towards what builds contentment.

Today is a good day for contentment.

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

It’s a 10!

March 16, 2016 //
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My traveling partner updated my operating system for me yesterday. Change is. It has been, so far, the least stressful such change I’ve experienced. Building my first pc kept me up all night, two nights in a row, struggling with connectivity on an unfamiliar OS. Another iteration, years later in a lifetime long ago, resulted in a weekend of frustrated tears and arguments, emotionally tripping over the well-intended ‘help’ of another partner. In the more recent past, my traveling partner has endured my tension, fear, and anxiety over upgrades to my computer…what if something goes wrong? What happens to my data? My pictures? This is part of… me; I had grown to experience my computer, my hard drive(s), as an extension of self. My challenges with memory, with finding a sense of continuity and enduring self, resulted in an unhealthy emotional attachment to the machine – my computer. I could easily be pushed to panic by any perceived threat to my data. It made updates, upgrades, and changes pretty emotionally complicated.

Life does not stand still. We don't remain where we begin.

Life does not stand still. We don’t remain where we begin.

This is a strong partnership. My traveling partner ‘gets me’ more than most. He silenced the Windows 10 nagging for me, ages ago, and I forgot all about the imminent threat of change to ‘my back up brain’. He quietly went about his own business for a while, did his upgrade himself, used the new OS awhile, brought it around my place on his laptop and there were opportunities to say ‘”h hey, can you just do that while I…” . I expect someone else’s laptop or computer to be set up differently than mine; I approach that situation very openly, handling the machine and myself with care, and unconcerned about little things like ‘change’. A couple of weeks ago, he observed that support for my current OS would likely go away ‘eventually’ and it made sense to consider the new one. I agreed, in the abstract, and he suggested letting Windows have those files ‘ready when the time comes’, and turned the Windows 10 nagger back on. That didn’t sound like a big deal, and I comfortably agreed. Over the weekend, he suggested he may have the opportunity to do the upgrade for me, if I were willing. I waffled a bit, and settled on ‘yeah… okay, I guess, sure’ or something equally vague and half-hearted. He pointed out it would be easy enough to do myself – for some reason, that felt very reassuring, and I even considered doing so, more than once. The day came – yesterday – he mentioned in the morning that he’d probably go ahead and take care of it while I was at work. Years ago that by itself would have caused me huge anxiety – someone in my machine while I was away?? This is not that relationship. (Please note, throughout, his use of affirmative consent practices – win and good.)

I arrived home and it was done. New OS, new emotional experience of such; I felt eager to log on and check it out, but put it off to enjoy the evening together over dinner, and some quiet hang out time. I woke to the alarm, from a deep sound sleep, having entirely forgotten that my computer is on a new OS. My morning has been an explorer’s adventure, checking it out. Things are different. Not bad different. Hell, mostly not good different. Just different. I am rarely confronted by evidence of the quantity of small tweaks and changes to settings I actually do on my computer to be really comfortable… some of those are overwritten by this upgrade, and I am pleasantly surprised to observed that I am not stressed out by small things this morning; today they stay small.

The rain falls beyond the window. I hear traffic in the distance, and the sound of some sort of machinery humming, strange and far away – probably a train paused, idling, alongside the platform not too far from here, on the other side of the nature park, and just beyond the adjacent business park. My coffee is tasty. I wonder again how it is that my partner sleeps through the terribly loud burr grinder in the still of the wee hours each day. I disregard the work day ahead; it gets nothing from me until much later. I consider the small delights of home and hearth, and the joys of having my traveling partner staying with me awhile; I am unconcerned about small deviations from the routine – there’s always room for love here. We make the choices that welcome love home.

Love matters most.

Love matters most.

Today is a good day to embrace change and be open to what is new and unexpected. Today is a good day to reduce negative bias by enjoying all manner of pleasant things, being present for each moment, and lingering contentedly over the recollection of them; they are more important [to me] than the stressors. Today is a good day to continue to change my experience – and my world.

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Categories Anxiety, Brain Injury, Free Will, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Perspective, Relationships, Spring, The Big 5

I’m Just Asking the Question

March 11, 2016 //
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Questions are powerful. Asking them often seems more valuable [to me] than insisting on answers. It’s the questions that redirect my attention from one thing to another. Questions fired off one after the other without time to answer quickly find me feeling backed into a corner, or attacked and frustrated. Questions themselves are not to blame for any of that; it’s how they are used, and with what intent. If I am listening, they can also quickly alert me that I am being misunderstood. I am learning to practice deep listening even when I feel emotionally attacked, or unexpectedly cornered by someone else’s aggressively expressed agenda. (I’m not saying I find it easy, but I often find it successful for putting challenging discourse back on a civil, comfortable foundation.) The most interesting thing about practicing listening deeply is that I end up… listening. Hearing more. Understanding more. Feeling more compassionate and level-headed. Feeling empowered and safe. Once I’m in that place, it becomes a simple thing to ask a question. No animus, no aggression, no passive-aggressive tit-for-tat punishment or emotional bullshit; I am able to ask a reasonable, compassionate, interested question that may actually result in needs being met, and a greater shared understanding being reached. It’s the whole point of a question, actually.

Who's 'right'? The ducks or the waiting cat crouched in the grass?

Who’s ‘right’? The ducks or the waiting cat crouched in the grass?

Questions are powerful. My results vary, of course, because sometimes it is the very feeling of power, itself, that has fueled whatever drama of the moment exists between human beings – and some people don’t want to ‘give up their power’, and perceive any power in anyone else’s hands as a direct threat to their own. It’s a weird sort of emotional greed. I don’t know quite what else to think of it. Fearfulness at its core, probably – I’ve been so terrified of being powerless, myself, that a single question directed with insightful compassion directly at the heart of whatever was truly bothering me could cause real rage; being visible and understood wasn’t what I was after, I only wanted to feel powerful (and I was, in that moment, willing to get there at the expense of someone else’s feeling of emotional safety). I find it, now, a very unhealthy approach. Giving up needing to ‘be right’, giving up needing to feel powerful (not the same thing as feeling empowered!) and practicing authenticity, self-acceptance, and awareness are important stepping-stones to being able to listen deeply (practicing, practicing!), and ask questions with more compassion, and without attacking (also requiring practice).

If I feel flooded, how do I find firm footing to maintain a feeling of safety?

If I feel flooded, how do I find firm footing to maintain a feeling of safety?

Based on careful observation, the vast majority of disagreements are not at all what they appear to be, and it seems rare that participants in dialogue have actually taken time to ensure they have shared definitions of terms, respected fact-based ground rules for the discussion – and a shared purpose in asking and answering their questions. Conversation is so much more pleasant and fulfilling when it is built on sincere connection and genuine receptivity to another person’s thinking. I’m not much interested in arguments, they take time away from intimacy, affection, and connecting deeply with ones fellow humans. This journey is too rich for strategic bullshit, cautious diplomacy, and game-playing! There are stories to tell, adventures to share, parables to teach with, and love notes to slip past the rigidity of our work lives – all so much more important than arguments built on strategy, mud-slinging, and bogus assumptions, all seeking to persuade rather than to learn, grow, or inform. Opening the door to something more sometimes takes little more than a question.

Are you okay?

Are you okay? How are you feeling? What do you need that I can provide?

Unfortunately, questions are also handy emotional weapons. What a shame. What a waste of precious mortal time. I am learning to face such attacks with a new tool; I listen. I’ve stopped focusing on delivering an immediate answer ‘to defend myself’; if I feel attacked, defending myself is probably pretty pointless, because there is something more going on. Instead, I remind myself that this other human being made not have been fully frank with their intent, their needs, or the purpose of their question. They may not have a similar understanding of the topic being discussed as I do, myself. I listen. I take a deep breath – or several – and listen. I am learning – and practicing – letting go of that attachment to ‘being right’ that is so often part of this very human experience, and reminding myself not to take this other human being’s experience at all personally. I listen more. I am learning – and practicing – talking less. It turns out that it is not at all painful to listen. It sucks to ‘wait to talk’, however, so learning to listen (practicing!) requires a commitment to some verbs, and considerable beginning again. (I interrupt rather chronically, partially because I have a brain injury that makes it harder not to, and partially because I need more practice not interrupting.) I find it helpful, when listening deeply, to ask a question when it is clear that a response is expected; this can help me avoid hijacking a conversation in progress with my own agenda, when the person speaking actually has more to say. 🙂

Am I understanding your words correctly? Do you mean what I think I heard?

Am I understanding your words correctly? Do you mean what I think I heard?

I’m definitely not saying that my words lack value, or that I don’t also want and need to be heard, just that it seems pretty reasonable that we all feel that way, and there does seem to be a woeful shortage of real listening going on… if no one is really listening, how will anyone at all feel truly heard, truly visible, or truly connected?

Will I find balance between listening, and questions?

Will I find balance between listening, and questions?

I have the evening to myself tonight, according to the calendar. No idea what I’ll do with it. Paint? Read? Play? Maybe take a few quiet moments and really listen to my own questions? Questions are powerful – and I value feeling heard.

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

Long-Range Weapons

March 10, 2016 //
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It is a very quiet morning. The keyboard ‘sounds loud’. I park my mechanical keyboard and opt to use the soft quiet keys of my laptop, typing with the most delicate touch I can manage. I am alert and a bit sound and light-sensitive today, and recognize it is something to be aware of as the day wears on. I don’t often get such a good opportunity to get ahead of my issues this way. I even have a good idea what the drivers are, this morning. Hello, PTSD-as-residual-of-domestic-violence. It can be a complicated experience.

I am not surprised that I am faced with managing my symptoms; my traveling partner is spending a great deal of time here, struggling with his own challenges, needing more than usual emotional support, frustrated, hurting, and understandably angry with the use of emotional weaponry in another relationship. It’s too easy to let his anger, the emotional experience itself, resonate with me; he does not ‘deserve’ this, I often find myself thinking. While that’s true (I mean, who does?), it’s counter-productive to providing emotional support. I practice listening deeply. I practice compassion. I work on finding a comfortable balance between soothing the hurts, and providing requested input without making it about me – this is sometimes complicated by my reliance on metaphor and comparison to similar experiences I’ve had to gain understanding or clarity. I keep practicing. I definitely need the practice. This isn’t mine to ‘fix’.

I began re-reading The Four Agreements. “Be Impeccable With Your Word” is most specifically the agreement I am reading, although… it’s the first one, and I’ll read the entire book. I am re-reading it for a refresher and deeper understanding of the first agreement, “Be Impeccable With Your Word”. I think of other experiences in life, other relationships, and of finding myself on the receiving end of some angry accusatory tirade in which some practice or way of thinking, recommended in the self-help aisle has been launched against me as a weapon. I remember also a tense, peculiarly cathartic sight of  young, angry, 20 -something, literally throwing a self-help book at the face of a partner in a public argument – a public moment of a human being lashing out directly at another human being physically – screaming “it’s a self help book, you asshole!” I had almost burst out laughing with understanding. We can only ever work on ourselves, really.

Being impeccable with my word, The Four Agreements makes clear, is not about ‘telling the truth’ precisely, or about ‘keeping promises’ either, well… not only those things. It’s vastly more complicated, subtle, and nuanced. It is a favorite practice of mine, and my own understanding of it is as a fundamental statement of mental and emotional purity, as in ‘don’t fuck with people’s reality, and especially don’t do that on purpose’. Lying counts, so does misleading someone with great care through choice of language or use of misdirection. Explicit expectation setting on which there is not intent to follow through is also a failure to be impeccable with one’s word. Then there is name calling, beratement, judgement – yes, even that; the things we say to people can cause them great pain. We all know it. Sowing discontent is another way to undermine the impeccability of our word. Mean jokes, too. Even just being irritable and cruel. Yeah…basically, the idea is that language is a powerful shared tool for human primates akin to actual magic. Being impeccable with my word is a practice intended to keep me on the path of treating myself and others well. (I may not say out loud the words I use to/about myself, but those count too.)

I breathe through my increasing irritation about how my traveling partner is treated in another relationship; I can’t fix it, and it’s not mine to fix. It’s hard to be on the sidelines watching someone use their words as weapons against someone so dear to me such that he is further hurt, further tested. I contemplate my own similar experiences, the choices required to take care of myself. I know there are verbs involved, and that it is a journey with many choices. It’s hard to watch, though. I find myself puzzled why more people don’t recognize that they are crafting their own hell-on-earth with the way they mistreat people they say they love – hell, the way they treat people generally. Sounds a little judgmental when I see the words hit the page. I return my thoughts to my own experience, my own actions – things I can affect directly through my choices. I am human. I can do better, myself. I observe in moment of cynicism, that this is one of the great challenges in a human life; I acknowledge I can grow, change and do better – a lot of people do – and then there are others, seeing that acknowledgement and replying through their own choices and actions ‘you go right ahead working on you, thanks, you owe me that and I’m not changing shit myself, so… yeah’.  It’s a thing. It’s frustrating – and more. Still… this is my own journey, my own path, and although there is immense power in the words used aggressively or wickedly by others, I don’t have to drink the poison. I can choose differently.

I hear the wail of the morning train not so far away. My cup is empty of even the last cold swallow of coffee. I feel the chill of the room sitting in a soft cotton camisole and wondering where I left the sweater I chose to wear to work. I feel a moment of gratitude that my traveling partner has such a good heart. It is a lovely quiet moment, this one, filled with opportunities to embrace the best qualities of my experience, and build my day on that foundation.

Today is a good day to walk my own path, and use my words with care, kindness, compassion, and awareness. Today is a good day to listen more than I talk.

Today is a good day to walk my own path, and use my words with care, and compassion. Today is a good day to listen more than I talk.

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Categories Anxiety, Brain Injury, Free Will, Love, Mindfulness, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, The Art of Being, The Big 5, women, Words
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