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Small Changes Matter, Too

January 3, 2016 //
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At some point in during the wee hours, I surfaced sufficiently from a sound sleep to notice how incredibly peculiarly strangely quiet the world seemed, and then returned to sleep. When I woke fully, some hours later, I noticed the apartment was chillier than usual and went to check the thermostat and whether I had closed the flue the night before. The faint glow of morning slipped past the vertical blinds of the patio door near me, and I opened them to see the dawn unfold (we’ve had a couple sunny days back to back) – but there is no sunshine this morning; it’s snowing! I smile – to myself, at the snow, at the thought of coffee, at how good it is to be warm and safe instead of out there, in the cold and the snow, and head to the kitchen to make coffee.

Some snow. (Don't laugh, it's still snowing.)

Some snow. (Don’t laugh, it’s still snowing.)

I put all the Giftmas decor into storage yesterday. Waking up this morning to neither a lavishly decorated tree covered in tiny lights nor a tower of boxes needing to be put away was strange; my wee apartment feels quite spacious for the moment. Today I will take time to put the household entirely in order, an easier commitment with the weather outside likely to encourage me to stay indoors. The small details matter, and one thing I learned when I moved into my own place and a solitary lifestyle is that those small details matter most (for me) when I wake, and when I arrive home from elsewhere. That ‘first impression’ in the moment, when I step into my apartment, or into my living room first thing in the morning, set the tone of my experience and how well-cared for I feel by the woman in the mirror.

An example of how much the small details matter; I generally leave the house having tidied up such that when I return home, it is to a well-cared-for tidy living space that supports my emotional need for order, and my desire to relax at the end of the day – I do much of my housework in the mornings, for that reason (after coffee, but before I leave for wherever). Yesterday, I rushed off on my morning errand, having gotten a tad behind schedule, and did so without starting the dishwasher (or frankly, loading it) – and when I returned home, it was to dirty dishes in the sink. Holy cow I was irked with myself! The dishes don’t get less gross, or in any way more appealing, sitting there longer – so of course, I immediately put away the groceries I had arrived with, and did the dishes straight away. The result? My return home did not feel relaxed and easy – it felt a bit rushed and busy. (Since this isn’t my preference, I don’t generally do things this way. 🙂 )

It’s rare to see dishes in my sink at all. Of course, the one day over the holidays that there are dishes in my sink is a day when my traveling partner and I arrive at my place at about the same time. Yep. I found myself feeling mildly ashamed of the state of my apartment, which contributed to the speed with which I made things right upon my arrival. He offered no criticism. I make a reflex apology nonetheless, although my apartment stays generally quite tidy, and I am obligated only to myself regardless. This morning, I smile when I step into the very tidy little kitchen. I totally made things right with the woman in the mirror yesterday, and today I find myself content with things as they are.

Maintaining a state of ongoing contentment requires the generous (and skillful) use of verbs, and a good measure of self-awareness. Maybe it’s not the dishes that bug you – maybe it’s the trash? Or unmade beds? Or a dirty toilet or shower? Or carpets that need to be vacuumed?  Me, personally, I enjoy a certain overall state of ‘order’ – so all those things matter. Being easily distracted, impulsive, and a tad disinclined to perform manual labor during leisure hours, it’s easy for me to lose track and suddenly my place is a mess, which definitely correlates to my state of mind becoming disordered, too. It’s a mental health connection that is a known thing – there’s science on that. Taking care of me definitely involves some verbs quite specifically related to general housekeeping, and while it’s not my preferred way to pass time, I so love the way it feels to live in an orderly well-kept space it is both in my best interests and very much worth the investment in will, energy, and time to do the verbs.  I’ve been very pleased with how well I have managed this area of my life, generally, living alone. “Being messy” just hasn’t been an issue, although I had had concerns that it might be when I moved into my apartment. 🙂 I take a moment to appreciate how far I’ve come – making time to savor successes is another ‘small detail’ that is a very big deal.

Something to look forward on the other side of the work to be done.

Something to look forward on the other side of the work to be done.

The snow continues to fall. Later there will be a fire in the fireplace…sometime after chores are finished. In the meantime, I will enjoy my second coffee and a bite of breakfast, plan my day, and enjoy the falling snow. 🙂

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

There Is Sunshine

January 1, 2016 //
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A new year begins today. The winter sun hits the glass of the patio door and fills the room with light and warmth. My feet are extended into the rays of sunshine spreading across the carpet. I wiggle my toes, feeling them warmed in the filtered winter sunlight. The remainder of my second cup of coffee has grown cold; I continue to sip it, content with the exceptional flavor which is undiminished by the cooling. I am smiling.

New beginnings are quite variable, every experience, each perspective, just a bit different from another. I am not the woman I was on the first day of 2015. That woman was stressed to a breaking point, yet again, mistreated in one relationship, insecure in another, restlessly contemplating where a third might take her, given the difficult circumstances generally.

The path ahead wasn't obvious sometimes.

The path ahead wasn’t obvious.

It was a complicated year. An abusive relationship was creating roadblocks to progress in therapy through behaviors that seemed willful or deliberate at times – it would prove irrelevant whether they were deliberate; the outcome was damaging. The future of my relationship with my traveling partner seemed insecure, and despair crept into my experience a number of times. I felt frustrated, held back, and uncertain where my path would lead me, but committed to continuing the journey. I continued to practice new practices that were definitely doing good things for my resilience, improving my ability to maintain a neutral, honest, and healthy perspective, and helping me manage stress. I wasn’t sure it would be enough to thrive on…and I wasn’t sure that the positive changes I could see developing would be enough, soon enough, to hold on to what I valued most in life – or love.

When 2015 began, I was struggling with attachment, afraid to let go and just be. I struggled with blaming myself for things going on that weren’t about me at all, and I struggled with feeling responsible for making a relationship work, in which it had become clear the other didn’t actually want things to work and was not invested in building a functional relationship with me. Accepting that was painful (rejection hurts) and it was hard to just breathe and let it go without ‘closure’, or honest communication, or even basic civility. The pain diminished in the instant I remembered that the character and behavior of that other human being is no reflection on me whatsoever; she is her own human being, and all the consequences of her choices are entirely her own (as mine belong entirely to me).  That was an important lesson and turning point.

It has been a year full of important lessons in taking care of myself, in emotional self-sufficiency, and in learning to love well, and without unhealthy attachment – with the result that my relationship with my traveling partner has grown and deepened wonderfully, and I am so much more able to love well, generally, and to listen deeply. I ended the other, abusive, relationship (keeping a promise I made to myself long ago), and I declined to pursue a relationship with characteristics suggesting high risk in a number of areas of life in which I’m not inclined to compromise. I’ve stopped trying to meet needs for connection and intimacy through sex, with result that sex is improved; I have sex only in relationships in which there is already intimacy and connection. 2015 taught me a lot about who I am, and what I really need to thrive. In 2015, I learned a lot about ‘enough’, and began investing in lasting contentment, instead of chasing more/better.

2016 begins well. I could stop there. I have, a number of times already. No map. I don’t really know where this new year will take me, what I may learn, gain, or lose. I don’t know what’s up ahead on this journey, and I am feeling tranquil and unconcerned about that – making it hard to write, honestly. 🙂

Today, though, is a good one for contemplation. I will take time to consider the year-to-come, to wonder, to dream, to plan, to question – it’s the questioning that is perhaps most relevant to where I may find myself a year from today. I’ll think it over, and  make some notes; I find it helpful to look back with some context. I’ll write in my private journal, and send myself an email ‘from the past’, as I did last year – it was a special moment this morning when I got that email from myself. Being able to read my own stern warning to end an abusive relationship with the comfortable knowledge that it was done months ago was validating; I am learning to take better care of myself, and my heart.

The view of 2015 is very different from this perspective. The path ahead seems a bit more clear, now.

The view of 2016; the path ahead seems a bit more clear, now.

Today is a good day to take care of me. Today is a good day to begin again. Today is a good day to be my own cartographer, on this journey of my own making. Happy New Year! Are you ready? Let’s change the world!

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Categories Brain Injury, gardening, grief, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Oregon Trails, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, solo hiking, The Art of Being, The Big 5, winter, women, Words

New Year’s Resolutions Don’t Work…

December 31, 2015 //
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…Unless you are ready to choose change…unless you use verbs…unless you begin again. And again. And yet again…until the thing about which you propose to be resolved becomes a quality about who you actually are. Just saying. It’s said better here, perhaps. Or here. Or here.  All of them are fairly easily summarized – you can choose change, it does require verbs. There are no shortcuts, and there are no excuses.

Sometimes it feels like an uphill climb.

Sometimes it feels like an uphill climb. There are unexpected obstacles. 

The most frustrating thing about ‘New Year’s resolutions’ is that they so rarely result in real change (for many people – your results may vary). The ‘why’ of that is so simple; there are verbs involved, and a requirement that our intention, our will, and our actions align to result in change. No verbs? No change. I can want to lose weight, intend to lose weight, and make a good plan to reach a reasonable goal; if I do not practice the practices that get the desired result, I will not lose weight – and the frustration and disappointment of personal failure can so easily (and thoughtlessly) be transmuted to emotion-driven over-consumption of unneeded calories. Bummer. A lot of things work that way; feelings of futility and frustration easily result in a level of ‘giving up’ that results in not only not making the desired change, but even over-indulging the undesirable behavior. Huge bummer.

It’s not easy to stick with a commitment to change, whether the change involved is quitting smoking, losing weight, or giving up being a colossal psychotic raging bitch 24/7 to people you say you love; the nature of the change itself is almost irrelevant to the success or failure of the endeavor. How much you want it doesn’t have much to do with whether you will succeed or fail, either; the most earnest heartfelt desire for change is still simply an emotional experience (although one that can be leveraged for motivation, still just a feeling). Add to that the discouragement of loved ones in our support system being less than ideally encouraging – or frankly skeptical of success – and it can seem an insurmountable roadblock to change, just having emotions at all! Harsh – we’re so human! How do we get past all that? I don’t actually have an easy answer there; I begin again when I ‘fail’, and use the opportunity to learn and grow. There may be an easier answer, but I haven’t found it – and at this point, I’m not looking for easy answers. I’m content with questions… and verbs.

Go ahead. Choose change. Make a resolution. Be the person you most want to be in 2016! It may not be ‘easy’. You may fail – you may fail a lot. Incremental change over time is a real thing, though, and we do become what we practice – no kidding, that’s real, too (and true of behaviors both nurturing and damaging). Begin again. Start over. And again after that. Use a verb – use a lot of verbs – exert effort fearlessly; all you have in this lifetime is this lifetime, itself. Spending an entire lifetime not even making the attempt to be all you most want to be (as a human being) seems pretty… empty. Pointless? Wasted. So…later in January? February? Whenever you find you’ve quit, given up, or stalled – begin again. That’s actually ‘all it takes’ – begin again. Did you fail again? Okay – begin again. Again. And again. It’s the nature of practice to require repetition. 😉

One last bit on this, from a different perspective… Some of you out there could stand to treat your fellow human beings better than you do. (You know who you are, and your neighbors do indeed hear you; the world sees you in action pretty much every day and very few people are actually deceived.) Are you relying on rationalizations and excuses to get a pass for the mistreatment you heap upon your fellow human being? (Hormones, fatigue, alcohol, pain, illness…) Maybe you just feel righteous and justified or entitled. You can choose change, too. You can also refuse to choose change, but you don’t get to choose to avoid responsibility or accountability for your damaging behavior from that moment that your loved ones wake up to the awareness that you are in fact choosing who you are, and choosing to behave in a damaging ways to your loved ones (whether you call it abuse or not). If you have been told that your behavior or language is hurtful and you continue it, you are choosing and your behavior is no longer easily defined as ‘unintended’; it is not an accident, and you did indeed ‘mean to’.  2016 could so easily be the year you choose differently, learn to love, and learn to treat other human beings well. 2016 could also be the year that you don’t choose to behave any differently (sadly this is more likely)… but 2016 could also be the year your loved ones finally wake up to their value as human beings and that they don’t deserve to be mistreated, and don’t have to take it anymore – and walk on, to a life in which they are valued, loved, and treated well. (They are free to choose change, themselves, instead of enduring your abusive vile shifty behavior or mistreatment. 🙂 Just saying; it’s a system that works nicely with adequate use of verbs.)

Practice the practices that take you closer to being the human being you most want to be.

Practice the practices that take you closer to being the human being you most want to be.

So…here it is… the cusp of a new year. As arbitrary as that really is, it is a moment – and you can choose change. Will this be the year you become the person you most want to be? Will you change the world? Will humankind’s global experience improve in your hands? Will you love well? Will you speak kindly? If practice makes perfect, what kind of world are we perfecting in 2016?

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Categories Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Love, Mindfulness, Oregon Trails, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, solo hiking, The Art of Being, The Big 5, winter, Words

One Now of Many

December 30, 2015 //
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I am content. Today has been peculiarly productive with all manner of adulthood-related commitments and tasks. In spite of pain I’ve managed it all quite efficiently and will reasonable skill. I am seriously hurting today. The weather is quite wintry, and I spent an amount of it outdoors. The cold seeped into my arthritic bones, and I am stiff almost to rigidity from my waist to my shoulders – and I hurt. Still…I am mostly fairly merry, and lack any shred of irritability or ire today. I have taken care of me in so many ways today, big and small. It’s definitely a bit beyond ‘enough’.

When conditions are right, growth.

When conditions are right, growth.

I have an opportunity to move into a somewhat larger apartment in the community, one that is directly adjacent to the park, and has all the nice features of this unit. That’s exciting for a number of reasons. It is an unexpected and delightful recent development; the associated practices will be mostly to do with feeling the excitement and anticipation of a move I want to make, without becoming invested in the outcome before the lease is signed. I’ll make the observation that life tends to be much easier, and less about drama, having turned my attention toward cultivating an experience of sustainable contentment, rather than chronically chasing happiness and feeling mired in sorrow. Not only has life tended to be ‘easier’ – I’m also actually happy more often. (Your results may vary.) (Oh – and there are verbs involved.) (Ooh – Dude – don’t forget about the choices! You have choices.)

It’s a time of year I spend a lot of leisure time reflecting on what has been working, what hasn’t worked out so well, what I am yearning for and not finding, what I may be stuck chasing that I don’t even want, where I am headed – every journey begins somewhere, so I am also reflecting on where I am right now. My traveling partner was so right; he observed years ago, when we were first becoming friends, that I would benefit greatly from living alone awhile – his thinking was based on my fairly chronic complaint that I did not ‘feel heard’. He suggested, and he wasn’t the last to do so, that the person not listening just might be me. I dismissed that notion out of hand, and went on to fill out the narrative with some understandable, more or less, feminist grievances that seemed to hold up to scrutiny. They may or may not have real substance. He was correct, though; I wasn’t listening. Whether anyone else was is almost irrelevant where I stand in life now. I am hearing me, and it was my own attention I needed most – or at least first. It has been an important experience living alone. I discovered something quite nice; I like living alone. It works for me.

I also discovered some things that are less comfortable. Feeling lonely sucks. Coming home to a cold darkened apartment feels empty. Those are uncomfortable. I greatly miss living with my traveling partner… generally. That’s not uncomfortable. It’s not even uncomfortable that sometimes I don’t miss living with him. Nope. What’s uncomfortable is how incredibly unskilled I am at simply having the experience of feeling the feelings. It takes practice to allow myself some compassion for complex or intense emotions, and to treat myself kindly; I keep practicing. What is uncomfortable is the sensation of missing him alongside the awareness that I also very much enjoy living alone. What’s uncomfortable is that these things really do co-exist – and as it turns out, I have no reason at all to consider the experience one that comes with a comfort guarantee. There is likely to be more to be learned from my discomfort than from my joy. Life’s curriculum being delivered right on time.

Today is a good day for reflection, for choices, and for contentment. Enough really is enough – that’s why it gets called that. 🙂

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Categories Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Love, Mindfulness, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, The Art of Being, The Big 5, winter, Words

Other Days

December 29, 2015 //
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Today isn’t a difficult one. I woke well-rested after crashing out quite early last night. I am in a pleasant mood and feel mostly physically comfortable, although I am very stiff and in some pain – it’s manageable. I am easily distracted this morning, and it took more than usual time to shower, dress, make coffee – and I find myself continuing to be so easily distracted this morning.

Meditation is no less important to my all-day well-being on a morning like this than on any other; meditating on a morning like this is very difficult.

Frustrated with myself in a small way, I nonetheless indulge my restlessness with music videos, science videos, and digital communication. I am not helping matters in doing so, I’m just calling it out. I’m very human. (I suddenly imagine an AI blogger calling out her humanity regularly as a ‘proof’ and reminder, for very different reasons, and wonder if it is worth writing the short story? Another distraction. Nice one, Brain.)

The music has the power to get me moving, even early in the morning, and that’s got some good things going for it, without regard to its phenomenal power to distract me from just about everything else – motion means gradually easing the stiffness in my joints, and my pain will be considerably lessened, too. So… there’s that excellent rationalization for relaxing and enjoying the music. 🙂 It has become clear over time that I benefit from acknowledging the positive outcomes in my experience as specifically as I would ever bitch about the challenges; what I invest in becomes of greatest significance to me, what I savor becomes more powerful in my memory of life.

I listen to music awhile longer, sipping my coffee, thinking about love when I listen to love songs, thinking about life when I listen to songs about living the moment fully. I listen to songs about drama, and appreciate how little of it I really deal with these days. Another track manages to remind me that there is value in meditation, and that beginning my day with tested good practices is something I count on. A good reminder.

A good morning to begin again.

A good morning to begin again. Aren’t they all?

Today is a good day to practice good practices. It’s time to set this aside for meditation – as practices go, meditation has continued to do so much to build and maintain an emotional foundation of contentment, self-sufficiency, resilience, and calm. Choosing differently knowing the value seems unwise. Besides – I’ve finished my coffee. 🙂

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Categories Brain Injury, Free Will, health, Healthy Living, Metaphors, Mindfulness, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, The Art of Being, The Big 5, Words
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