Archives for posts with tag: The Art of Being
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Expecting Snow

January 14, 2020 //
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I woke to the usual sounds of a rainy morning. No snow. Not here. I’m okay with that, and I get up and begin preparing for a routine sort of day. There’s been so much talk of snow, I sit down with my coffee and check the weather again, for any sign that I should definitely be working from home. No snow. No. Snow. (Not here.) My backpack is set up for inclement weather, the car is AWD. I’m ready for it, if and when it decides to snow. 🙂

Yesterday was similar, with regard to snow. We watched for it. Waited for it. Talked about it. Muttered about inaccurate weather forecasts, and in the next breath gushed over our favorite local meteorologist or some other climatologist of note, and talked about how much more accurate weather forecasts are “these days” – then went back to waiting, and watching, for snow that did not show up. We want it – and we dread it. We don’t want it – but we’re eager to snap snow pictures. lol Silly human primates.

I take a breath, and a sip of coffee, and relax. It may snow. It will or it won’t, or it’ll find something very different to do instead – maybe an ice storm in the middle of the night? It’s happened before, and is within the realm of things that are possible. I let it go. It isn’t significant until it happens, and either way I am prepared. I wonder for a moment if I should stop by the grocery store after work, then remember that my Traveling Partner is handling that. The amount of relief in the moment that I have help with life’s details, and that this journey is shared, is pretty obvious. I sigh, and relax, and smile. I am comforted knowing he’s in the other room, sleeping. Snow storm? Let it come; I’ll be in good company if I end up snowed in. 🙂

Letting myself become attached to an outcome isn’t generally very useful, even with the weather. Being generally prepared requires some awareness of legitimate ordinary possibilities, for sure, but doesn’t benefit from clinging to one or another in advance of the relevant moment. I smile to myself, feeling confident that this is a life lesson I’ve managed to learn well. I’m a big fan of non-attachment, of being “generally well-prepared in life”, and of sufficiency as a means of reducing the amount of stress in my life associated with disappointments. All of those require some practice (at least, they did for me, and still do). Pretty worth it to have so much less turmoil and drama in my life. 😀

Another smile, another sip of my coffee, another opportunity to begin again – whether it snows or not. 😀

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Categories Allegories, Brain Injury, Free Will, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Parables, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, The Art of Being, winter

One That Got Away

January 13, 2020 //
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This morning’s blog post is sponsored by… a good night’s sleep. Which, sadly, has wiped from my memory all recollections of even the hint of the excellent idea I had for this morning’s writing, as I drifted off to sleep last night. LOL It is what it is. I didn’t even attempt to take notes, as I sailed off to dreamland. I just fell soundly asleep and forgot all about it. Oh, but what a lovely night’s sleep, though. 3 consecutive nights of good sleep! A recent-past milestone, for sure. I sip my coffee, trying to pull myself out of this sleepy fog, grateful to have slept decently well.

I think about the weekend. It was generally quite pleasant. I think about my Traveling Partner, asleep in another room. I did my best to avoid waking him as I made coffee and dressed for the day. I doubt I was successful, but the house is still quiet, so maybe I was. I smile, either way I am filled with delight that he is here with me. I persist in enjoying his companionship greatly. 🙂

I consider the morning commute; drive or take the train? The weather forecast suggests the train will be the more reliable choice, with the forecast hinting at maybe snow, but I do enjoy the drive time in the morning… and I’ve got a good parking location that is low risk of collisions and other misadventure. Light rail lets me read on the commute into the office, though, and this year I’ve been steadfast with my commitment to read more (and I’ve been greatly enjoying it). I flip-flop on the matter of the commute a few times before deciding to actually check today’s weather report. 37 degrees (F) and rainy, with some chance of snow. Hmmm. It does sound like light rail is the way to go this morning… but… I also have AWD on my compact SUV, and good all weather tires that were brand new last winter. I doubt I really have anything to worry about, but taking a minute to think it through over coffee, I decide to right the light rail, and avoid any commute-related concerns, at all.

No snow yet. We did get a shower of fine hail yesterday.

One by one the concerns of a new day rise to be dealt with, and fall away having been considered. I sip my coffee, relaxed and ready for a new Monday. I’m not immersing myself in work, yet, just contemplating the day in the loosest possible, wholly suited to any day at all, sort of way. I remember to consider my everyday carry, too; inclement weather is unkind to beautiful leather bags, and I remind myself that I have an outstandingly weather-ready smallish backpack, that will easily fit my laptop, and my clutch, and decide to leave my handbag behind for the day. Another small challenge, another practical solution. 🙂

I smile into my empty coffee cup; it’s already time to begin again. 🙂

 

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Categories Brain Injury, Free Will, gratitude, Healthy Living, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, The Art of Being, winter

Nightmares and Day Planners

January 4, 2020 //
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I didn’t get as much sleep last night as I’d have liked, but the sleep I got was restful. No nightmares. I’ve wrestled a bit with anxiety, this morning, which prevented me sleeping longer, or more deeply. I finally just got up.

I spent some time meditating, before I made coffee. Feels good to be restoring a reliable meditation practice, and letting go of the vague feelings of shame or guilt that had occasionally been surfacing as a result of letting a valuable effective practice fall behind. I know how effective it is; just a couple days into a “New Year’s” commitment to meditate more reliably, my Traveling Partner commented, last night, that I “seem so much less stressed”. 🙂

I think about the “you’re not lazy, bored, or unmotivated…” video. I sip my coffee and consider my fears. What holds me back? I leaf through an old day planner. Remember those?

I relied on this planner to hold my life together for a few years, but it wasn’t the solution to everything.

New Year’s resolutions come and go. Dreams become goals, become plans, become actions, and eventually become outcomes of one sort or another… or disappointments through lack of action. I know I am not the only human being who struggles with the fears that hold me back. I watch the video again. There are things I’d like to do with my life… there is limited time to do them in.

I breathe, exhale, relax, and feel the anxiety that surged when I thought about the many things I also “need” to do, begin to recede. It’s an interesting exercise. I think about the thing I could undertake to start, do, or finish, my anxiety goes crazy; I breathe deeply, acknowledging the part I play in my own decision-making, and what I do with my time. I exhale, relaxing again, with a measure of self-directed kindness, and understanding that “things can feel so difficult, sometimes”, and the anxiety falls away. Back and forth. (Am I seriously playing with my anxiety?? Wtf?) Like wiggling a loose tooth; it is uncomfortable, but hard to resist doing.

Life can feel so overwhelming at times; the dreams, the goals, the chores, the errands, the tasks, the resolutions, the commitments, the projects, the responsibilities… they all pile up and compete for attention, and for limited bandwidth. Some are my own, others are imposed upon me externally. Some have some urgency. Others are deceptively lacking in apparent urgency, but more important things rely on them, in the future. Some I earnestly want for myself, but lacking encouragement, I give up on them. Others meet needs expressed by other people, and I vacillate wildly whether to do them at all. I guess I’m not surprised how often I find myself stalled, and at a standstill, just… not doing things. Realistically, I also don’t feel physically able to “do things” continuously throughout the entirety of the portion of the day during which I am awake; fatigue and pain are limiting factors that require some care…which becomes a handy excuse all its own.

About that… pain does not make getting shit done any easier. No surprise there. Doesn’t matter whether it’s a whole new year, or not. Pain sucks. I have another sip of my coffee and really think that over. Pain is pain, for sure, but… I’m not the only human being fighting to live a good life in spite of the pain I live with. Hell, I’m fairly fortunate that physical pain is my greatest day-to-day challenge, actually – things could be much more complicated than that. I let that go, and consider what I can do with my day, today, to support the quality of life I most want, in the most skillful way, with the time and resources I’ve got, while still feeling as well as I am able to, and enjoying the best possible self-care I can offer myself. It seems a worthy goal. (This approach is often where my “to do lists” begin, honestly. Very “tactical”. Not especially strategic.)

I push myself to “think farther out”, beyond this one day. What can I do with my day, today, that builds that quality of life farther out in the future, not just here, and now? Building blocks. Getting to those is fairly easy, and it is quickly apparent that most of those also have “building blocks” of their own; tasks that need to be completed in order to complete another more complex task, in order to further a project along its way, in order to get something done that may, at some point, result in a goal being achieved, or quality of life being improved. Fuuuuuuck. It all seems so messy, and chaotic, and human, and… omg, so many verbs!! Merely lobbing verbs at tasks isn’t ideally suited to bringing dreams to life, or achieving goals. Organizing my thoughts is worthwhile, having a plan is helpful… neither reduce the number of verbs or the amount of effort involved in making a great life, or reaching those far off goals, I guess, but the clarity of mind is useful, and often, within the planning and consideration, there are new observations to be made regarding how various goals and plans dovetail with each other. Small changes in timing or resources or “order of operations” can result in amazing things… Every journey feels easier with a map. (This is driving my thoughts towards day planners and project management applications. lol)

…”Every journey feels easier with a map”…

…I start thinking things over differently… How will I draw this map? I am my own cartographer… and it’s time to begin again. 🙂

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Categories Allegories, Anxiety, Brain Injury, Free Will, Frustration, Healthy Living, inspiration, Mindfulness, Moments, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, The Art of Being

Where Do I Go From Here?

January 2, 2020 //
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Sipping my coffee on a routine workday morning, the answer seems pretty clear; wherever I choose to go, is the “where” that answers the question “where do I go from here?” No guarantee of an easy journey, obviously (isn’t that obvious? It is obvious, right? I mean… seriously?),  but generally speaking, we chart our own course, as individuals, so long as we have the will to do so. I mean… the choices are ours (even the choice to refrain from actively choosing, which is, nonetheless, a choice). Getting hung up on outcomes and destinations is a lot of what makes the journey so fucking complicated, and often difficult. 🙂

Here’s a video my Traveling Partner shared with me the other day. It continues to resonate with me. It seems a timely share so soon after the New Year, particularly if you are prone to “resolutions”. 🙂

Today is a different day than yesterday. My Traveling Partner and I got past my bad moment. The connection and intimacy we followed it with resulted in some deeper conversations, about things troubling him, about things that continue to cause me unexpected distress and uneasiness. We are each so very human. We each do our best to soothe and support the other. We gently align on some basic ideas for the coming year (primarily the need to focus our attention, financially, on some specific things important to a comfortable future). The evening ended pleasantly. I slept fairly well, waking once or twice, briefly, but getting the rest I need. I woke in the wee hours, shortly before the alarm, just as he came to bed. We cuddled a while, until it was time for me to acknowledge the new day, and get on with things. I silently wish him “sleep well and rest deeply” as I rise from the bed, gently, to avoid waking him, hoping that thoughts he wrestled with through the evening and night give him some peace, at last.

How did we get past our rough moments in the morning, though? It was a small thing. He approached me so gently, checking in with me, and as he walked away, he said “I love you”. I didn’t expect it. I still felt so raw, so disrupted, so disappointed with life. Those simple words, in a dark moment of doubt, of feeling uncertain of being worthy of love at all… they turned my head, and reminded me more clearly to be kind to myself, too, and to give myself a break. Clearly, my partner was not rejecting me as a human being; once I could see that, once I allowed myself to see that, it was easier to let my own bullshit go.

Still… I’ll point out what looks obvious from the perspective of a new day; I get more “bang for my buck” resilience-wise, when I “work from within”, instead of allowing any measure of my sense of self, or sense of personal worthiness, to rest on the impression of me someone else may have. That may not be 100% realistic, as goals go. Love can complicate things a bit. We want the affection of those we love, so very much. Our individual baggage about love and relationships can twist our heads and hold us back. Yesterday’s challenge is a good reminder, too, that we can hold a lot of power over how someone else may feel, and without intending to wield that power at all a poorly chosen phrase, a careless word, a moment of anger, any of these can topple a lovely experience. It’s important to continue to choose to be the person I most want to be, and to continue to practice loving kindness, deep listening, and, yes, non-attachment (because so often, it is my attachment to “being right” or “being heard” or “being understood” that stop me from making room to really listen, and to make the wisest choices in my relationships).

This morning is a new day, a new opportunity to be the person I most want to be, a new set of choices, and a new moment to be present for. I’m good with that. I like a new beginning. 🙂

 

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

Standing on the Cusp of Change

December 31, 2019 //
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Well. Here we are. 2019 is winding down, just hours from its commonplace celebratory finish. 2020 hasn’t yet raised itself up to become “real”. We exist in the space between, that place we call “now”. So temporary.

I sip my coffee and think my thoughts. I don’t assume I know anything at all about what 2020 may hold – why would I? Life is varied, the menu of possible human experiences is vast and complicated (and possibly in a different language…). This moment, and this coffee, right here, is enough for now. 🙂

I woke ahead of the alarm this morning. I woke from dreams of something or another that had caused me some distress. It’s already gone now, the last remnants of recollection have already dissipated. All that was actually required for that result was to get up, and do some very routine things, in a very routine way, focused entirely on those routine actions in the moment. Once completed, those actions and my presence with them in those moments, cleared my consciousness of any notable distress from my dreams, including the memory of the content of those dreams, leaving behind only the most vague awareness that I’d had, perhaps, “some bad dreams”. I count this as an achievement. There was a time when waking from bad dreams would often wreck my emotional balance for hours, sometimes days.

Celebrating small successes is a pleasant start to New Year’s Eve day. 🙂 I definitely recommend it. 😀

This holiday is the end to (my notion of) the winter holiday season. Tomorrow, I’ll celebrate the new year with rituals and routines of cleaning things up and putting things away. The tree will come down, and the ornaments will be cherished one last time before being boxed up safely and put away for another year. I’ll do some laundry, probably. Things like that. Bringing order to chaos is a pleasant start to a new year. Certainly, it’s enough.

The other thing I do in celebration of a new year, is to take an hour of time for myself, to meditate, to reflect on the year past, to reset goals, plans, and re-calibrate expectations that linger. It’s a time to take a look at the woman in the mirror, and ask some hard questions about where she’s headed. I value this time, and have taken it for myself for many years. It is a practice I encourage. Far too many people get to the end of a year and find they “just don’t have any time for” themselves. How ridiculous is that? Don’t forget to make time for your needs, and your plans, your dreams, all of that; you only get to walk your own path. Be sure the path you are choosing to walk is truly yours. 🙂

…The last blog post of 2019. I’ve been far less “reliable” about writing this year, than in the years past (since I started this blog, I mean). Only 252 posts this year, clearly I’ve taken some time for myself this year. 🙂

…So…yeah. 2020? Almost time to begin again. 😀

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Categories Brain Injury, Free Will, gratitude, Healthy Living, inspiration, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, The Art of Being, winter
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