Archives for posts with tag: The Big 5 for me

For Better, or Worse…

July 23, 2014 //
0

…In sickness and in health…

Life's simple glory, complicated, simple, strange, wonderful, new or familiar; it matters every bit as much as it doesn't matter at all.

Life’s glory, complicated, simple, strange, wonderful, new or familiar; it matters every bit as much as it doesn’t matter at all.

This is a pretty fragile vessel I occupy. Backaches, tendonitis, headaches, sore feet, bumps, bruises, bad days, and…head colds; being human isn’t pain-free, convenient, or particularly easy some days. Today is one of those, and I do indeed have a head cold. Worse, I have a head cold on the handful of days that my traveling partner is visiting home. I have a cold instead of hugs and lovemaking, because I choose to take responsible steps to prevent the spread of illness, where I can. I find employment, generally, in call centers. It’s humble enough work for an analyst, and head colds go with the territory – in fact, I have numbers on that, and some trending. lol  Love isn’t hindered by a head cold, though, and I enjoy the companionship of my partner in spite of it.

Annoyingly enough, this is also an extraordinarily busy week at work; as much as I’d like to, taking the day off to be sick isn’t an option. From my perspective, neither is getting all my coworkers sick, however trivial the illness, so I am working from home today – for as long as I can bear to toil over numbers. Every choice we make matters, in some context or another, to our own experience, or to someone else’s. My sleep was disturbed and restless last night and I woke from some surreal dreaming meditation on this particular strange thought; it all matters so very much, and it’s so interconnected, I lose sight of how irrelevant and unimportant any one detail really is. Perspective, balance…and the strangeness of the observation that ‘the opposite of what you know is also true‘. Is it? Isn’t it? Certainly it is an idea, for me, that sparks contemplation on perspective.

What we face, what we turn away from; we choose the world we see.

What we face, what we turn away from; we choose the world we see.

I can focus on the head cold if I choose, certainly it tends to be in the forefront of my thoughts and awareness this morning, or I can choose to be aware, awake, and observant of other details. The taste of my coffee, the trickle of the aquarium in the stillness of dawn, behind me, the internal glow of being well-loved, the moody gray sky outside my window…being present and in the moment, for me, still involves choices; what do I attend to, and what do I turn away from? For a lot of my life, I have ‘turned away from’ myself, and anything else I could turn away from, that built on ancient pain. I didn’t understand that by ignoring myself and my own needs, by showing myself no compassion, by disregarding my hurts in life and treating myself callously I was teaching myself that this was an acceptable way to behave towards others, and that it was also acceptable for them to treat  me poorly. It set up a see-saw of emotional abuses over time, many of them self-inflicted through assumptions, thinking, and internal story-telling that have done a lot of damage to my relationships, and my own experience of life, and myself.

Lately, I am making it a point to treat myself well. I don’t mean lavishing myself with expensive trinkets, costly vacations, or inflating my ego; that doesn’t work for me, personally. I am learning better habits about treating my heart well, though, and studying the neuroscience of emotion, practicing nurturing behaviors, learning self-compassion…and the results are more valuable than sparkly jewels, by far.  As with meditation, there’s a verb involved and practicing requires actual practice. Having a head cold, I rather expected it would be pretty easy to treat myself well…but being human isn’t really different just because I am feeling ill, and the requirement to be aware, present, mindful, and making choices that meet my needs are over time still requires small, continuous acts of will. It is, admittedly, harder to care when I feel ill…but surely in that case it matters even more to make the effort?

We create beauty by seeing it, we create love by loving; so much of who we are is what we choose to be.

We create beauty by seeing it, we create love by loving; so much of who we are is what we choose to be.

So. Yeah. I have a head cold. I’ll try not to be cross or irritable. I’ll choose to treat myself and others well, in spite of feeling poorly. Today is a good day for choosing wisely. Today is a good day for kindness and consideration. Today is a good day to change the world.

Tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Categories Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Summer, The Big 5, Words

An Entirely New Experience

July 21, 2014 //
0

Here it is, another day. Another week. Another sequence of moments about to unfold, touched by choices, and circumstances, colored by coincidence and thinking. Today is an entirely new experience. It’s a lovely morning to contemplate that, it is a Monday.

I slept like hell last night. It hardly matters this morning; it has become routine during periods of prolonged wakefulness, to choose an appropriately comfortable supine pose, still in bed, and meditate. There’s no ‘goal’ and I’m not ‘trying to get back to sleep’, I’m simply taking advantage of the quiet night hours to meditate, because I’m awake, because it’s a quiet activity, because it feels good, because it creates a lovely state of relaxation. Sometimes the need is greater, and I sit up and take it quite seriously, meditating in that timeless time in the wee hours, before the alarm goes off. It’s a nice bonus that I am often able to return to sleep afterward. Meditation did nothing to help my sleep, when I tried meditation to help me sleep. Meditation has done a lot to help my sleep in general, now that I am not trying to make it improve my sleep. lol There is real insight somewhere in there.

It is enough this morning that the headache I woke with dissipated while I was meditating, and that I feel rested in spite of having relatively little sleep. ‘Enough’ is good with me; I am not looking for more than that.

Enough.

Enough.

On the subject of new experiences, I spent the weekend focused on study, self-work, contemplation, and yoga. I don’t have a clever portmanteau for it (like ‘stay-cation’ or something of that sort), but it was time I definitely needed after an emotionally difficult week. I am still learning how to take care of me, and a big piece of that is boundary setting, communicating limits, and honoring those boundaries and limits myself enough to remind others to honor them as well. It doesn’t come nearly as naturally to me as undercutting my needs and fostering resentment over time – I’m super good at those, but find they don’t suit my long-term needs, or build healthy relationships.

One choice. One change. One moment.

One choice. One change. One moment.

So…it’s back to work, another week, practical details, calendars, meetings, ‘getting it done’… I have a busy week ahead. I observe that I have both the experience of eagerness to get back to a job I love, as well as mild impatience – because what could be more important than investing my time in me? (Every Monday I face that dilemma, and wonder why our culture is not more advanced by now; we have the technology to provide greater leisure to all…why haven’t we done so? I’m good at being employed, but it isn’t what I want to be doing with my time, in general.)

I am eager, too, to welcome my traveling partner home. I haven’t had any particular stress over his absence, I guess because he doesn’t feel gone to me, aside from missing the experience of his touch. He needed some time away, and certainly I’ve benefited from that time myself. (He said something once about the value of an opportunity to miss each other, and I have observed the truth of it in my own experience.) Still, I enjoy the tales of travelers, the opportunity to sample something different from the experiences I’ve had myself, the newness and intimacy of the restored connection, the subtle differences in language brought home from faraway, and stories. I just love stories, and my partner is a good story-teller. I hope to listen well.

Something changed for me last week. It requires further consideration, acceptance, and understanding. Fewer words, less thinking, and more awareness seem useful on this one, and it may be some time before I write much more about it. I find that I have a more clear idea of what I want in life, what I need from and in my relationships, and the choices it may take to get there. That’s a very big deal, I suppose, although it rather gets in the way of other things just at the moment. The timing is peculiar. Last week sucked in a most extraordinary way, but I managed a good amount of emotional resilience, balance, and self-compassion, and greater ease and a feeling of naturalness to making room for my emotions, and being kind to myself. I had feared learning emotional self-sufficiency might result in … greater loneliness. That isn’t seeming to be the case, so far, instead I feel more whole as I learn skills that allow me to rely on myself as a sort of emotional ‘first responder’. So far, pretty awesome. There’s more to learn, of course, and I suspect that like mindfulness itself, emotional self-sufficiency is more a practice than a goal. 🙂

Finding love everywhere starts with how I feel about myself.

Finding love everywhere starts with how I feel about myself.

So, yeah. Here it is morning, again. Time to start a new day. Today is a good day to treat myself well, and to embrace my values – and my friends. Today is a good day to smile at small children. Today is a good day to remember most people are already doing their very best, much of the time. Today is a good day for kindness. Today is a good day to recognize that respecting my own boundaries and limits, and setting them clearly, and managing them well, is a very nice way to tell myself ‘I love you’. Today is a good day to change the world.

 

Tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Categories Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Sleepless Nights, Summer, The Big 5, Words

And There Was This One Time…

July 20, 2014 //
0

It seems a strange morning to write. My thoughts are incoherent and disorganized. Various ‘reasons’ I’m sure, though I don’t think it really requires an explanation, does it? I’m smiling and thinking how rarely an explanation changes an experience, however it may change my perspective.

I slept restlessly last night. I woke in a state of panic and dread at 1:42 am. I had no recollection of my dreams, and no awareness of any startling sounds or movement in my environment. I still occasionally have night terrors, and having crashed out around 10:30 pm, the timing is right. Knowledge offered no relief from the feelings, but it gave me leverage to use new skills to soothe myself, slow my heart rate, calm my breathing, settle my emotions, and eventually return to sleep. Meditation – the most powerful Rx I’ve ever been prescribed for a whole host of bullshit that challenges me.

The mysteries of the sleeping self are sometimes best left as mysteries.

After waking, dreams fade into the distance.

I woke abruptly, later, and still early (for a weekend day, when I could theoretically choose to ‘sleep in’). I woke shortly after 6:00 am, and feeling uneasy and vaguely pissed-off. I started the morning with more meditation, no agenda, no pressure, and from meditation I moved on to yoga; this gentle routine has become such a feature of my experience that I no longer plan it on my calendar, or set a reminder on my phone, or put a sticky note on my monitor. This slow unfolding of self in the morning is part of who I am now. It’s a nice change. By the time I got to the kitchen to pull a shot of espresso I felt calm, and content. It isn’t always that easy – honestly, the words make it sound ‘easier’ than it actually is. There is an implied commitment to practice, a commitment to self, a commitment to healing – and these require real effort, and a willingness to come back to the practice again and again, in the moment, and the will to face myself in the mirror of my minds-eye in a truly vulnerable and honest way, aware and still, inside myself. ‘Easy’ is not an accurate descriptor.

Practice. It's the practice that is the point; there is no 'mastery'.

Practice. It’s the practice that is the point; there is no ‘mastery’.

I still feel whatever is agitating me lurking in the background of my consciousness, an anxiety that comes and goes, as if it is preparing for some sneak attack, and checking regularly to see if I am still aware. (Personifying my issues isn’t something I take literally – or lightly – but I find that some of my issues are more easily faced when they have, well, faces. lol. 😉 ) I am hopeful that continued practice, presence in the moment, moving through my day mindfully and with great self-compassion will be enough to prevent some nasty attack on my equanimity by my demons. My analyst-brain urgently wants to pick at this sense of unease that returns now and then, to force it to give up its secrets, and tell me ‘why’, but it is a misleading temptation; giving in to it would likely result only in more pain and distress, because most likely there is no ‘why’ at all. Not in my here and now, at least, and perhaps not even in the remnants of last night’s dreams.

When I feel aware of the unease, this morning, I face it. I breathe. I feel myself relax. I move into the moment in a more present way. I take time for a few moments to be still, aware, to be compassionate and show myself kindness; I am human, these experiences of unease are uncomfortable, and result in more emotion on that blue end of the spectrum unless I slow down and take time to care for me. This morning, I have many small opportunities to practice emotional self-sufficiency. This morning life’s curriculum seems to be of the lab variety; hands on, and practicing. I’m okay with that; I expect willful change to require both choice and effort.

The map is not the world. Hell, the map isn't even the journey.

The map is not the world. Hell, the map isn’t even the journey.

Today is a good day to practice taking care of me. Today is a good day for compassion and for kindness. Today is a good day to build equanimity. Today is a good day to change the world.

Tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Categories Anxiety, Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Sleepless Nights, Summer, The Big 5

Tears and Espresso

July 18, 2014 //
1

I woke gently and feeling decently well. The morning is quiet. Yoga felt good and I’m not in much pain. The pale sky slowly turning blue suggests another lovely summer day, probably hot.  I pulled an exceptional double shot of espresso this morning, rich and dark and topped with a dense crema. I’m having ‘a good hair day’, and the clothes I picked for work fit well and I feel beautiful – which still matters even at 51. So…what’s with the tears?

It started while I was meditating, big hot tear drops began welling up, and sliding down my cheeks. First just one or two, then a torrent, and finally sitting quietly, shoulders shaking ever so slightly, still focused on breathing, tears falling… Why am I crying? There’s no mistaking it now. This is not weeping, although it is not sobbing either. I’m not in hysterics. I don’t feel anxious, or afraid. It’s almost as if…it’s all just ‘too much’, and here are the tears, spilling over because there’s just no more room for emotions to be kept packed away behind a veneer of resolve, control, and ‘appropriateness’. I even ‘feel okay’ inasmuch as I’m not in much pain, slept decently well, and don’t even have the usual headache. Still…the tears fall.

Instead of lashing out at the world like a frightened animal, or panicking and throwing an hysterical tantrum built on anxiety, fear, and assumptions, this morning I simply let the tears fall. Plentifully. Even continuing to meditate. This morning, instead of paying my tears no heed, and saying or thinking something powerfully dismissive like ‘pay no attention to the fluid leaking from my face holes, I’ll get that checked out’, I gave my attention over to my emotions for a moment, still breathing, still present, and compassionate. Something pretty wonderful happened…I feel ‘loved’ and cared for. There’s no one here but me. One partner away, taking care of his own needs, resting and taking comfort among friends. The other, somewhere else in the house, possibly sleeping; it’s very quiet this morning. It’s just me, as I said, and yet… I feel secure, nurtured, comforted…I can do this for me? Myself?

The tears stopped. Meditation continued. A smile tugs at the corners of my mouth now and I feel the small crinkles at the corners of my eyes – the sort I’d expect if I’d been happy all my life – and I feel grateful for this strangely cleansing morning. I still don’t really ‘understand’ the tears, but maybe I was just ‘full up’ with emotions and some had to spill over. It’s been a very trying week so far, and my heart feels altered by it somehow. Being surprised about the depth and richness of my emotional life doesn’t occur to me – then I wonder why. (Go, Brain! lol Can I get just a little constancy, please? No. No, I can not. It’s not how we’re wired, is it? 🙂 )

Interestingly, having finished my espresso and my email, I’m not only no longer crying, I feel just on the edge of … ‘merry’. There’s something important about taking care of my heart, and treating myself well, that was slipping from my grasp, and I think I am understanding more right now than I ever did previously… it’s not just take care of my body well, or maintaining good self-care, and an orderly comfortable environment. Taking care of me also has a specific emotional component that I missed, something very specific; treating myself with real compassion, with acceptance, with kindness.  These aren’t just keywords in a search about meditation, mindfulness, mental health or menopause… They are real experiences, that provided to myself, by me, actually do result in real feelings of being cared for and valued. (Can you see the light bulb over my head?)

Choices along the way change the journey.

Choices along the way change the journey.

This feels good.  It’s a bit as if I’m standing at a point on my path with a sign post… one way leads to greater self-control through rigid habit building, and skilled maintenance of those habits, and a certain tolerance for misery… the other… says only ’emotional self-sufficiency’, leaving me to guess at the nature of the destination.  One direction paved, heavily traveled, landscaped, manicured, well-mapped, reviewed often… and in the other direction, more of a trail, cut into the underbrush, shaded with a dense overhang, disappearing around a bend into the unknown… I recall an oft-repeated quote from a Robert Frost poem than never really resonated with me before. “…Two roads diverged in a wood, and I, I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.”  I look it up and read the entire poem, taken a moment to really savor the relevance in the moment.

Continuing my journey...walking my own path.

Continuing my journey…walking my own path.

Today is a good day for poetry, and a good day to be moved. Today is a good day to treat myself well without reservations. Today is a good day to feel content, strong, and whole – and to enjoy this moment that I do feel that way. Today is a good day to change the world.

Tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Categories Brain Injury, Free Will, grief, Healthy Living, Love, Menopause, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Oregon Trails, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Summer, The Big 5, women, Words