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The View from Here

August 11, 2016 //
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My view of the meadow, covered by morning mist rising from the marsh, is obscured by condensation on the window, left open during the night. My view is obscured by my perspective. Something to think about, generally.

Low mist on the meadow before sunrise.

Sometimes I have to change my perspective to enjoy the view…

Today my traveling partner [figuratively, metaphorically] becomes my literal traveling partner, headed to a favorite festival. I smile every time I think about him enjoying himself there. I come back to the thought frequently; I enjoy his joy. 🙂

I caught myself getting caught up in the news… the usual horror and tedium, frankly, and fairly dismal. Getting mired in it does no one any good, and doesn’t change things. I can change only those things that are precisely and specifically changeable by me. It’s entirely a worthwhile endeavor to be the best human being I can, without bothering with the day-to-day stress and drama of comparison, or competition. Yeah, life?  It’s so not a competition. What a lie I’d been sold there! When I allow myself to be distracted by how well you are doing, or how well that famous person over there is doing, or how well a motivational speaker suggests I could be doing, or any number of other frankly revenue-generating (for someone) bits of bamboozlement, I lose precious time on my own authentic journey. Sometimes the journey is difficult. It’s mine. Sometimes the journey is a disastrous maze of detours. It’s mine. Sometimes the journey is fraught with confusion, sorrow, or anger. It’s mine. Sometimes the journey is delightful, joyful, and fun. It’s mine. My journey to make on my own terms; I am my own cartographer, having my own experience. Sure – we’re all in this together, and that matters, too. Still my journey, on my terms, in my own time – and similarly, yours belongs to you. We don’t gain much when we try to use someone else’s map… and we lose a lot when we’re sold on someone else’s destination. Just saying. Do you.

The mist begins to lift, the sky to lighten. I hear crows discussing their plan for the morning. I see the earliest hints of autumn in the trees on the far side of the park; shades of yellow and orange beginning to show in the summer green foliage.

Today is a good day to wish the world well, and my traveling partner too; each of us having our own experience. Each of us on our own journey. Today is a good day to be authentic, genuine, and also the very best of who I am able to be. (Each of us doing so would change the world.) 🙂

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

The Golden Ratio of Love

April 2, 2016 //
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What do you suppose is the ratio of positive to negative feedback you receive? How about the ratio of encouraging observations, versus critical observations? What about the number of compliments you receive, versus the number of insults or mean remarks? Or the ratio of kind and compassionate interactions versus the number of judgmental ones? Do you feel life’s stings and papercuts more often than love’s kisses? Is the result worthy of the enduring effort? Isn’t “love” an emotion produced by verbs (a whole lot of verbs!) (and chemistry) which results in more of all the good stuff, less of all the rotten bullshit human primates are capable of flinging at one another? So… what are you personally doing to improve the ratio in each and every relationship – or interaction?

Sometimes it’s hard not to just sort of stomp around feeling exceedingly criticized. There is an ever-loving fuck-ton of shit I do not do well, and I quickly find myself overloaded with a “self-improvement list” so long I end up wondering if my existence is holding back world progress. I’m also pretty good at some stuff; generally that seems much less relevant or noteworthy. (That observation gets a sentence now and then, the rest gets a fucking blog all its own.) I remind myself of two very important pieces of understanding that don’t change much, however ‘picked on by life’ I may be feeling:

  1. Criticism is basically just a very poorly worded request.
  2. Agreement #2 of the Four Agreements – Don’t Take Anything Personally

Generally, if I can hold those two understandings in mind when I am feeling particularly criticized and beginning to feel devalued or angry, I can more easily ask a very important question, “what is this person/situation really asking for (what is the unstated need), and how can I reply gently, while best meeting my needs over time?” Remember that bit about ‘an ever-loving fuck-ton of shit I do not do well’? Yep. Here we are; I need more practice. I’m struggling not to take things personally, today. I keep practicing.

To be fair, I woke from a troubled restless sleep this morning to immediate decision-making that went mildly awry. In the moments of disappointment that followed, the nightmare I’d had returned to my thoughts provoking painful emotions, a feeling of inadequacy and unworthiness, that seemed supported by the morning thus far. Not only that, I was in pain. I was in a lot of pain – still am – more so than usual. At this point, I’ve taken all the steps to manage it that I know, and I’m mildly sedated, which doesn’t really improve my experience in a wholesome way; it definitely slows my thinking and dulls my reactivity. I earnestly need to spend some time alone, and spend some time creatively. I’m struggling to figure that out – partly it’s the pain, but partly it is this peculiarly plaguing sense of feeling criticized, and the way that feeling sort of ‘weighs me down’ emotionally, and stifles me creatively. It was even hard to write this morning.

Today I am finding communication difficult. Simple answers to clear questions evade me. I struggle to make sense of the context of questions or observations, resulting in mystifying misunderstandings. Everything sounds too loud… I am tempted to wonder if that’s the pain, or the TBI, or… truth is, it doesn’t actually matter; what matters is learning to comfortably state the simple need in simple terms, gently, safely, as an honest request for support – and sometimes for change. Yeah, I’ll just go right ahead and add that to the very long list of ‘an ever-loving fuck-ton of shit I do not do well’ and I’ll get right on that, too, also, as soon as I can – that’s even sincerely meant. I literally do try my best to actually improve on each and every fucking minute detail of some weirdness or other that doesn’t fit my idea of comfortable emotionally safe socially productive interactions…every moment at risk of being so vigilant of my ‘failings’ that I end up feeling chronically self-conscious and anxious. It’s a delicate balance, and honestly – I mean to treat myself much better than I often do. I am only easily able to treat people dear to me as well as I treat myself… so… it matters greatly to ‘get all this right’. Yeah – that’s a ludicrously high standard to hold oneself, and it is a set up for failure, internal criticism backed up by acceptance of external criticism – real or imagined – with the painful outcome of anxiety, conflict, emotional self-harm, relationship sabotage… blech. Drama and bullshit.

I can do better. I do some days. Today is not a great day for me on a couple of levels. The pain and my sound sensitivity are physically difficult, and drive the emotional volatility and loss of balance. I can’t imagine ‘my happy place’ – and I’m standing in it.

Here’s the thing about improving my emotional ‘golden ratio’ though; it’s not actually about what I hear from other people, or how they see me, or the feedback they give me. It’s very much about whether or not I ‘drink the poison’. It’s about my own choices, and about how I feel about the woman in the mirror. If I am being that hard on me, it’s even more difficult to take care of me when someone else is hard on me, too, or I have to deal with a shitty day, or a lot of pain. There really are some great practices to fall back on. Meditation. Yep. Still works. It does work best to actually do it. Most practices work that way. Getting enough rest is a great practice – and I didn’t. So. Yeah. Mindfulness… ooh, I like that one so much (it’s so hard though…); it helps me stay aware of myself in this moment, and helps me be more compassionate with myself. I really am in that much pain – it makes sense to show myself some kindness. On and on I go. One practice, and then another. One moment to consider some observation that serves me well, or another: perspective, mindfulness, sufficiency, adequacy, worthiness, compassion… I keep at it.

I do hurt… and I’m okay right now.

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Categories Anxiety, art and the artist, Brain Injury, Free Will, Mindfulness, more than a little bit of bitching, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Sleepless Nights, 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

Overcome & Overwhelmed

November 4, 2015 //
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Should I even be writing, right now? Possibly not; something is clearly amiss, and I don’t know what. It started out as just a tiny bit of aggravation in the morning when my consciousness stumbled on an unasked question…what do I do with unasked questions? Well…generally… I ask them. Like words spoken aloud to another person, a question asked in the stillness of my consciousness lingers – answered or not. Since then, my day has seemed…off. One tiny thing after another… small, so small… the car I reserved was replaced with something different for an unspecified reason. Small.

There was less than a quarter tank of gas in the car, forcing me to detour shortly after I picked up the car, against a time crunch; the gas station attendant had never refueled a zip car. Small. He told me the card wouldn’t run; he didn’t realize that the reason I gave him two cards is that one had my ID # on it… apparently. Small. I wait to be refueled after finally sorting all that out with the very surly attendant. He comes back to the vehicle, hands me back both cards and says ‘That’s it, you’re all set.” I say thanks, he walks away – I start the car and prepare to pull out and freak the guy right out; the fuel nozzle is still in my car!! Apparently no, I wasn’t “all set” – or he and I had very different ideas of what “all set” means in the context of refilling my gas tank. Yelling at me in that nasty way wasn’t necessary. I know not to take it personally…it adds to the tone of the day.  Small.

Work sucked in some vague unsettling way; I feel like I’m defending my position every day, which is not comfortable at all. I also have a subtle sense that I am being ‘set up for failure’ which makes me uneasy. Feeling uncomfortable, unsettled, and uneasy are a poor fit for my particular issues – the result is problematic for interacting with others; I feel distrustful, suspicious, and on the defensive – not a good work environment for thinking, for detail oriented work, or for enjoying myself professionally. Nope, it kind of just blows. Is it work though…or is it me? Realistically, I do have to consider that question, too, because it very likely could be me.

See what I mean though? Small things, piling on, and by evening I am at the edge of tears – and at the edge of not wanting to go on. Yes – it’s as dire as it sounds, and I didn’t ease the strain on your own consciousness by softening the words. No, I’m not likely to act on feelings of despair, futility, and bleak resignation these days – or certainly not in any immediate way. It’s not who I am. I’m human, though, and I feel these feelings as intensely as any of the good ones – sometimes it seems these dark times are more intense, which hardly seems fair at all. It’s already hard enough to drag myself out of the muck, back into the light of hope, and promise, and tender kind self-care when I’m just struggling with pain or fatigue or a headache.

Shit – what set me off, right? So hard to be sure… physical pain? I deal with it every day – even the good ones. Blood sugar too low? That’s a sure-fire shitty mood in the making, and I didn’t get lunch calories on time – so that’s a maybe. I took care of that a couple of hours ago; it’s not the likely cause of the tears cooling on my cheeks now. Something set me off, and it started much earlier today… sometime around when it occurred to me to ask that unasked question. Are you curious? It was this… “What is my safety net if I lose my job, now that I live alone?” This was followed quickly by “Or what if I am seriously injured and can’t work any more? What then?” When my traveling partner lost a job years ago, I was there for him – he moved in with me, and I covered his expenses as long as he needed me too, we shared the load. When I lost a job, he was there for me, keeping me motivated, and taking care of anything he could to ensure that I could focus on my job search. When we shared a living arrangement with another partner, we were both there for her both times she lost a job, and for months.  Hell, I returned to the workforce, after I left one job for my health, to support our family when she lost her job unexpectedly. There was no question for me that this is what I do for my loved ones…only… what about me? If I lose my job now, living alone… what then? If I couldn’t work? What then? There is no one here to come home to…

Don’t get me wrong, things happen, and people manage all the time – some with incredible grace and skill and emotional balance. I’m sure I’d probably get by okay, (I always have) and I’ve never been out of work very long… although I’d be a fool if I thought that were a given. Insecurity and doubt don’t give a shit about data. Fear is an ass kicker as emotions go. Anxiety… yeah. Anxiety is an emotion that doesn’t fuck around – she’s out for pure destruction, accompanied by mocking laughter.

So. Yeah. This evening is hard. I’m writing about it because sometimes that changes things, provides me with perspective. I feel more than a little lost right now and it’s time to break out the checklist, and go down the list one thing at a time, practicing the practices, and letting the tears fall. My worst fears rarely prove to be ‘real’. The worst of my anxiety seldom lives up to the dreaded outcome promised. My doubts and insecurities are no more real than daydreams of winning the lottery. “This too will pass.” I know that – I do know that. I’m pretty sure that this sort of shit is called ‘mental illness’ precisely because I do know that – and still feel this. This? This right here is PTSD. Every scrap of this emotion feels completely irresistibly rational and real, and my brain wants very much to support it with ‘evidence’, with ‘proof’ – or at least some very persuasive argument. I undermine those efforts with mindfulness, with breathing, with awareness – refraining from feeding the demons is definitely a good practice, and it’s a place to start. I definitely don’t make decisions from this vantage point.

“I’m okay right now“. It’s a pretty critical observation, when shit goes sideways unexpectedly. It’s hard to argue with a quiet room, and solitude when it’s time to ask “who is responsible for this moment right now?” There are verbs involved, and it just isn’t as easy as it looks on paper, from the perspective of a better moment, on a different day. So here we are alone together, the woman in the mirror and I – and the self-care still matters, and the self-work is still hard, and the PTSD is still a thing, and my injury is still what it is (which is generally an inconvenient and somewhat embarrassing pain in the ass) – and the choices for how to deal with all of that still belong to me. I can only do my best – and that has to be enough.

I can begin again.

I can begin again.

Update: Just a bit later. Self-care basics are so huge. I went down my checklist and there it was – I wasn’t in much pain this morning, and although I took some of my Rx meds first thing in the morning, I overlooked later medication, and entirely overlooked the cannabis extract that is so important to my day-to-day well-being (it is the most effective thing for managing the emotional volatility of my PTSD). It’s a foolish mistake with consequences that are uncomfortable – but I really am okay, and that really is enough.

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Categories Anxiety, autumn, Brain Injury, Free Will, grief, Healthy Living, Metaphors, Mindfulness, more than a little bit of bitching, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, solo hiking, The Art of Being, The Big 5, Words
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