Archives for posts with tag: the map is not the world

Taken Out of Context

May 14, 2019 //

An ordinary enough Spring morning. I’m sipping coffee. Minutes are ticking by. The cool dawn air fills the apartment. My fingers click rhythmically on the keyboard. Traffic swooshes by, beyond the driveway. I am considering the “blank page” in front of me – both actually, on this monitor, and metaphorically, this day ahead of me.

Ask the questions. Do the verbs.

Yesterday’s work day was productive, and felt… short. Very short. The evening that followed was delightful, connected, and relaxed. I slept well. I woke easily, just minutes ahead of the alarm clock, feeling rested. This cup of coffee tastes delicious. My clothes feel quite comfortable. Given this context, the fact that I feel content, merry, and relaxed, this morning, is no particular surprise, right?

This gets me thinking about context, generally. When I find myself feeling miserable for one reason (or many), it changes my outlook on everything that touches my experience. I tend to take more things personally when I am in pain, for example, even though there’s no direct connection between the physical experience of pain, and other qualities of other experiences. It colors my mood, and thus, colors my perception of my experience. If my mood, itself, can alter the way I see my experience, and if the experiences I have in life have the potential to alter my mood… is this a trap – or an opportunity? I used to feel it was a sort of sick joke, and emotional Catch-22 wherein, no matter what, the outcome was always that life sucked. One way or another, I was back to misery, pretty inevitably.

Mindfulness practices, and specifically meditation, unraveled that “trap” – turns out I set that trap myself, and caught myself regularly, fair and square. lol I did most of that to me. I mean, sure, I learned all of it somewhere, but that is so much less significant (for me) than the idea that I built that trap, maintained it with great care (and many verbs), and resisted treated myself any better for a long time with the sort of will and commitment that one generally sees from the eager or ambitious. Sort of scary, looking back, how very skillfully done all that was, and how ferociously I protected myself from any sort of healing progress, for so long. Choices.

Context matters. Where am I right now? Am I okay, right now? How do I feel? Pulling my awareness to this present moment, again and again, and allowing the bullshit narratives to fall away until I am only this human being, breathing in this moment, uncomplicated by assumptions, expectations, and clinging to what is not, there is so much less misery in my experience. This helps me sort out random frustrations, hurt feelings, poorly managed fury, dark days, weird sorrows – nearly all that mess is just made up bullshit, and I can choose differently. It’s often about context. The assumptions I make about this or that detail (or person) really fill it out and make it seem so real. It generally isn’t. I giggle, imagining a world in which everyone around us was truly the embodiment of my assumptions, my thoughts about them, instead of being who and what they actually are.

When I allow others around me to be who they are, without my assumptions and expectations clinging to me, them, or the connection we share, I can also relax and let go of any ludicrous notion about changing them, or fixing them, and just enjoy (or not) who they are, themselves. I can be who I am, too. We can share that time together authentically, and maybe even learn things from each other, and grow. If I’m clinging to a golem built of my assumptions and suppositions about them, filtered through my experience of life and projected onto them, we aren’t even really together, are we? I’m just hanging out with a different version of myself. lol It’s also much easier to be open to people, letting them be them, staying firmly “me”, myself… fewer verbs needed to be real, than to shore up an image.

Context… and authenticity. Perspective. Consideration. Awareness. Presence. All good words for a Tuesday… I think I’ll go out there into the world, with a handful of words, and a gentle heart. It’s a good beginning. 🙂

Tags authenticity, awareness, be here now, be real, be the change, begin again, breathe, choose wisely, consideration, Context, emotional self sufficiency, get real, meditation, mindfulness for beginners, perspective, practicing the practices, presence, ptsd, relationships, sufficiency, TBI, The Art of Being, The Big 5, the map is not the world, there are verbs involved, we become what we practice, what is real?

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

That Thing I Said

May 10, 2019 //

Isn’t it interesting how our words can linger in someone’s memory? How easily hurt each of us can be? How we hold onto grudges, and the way small wounds can fester over time? How trivial matters blow up and change relationships? How little regard we seem to give these things… even though, given some thought, it’s pretty commonplace stuff? I’m just saying – pay attention to what you say, choose your words with care. The consideration you give your words can change whole relationships, and even all the many moments to come. 🙂

…I don’t bring it up for any reason. I’m just drinking coffee in the morning and wondering about things, considering stuff, and thinking things over, and listening to music.

It’s been a busy week. The weekend ahead seems short; I have plans. 🙂 The days are becoming more summery, and the garden is thriving. Something nags at my consciousness… like a thing I have forgotten, being forgotten right now… only I can feel the forgetting, and maintain an awareness of something… but… what? I sip my coffee, catching a quizzical expression on my reflected in my monitor. I spend way to much time in front of a monitor… I suggest to myself that I could, perhaps, choose differently (obviously, right?)… Write. Finish. Walk away. 🙂

My birthday is next month. About a month away, actually. 56. I have to keep re-calculating my age; I keep forgetting, and catching myself wondering… 56? 57? It’s 56. Fifty. Six. Five, six. lol How is it even a thing to forget one’s own age??

I realized over this past weekend that my meditation practice has been pretty hit-or-miss lately. A consequence of small disruptions and changes that have been a natural byproduct of my Traveling Partner moving in, more than anything else. And “being busy”. Here’s the thing though; I feel vastly more “busy” because I’ve let my meditation practice slip, than I might if I hadn’t. 🙂 I even know that. I’ve been here before. (So human) I shrug it off. Finish my coffee. Head for my meditation cushion.

It’s a good day for a new beginning. 🙂 How about it – what will you choose to change, in order to become the person you most want to be, living and loving in healthy relationships, in a beautiful world full of wonder, contentment, and joy? Check the clock. It’s time to begin again. 😉

Tags are you going my way?, be the change, begin again, being and becoming, choose wisely, experience, I am my own cartographer, meditation, mindfulness, perspective, practicing the practices, ptsd, take a moment, taking care of me, TBI, The Art of Being, the map is not the world, there are verbs involved, walking my own path, we become what we practice, what matters most?

Categories Free Will, gardening, gratitude, inspiration, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Spring, Summer, The Art of Being, Words

Breaking Habits

May 9, 2019 //

I’m sipping my coffee, before dawn, on a Spring morning. Well-past Winter, and headed for Summer, the morning is mild, and the patio door is open to the cool morning air. I haven’t written a word in days… unless a letter to my Mother, for Mother’s Day, counts. I suppose it does… but…

…I’ve spent lovely hours in the garden…

…I seem to have broken my writing habit. lol Yep. It’s entirely possible to break a habit, however long-standing, however well-favored, and even when that habit is relied upon, enjoyed, and cultivated until it becomes a plot point in one’s life, and an element of character. Still breakable.

Just stop doing it.

Stop a habitual behavior one time, and it has little impact. Stop it again, and it becomes a repeated behavior. Continue stopping it ( as in, don’t do it) and, over time, it becomes part of who you are that you don’t do this thing. We become what we practice, it is that simple.

This is a technique, a practice, that works. It works very well; practice something long enough and changes occur. Practice a desirable behavior. Practice something tedious. Practice something useful. Practice something foolish. We become what we practice.

I broke my writing habit by taking a day from writing, now and then, which grew to amused tolerance of not writing, even for a couple days, which slowly became a small kernel of doubt; do I even want to write? I took a vacation for a few days, to focus on Love, and found myself just… not writing. At all. Good times. Challenges. Adventure. Drama. Practice? Well, one thing I was not practicing? Writing. It’s been interesting to live life without it.

The last day or two I have tended to be somewhat irritable, and easily hurt. At that same time, there’s been something “a bit off” every now and then, between my Traveling Partner and I, in spite of how delightfully well we get along, and how much love exists in this relationship. It struck me as I fell asleep last night that, in some small way, my writing is not only part of who I am… it is part of who we are. When I don’t write, not only do I lose “my mirror”, and regular moment taken for self-reflection, and reinforcement of those practices that tend to make me more the woman I most want to be… it also removes a handy window into who I am, and how I’m doing, that my Traveling Partner is quite used to having available. I wonder if that’s something he counts on? I remind myself to ask, some other time.

This is not to say I sense any obligation among all these words; my choices are my own. I miss writing every day. There is a longing that exists alongside the tempting freedom from this habit of sitting down each morning, over my coffee, reflecting on my thoughts, my actions, my experience… and frankly the longing won. 🙂 That’s okay, too.

I listen to a little bird outside my window, and my neighbor’s car warming up in the driveway. I sip my coffee, and feel the cool morning air fill the house. I think of the happy happenstance of running into a former coworker (current friend) yesterday, that I hadn’t seen in a while. I exist in this vaguely merry pre-dawn state, drinking coffee. I love this “place”, this particular moment and state of being. How is it that even this habit is so easily broken? How is it so easily resumed?

We get to choose.

Imagine the insane power our freedom of choice actually implies – and what it says, really, about who we each are (and who we are choosing to be). Raw power.

…And…yeah… it means that it matters who we each choose to be, and that who we are is a product of a great many choices we willfully make, each day. We can choose differently, and better, than we often do – and once we notice that? We sort of have an obligation to ourselves – to that person we most want to be – to step up, and walk a path we choose with care, and make those choices that make us more fully who we do want to be, until, over time, that’s who we actually are.

…So… There’s that. I check the time, and begin again. 🙂

Tags are you going my way?, be here now, be love, be the change, begin again, being and becoming, breaking habits, choose wisely, emotional self sufficiency, experience, good self-care, I am my own cartographer, listening deeply, looking in a bigger mirror, MBSR, meditation, mindfulness, mindfulness matters, perspective, practicing the practices, ptsd, sufficiency, taking care of me, taking time for me, TBI, The Art of Being, the map is not the world, the power of choice, there are verbs involved, walking my own path, we become what we practice, what do you choose?, what matters most?, who are you?

Categories Allegories, Brain Injury, forgiveness, Free Will, gardening, gratitude, Healthy Living, inspiration, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Parables, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, Spring, Summer, The Art of Being, Words

Taking Breaks

April 30, 2019 //

I’m sipping my coffee and noticing, once again, that I seemed to have paused my daily writing. There’s a lot going on in my brain, new, unprocessed experiences and thinking, the simple joys of living with love and contentment… a spring garden. Life’s natural ebb and flow competing with (and kicking the ass of) rigorous habit. lol It is what it is.

…Funny… It feels very much like “progress” to accept it so comfortably. 🙂

So. Instead of attempting to bend reality to my whim, or force real life to comply with my favorite version of myself, I’m just going with it. At least for now. Until I’ve learned the lesson, and have words to put around it… at least, for now. 🙂

Each evening my head is filled with points I’d like to make. Ideas I’d like to share. Practices I find that work. Notions that feel significant. Correlations between this and that. By morning it has all dissipated, like the clouds of vapor that had wrapped them so prettily the night before. lol This, too, is what it is, and one characteristic of all of it is that it will pass. No stress required.

Each new day I begin again. Some of them will be mornings on which I write. Others, perhaps not so much. 😀 Each new beginning worthy, each new beginning… truly new. What will I do with the moments that follow? Unknown. Unknown, at least, until I live them.

I queue up my playlist. Put on my headphones. I start the day.

…My coffee is just now drinking temperature. The clock does not wait for “my” moment. It’s time, already, to begin again. 😉

Tags awake, aware, be the change, begin again, being and becoming, emotional self sufficiency, good self-care, here now, I am my own cartographer, just be, MBSR, meditation, mindfulness, mindfulness matters, perspective, practicing the practices, present, taking care of me, The Art of Being, the map is not the world, there are verbs involved, we become what we practice, what matters most?

Categories art and the artist, Brain Injury, Free Will, gardening, gratitude, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Spring, The Art of Being

Sometimes It’s the Small Stuff

April 25, 2019 //

This is a good cup of coffee. The morning is quiet, relaxed, and pleasant. I am, in general, physically comfortable. Nice start to the day, so far. 🙂 It’s enough.

My sleep quality has degraded somewhat, notably with considerably more dream activity, difficulty falling asleep, and waking ahead of the alarm. I consider it all of that for a moment or two, while I enjoy my coffee. It’s not all that rare or strange. After a pointless couple of moments of thought, I let it go. Too nice a morning to be spent ruminating over what is not strange. lol

I think about friends far away. I think about the long weekend coming up – my first planned time away from the new job since it started. My Traveling Partner and I celebrating anniversaries. It’s our 10-9-8; 10 years of a great friendship, 9 years as lovers, 8 years married. Wow. Nice milestone… although, admittedly, the “10” starts more as coworkers, and genial associates, becoming a close friendship a bit late in the year… LOL. I stretch it to fit because I’m just that eager to count it a decade with this human being who is so dear to me. 😀 (It’s my romantic anniversary narrative and I shall do the math as I please! LOL)

The lovely sunny weather yesterday has me thinking about the garden, and I’ll be out on the deck among the containers this weekend, putting things right after the landlord’s visit to give the deck a thorough pressure-washing. It wasn’t at all convenient, but the deck does look very nice, and I’m over being irked by the inconvenience. 🙂

Someone commented recently about my positive attitude. I remember laughing; I wasn’t always in this place, or so easily able to “be positive”. It is kind of a state of being at this point. Enough choices that favor a positive approach, enough choices to let bullshit go, to compliment authentically instead of give “negative feedback”, to help or support instead of tearing someone down, to politely refrain from mean humor even when I’m hurting so much it seems funny, to make the day-to-day attempt to be – in every interaction – respectful, considerate, compassionate, reciprocal, open, and mindful, has eventually resulted in a fairly enduring positivity, just generally. I didn’t really “see that coming”. It was, initially, mere compliance with a request that I “be” less negative. I started studying up on what that could mean, what it could “look like”, and what sorts of characteristics people perceived as “positive” demonstrate. I started changing choices. I adopted new practices. I explored different styles of humor, of conversation, evening making new choices about viewing material, reading material, even the clothes I wear… and over time, in small increments that felt entirely natural in the moment, I became… still me. Yep. I’m still me, from my insider perspective, only… I’m generally contented, generally pleasant (so I hear), generally positive, even notably inclined (per my associate yesterday) toward lifting others up, and explicitly supporting their personal and professional growth through positive reinforcement. 😀 Wow. Nice.

…Most mornings, all of that just comes out as contented coffee consumption and a few minutes of writing… I finish my coffee, my curiosity nudges me in the direction of reading those earliest posts, to look for “clues” or “signs” or “early indications of change”, a chance to study the actual mechanism of getting from “there” to “here”… only… yeah. I check the time. It’s already time to begin again. No turning back. 😉 There’s an entire life ahead of me to live. 🙂

Tags are you going my way?, be here now, be the change, begin again, being and becoming, breathe, choose wisely, emotional self sufficiency, good self-care, I am my own cartographer, MBSR, meditation, mindfulness, mindfulness for beginners, mindfulness matters, perspective, practicing the practices, ptsd, relationships, TBI, The Art of Being, The Big 5, the map is not the world, there are verbs involved, walking my own path, we become what we practice, what matters most?

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

Taken Out of Context

Share this:

That Thing I Said

Share this:

Breaking Habits

Share this:

Taking Breaks

Share this:

Sometimes It’s the Small Stuff

Share this:

Archives