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Perceptions

June 26, 2015 //
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This morning the alarm seemed to go off much earlier than necessary. I laid in bed a few minutes – very unusual for me – lingering and waking quite slowly. I got through my morning routine faster than usual somehow, and my coffee was in front of me earlier than I expected. I danced through some videos…caught up on Facebook…now it is somehow ‘later than I thought’. Perceptions are funny things. My experience of the passage of time is my own, and it varies with circumstances, activities, moods – the clock ticks away (metaphorically, that is; I prefer a very quiet clock, myself) and I guess time passes at the same continuous rate, more or less – I have trouble thinking of it otherwise, but don’t actually know. There is a lot of science about time, or relevant to the matter of measuring time, and certainly the consideration of time was once a preoccupation of mine to the point of obsession…but what do I really know about it that actually matters? I know time passes, can be wasted pointlessly or taken advantage of, or used skillfully with planning, or enjoyed blissfully in moments of presence…regardless, it passes; that much I do know. For any one of us there is only so much of it available. Like a bad navigator giving directions (“it’s the last left turn before you get to…”) I sense that my time is finite, but have no ability to know precisely how much I’ve got…only how much I have used.

The uncertainties of time remind me how important it is to live – really live – every moment of my life right now. ‘Now’ is definite and real and here, this very minute.

My coffee has gone cold, I had sipped it once or twice while it was hot…and lost interest while contemplating time, timing, and perceptions. Yeah, that’s me. 🙂 I want the hot and the cold of it – similarly I want to wring every moment of living out of my life, without hurting myself or others, or behaving in ways that might potentially damage this fragile world, or this fragile vessel, in unexpected ways. How do I do that on a Friday morning, when my brain is still struggling to fully wake? Well…I guess this morning I’ll have an Affogato with local artisan ice cream…espresso ice cream. Yep. I’m an adult and I can have dessert coffee for breakfast if I choose. I like choices. 🙂

I take my time, frosting the glass and softening the ice cream while I brew fresh coffee with great care. The delighted smile it gives me makes my face ache, and I laugh at myself tenderly; I enjoy things with such whole-hearted (dis-inhibited) enthusiasm that it sometimes surprises others, or discomfits people. I have been told it is ‘child like’ (or childish).  This morning, alone in my small kitchen, I am entirely free not only to have an Affogato first thing in the morning on a work day – I am free to be utterly delighted to do so, without reservation or concern for the emotional experience of others. It’s lovely. It’s also thought-provoking. How much of my day-to-day experience do I keep harnessed and squashed down to a manageable, ‘appropriate’ or ‘acceptable’ dullness specifically to avoid discomfiting others? (and with such limited success…) How old is that baggage? I grin happily, take a picture of my coffee – because the picture will later delight me again with the memory of the moment – and dance my way from the kitchen through the living room, to sip my coffee looking out the patio door, across the lawn, watching the dawn unfold, with the wide-eyed enthusiasm of a child, before returning to words.

Tasty tasty self-indulgence on a Friday morning.

Tasty self-indulgence on a Friday morning, and a celebration of self.

So much of my individual experience is tied to my perceptions, my assumptions, my thoughts – and so much of that is (or can be) chosen, and crafted…how much damage do I do to myself by twisting my heart and soul in knots trying to provide some ideal perception to others – who are also 100% entirely free to choose their thoughts, their understanding, their assumptions, and similarly exist in the context of their own experience? It actually looks pretty silly from this vantage point to bother, ever, tweaking my behavior to give someone else a particular sense of who I am; I have no control over their perceptions, regardless. How much simpler to rest comfortably in my own heart, living my own life, and being this woman who I want most to be? Some people will like me, love me, and find a place in their heart with my name on it… others…not so much. How much does that matter? Enough to undermine my own joy in life? It doesn’t seem like a good value to trade my own powerful positive experience of self for a shell of existence crafted to suit the needs of others that ultimately cuts me off from the connection I seek.

Does that sound terribly ‘selfish’? What definition of ‘selfish’? Yours or mine? Do your own assumptions suggest that living my experience as my whole self would be a bad thing? Mine once did – for a long time I even felt that being myself might be some kind of ‘misbehavior’ or bad act. What a crappy way to treat myself! I am fortunate that I no longer harbor a sense that making the choice to fully be who I am undermines the good treatment I provide to others, or prevents me from investing in my relationships… actually… I think it may be necessary in order to find real satisfaction in the arms of another that I be wholly myself.  (Here’s a moment finding me thinking kisses and love to my traveling partner; he knew I needed to spend more time with me, and less time with everyone else for a while – he ‘got it’ before I did, and said as much, before we ever moved in together, 5 years ago. It was, in fact, one of his first observations of how I was living my life at that time.)

The tasty creamy Affogato didn’t last long, but the entire day is still ahead of me to be savored, and enjoyed. The weekend is almost here, and I am inclined to treat this woman I love so much very well. I feel inspired and energized (Coffee and ice cream at dawn? It could be my blood sugar surging. lol). I think I will enjoy the A/C this weekend and paint, and enjoy what time I can with love, Love, and lovers – and myself. 🙂

Today is a good day to enjoy me as I am. Today is a good day to love – and be generous with my affection, there is even enough for me! Today is a good day to treat myself as well as I strive to treat the world. 🙂

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Categories art and the artist, Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, solo hiking, Spring, The Art of Being, The Big 5, women, Words

The Woman in the Mirror

June 25, 2015 //
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My name doesn’t say much about me – you can call me Lisa if you’d like. Or not. Shakespeare had it right with ‘what’s in a name?’. You could ask me questions, a lot of them, and find out many details of my experience in life, my thoughts on those experiences, the values that drove the choices on which those experiences were built…but what do you know about the being within the fragile vessel by doing so? Some details. Cobbled together with some assumptions based on your own experience, your own values, and the choices you make about your understanding of the world, you will build a picture of ‘who I am’ that you are content to accept as ‘me’. Maybe you like that person, maybe you don’t – is it ‘who I am’ for anyone but you?

Do I define the journey, or does the journey define me?

Do I define the journey, or does the journey define me?

Am I any less constrained by those same limitations – even when I consider the question ‘who am I’, myself? Who is this woman in the mirror? Do I define myself by my experiences? Which ones? Are the traumas inflicted on me more important than the events I chose for myself? Is it my response or reaction to events that matters more? Is it my thoughts, or my creativity that define who I am? Does my injury define me? Is it my choices, my values, or how I treat others? How I wear my hair is not who I am, nor is what I choose to wear. The books I read are not who I am, neither is how I vote. My anger is not who I am, and my careless frankness isn’t either. Somehow all of it is – but even all of it seems some very small piece of who I am – like ‘dark matter’, it seems the ‘who I am’ puzzle is by far the vast, most important bit ‘about me’, making up most of ‘everything’…and also not easily described or defined. So…yeah. Who I am? Who are you? These are very good questions.

I woke this morning feeling content, comfortable in my skin, and subtly in conflict with myself, as if I had wandered off from an important discussion in progress by waking. I lingered in front of the mirror naked, looking over this fragile vessel and considering the being within. Mirrors made me uncomfortable for a long time; I could not bear to see the hurt, sadness, and astonished betrayal in my eyes, and I was uncomfortable with my aging flesh. This morning I stood calmly, enjoying the curves and lines of a body that has served me well over the years. I smiled at a scar I’d forgotten about, and recalled the event that put it there. I paused to appreciate that so much of the damage done by the violence of my youth seems to be sorting itself out; I can stand in front of a mirror and enjoy who I am.

There is a small shaving mirror mounted in my shower. I don’t use it for shaving, and it is not placed there for the convenience of lovers or guests. I put that small mirror there because I noticed that living alone cut me off from eye contact with my traveling partner and I really missed it, and felt the lack. My reading on the subject of emotional intimacy and connection suggested the lack could be more fundamental, and perhaps be addressed as a need that I could fill for myself and somehow ‘get by’ on that. I put the mirror in the shower so every day, every time I am in the shower, I have an opportunity to make eye contact with someone whose affection for me is singularly reliable, someone I want to know much better, be much closer to, and shower (lol) with Love. I felt a little silly even trying it out – it seemed like a ‘trick’ I was playing on myself. Turns out not to be a trick at all. I have lovely eyes. I enjoy my smile – even the small quiet smile that often gets missed or misunderstood. Eye contact with myself seems to have the good emotional benefits of eye contact in general. As practices go, pretty simple, and I feel more in touch with myself. It helps that I am unafraid of the woman in the mirror, and on good terms with the woman within.

The morning is pleasant, my coffee is tasty, and the music playing the background has me grooving in my chair while I write. This is an excellent moment. I pause the writing to enjoy it, and dance to a favorite track. The practicing of practices, and incremental progress over time have taught me that it is not necessary to be so fit that I can dance for 30 continuous minutes or more to benefit from movement. At my heaviest, I had stopped dancing. Heartache stalled my joy machine, my weight and arthritis were significant limitations, and I couldn’t move easily. Over time I just stopped dancing. When I started trying to turn things around in earnest, I rather awkwardly and uncomfortably also tried to begin dancing again. First it was just seconds. I was stiff. Self-conscious. Fearful. Reluctant. Awkward. Uncomfortable. Uncertain. But seconds eventually became a song. Song, singular, became songs plural. Songs became a playlist, and a playlist became my morning and I awakened to the powerful joy in movement – not just yoga. Not just walking. I love to dance. I probably ‘suck at it’ by all external standards – and that doesn’t matter a bit. It’s about the feeling of it, the sensuality, the freedom, the sensation of the beat and the pure primitive delight of movement to music. That’s all mine, and I am not living this life for anyone else. I’m not 20 any more, true. I’m not Ciara, never was. Damn, though, it feels good to hear the music I love and be moved by it in a literal way, and be able to dance. Meeting that need doesn’t require impressing anyone. 🙂

This morning I am contemplating ‘self’ and ‘other’ and considering what it means to be individual, and to connect with others. Asking myself what I expect of me, what I tolerate, what I enjoy – and asking myself if I am applying my values fairly to both myself, and my expectations of myself, and others dear to me, too. Am I too hard on myself? I know that I can be. Am I too hard on others? Do I attempt to hold them to a standard I can’t achieve, myself? Am I too willing to excuse behavior that isn’t okay with me, because I am hesitant to apply a standard I hold for myself? I know that I have that potential, for sure. What matters most? We are each mortal, each prone to mistakes and poor choices, each entirely predictably likely to behave consistent with our own values – not the ones we share willingly in words, or the values the society we live within recommends; we live our true values in our continued behavior over time. I suspect it is one thing we are powerless to do differently; we live the values we actually hold, changing our behavior may require us to change our values – or result in our values changing because we have changed our behavior. Being attentive to someone’s behavior is the only way to know their values with any certainty. Then what?

Like a mushroom, there is often more to a question than the obvious words.

Like a mushroom, there is often more to a question than the obvious words.

Questions on a Thursday morning. More questions than answers. Plenty of time to love the woman in the mirror, and dance. 🙂

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Categories Brain Injury, Free Will, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Summer, The Art of Being, The Big 5, women, Words

Action and Reaction

June 20, 2015 //
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Saturday is finally here. It was a longer than usual work week, with longer than usual days. I intend to set very firm boundaries about over-work, but it’s a small team, and vacation time gets covered whatever that takes. By the time I got home last night, I was exhausted, and ready for a quiet night. I managed to push myself through laundry and self-care basics, and spent the rest of the evening quietly, reading. I crashed pretty early, and slept through night – hell, I ‘slept in’ more than an hour past the time my alarm usually wakes me, and woke feeling rested, the work week finally behind me. 🙂

This morning there are a couple of light chores to take care of, and I’ll spend some time in the garden before the heat of the day. I may hang a painting that is nagging my consciousness for a place to be. Sipping my morning coffee, I wonder if it fails to satisfy because I am looking forward to having coffee with the wanderer, later this morning.

A change in perspective is generally worthwhile.

Looking forward to Saturday in good company.

I dither a while over my rather mediocre morning coffee wondering if I should go back and check every use of ‘traveling partner’ – should those all be capitalized? What about ‘the wanderer’? Capitalized? No? I wonder if I have been consistent – it’s the potential lack of consistency that grates on my nerves most. Do I yield to the sensation and let it drive my behavior? Do I allow myself to react to it? If I do, how far back ‘should’ I go? Any? lol I quickly move on to wondering why I am even allowing my consciousness to pick at this point – do I actually even care one way or the other? Well…maybe….if it results in not being understood…am I being understood, I wonder? I sip my coffee and wonder how I managed to make such a relatively poor cup of coffee on such a lovely morning. Then I wonder how important it actually is for each reader to clearly identify the wanderer and my traveling partner in this narrative as specific people identified thus…maybe that’s only important to me? (It isn’t likely I’d forget.) I sit here considering a trivial point of grammar (yeah, I said it), and realize that it is more important to me that the choice be mine, whatever the outcome, and since I already have that I lose interest in the internal discussion and move on.

There have been a lot of things lately where the outcome of some choice was less important to me than that the choice be my own, in the moment. Sounds a tad child-like in some fashion, and I don’t allow myself to be berated (by myself) over it; it also seems a natural enough developmental step to find myself taking on this journey. I am flexing my will a bit, perhaps, but after a lifetime of over-compromise and de-prioritizing myself and my needs, it seems appropriate to take the opportunity living alone presents to live my own life, and the outcome of my own choices, more fully. Sometimes it plays out predictably enough; perhaps I find myself wanting cookies, I bake cookies, I over-indulge on the cookies, I find myself annoyed with feeling over-full on cookies, and moody from too much sugar….all my choices, all my actions, definitely no potential for blame-laying, or being annoyed with someone else, but the actions/reactions lack the developed control and will an adult might ideally show. I continue practicing specific practices that focus on self-restraint – learning skills that limit the effect of having a disinhibiting brain injury, and do so without resulting in frustration or discontent, and rely less on habitual behavior than good decision-making. Yesterday, in the morning, I made cookies, because I wanted healthier sweets on hand. I did not over-indulge. This morning there is a container full of cookies, and they may last days, although I made batches appropriately sized for solo-living. Practicing good practices results in improved outcomes. I like that phrase better than ‘practice makes perfect’, although it is less quippy, and no doubt less effective as an aphorism or ad slogan than the old stand-by.

Sometimes the journey is an uphill climb.

Sometimes the journey is an uphill climb.

There is no room in my day-to-day experience for guilt, shame, or emotional self-flagellation over the picayune details of everyday life. My rules, my home, my way…and I take a moment over my gradually cooling mediocre morning coffee to consider how long overdue this experience is for me, and how little self-possession and consideration I’ve allowed for myself, from myself, for so many years. Better to indulge, to err, to learn, eyes wide to what my experience can teach me, and prepared with self-acceptance and rational accountability to grow and move forward. This may mean the occasional mediocre cup of coffee – but it also means fresh cookies, sleeping in, long showers, and happy laughter when I master a new yoga pose. Choices matter a lot – giving myself the freedom to enact my will through action is pretty huge, too.

I am finding my way home.

I am finding my way home.

This is a much less anxious place to be. It’s a much less angry place to be. The undercurrent of subtle continuous resentment and the sense of being imposed upon almost continuously by rules external to my own thinking and practices are dissipating. Instead, I smile a lot, and I feel content much of the time. I make my own choices – and sometimes change my mind with new information, or experience a less than ideal outcome, or find  my understanding of circumstances has changed. I don’t rush myself to get a faster decision made to avoid inconveniencing someone else. I don’t think I know how to have this experience in the context of living with others – not yet – but I have the glimmer of an idea of what that might require of me. Realistically, cohabitation may not be ‘for me’ with the issues I have – I’m even okay with that, from the vantage point of a lovely Saturday morning, content, calm and smiling over my coffee. For now, this journey is about will and action, action and reaction, and practicing the practices that help me on my way to becoming the woman I most want to be.

Today is a good day to practice The Art of Being – and there’s no doubt in my mind that that needs to be capitalized. 🙂

 

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Categories Anxiety, art and the artist, Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, solo hiking, Summer, The Art of Being, The Big 5, women, Words
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