Archives for posts with tag: there are verbs involved

One That Got Away

January 13, 2020 //

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. 🙂

Tags a brand new day, begin again, choose wisely, climate and weather, emotional self sufficiency, good self-care, love and lovers, MBSR, meditation, mindfulness matters, one moment at a time, perspective, practicing the practices, ptsd, sufficiency, taking care of me, TBI, The Art of Being, there are verbs involved, walking my own path, we become what we practice, what matters most?, what's the forecast?

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

A Slammed Door and Irritation

January 12, 2020 //

I slept well last night, and got enough rest. I woke gently, and quietly made coffee, hoping not to wake my still-sleeping partner. I headed to the studio, sat down with my coffee, and started trying to put my thoughts together, words on a page, on a quiet Sunday. I’m grateful to have had an entire night’s sleep. Today, it looks like I’m going to need it.

This morning, my writing is interrupted, several times, for what I can only describe in this moment as “difficult interactions”. I’m not yet fully awake, and lack adequate emotional resilience for the irritated (I hear it as angry) tone of voice, so early in the morning. My thoughts are fractured, scattered, and now focused on feeling hurt, instead of nurturing something within me. My studio door gets slammed, probably without intent. My tears spill over. A quiet morning is apparently not on today’s agenda, and I am the hapless villain in this story – but who is the author? I feel frustrated, sad, and isolated (as much because I don’t really know what to do with these feelings, in this moment). It irks me that I woke up feeling so soft and amiably inclined toward my partner… and at the moment, I feel only the sting of his irritation, his disappointment with me (“What do I have to do to help you remember??”), and the visceral sensation along my nerves of a slammed door.

Sometimes “doing our best” isn’t enough to overcome opportunities to fail at something, or to miss a detail, and “trying hard” is not enough to ensure success. This is true with or without a brain injury. We have to choose again and again to “do the verbs” and to try again. We have to choose again and again to walk our path, or select a new one. It is also true that we don’t generally grow from the things we are reliably good at, or which we find comfortable and easy. So, okay – routine human shit between human primates. Sometimes it’s hard. Sometimes it isn’t comfortable. Sometimes it is necessary to be reminded what the point of it is, and refocus our efforts, because it matters enough to do that. It reliably takes practice.

…What a shitty morning so far…and less than an hour into the day. Disappointment with myself, with the morning, with the circumstances, it all fills me up and spills over as tears, while I watch a little brown bird on the stoop, picking enough sustenance from the ground and from the sidewalk, just to get by another day. I watch the little bird, and try to nudge myself in the direction of recognizing that I am just experiencing some emotional weather; the climate in my heart (and, I assume, my partner’s) is fine. This? It’s just a moment. It’s useful to begin again, if I can start on that, somehow, then it’s not “a shitty morning” as much as a shitty moment. Moments are brief, and they pass.

This time, when my Traveling Partner opens the door to the studio, his face is softened, and he looks at me with love. The irritation is gone. He steps close, and strokes my hair. I apologize for the difficult start to his morning, through my slow, steady, tears. He tells me “it is what it is” and “I’m not angry”. He’s human, too. If I allow it to, the morning will shift gears to a happier place; we’ve made that possible, now it is just a matter of accepting that change and going with it. A matter of beginning again. I give myself a moment to appreciate having a partnership with so much resilience and potential to bounce back from a difficult interaction. I savor the feeling of gratitude that seeps in, as I contemplate the difference between this partnership, and others I’ve had.

I breathe. Exhale. Relax. Allow my heart to slow, and my posture to lift me more erect. I sip my coffee, and begin again.

Tags accept change, be open, begin again, breathe, choose your path, communication, everyone here is human, how to communicate, MBSR, meditation, mindfulness, practice the practices, so human, spring weather, The Big 5 work here, there are verbs involved, walk on, weather vs climate

Categories Allegories, anger, Anxiety, Brain Injury, Despair, forgiveness, Frustration, gratitude, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, The Big 5, winter, Words

Measured in Words

January 9, 2020 //

I measure a hike in miles. I think measuring my progress over time, as a person, may be easier to do in words.

I started this journey, here, in January of 2013, after my emotional wellness crashed hard at the end of 2012 (due to the combination of a traumatic breakup, a fairly (terrible) new relationship I’d gotten tangled up in, and a serious flare up of my PTSD in the aftermath of the infamous Delhi rape in December 2012). While I sought therapy, I also sought a more useful way of communicating and reflecting on my experience, and ended up here. Since that very first blog post, a rather shy introduction, I’ve written 2013 posts, in 7 years, with an average word count of about 700 words.

…I’ve written, right here, 1,317,956 words. Yep. 1.3 million (and a few more) words…

…I haven’t solved anything by doing so. I haven’t “fixed” myself, or the world, or made any noteworthy mark on society, as far as I know. I’m not bitching, I’m just saying – these are the words of one woman. One human being. One perspective. The word count will no doubt continue to grow. I manage about 187,000 words a year. I write nearly every day, even when I don’t write a blog post (I’m not even going to try to quantify all those words). I average 286 posts per year, which, while it doesn’t amount to reliably “every day”, shows some astonishing constancy. Still… I do miss an average of 79 days each year… about 6 and a half days per month, although I doubt there’s that sort of reliable monthly cadence to it. lol. It feels more as if I take a breather, now and then, for a few days, or when I’m out in the trees camping, and then shake that off and get back to it.

…I find myself wondering how many total words I’ve written, and spoken, over the course of a lifetime… a lot of words, no doubt. 🙂

I sip my coffee and smile. This morning feels good. That’s enough. 🙂

Tags a woman of many words, be careful with your words, being and becoming, consider your words, emotional self sufficiency, I am my own cartographer, in other words, perspective, practicing the practices, speak gently, sufficiency, the map is not the world, there are verbs involved, use your words, we become what we practice, words words words

Categories Free Will, gratitude, inspiration, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Practices, The Art of Being, Uncategorized, Words

Another Monday, Another Coffee…

January 6, 2020 //

…And another new beginning. Maybe I’ll switch to tea? (Maybe I’m watching a lot of BBC programming…? lol) I chuckle to myself over some amusing recollection from some recently watched quiz show, then break out in a fit of sneezing (after moving a largish stack of paintings in order to make a file cabinet accessible, for later). It’s an entirely ordinary, very routine work Monday… but I still feel wrapped up in the weekend.

I said good morning to my Traveling Partner, he said good night to me, and went back to bed. A noise of some kind had woken me rather abruptly, and a bit early (about half an hour ahead of the alarm) – or I dreamed the noise. I don’t really know if there was an audible noise. Everything is very quiet now, aside from the sound of my fingers on the keyboard, and the traffic beyond the studio window, the world seems to sleep.

I see my therapist in a couple days. I feel a certain measure of comfort in that, as though having a greater-than-usual need to see my therapist for some reason (well… a notable meltdown during the holiday season, a bit of frustration here and there, some “clarity” worth reality-checking… yeah, I probably do need a bit of a follow up… lol). Certainly, knowing I have a reliably trustworthy (and exceptionally skilled) therapist, with whom to work, is a comfort all its own.

Life “feels busy”, almost to the point of being overwhelming – but I’m not yet overwhelmed, and I’m questioning that sensation. Is it simply a form of self-sabotage? Something that sometimes slows me down, or even halts my forward momentum, without really being anything of substance? Just a feeling? I think about workplace-gained project management skills, and tools I have used, and wonder, again, if those translate to use in “real life” – at home? I sip my coffee and consider the beautiful road map of the work my team did last year, which appears almost as an afterthought in our work tools… would I personally benefit from having that “world view” at home, of the projects most dear to me, the future goals I aspire to but struggle to achieve, the day-to-day miscellany that is larger than a task, more complex than an item on a to-do list, and grander than a chore; would I be getting more done if I “managed” those projects more professionally… less haphazardly? (The obvious answer seems to be “probably”…)

I sip my coffee and notice that my anxiety, absent when I woke this morning, is beginning to stir along with the thoughts of “getting things done”, and my concern that I could (fairly obviously) to more with my precious limited time. Before panic sets in on a Monday, I take some deep breaths, exhale slowly, and let all of that go. Another time will do. Now I put it all aside, and give thought to the lovely weekend that has just ended, and make time for gratitude, fond appreciation, and contented recollection. Why do that in such a deliberate way? Well, the answer with the least depth is “because it pleases me to do so, and feels very satisfying”, but it’s not the whole truth…

I make a point of reflecting on recent joyful memories, and gratitude, and appreciating the good in my life very specifically as a practice that tends to “correct for” my overly well-developed implicit negativity bias, resulting in a more positive experience of my own life, more compassionate perspective on the lives of others, and more ability to “bounce back” from stress or new trauma. Yep. Willfully savoring my best experiences, being grateful for those, and deliberately enjoying my life tends to both make my life generally more enjoyable, and also tends to allow me to more comfortably and easily actually enjoy it, in real-time, with less anxiety, and with less risk of my chaos and damage tripping me up, or triggering me for some unpleasant experience. Pretty convenient for me; I like sitting (or walking, or driving), and considering nice things of various sorts, this practice fits right in. 🙂 As practices go, an excellent example of a very effective practice that also feels very good to make the effort to actually practice. 😀

Rick Hanson, PhD, calls this favorite practice of mine “taking in the good” (it wasn’t my original idea, I learned it from him, with reinforcement and encouragement by my therapist). It was one of the easier practices to learn, and one of the most comforting and pleasant to do each day (I rarely forget to, it feels that good). Feel like taking 6 minutes to hear the author of Buddha’s Brain talk about it, himself?

I yawn, smile, and finish my coffee. It’s already time to begin again. 🙂

Tags a moment of gratitude, be here now, be the change, begin again, being and becoming, breathe, Buddha's Brain, do you feel like I do?, emotional self sufficiency, enjoy life, experience, feel the feelings, good self-care, life is a banquet, live live live!, MBSR, mindfulness, mindfulness for beginners, mindfulness matters, perspective, practicing gratitude, practicing the practices, ptsd, relationships, savor the experience, taking in the good, The Big 5, there are verbs involved, we become what we practice, what matters most?

Categories Anxiety, Brain Injury, forgiveness, Free Will, gratitude, Healthy Living, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, The Big 5

That’s Not How “Making Things Work” Works

January 5, 2020 //

I woke earlier than I needed to, this morning. No reason. Maybe I’d gotten enough sleep? My anxiety started to increase a few minutes after I woke. Yesterday morning was like this, too. There are steps to take, and they do work pretty well. The key detail is that I have to actually practice those practices. Reliably. Thinking about it isn’t particularly effective; however well I know that there are practices that help reduce my anxiety, doing them is what is required. Verbs. Action. Practice.

What works? Probably a lot of things. I started here. And here. And here.

What works for me, may not be what works for you – but that may not be an obvious certainty until you’ve tried them. So… what worked (for me) yesterday? Meditation. Good self-care. Positive self-encouragement. Taking a walk. And (for me) a bonus; my Traveling Partner was out of the house for a couple hours hanging out with a friend, and I got some much needed solo time (actual solitude, spent actually at home) in which to meditate (more), read, and find an hour of real ‘cognitive stillness” (no TV, no music, no notifications, no conversation, no other human presence…just… quiet). I recognize that the profound desire for “cognitive stillness” and solitude, isn’t a thing for which we all have a uniform need. Some people would definitely not enjoy that kind of deep, stark, uninterrupted stillness, and some people find solitude, itself, quite terrifying. Finding the practices that truly support our individual needs, and our own emotional wellness, is complicated. Try a lot of things. Stick with what works. Be mindful and compassionate with others; what works for you may not work for them. We are each having our own experience. 🙂

Sometimes it’s a good idea to take a minute, and sort things out.

I suspect that a considerable portion of my anxiety, right now, isn’t properly my own. I’m picking it up from relationships and circumstances, from the media news, and sort of “inheriting” the anxiety of people dear to me, as they work through their own baggage, and deal with their own deal. Nothing about that results in the anxiety being less real; it is what it is. I’m feeling feelings. The feelings are uncomfortable, and mess with my mind, and my emotional comfort. No reason to take it personally. I have practices to help with that. Practicing those works. (Talking or thinking about them, as practices, without practicing them, does not work at all. lol Just being real. There are verbs involved.)

Once I noticed the anxiety creeping in around the edges of my awareness again this morning, I immediately began taking steps. Breathing. Meditation. ~~Checking my email.~~ (Um, no. Not that last one. lol) A quiet cup of tea. A bit of reading. I look out the window thinking about taking a walk. The sun isn’t even up yet. It’s quite dark. So… too soon. lol Instead, I reflect on how meaningful and appreciated that few minutes walking yesterday really was.

It was a beautiful day for it. Clear, and chilly without being cold.

It felt good to be out on the trail. I was grateful for the paved path, and that I remembered my cane, which I am definitely needing for longer walks.

Blue skies and trees illuminated by sunshine became a smile on my face.

I found the walk challenging enough, between slippery bridges still wet from recent rain, and my aching ankle, and popping knee, that I only managed a (fairly gentle) 1.22 miles. It still felt great to be out there, just walking, alone with my thoughts.

Gnothi Seauton. I wisely choose not to walk a distance or paths I am not ready for, today.

The distance was shorter than I could easily cover, fairly recently, but I didn’t take the setback personally. I just enjoyed the walk I actually took. 🙂

It was enough to walk in the sunshine, smiling, watching the squirrels.

I find myself glancing through the blinds, now and then, while I write, this morning, hoping for another good day to take a walk. It looks rainy. My ankle and knee (opposite sides) ache. Letting that stop me is counterproductive for several reasons, so I maintain the intention of “getting out there” for at least a mile. I may try to do this every day…

How else will I see all the squirrels? lol

Tags 10 mindful minutes, be the change, begin again, breathe, emotional self sufficiency, MBSR, meditation, mindfulness matters, one step at a time, perspective, practicing the practices, ptsd, squirrel!, taking care of me, TBI, the map is not the world, there are verbs involved, walk on, walk with me, walking meditation, walking my own mile, walking my own path, we become what we practice, what matters most?, where does this path lead?

Categories Anxiety, Brain Injury, gratitude, Healthy Living, Mindfulness, Moments, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, solo hiking, The Art of Being, winter

One That Got Away

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A Slammed Door and Irritation

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Measured in Words

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Another Monday, Another Coffee…

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That’s Not How “Making Things Work” Works

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