Finding hope and making meaning after brain injury

Spring… time for new beginnings…

My day is off to a pretty good start. Last night I got in bed early and probably got between 7-8 hours of sleep, which is a record for the past week or so. Long-distance travel really does a job on me, especially when it’s for work and I have to be “on” the whole time. Getting back to some semblance of normalcy has been a big struggle for me, which I really don’t care for. I like my routine. I like my cadence. I like knowing where I’m going to be, and when.

I hate to wing it. I hate to “fudge” times and dates and whatnot. It’s just more details I have to keep track of, which is a terrible waste of time, especially since I tend to forget those details and then I end up looking either like an idiot or a poseur, or both — none of it is good.

Anyway, in search of something better and more hopeful, and in honor of being back on my home turf and back in my own daily routine, I spent my time this morning exercising (first thing when I got up), and then having a good breakfast, and then sitting down to read and study a bit. I’m reading some interesting work by Howard Gardner, who came up with the “multiple intelligences” theory that saved my ass back in the 80′s. All of a sudden, my own version of intelligence, which didn’t match what everyone else expected, wasn’t so bad after all. So, thank you Dr. Gardner, for that.

I also did some reading in the sizeable collection of PDFs about neuroscience and TBI that I’ve collected over the years. I unearthed this little gem: The Importance of the Patient’s Subjective Experience in Stroke Rehabilitation (you can download it by clicking this link), and taking a closer look. I think I read this, back when I downloaded it a year or two ago, but I honestly don’t remember. Heck, I might have blogged about it… but again, I don’t recall. (I searched my blog for the title, but I didn’t find anything, so it could be this is my first mention of it.)

In any case, my memory notwithstanding, it was a good read. The things that are discussed are just as appropriate to traumatic brain injury as they are to stroke/acquired brain injury. I highly recommend it to anyone who has experienced either,  as well as those who live/work with them.

The basic gist of the article is that in brain injury rehab, survivors can be severely impacted by their own subjective experience of their injury — they can take it hard and it can really knock their feet out from under them, because (among other things) their sense of self and sense of who they are/should be is so disrupted — sometimes beyond their own comprehension. One of the hallmarks of brain injury, be it TBI or stroke, is a tendency to not have a clear view of where you stand on things, what your abilities and limitations are, and to not be able to express your feelings very clearly about what seems to be going on with you.

As Prigatano says:

Many patients with brain dysfunction are more confused than meets the eye. They simply do not know how to approach the problems they have experienced nor how to discuss the feelings they have that are associated with their restricted functional capacities. They do not know how to deal with interpersonal relationships in light of their … condition.

Been there. Frequently. It’s not fun. And it’s exhausting to have to cover it up and compensate for it all the time.

The thing is, this can lead to a real slowdown in one’s willingness to engage with the rehab process, and it can undercut your recovery. When you’re uncertain and stressed and you can’t see your way through something, it can lead to a “catastrophic response”, which is where everything feels like it’s collapsing in on you, and you’re totally screwed, and there is no way in hell you’re ever going to find your way out of this mess. So, you just quit. You give up. You can’t move forward, back, or anywhere. You’re just stuck. Catastrophe. What seems like the end of the world, can come to be like it, because we just quit.

And the bigger problem that actually contributes to this phenomenon, is that brain injury rehab people (or others who are helping with our recovery, including friends and loved-ones) don’t always take the personal experience into account. They focus on the acute issues, they focus on functionality, or they get into the exercises, drills, whatever, to help restore functionality to the person… without actually addressing the impact this has had on the individual themself.

So, overlooking that aspect of the experience can contribute to a slowdown in progress. And not only does the survivor see less advancement in their abilities, but their self-image and ability to participate in life is even further impacted. It’s a vicious cycle, which has its roots in overlooking the personal impact that a loss of functionality and change in personality has on the survivor.

I’ve seen that myself with my own neuropsych. They tend to try to steer me away from dwelling too much on the difficulties I’m having, and get me to focus on the positives. Rightly so. I can quickly become mired in my own despair, because I can’t see my way out of things and I have a catastrophic response where I just quit talking, quit responding, quit everything. It’s too much. How many minutes (maybe hours) I’ve spent with my neuropsych, just sitting there shut down, not wanting to move or talk or respond or communicate because I didn’t know where to start… I can’t even count them. At the same time, though, not having someone who “is supposed to understand” acknowledge the difficulties you’re having, can really put a damper on your enthusiasm. It’s only in the past couple of months that they’ve even mentioned some sort of empathy for my situation. I get the “tough love” thing — yeah, I should keep my spirits up and look on the bright side instead of indulging my morbidity and paranoia… at the same time, though, it would be nice if I could at least get some acknowledgement from them that I’m not crazy, being concerned about some of this stuff I experience. And their reluctance to “indulge” me by acknowledging the down-sides of my situation, has really stymied my work with them at times.

Now, on the other hand, when the subjective personal experience of the survivor is addressed, it can open doors to further improvements and developments. Frankly, it’s a relief, to hear someone say you’re not crazy for feeling antsy and nuts and jumpy on a sunny day after a long night without much sleep. It’s a relief to (for once) hear someone talk frankly about your temper flare-ups and not make them into a federal case, like everyone else does. And it really takes the pressure off, when someone acknowledges that you feel how you feel, even if there’s not a lot of “reason” behind those feelings.

Here’s a great case study / example story excerpted from Prigatano paper, as recounted by the author:

… Years ago, a middle-aged accountant suffered a right hemisphere stroke with the consequential effects of a left hemiparesis with mild neglect. He experienced pathological crying where he suddenly would burst into tears, even though he was not sad or unhappy.

He was referred to me for neuropsychological rehabilitation to help him with his pathological crying. In helping him do so, I asked him to focus on his shoe, a neutral object, any time he had the urge to cry. When he did this, it undercut his pathological crying response. He was so appreciative that he began to talk to me in more detail about other concerns in his life. He emphasized that throughout his life he had been a good provider and that he and his wife had enjoyed a healthy sexual relationship. He noted that after his stroke, it was hard for him to get an erection; he was embarrassed over this issue and did not know how to approach his wife. He often would avoid having contact with her for fear that he would not be able to perform sexually. His wife expressed that this was not a major concern or issue for her, but he felt differently. The question was how to help him.

We talked about what he had done in the past to please his wife. He indicated that he always had a good sense of humor and that he always was romantic in his manner of interacting with her. We then talked about what he might do symbolically that would reflect his commitment to her and his desire to continue to make her laugh and to be sensitive to her from a romantic point of view. We struck upon the idea that he could purchase or write 365 love notes that he could give to her throughout the course of a year. He was ecstatic with this idea and immediately went about accomplishing this task. Each morning when his wife took a shower, he placed one love note underneath her pillow. When she found it, she often smiled, and there was a sense of comfort between the 2 of them. One might expect that over several weeks and months this would become fairly routine and boring, but his wife stated that she always appreciated the fact that he took the time and the energy to prepare these notes. It was the sense that he was giving back to the relationship within the context of what he could give that was crucial to maintaining their love relationship. He did this willingly as a reflection of his own individuality. It was something productive, something he produced that was useful to him and to another (his wife). These 3 experiences – preparing notes for his wife (a work activity), giving them to her on a daily basis as a sign of his intense affection (love), and finding the activity fun or enjoyable (play) – had a profound effect in reducing his sense of despair and in maintaining meaning in his life in the face of a rather devastating stroke.

I think that’s pretty cool. Even though the man’s wife wasn’t bothered by how he had been impacted by the stroke, it mattered to him. And they found a way to work around it. Dr. Prigatano didn’t just dismiss the man’s concerns, he worked with him to find a way to “make up” for what he felt he’d lost. And that counted for something with both the man and his wife.

It counted, because it added meaning and purpose to the man’s life. And that’s where TBI can really hit you hard — in the face of unexpected and inexplicable (and sometimes unrecognizable — until too late) difficulties, you can rapidly learn to feel helpless and victimized by your circumstances. And when everyone around you is telling you, “You look fine!” and wondering (sometimes out loud and sometimes not very sympathetically) why you continue to struggle with such simple things, it does absolutely nothing to help you lift yourself out of a sense of helplessness and futility.

Then life can become meaningless. It can become a chore. It can get depressing. And it can just suck to be alive.

It’s bad enough that all of a sudden you have all this sh*t you have to contend with, but then you’re alone with your experiences. No one is validating that what you’ve got going on is actually pretty tough to handle, no one even acknowledges that what you’re up against is pretty hard to take, each and every day… and absolutely no one is recognizing that the things you get right are massive victories, in the face of your perplexing situation.

In the face of this all, what to do? I can’t speak for anyone else, but for myself, I need to seek out meaning and purpose in my life. I need to identify the things that matter most to me, and build my life around those things, those ideals, those concepts, so that I feel that I’m working towards something important that contributes to society as a whole.

This blog is part of that work, just sharing the stories from my life and information I receive, so that others might benefit from it.

My relationships with my spouse and my co-workers are also a big part of it. And my career. And my home. And the things I read and study and digest and put into action in the course of my everyday. I need to stay interested. I need to stay engaged. Even if it’s just in my mind, I need to at least have some sense that I’m connected with a Higher Purpose.

All those things matter to me. They add meaning to my life. And they satisfy my need for work, love, and play. I quote again from Prigatano:

… in our Western culture, there are 3 symbols that help individuals establish meaning in life. Those symbols are work, love, and play.

The symbol of work is especially important in American culture. We often identify ourselves by our occupation, the type of work we do, and our pride in what we have accomplished in our work. Work by its nature puts us in contact with others, which allows human relationships to form and develop. Broadly speaking, work is the symbol of being productive, that is, producing a product or service that is meaningful to one’s self and to others. No matter what the person’s level of disability or impairment, it is important to help each individual to be productive in some capacity. When we do this, we reinstitute a partial sense of normality in their lives.

The second symbol, which is perhaps universally important, is the need to establish a bond with another. Love relationships are complicated because they involve the psychological make-up of 2 individuals who experience a level of intimacy with one another that they do not experience with anyone else. No one has come up with a totally satisfactory definition of love, but from my perspective it can be defined as a relationship in which the other person’s sense of well-being is as important as one’s own sense of well-being. When this is the case, a variety of sacrifices are made to ensure the other is doing well in life. After brain injury, individuals often do not have the desire to attend to the needs, especially the emotional needs, of others. This is a mistake. It is crucial for individuals to emotionally give back to others in their lives to reestablish a sense of bonding and connectedness, which is very important to their sense of well-being.

The third symbol, which is perhaps not as universally agreed upon, is the symbol of play. Here play does not mean recreation. It means the capacity to enter fantasy and to think and feel and do whatever one wishes to do. At first glance, this may be viewed as a purely narcissistic venture. It is not. When individuals are true to themselves and live their lives according to what they believe is in their best interest and follows their natural interest plans, they ultimately do better. Many individuals who have not followed this course find themselves depressed or leaving their work lives early because their work no longer provides a sense of satisfaction, despite whatever economic rewards it may produce.

Again, helping individuals identify with symbols that reflect their unique phenomenological state and what they wish to do in life becomes crucial in stroke rehabilitation and the broader field of brain injury rehabilitation.

I think this is all very true. When you don’t have a connection with anything that adds meaning to your life, and you feel like just a lump of flesh-covered bones sitting around with no redeeming qualities or abilities, there’s not much incentive to do the kind of hard, hard, arduous work that brain injury requires of us.

I have said it before, and I’ll say it again — recovering from TBI is hard work, and if you can’t find it in yourself to really apply yourself and work at it, you may find yourself in increasingly difficult circumstances as the years pass. TBI doesn’t always go away. Sometimes it seems to, but sometimes it stays with us quite noticeably for the rest of our born days… even getting worse, if we don’t make a concerted effort to make it better… to make ourselves better.

So, we have to have some meaning, some hope, some sense of optimism in our lives, to make it through. I know folks who have sustained brain injuries whose outlook on life has gotten worse over time, and their outcomes are not that peachy. In one case, the one thing that saved them is that they have a spouse who has a good job and is the kind of person who will go out of their way for them — for anyone really — to help, for the sake of helping. If they were on their own, they’d be in pretty dire straits, I believe.

Yes, keeping your spirits up and staying motivated are critical for a quality TBI recovery. I DO say “recovery” because despite the loss of some capacities, we can still recover our dignity, our sense of purpose, our functionality, our lives. We don’t have to just give in to the inevitable loss of everything that once mattered to us, thanks to TBI. No way, no how. There is far more to us than any of us can guess, and the main reason many of us founder and flail, is because we just can’t imagine that we might be bigger and better than anything we can conceive.

It’s one thing when your brain is injured, but the injury to the human spirit is even more devastating.

Well, speaking of being bigger and better than anything we can conceive, I’m going to sign off now and get on with my day. I have a lot of little chores to do, before the weekend is up, and I have a lot of thinking to do. I recently discovered (in my treasure trove of TBI research PDFs) a paper describing what kind of rehab activities my neuropsych has apparently been conducting with me. On the surface, it has seemed like I was just showing up, chatting about this-n-that, and then going home to have supper and go to sleep. But apparently, there’s a lot more going on in those sessions than I had guessed. It’s pretty exciting, because now a lot of stuff that I’d just been going with on faith is actually making a lot of great sense. Especially in light of my long history of TBIs.

I’ll share more later, when I manage to work my way through the paper. I started on it yesterday, but I was still so baked from my trip, that I had a hard time reading more than three sentences, before I had to go back and re-read what I’d just reviewed. I gave that up after stumbling and struggling through a few pages. I decided to wait till I was fresh and halfway cognizant, before I dug in again.

Damn - the troubles with reading are troublesome! It’s one of the hardest things for me to take about my situation.  Self-image and all that…

But enough self-pity. It’s time to get crackin’ — go about my business as an apparently normal person… which compared to how I was six years ago, is nothing short of a miracle. Off I go, to revel in my normalcy…

Onward.

Whatever I want it to be…

The last day of a long week. After another long week before that…. and another long week before that…. Come to think of it, February was a long month. The shortest month of the year was the longest, experience-wise. And packed full of new details. And as stressful as it was exciting. A real roller-coaster ride, if I say so.

I’m sure things will settle down as we move forward and people find their place. At least we have our job responsibilities clearly (well, sort of) outlined and described in our HR “goals and objectives” system. And it’s pretty good, when I step back and take the view of someone who is just passing through, rather than chained to this galley bench till the end of the sea voyage.

A lot of folks at work are incredibly stressed out over everything. There are adjustments going on with everyone, and tempers run hot at times. People are tired and long-term stressed, and we all know what happens when that happens. Unfortunate things are said and done, and then everyone gets all worked up over this, that, and the other thing. Over nothing, really… And then the fur flies, and people dig in, trying to justify why they did or said that stupid thing, 15 minutes ago… and a whole elaborate conceptual framework gets built up around people trying to defend a position they know is not right to begin with, just because they feel they need to defend it or they will lose face, lose ground, and not have the same standing with others that they want to have.

Some call it “ego”. I call it a heavy-duty bias towards the sympathetic nervous system — you know, that fight-flight-freeze response that is all but out of our control… but we can manage and modulate with the right approach(es). Some people spiral out of control in a downward slide, when things change or go wrong, while others find ways to work through them and come out on the other side in one piece. In my former life before my TBI in 2004, I was the kind of person who could deal. I could handle things that came down the pike that threw other people for a loop, and I prided myself in that ability. After I fell in 2004, that all went out the window, and I lost myself in the increasingly stressful details of my everyday life. I felt terrible about myself, I felt like I was useless, couldn’t handle anything, and that I was good for nothing to anybody anymore. It took such a toll on my self-esteem and ability to interact with others… and I built up this whole new self-perception that just wasn’t accurate. I believed that the way I acted under circumstances in a given moment, was an indicator of who I was all the time — and that messed with my head like nothing else.

Now I know that my perceptions just were not true. I can be however I want to be, and I can interpret situations however I want to. I am not chained to any one version of reality, and in fact so much of what we call “Reality” is just a conditioned response that makes us feel a certain way. Our body chemistry — like a radio — gets tuned to a certain frequency, and even if we don’t like the music at first, we get used to it. And then when we’re in that “frequency,” if it feels right, then we think that what we’re thinking and feeling and observing is true. Our systems are built to acclimate to “normal” circumstances and then reinforce us when we are in that “normal” zone.

But the thing is, all that “normalcy” is nothing more than habit. We just get used to things being a certain way, and when they’re not that way anymore, we freak out – to a greater or lesser degree. Our freak-outs can range from general discomfort… to cranky-bitchiness… to outright meltdowns. And you know what? It’s not the external circumstances that are to blame. It’s our own internal reactions to them.  We are just so accustomed to our own internal reactions and our own “scema” of “reality” that we take them for granted, and they never get questioned until something changes that doesn’t synch up with our assumptions. And 9 times out of 10, rather than blaming our assumptions, we blame the thing that changed — something outside ourselves — for the problem. It couldn’t possibly be us… right?

Now don’t get me wrong. I do think that a lot of external circumstances are genuinely stress producing and can make us miserable, no matter how well-prepared or well-tuned we are. It’s just how we’re built. And obviously something like an earthquake or flood or tornado or organizational “redesign” at work will throw you for a loop. But we often make things harder for ourselves than need be, with our reactions and our determination to interpret things in the old way — which stopped being valid, the minute things changed.

The point is, we always have a choice about how we’re going to interpret the world around us. We’re not locked into any one “real” way of thinking or doing or being. There is no such thing. And the things we believe are true, are more true to our biochemistry than they are to our actual circumstances. Especially in America, we tend to believe the more true and real and authentic something feels, the more true it must BE. And yet our feelings stem from habits we’ve become biochemically attached to, along with the reactions that we have that reinforce our biochemical experiences. They’re real. They’re visceral. And they can really save our asses in a pinch when we don’t have time to think through things. But as a way of living life… going by gut feeling and sensation alone can get you into real trouble.

Anyway, today is a new day, and I am taking special care to watch out for what I’m thinking and saying and feeling and doing about things. In the past years of my recovery from TBI, a lot has changed in my mind about my life and what it’s all about — a lot has changed about who I am and what I am all about. The bottom line is, I get to choose today, how I will feel and how I will interpret things around me. It’s a dramatic time with work changing so drastically, and it’s a hard time for so many people around me (including myself).

For today, this day isn’t just about stress and anxiety and change. It’s about opportunity and potential and growth. There are elements of both sides in all this, and there’s a lot that’s out of my control. I have been having headaches. I am generally exhausted. I have a pretty short fuse, these days. And my light and noise sensitivity is pretty amped up, these days.

But there’s also a lot of good in my life, and spring is on they way. It’s my choice how I feel about things, and it’s my choice what I focus on.

Onward.

Once you find something more

… more than your personal pain, more than your own problems, more than your difficulties and drawbacks and struggles… everything changes. Once you find something that is bigger than yourself, that means more than any problems you might have, that lasts longer than the next 24 hours… 24 days… 24 months… 24 years… Once you find something that lights you up and brings you out of your shell, a whole lot of… well, nothing-ness… can be put to rest.

See, the thing is – when we are so caught up in what is wrong with us, it takes our attention off the things that are right with us… the ways that we can help others who have their own issues which may be all but impossible for them to handle. When we are so caught up in managing our own issues, in dealing with our own pains, we don’t have the energy and the time to look around and see what else is there for us to do with ourselves. We spend so much time consumed with ourselves, that everything else fades into the background.

And our lives become that much smaller, that much darker, that much less live-ly.

I only say this, because I myself have fallen deep into this quagmire, and I have been stuck there for many, many years. I spent so much time in my childhood and my young adulthood, and then in my adult years, working hard to manage my issues and deal with life around me. I didn’t understand what was happening to me, I didn’t understand the nature of my issues, and everyone around me had their own problems that were keeping them from helping me see what was going on with me.

If anything, they were still dealing with their own problems they first encountered as children, and never fully managed to resolve or escape. I’m sure they were very bit like me, when they were young — needing help but never getting it, because the adults who could help them were too caught up in their own pain and problems to see beyond and see what was in front of them.

And so the cycle continued.

And so it continues to this day — and probably will, well into the future.

The thing of it is, it’s not really necessary to ONLY have this happen, generation after generation. I don’t imagine for a moment that we’re going to help everyone to resolve their issues overnight and usher in a new world of love and light and bliss by this time next year. I’m not saying it’s not eventually possible, but these things take time. And in the meantime, we need to take these little steps to help the situation — not only helping ourselves to get past what is dragging us down, but helping others to see that there might be something else possible that they could experience, besides the hurt and the pain and the anger and the fear.

I don’t want to get all “airy” here — what I’m talking about is actually really practical, really commonplace, and really everyday. It’s just this basic fact that things are hard all ’round, but we can make them a little easier by getting over ourselves. I do believe it’s important to take care of yourself, but sometimes “looking out for number one” gets us — and everyone around us — in trouble. Especially when the pains and the hurts we’re trying to make up for are actually invented in our own minds.

Take for example someone who lives their life around being rewarded for enduring difficulties in life. I know lots of people like this, and at times I count myself as one of them, so it’s an easy example for me to use. Say someone grew up in a family that had a lot of problems — for one reason or another, life was chaos. Growing up, there was a lot of pain and frustration, and certain habits got “grooved” into everyone’s thinking and behavior. Even after growing up, those old habits still stayed in place, because … well, you never know what might happen, and something really awful could come ’round the corner any minute. This person spends their adult life on edge, always looking for that THREAT that may or may not come, and by the end of each day, they feel completely exhausted — depleted by their constant need to be on alert.

Is their life really, truly dangerous? Maybe. Or maybe not. Perhaps they live in a very safe area, they have a good job, and all their needs are met — so much so, that they have a constant supply of luxury items available to them anytime, for the having. Still, because their mind is trained to look for danger, and they are accustomed to being on guard, they end each day in Paradise convinced that they’ve barely survived Real And Present Danger, so therefore, they should be rewarded.

Or at the end of each day, they are so exhausted by their hyper-vigilance, that they attack everyone around them for pulling on them and draining them and keeping them from relaxing after what seemed like an impossible day.

This is one example of how it can go… how we can lose ourselves in our old pain and suffering, because we’re in the habit of focusing on it, and we don’t realize we don’t have to do that anymore. Now, granted, sometimes the pain and suffering is very, very real. What I have gone through in my past, thanks to TBI, was not imaginary. I didn’t make it all up. It was difficult, almost impossible, and it did a lot of damage to me before I realized what was going on. At some point, though, I had to be willing and able to let go of the iron grip I had on my life, on my difficulties, on my challenges. I had to be willing and able to entertain the possibility that A) my own struggles were subsiding but my focus on them was making them worse than they had to be, and B) others were struggling even more than I — with far more serious issues — and for far more genuine reasons.

It took me some time to get to that point, and there were a lot of fits and stops along the way. I can’t say it even sank in for quite some time. But once it did… well, that was interesting. When this started to hit home to me, I felt lost, disconnected… as though I was losing a part of myself. I was, too — I was losing the part of myself that had hardened around my injuries like tough scar tissue that was holding me back from being able to completely move. My injuries were part of my past, they were part of who I was. And if I let them go, who would I be?

Who indeed?

Well, I struggled alone with that for quite some time, until it occurred to me that my injuries weren’t only about me. I’ve always been aware that others struggle with these same types of issues, and that reaching out to others to let them know they are not alone is an important part of my life’s work. Yet part of me has really clung to the idea that my life has been defined by injuries, that it’s held me back, that it’s cost me so much — me, me, me. All about me. Because, well, if it’s not about me, then won’t I disappear?

Yes and no. I now feel that letting go of the “me” that is defined by injury, is the one way I can actually make some sense of what I’ve experienced. It’s ironic — the very thing I hang onto is the thing I need to let go of. At the same time, once I let go of that “me”, I’m free to become something else – someone else – someone who knows what it’s like to really battle these issues, and who still has to work with them, day to day, but who isn’t going to be held back by them, and is going to use their experience to help others, in hopes that they themselves may find freedom one day.

I’m a big believer in freedom. I’m also a big believer in responsibility. And oddly, the very thing that seems to take all the “fun” out of freedom — responsibility — is the thing that makes it even more free.

Because there is something more out there, than the pains we suffer and the injuries we endure. We all — each and every one of us walking around on planet earth — has our own share of pain and suffering. You can’t live on this earth without at least some of that. What we choose to do with it… that’s up to us.

And once you find something more to put your attention on, that isn’t all about your own hurts, your own pains, your own dramas… well, you’d never believe what else is possible in your life.

 

What else…?

A new day is dawning – what else is possible?

Time has really gotten away from me, this morning. I was up early with my spouse – who was up late (really late) – and we got to talking, which is good. I have a doctor’s appointment in another hour and a half, and I need to get ready to go. And here I thought I had at least another hour. Funny, how the time flies when I go online.

Anyway, it’s 12/21/12 – the big day, according to a lot of folks. Some go on and on about the end of the world, but what I’ve heard from more folks is that it’s actually the beginning of the next one. A new world. A new start. Not right away – for what really changes in an instant, if it’s truly going to last? But starting now, moving gradually towards What’s Next.

Now, I am pretty much of an agnostic, when it comes to this sort of stuff. Maybe it’s true, maybe it’s not. Who the heck knows? But it is a way I like to think about things. And even if there’s nothing special about this day, other than it’s the marker of when the days start to get longer (and people Up North get closer to seeing some sunlight again), and that we have attached certain numbers to it, I can certainly choose to do with it what I like.

Just like I can every single day.

If I want numbers to inspire me, I can look at the clock — I can decide at 12:12 or 12:21, each and every day, to start fresh – hit the proverbial reset button. Or I can set my alarm for 3:33 each afternoon and treat that as a “reset”. Probably not a bad idea, since my daily clock seems to wind down around 12 noon each day, and then pick up each afternoon around 3:30 or so.

Numbers… Yeah, numbers. I have always played games with them, and I find them fascinating. When I’m driving long distances and I get tired, I play games with the numbered mile markers beside the highway, and that perks me up right away. Whatever does it for you to make your day a little more interesting, a little less stressed, a little more enjoyable… well, that’s alright by me.

And whatever it takes to get our heads out of a terrible space, is fine with me — provided it’s not killing brain cells or doing harm to others (which a lot of people find enjoyable, sadly). My argument about all the Doomsday stuff is that We Just Don’t Know. We can think we know, we can suppose to know, but doomsday-sayers have been in that business for as long as humans have walked the earth. And magically, we’re still here.

The only impact they seem to have is making us feel like crap, while we’re waiting for something that isn’t going to happen.

Now, I’m not going to get into a theological debate over this — I’m just saying that for all the people who have staked their reputations on THE END being just around the corner, how many of them do you remember? Few, if any. Because when they’re proven wrong, as they so often are, they just fade from view — and go back to their work doing whatever they were doing before. And all we’re left with is a bad taste in our mouths and a little more stress to drag us down.

So, on this momentous day, when certain people are celebrating the end of the old and the beginning of the new, I look to the day myself, and I wonder what else I can do that will improve my life and the lives of those around me. Whatever the date, whatever the occasion, it’s a good thing to do in any case. I think about the ways I can turn things around that I’m not happy about… including my doctor’s impression of me as a “risk taker” that I am very uncomfortable with. I shall be having a conversation with them in another couple of hours, and I’m writing it all down ahead of time, so I don’t lose my train of thought. I can turn things around at work by really focusing on what’s in front of me, not getting distracted, and doing a better job of following up. I can improve my experience overall, by improving the skills that make me feel like the person I really am with the capabilities I really have. And I can find other like-minded individuals who are seeking to make the same kinds of positive changes — both personally and on the larger social and cultural stage.

For some reason, this time really feels like a turning point for me. I feel pretty energized by the possibilities… and the thing that makes me feel even more energized, is hearing so many people talk about new beginnings, where a week or so ago, they were talking about drudgery and sadness and misfortune and all that. People are stepping up to take more responsibility for their lives and their situations, and that’s really exciting for me. Because I’ve always known it was possible — and now with this “new era” dawning, more people are starting to agree with me.

I guess that’s the thing that excites me the most about this Winter Solstice — that other people are realizing the same thing I’ve know for many, many years: that anything is possible, if we put our minds and hearts to it, and we don’t accept the same-old-same-old as a given.

Truly, it is a new day. And I’m so happy others are seeing it, too.

And so the search for meaning begins

For Sandy Hook – Newtown, CT

The holidays are always a bitter-sweet time for me. It is supposed to be a time of joy and happiness and celebration, but I have always dreaded it. There’s something about the crush, the rush, the pressure to perform, the urgency that everyone is feeling to “get it right”, and the lingering sense that — yet again — I have not accomplished all I set out to, 11-1/2 months ago.

This year was looking like it was going to be a little different. I haven’t got any extra money, so the whole Christmas shopping thing has been a non-event for me. And there hasn’t been much snow at all, with the weather warmer than expected, and the snow that did fall rapidly melting away. I haven’t been in any sort of Christmas spirit at all. Far from it. But I was fine with that, because I’ve felt a lot of peace and equanimity, which I haven’t often felt at Christmas time.

Then some batsh*t crazy f*cker walks into an elementary school and kills 20 kids and 6 adults. Little kids. Babies. Gone. The shooter’s gone, too – along with his mother, whom he killed first. And last I heard, they were questioning his brother.

Shit. All day yesterday, it has been on my mind so much that I missed two turns on my way home and I spent 30 extra minutes driving to pick up supper I’d ordered. By the time I got home, dinner was a little cool. I didn’t break down and weep like many folks I know, but I did call home to tell my spouse how much I loved them. No matter how dulled we may be to the cruelties and anguish of this world, awful tragedies like this do alter our world view at least a little and force us to look at the world with fresh eyes.

Senseless. Awful beyond description. Horrifying.

Preventable?

How? Why?

… Why?

At times like this, our national instincts seem to respond in two ways — one, with unimaginable grief and horror… two, with clinical, distant reasoning that reaches conclusions that seem “logical” enough to the thinkers. On the one hand, there are those who plunge into grief and compassion… and pray. And then there are those who raise the banners of their crusade and charge forth into battle — to either stem the tide of semi-automatic assault weapons that keep showing up on the news, or to call for an even more aggressively armed society where people will think twice before they do something like this… again.

Before the shouting begins (although it already has), I need to take a breath and remember that I too will feel the eager pull of diving into the debate about gun control and the rights to keep and bear arms. I need to remember that I am tired and frustrated and in pain for these families, and that inclines me to say and do things that I wouldn’t otherwise do. I need to remember that the things that I often think are really good ideas, often… aren’t. And the things I want to say and do under such circumstances may not match the things I’d say and do under more ideal conditions.

I need to hold back and not strike out at others whose politics and cultural habits seem to either feed this scourge of shootings that has become so terribly commonplace, perpetuate it with apathy and denial, or alienate and polarize members of “the other side” so that no constructive debate can actually happen. My feelings on the issue of gun control, medication, mental illness, and personal/public security are many and varied, and I don’t fall easily into any one camp. I can easily burn through the friendships I have with a wide variety of people, over this whole thing… and I can’t afford to just alienate everyone on a passing (and passionate) whim.

So, I need to stop — just stop — and check myself, before I start doing and saying things that I can’t take back.

Ultimately, times like this — as senseless and as horrifying as they are — serve most to remind me just how much suffering there is in the world. Without getting into the reasons “why” or pointing fingers or laying blame — as we all love to do — I need to just remember that this kind of thing happens terribly often, all over the world. And whether the parents are in Newtown, Connecticut or in Kandahar Province or in Marseilles or in Chenpeng or in Baghdad, there are an awful lot of them who are losing their kids and parents and teachers to violence they would do anything to avoid, but cannot.

Times like this, I also need to remember how quickly we all tend to “apportion” our compassion. Closer to home, it’s easier to feel the burn and recognize the true horror. When the kids and teachers look like OUR kids and teachers… when they speak the same language, when they eat the same foods, keep the same schedule, vote for the same politicians, and could easily be related to us, it hits us so much harder when something this awful happens.

When the others are… well, other… it becomes a different story. Especially when the others are on the other side politically or geographically, or we’ve been told there is a Very Good Reason why they are being forced to suffer — sometimes in our names, with our tax dollars buying the ammo. And then there are those who are so remote from us, politically and socially and culturally and racially, who are undergoing such horrifying violence and destruction, it is literally impossible for us to get our heads around it, and the best we can do is try to protect ourselves and our kids and our families from having that happen to them.

And that’s all the suffering that’s on the surface. Deep beneath the careful veneer of everyday functioning, there are countless individuals who struggle daily with pain and anguish they neither understand nor can seem to overcome. There are countless individuals whose pain and suffering is well concealed, which cannot be guessed at by anyone nearby. The concealment can be deliberate — they can’t afford to let anyone know — or by default — either because others cannot fathom what it’s like, or they choose not to see. It could very well be that others choose not to see because their own inner pain is so profound that, to open that up is not an option… they literally feel like that might kill them.

And so they don’t open up to it. They stay closed. They get on with things. And they expect others to do the same.

I wish I could do just that — shut down and suck it up… and get on with it. I wish it were that easy. I wish I could just pretend away the headaches, the memory lapses, the distractability, the inner storms that rage at times, the frustrations, the sleeplessness, the stress, the nagging uncertainty about, well, everything. I wish all those things, compared to what happened yesterday in Connecticut, paled and didn’t matter or affect me. I wish I could dismiss it all, since compared to some, I have it really great.

But it’s not that easy. It’s not that simple. And while focusing on the pain of others does put things in perspective and make me incredibly grateful for what I have, I still have to deal with my own issues as I get on with my day. I’m not feeling well this morning. I haven’t felt well for most of this week. I’m fighting off a cold, with my ears filling up with fluid and my balance going haywire. I’m distracted, too, by all this anguish. Which makes me particularly vulnerable to more injury, if I’m not careful. I have to get back to some semblance of normal after a grueling couple of weeks, which is a prelude to an even more challenging 8 days before I leave for my marathon Christmas/New Years tour through five states and several families.

I just don’t feel right. And a whole lot of other people don’t either. We keep checking the news to understand “why”. We keep checking Facebook to see how others are dealing with this. We loop through question after question after question in our shuddering minds, unable to get our heads around it, haunted by the images of the parents and the kids, unable to keep from imagining what it must be like… even if it does us and them no good to do so. At some point, we just have to stop. Just stop. Take a break. Go back to bed. Or go shop. Run some errands. Just do something — anything — to get our heads off it. And all the while, Why… why…? Along with the constant running commentary in my head that pretends to “know why” as a form of logic-driven self-defense in the face of such loss.

… Why?

This world is hardly a simple, cut-and-dried sort of place, and this holiday season may or may not be even worth celebrating. Suffering is rampant on any given day, and this time of year is no exception. In Connecticut this Christmas, there will be toys that cannot be opened, and there will be pain so great it is unspeakable. There are just no words…

And around the world, this holiday season, there are countless other families who have lost babies… mothers… fathers… loved ones.  To war or fire or famine or flood or drought or disease or any number of other reasons. They are brown or yellow or black or red or white. Some of them are even in our own country, living on the fringes of our Great American Experiment, watching their loved ones and all their own hope fade before their very eyes, as so many look away.

This is what I bring with me this holiday season – not just the urge to “be happy” in the face of it all (although that is certainly part of it), but to see and know and understand the other side of happy — the pain and the suffering that so many, myself included, endure at this time. This is not to say that I am succumbing to the dark pull of the nebula of suffering that lurks at the edges of our personal universes, but to say that I can see and feel clearly how much pain and suffering there really is in the world. There are so many who are so alone, whether or not they are the only one in the room. There are so many who struggle and suffer in silence without recognition or support from others. There are so many who carry immense pain and anguish with them over invisible difficulties that they just can’t shake. And seeing and feeling that seems only right, in this time when there is — at the same time — so much light.

Because there is. On the 21st of December, the Winter Solstice will mark the expansion of daylight in our northern hemisphere. The darkening days (literally) will give way to longer hours of light, and a shorter night. This will not eradicate the night — hardly — only give us more light to see our way, for more hours of each day. And when I think of that, when I think of how the world turns and changes, and how many myriad times we have all been through the darkest of dark times and the brightest of bright times, I know that other side of things — the peace and the joy and the hope. Peace that passeth understanding. Joy unbounded. And hope beyond hope.

This is the ultimate irony of this season — that it is such an extremely hard time for many, and yet it has so much hope and promise in it. That 20 little children and adults who were trying to care for and protect them were gunned down, less than two weeks before Christmas is something that will overshadow this season for many years to come. I can’t imagine that a single Christmas will ever pass again without this being remembered.

And in the midst of this remembering, I have to also keep in mind, how many others are suffering — hidden or forgotten or both… how many others are struggling, for other reasons… how many others have lost hope and have no idea what comes next. The politicking and social debates and cultural clashes are bound to flare up soon, which to me adds an even greater pall over these events, even as I know that some sort of change is necessary. It’s not the debate that gets me — it’s the tone of it, the tenor, the divisiveness and the aggression. From each side towards the other. What I need to keep in mind, as those battles rage, is that the source of the frustration and the aggression and the divisiveness is nothing less than human nature — fueled by passion over Things That Matter.

It’s not the greatest comfort, but it is something.

In the end, though, I can’t afford to be felled by this experience. I was not in Connecticut. I do not know those families or those children. My own involvement is as limited with them, as it is with families in Ramallah who lose their kids, too. The fact that they are from my country doesn’t mean they are any more or less valuable than anyone else. ALL are valuable, and ALL matter, and enough with the apportioning of compassion to decide who matters, and who doesn’t.  The fact of this horrible shock doesn’t make the sufferings of others any less — the homeless vets struggling with PTSD and TBI on the bitterly cold streets of Chicago or Philadelphia… the families in the Detroit area who are being evicted because they cannot pay their rent… the farmer in South Dakota who lost his barn to fire… the housewife in Boise whose doctor can’t explain that nagging pain in her abdomen… the injured, the broken, the burned, the terminally ill… whether ambulatory or bedridden… whether about to be discharged to go home and recover, or to be moved to hospice to pass on during the Christmas season…. whether cut down in the flower of life, or struggling with lingering dementia in their final days/weeks/months/years/who-can-tell-how-long? For all the light that comes in, this is NOT an easy time for many.

And so it becomes all the more important to find light… to find something else to dwell on… not to banish the pain, but to find the strength to face it. We must find sources of strength and light, so that we can keep ourselves going in this seemingly impossible stretch of “holiday cheer”. We cannot run our best on fumes, and we cannot keep our strength up by dwelling only on darkness. We must seek more, we must find better. For the sake of facing What Is… no matter what.

Ultimately, it really is our choice, what we choose to do with these situations. We can allow ourselves to be pulled down into nothingness and give up hope entirely. Or we can see with different eyes and choose something different for ourselves. We can starve ourselves in grief… or stuff ourselves with sweets in denial… or we can eat sensibly and exercise and get on with doing what needs to be done. What others do… we have no control. What comes of our actions and reactions… that we do have some say in. And what we choose matters a great deal. To everyone around us.

But I have gone on too long… looking for meaning in all of this. Hoping for hope. Digging for clues. The earth cries out with the loss of each child, the ground soaked with young blood the world over. How we choose to approach it, how we decide to use that knowledge… it is up to you. So choose wisely.

And let there be Life, as well.

Ha! Twice vindicated!

How you like me now?

I’m sitting in a Starbucks in a strip mall in exurban America, listening to their musical mix of ballads by French singers. I think they’re French, anyway. Maybe Brazilian or something else. Hard to say, but they’re all sounding melancholy and deep. I’ve got a big-ass cup of green tea on the table in front of me, and I’m positioned with a good view of the entrance of a massive liquor store that’s got a regular flow of folks going in and out.

It’s Friday night, and I am so relieved.

First, because I’m not going to be laid off (yet). I’ve been informed that I’ve got a job for the forseeable future.

Second, because I wasn’t completely nuts and paranoid, thinking I was going to be laid off. ‘Cause I came this close.

Here’s how things shook out this past week: Monday and Tuesday were pretty intense, because I had reckoned that I was going to get laid off that week. People were acting weird towards me at work, nobody was emailing me, and the absence of my team was particularly noticeable. Some organizational announcements were made with some allusions to new roles and new divisions and what-not. But other than that, nothing definitive was communicated to me about my situation.

Wednesday, I actually talked to the uber-boss on the phone while they were offsite meeting with HQ. They were not having a very productive time of things at HQ, but they did tell me that my job was safe — and I’m actually being considered for a more prominent role involving more leadership in the group. Where exactly that is going to be situated in the company, I’m not sure (nobody is, just yet), but the bottom line was, the folks at HQ have a lot of respect for me and they want to use my experience more than it’s being used now.

So, that was good news. Nothing definite, but a heck of a lot more promising than the vibe I was getting before my team all left on Friday.

Thursday, we had a visit from executive leadership, and they gave us a rousing pep talk and big-picture spiel that was actually pretty inspiring. It was a whole lot better than the half-assed prognostications that everybody’s been involved in. I got a very clear sense that there is a definite vision in place for the future, and executive leadership is really behind it — innovation, change, and all that. Sure, it was a lot of conceptual stuff, and who knows how much of what they’re planning will actually happen, but it’s a mission. It’s a vision. It’s a goal. And that’s more than I had on Monday or Tuesday or Wednesday.

Thursday afternoon, after the big C-level whoop-de-do, the uber-uber-boss called a meeting and informed everybody of what’s going in the division. Basically, we all get to keep our jobs — or rather, we get to stay employed. Our jobs will surely be changing, and nothing will be certain for a number of weeks, yet, but the bottom line is, we don’t have to all brush up on our resumes and go looking, for the foreseeable future.

It wasn’t always that way, though. Apparently, over the past months, there’s been a lot of back-and-forth going on between HQ and the division about who’s needed, what jobs need to be done, etc. etc. And apparently, only a few months ago, people at HQ were assuming that my division would be drastically cut, because there are so many of us. But then something changed and the cuts got scaled back. Only a few folks would be going away. But my team’s uber-boss was going to have to cut one person. They were told they couldn’t keep everyone – one person would need to go. And I’m guessing (I’d bet good money on it, too) that I was their prime candidate. I know I’ve really worked upper management’s last nerve a bunch of times, and I don’t genuflect the way everyone else does, so I’d make a really great candidate to get cut.

I believe that’s what was going on last week — when things were weird, I’m sure that my head was on the chopping block. But then… the uber-boss went to HQ, and apparently people there were talking really highly of me. I should hope so — it’s not that I’m all conceited and what-not. It’s just that I’ve gone out of my way to be courteous and friendly and collegial with folks there, and I’ve not made a secret of my in-depth experience and my strong opinions that are based on that experience. I’ve been straightforward and up-front with everyone at the top, admitting my flaws and shortcomings, while making sure they know about my strengths and experiences and my eagerness to make right the things that get screwed up. So they have no reason at all to think poorly of me. I’ve been nothing but professional towards them, and I know they appreciate it. They’re actually happy to see me, when we run into each other, every now and then — it’s not that fake posing that I detest, either. It’s genuine friendliness. On both our sides.

This is in sharp contrast to the behavior of the rest of my team who have followed the uber-boss’es lead. They tend to be defensive and closed and stand-off-ish, and posturing like they’re so much better than the wonks in HQ. What’s the point in that? It’s time to build bridges, folks — the people in charge are still people, and they look to us for help and support, so why not give it to them — and then some?

Interestingly (and not unpredictably) the uber-boss got totally brushed off when they went to HQ. Out of three long days, they only got to spend a few hours with the folks in charge, which was about as much of a brush-off as you can give someone, imho. And the time when they did meet, they talked about me in positive ways. Can you tell I’m pleased?

So, just acting like a decent human being has paid off 100%. And acting like a jerk is not getting people anywhere. Karma’s fun, when it works out. But of course, I’ve earned it.

I’m quite happy tonight. Relieved. And not just because I’m in a really good position with the folks in HQ, but because I was NOT being brain-injured, delusional and paranoid in think that something was wrong with my immediate team. Because I was in danger of being laid off. Very much so. I’d bet money that the uber-boss was going over with the intention of nominating me for the axe. But it didn’t turn out that way at all.

So there.

I’m still here. I’m still standing. I’m not crazy for suspecting things were stacking up against me. But rather than having to go down in flames, it could be that I’m actually going to make out better in the organization than I’d expected, which pleases me more than words can say. Truly.

Of course, we live in an interesting world, so all of this could change next week. But right now, it’s Friday night, I’ve got a cozy chair in a corner of a little Starbucks with my big cup of tea, and I’m feeling quite fine.

I’ve been vindicated. I’ve been spared. And it might turn out that this re-org works 100% in my favor in ways I never dreamed possible.

For tonight, life is really good, so I’m going to bask in the glow while I can.

Ahhhhhhh….

This is not how I want to think, but I’m going to say it anyway

I have been feeling very down, these past few days. I know that I am over-tired, and that has a lot to do with it. But still… I feel down, and I don’t like it.

On the one hand, I know I am making really good progress with my job and my skills. I feel very positive and hopeful about my future.

But on the other hand, I am sad about how things have turned out with my present situation, and I am kind of mourning the passing of all the high hopes I had for the job I am trying to leave.

It’s really got very little to do with me, the way the job has changed. And the things I’ve been asked to do have been so overwhelmingly complex — for anyone — that anyone would have struggled the way I have been struggling. I know that now, although for some time I thought it was really me that had the problem. The problem is not with me. It is with the job.

And yet there’s a part of me that won’t let go of the idea that I should have been able to make it work. Somehow. If I wanted it badly enough, I would have managed. If I’d been willing to work a little harder… if I’d been smarter… if I’d reached out and asked for help more often…

Blah-blah-blah. The committee in my head is not doing me any favors. The fact of the matter is, it is NOT me – it is the job. And the more I think about it, the more I realize that my boss’es boss has probably wanted me gone for about a year, now, since they started changing the focus of the team I’m on. I really don’t fit into their version of how people should work, or what makes us productive team members. They are very much into competition, blaming, making fun of people behind their backs, finding fault, being aggressive towards others, and schmoozing up to the people in charge.

Which is the exact opposite of how I am. And that’s precisely why I’ve been so successful in my work — because I am into collaboration and cooperation, including people from different teams, being respectful of others and treating them like professional colleagues (which they are), and telling the truth instead of slanted version which will make me (or my boss) look good.

The fact of the matter is, they cannot dare not include me in meetings, because I’m not willing to cover them and their lies, and if things are messed up and need to be fixed, I say it — and get down to fixing them.

So, it’s really small wonder that I’m not being made to feel welcome, that the rest of the group is “circling the wagons” and keeping me at arms’ length, and that I am never included in important discussions until after the decisions have been made. It’s just not a good fit – but that’s probably a testament to my effectiveness and the quality of my work, rather than a dark mark against me.

Even so, I’m bummed that this isn’t working out… that I need to find another job… that I have to deal with recruiters and hiring managers again… I’m also a little paranoid that the hiring managers and recruiters I talked to about a month ago have not gotten back to me, even though they said they would call me. I don’t like feeling like this — paranoid and self-doubting.

What I really want is to just do my own thing. Just cut loose from this crazy day-job business and find a way to work by myself, for myself. It may be me just wanting to isolate and avoid others because of all the wrong reasons, but I that’s how I feel. Or maybe I just need to be in an uber-geeky environment, as I once was, and that will help. I got a couple of lottery tickets last night – just in case. I should check them….

Okay, what would make me feel better? Being free of the foolishness, that’s what. I just feel like people can be so cruel and dense — like all the stupid comments and jokes people are making about Hurricane Sandy, when there are real lives at stake. And I am so tired of being surrounded by people who care more about what others think of them, than what the right thing to do is.

God, just let me crawl into my little hole and let the world pass me by…

On the other hand (and here’s the weird/manic part about it), I am feeling incredibly calm and sure and certain and hopeful, and I am so excited about the next phase of my life. I have a much clearer view of where I’m going and what I want to be doing with myself, and I am taking steps to follow that. I know that this present situation – uncomfortable and sad as it is – is a temporary one. And I know that things always change. Always. So, I can’t get too bummed out.

All the same, I am feeling bummed out, some of the time. I’m tired. I know that.  It’s normal for times of change. I know that too. And the holidays are coming, with my crazy family waiting for me. That isn’t helping.

Oh, well. I’ve got to get back to my studying, so I can get my mind off this. It’s just change, and change is hard for me — extremely hard. I wish it weren’t, but it’s always been. Even when it’s good change.

So, I guess I’ll stop whining now and get on with it. Do something constructive to get my head off things, and just “channel” some of this energy, as they say.

Onward.

We all have our days…

And today turned out to be an okay one. I got a lot done. I didn’t have much to do with the people I work with – partly nursing hurt feelings, partly not wanting to be around them and show that being excluded got to me, partly just wanting to get on with my day and not get into a lot of emotional stuff.

I’ve been really emotional lately, which is very uncomfortable for me. I’ve found myself fighting back tears over little things that normally don’t get to me. Must be, I’m tired. And a bit stressed… no, more than a bit. Part of me feels like I’m doing it to myself, by letting my imagination run wild, and part of me feels like it’s just what happens when you change jobs. It’s so strange – I used to just move between jobs without a second thought. I just didn’t care – I went wherever I pleased.

But now it feels like there’s a lot more on the line. The economy doesn’t help, certainly. And I think that now more than ever, I’m aware of what the stakes really are. Before, I just didn’t really think about it – just kept going, rolling stone and all that. Not anymore, though. Not anymore.

Well, it’s a quiet evening. I watched “Pow Wow Highway” again – I have it on VHS, and I’ve been thinking about the movie a lot, lately. The poverty, the hardship, the journey everyone goes on… I think about that movie a lot. It makes me want to walk into the woods and stay there for days. Or just live my life being a lot more mindful and appreciative of all the good that I have, and all that’s been presented to me. We’re all given lessons and opportunities, I believe, and we can do with them what we choose.

We all have our days. Some of us make more of them than others, but it’s not for me to judge – just stay steady and not let my boat get rocked too much by passing waves.

I have places to go. And my life is bigger than the little irritations and frustrations of the moment. The world is bigger than any imagination, and if anything, I want my imagination and my life to have the vastness and the space of the whole world. Any passing discomfort I have — as some traditions say — offers a chance for me to remember how many others are in so much more and so much longer lasting discomfort than I can ever imagine possible. It happens to all of us. We all have our days.

The important thing is to remember… this is a day. This is a moment. It is not eternity. It is not even half that much. It is a passing occasion of unhappiness and stress which can lift with less than a moment’s notice, should I receive some happy news or a turn of good fortune. It can also plunge into the dark abyss, if things don’t go the way I want them to. This is a moment. This is a day. This is passing. Why suffer?

Why indeed? I’m off to bed to rest and read and sleep.

And so it goes.

Pick your own experience

Which side will you look on?

Something pretty important has become increasingly apparent to me, in the past week or so – namely, that I can choose my own experience in life. No matter what is happening, I can choose to think and feel any way that I want to think and feel about just about anything.

I don’t have to fixate on one side of things, and I don’t need to get stuck in only one outlook.

Everything has more than one side to it. Everything. From the most terrible events to the most fortunate experiences, if you look hard enough, you can find whatever you need there, to feel however you want about it.

Life is literally like a cut stone – it has many different facets that catch the light in different ways, and depending on which side you look at, it can be awful or it can be wonderful… or any combination in between. Usually it’s that.

The challenge is to not get caught up in what’s obvious on the surface — that something is GOOD or BAD, but just that something… IS. The other challenge is to not completely disregard the different qualities of a certain experience, because you’re invested in feeling a certain way about them.

Things like injury and hurt and harm aren’t the kinds of things you’d want to feel great about. That’s kind of like encouraging them and making them okay, which they’re not.

On the other hand, there can be good that comes out of those things, and if we overlook the learning that comes from them and dismiss the good things that came in their aftermath, then we lose out on half our lives — if not more.

That’s the stuff I’ve been wrangling with, this week. Coming back from my vacation and going back into the fray has been extremely difficult, and I’ve had some meltdowns along the way. It hasn’t been pretty, and I’ve been working my ass off, trying to catch up. I’ve been pretty down on myself, realizing that I still have a ways to go, before I can say for certain what I want to do for my next job, but I just have to keep moving, keep going, keep proceeding. And I can’t just run away from what’s in front of me, because it’s valuable experience that can help me. I still want to leave my employer — but the work I do? Maybe I don’t need to ditch that, as well.

When it all boils down, basically I’m realizing that whatever situation comes up in my life is an opportunity for me to learn and grow and get my act together. And that’s the truth. I’ve been having some tough times at home, behaviorally speaking. And at work I’ve been really on the hot seat. But these are chances for me to (re)learn how to handle myself under intense pressure, because this is certainly not the last time I’m ever going to be under this kind of pressure. Compare to what’s to come, it’s probably child’s play.

I believe it’s the Navy SEALs who say, “The only easy day is yesterday.” Googling it, I see that a lot of people say it, but it’s the unofficial motto of the SEALs. Hm. Those folks again… Is there a theme here?

It’s possible. Looking around at my world, I seem to be surrounded by folks who don’t have principles, who don’t live by any kind of a code, who are just drifting and following whatever moves them. They don’t seem to have any higher purpose than to follow what comes to mind. And suggesting that they find a higher purpose is usually met with resistance – some of it violent.

Don’t get me wrong – my relationship with the Almighty and the morals and ethics of my youth has really been tested over the years. And I can’t say I’m a perfect adherent to what I should or should not do in the eyes of others. But at some point, I have to choose where I’m going and understand why I’m going in that direction. And that often means putting aside my own selfish wishes and just getting on with what needs to be done — AND not paying any attention to others when they aren’t on the same wavelength as I.

How they choose to live their lives is their own business. It’s no concern of mine.

And that being said, as I’m taking responsibility for my actions, I also need to take responsibility for my experience. I am the only person who can hold me down and make me feel badly. Nobody else can do that to me, unless I don’t take responsibility for my own emotions and thoughts. These aren’t just things that show up out of the blue. These are things I can direct and choose to disregard or pay attention to.

And the kinds of thoughts and emotions I choose to pay attention to are going to shape my experience. So in making conscious choices, I create my own experience. I create the world I live in.

Two people can be living under identical conditions — one is in heaven, the other is in hell.

Where do I want to live right here, right now?

Finding a good place

May you find your own good place

I’m sitting outside this morning, writing in the quiet of the day, before the lawnmowers start and the leaf blowers and the construction projects my neighbors are doing over the long weekend.The sun is hot, where there is no shade, but the air is cool where there is no sun, and I have been moving my chair around to find the best place to sit where I am not too hot, but not too cool, and I can enjoy the morning.

Some robin has found some good bugs/worms in my back yard, and it’s making repeated caterpillar-fetching trips to the high grass (I’m letting it grow, so the roots get well established before I start mowing for the summer (and yes, I am aware that summer is practically here). Other robins have also discovered this, and they have been fighting over that little space in the back yard for a little while, now. They are very aggressive with each other, and they have been flying and fighting over this territory with loud, angry cries and swooping attacks. The other birds that happen to be nearby — the blue jay, the downy woodpecker — have been also getting the brunt of their aggressive anger.

But something very educational just happened, while they were fighting with each other. They were all embroiled in a flying group brawl, when I saw a big crow fly into a nearby tree. He sat there a few minutes, seeming to hide behind the trunk of the tree, seeming to look over at the robins. Then, when all the robins were flying around attacking each other, the crow flew over to where they were… and a minute later, it flew away — with a baby robin in its beak. I could see its legs hanging down, and the crow’s flight was a little more lumbering than it had been, coming in.

All the robins flipped out and realized what was happening, and they turned from their attacks to chase the crow, which was already on the wing, headed off to some place where it could eat its little victim.

Over at the nest, a lone robin calls plaintively, chirping with distress over and over again.

Nature can be cruel. And it can be beautiful. Just now, a yellow swallowtail butterfly flew over to me and fluttered around my head for a while. A study in contrasts — in the space of a few moments, terrible “cruelty” and wonderful beauty. Coarse necessity and fragile bliss.

That crow has to eat. The butterfly has to fly. Sooner or later, each of them will in turn become food for something else. That’s just nature’s way — as surely as it’s also nature’s way for yellowjackets and mosquitoes to be visiting me, as well.

This was a good lesson this morning — watching the robins fight, and seeing how their distraction cost them one of their little ones. I doubt that if they had all been minding their nest, the crow would have come in and picked off one of their babies. It is a natural thing, but it could have turned out different, if those birds hadn’t been so fixated on fighting amongst each other.

The other thing I noticed was how quickly these aggressive enemies became allies, when they had a common foe. When they had the same threat to combat, they quickly left their differences behind and joined forces. That is also nature’s way.

Seeing this happen, I can’t help but think about all the ways that we people also fight amongst ourselves, and in the process lose things that are very important to us. We can be so intent on proving we are right, or filling some need that we are convinced we need to fill, that we trash our relationships and alienate/punish those closest to us. We can get so caught up in “taking care of ourselves” — or just looking out for NUMBER ONE — that we lose the connections that bring us life and happiness and fulfillment. We can get so caught up in chasing after the things we think will bring us happiness, that we never get there. And the more we chase, the harder we try, the farther we are from our goal of ultimate happiness.

Ironic, no?

But it seems to me that that’s how we are built. All the chasing, all the fight-flight we are caught up in… that’s the very thing that keeps us from being truly happy. When that is all we do, day after day, week after week, year after year, our ability to just let in the happiness and joy tends to shrivel and shrink. It’s like a muscle, this ability to enjoy ourselves — if we don’t use it, it atrophies, shrivels, shrinks, and becomes so weak that it actually hurts to try to use it.

But like our muscles, our ability to enjoy life can be restored. It doesn’t have to go away for good, and although at times it may feel like we will never ever get back to a place of peace (like I felt this morning at 1 a.m.), the fact of the matter is that with practice and time and patience, we can get back that sense of pleasure, that sense of enjoyment, that resting, digesting part of our lives that is as real and as vital to our survival and ability to thrive, as our beloved fight-flight reflex.

We can get back to that good place again. Because it’s always there. We just need to find it again.

We can, you know. We all come into this world with an autonomic nervous system that gives us as much access to enjoyment and relaxation, as it does to drama and stress. Over time, we may get trained to focus more on the fight-flight, and we may actually feel more alive when we are in fight-flight. But the fact that we digest our food and breathe and even have a regular heartbeat is testament to the fact that we always have a side of us that can — and does — love to just chill. Getting back to that place takes practice. God knows, I can testify to that. For some of us, it comes easy. For others (like me) it takes A LOT of practice. But it gives you something to work towards — and the rewards are pretty awesome.

So, on this beautiful day, I wish you rest and relaxation — remember those who have given their all so that we can enjoy our freedom and our opportunities. Remember those who have also returned, still bearing the burdens of their missions and their service. I like to also remember all those who have served in another capacity, tho’ they weren’t in the military — all the individuals who have given their all to make this country, and this world, a better place for those to come in the future.

May you find peace, may you find rest, and may you find your own good place.