Category Archives: Better Mindfulness

Better 2014

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It is the beginning of the new year and is seems a time for New Years Resolutions to be made.  I decided that the most important thing is that I live my mantras as on the Home Page of my blog:

  • BE PEACEFUL
  • BE MINDFUL
  • POSITIVE IMPRESSIONS
  • PEACEFUL
  • NOT TO COMPLICATED
  • MOMENTS OF JOY

and I think I have to reinforce to myself that I think the most important and the one that covers everything is:

I WILL BE A BETTER MAN

The better man thing is taking a whole lot longer and more effort than I had planned.  There has unfortunately been no flash of enlightenment and the better man imerging from the transforming cocoon (preferably overnight) has not happened.

It has more been like a trudge through ankle to knee deep shit, with the occasional dry spot where you get to rinse out your socks and wash down your boots before you continue the slog.  Not how I had planned it, but probably what I had expected.

A lot of the time I have been on AUTOPILOT and the BLACK DOG has come to visit more times than I would have liked.

But this is a NEW YEAR.

I know New Years resolutions are mostly destined to fail (from my extensive Google research only 46% last longer that 6 months!).  So is it really worth making them?  Well I am choosing to look at it this way – ALMOST HALF SUCCEED!

I think I am writing more than necessary at the moment because that way I can continue to avoid actually writing down my resolutions (which unfortunately I have written down before and have ended up in the 54% who don’t make it!), so here they are:

  • I WILL STOP SMOKING
  • I WILL GET TO 78 kgs 
  • I WILL MEDITATE DAILY

So there they are.  New Years are not always new beginnings, but why not draw a line somewhere that is easy to remember where the line is and have a go.  I am hoping to be in the minority this year and succeed!

Better at Lonely

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Have you ever just got to the point when lonely was okay…..

Sometimes it is just okay to be by yourself; is this lonely or just being alone; is it okay for just a while or is there a danger of it becoming a habit.

I suppose it comes down to that old saying that you come into this world alone and that is how you go out (I think the actual saying is about coming and going in and out of the world naked… But, that strikes me as a bit of a perverted picture of not only sitting around alone, but also naked!).  If you can’t bear to be with yourself, who else can you bear to be with, and who else can bear to be with you?

There is nothing, quite as lonely as being in a room full of people and being alone.

I remember a long time ago when I was just a young bloke and I split up with my girlfriend.  I noticed that not only didn’t I have sex anymore (except of course when I was alone and naked!) but that I didn’t have a whole lot of places to go, or a whole lot of people to go with. I was in that really strange age group, or rather life stage, that falls differently for all of us. Everyone else was married, or was about to get married, or had partners (we used to call them boyfriends and girlfriends!) or just weren’t available when I was. I didn’t include the group of people that always seem to be surrounded by people;  I dont know about them because I have never been one of them.  (I just thought that perhaps the people surrounded by people all the time might be the loneliest of us all…. I dont know?)

So, am I now a better man at being alone, or am I over being lonely, or do I just accept lonely.

Yes, no.

(Incidentally the ‘yes, no’ beginning to sentences which appears to have become part of our everyday vocabulary is really beginning to shit me beyond believe.   Is it yes or no.  Why would you start a sentence by saying something positive and then negative, in agreeance and then in no-agreeance.  It is just weird, lazy, unthoughtful, non-speak.  It reminds me about the phrase that was going around a few years ago when you would ask someone a question and they would answer ‘pretty much’.  What the fuck does pretty much mean anyway… I suppose it means yes, no.)

Notwithstanding (which is a word that I love), things change over the years and ‘pretty much’ is replaced by ‘here’s the thing’ (which I might claim originality for as it was about 6 years ago that my lovely wife told me that after a few too many wines I would preempt most sentences with ‘here’s the thing’.  I think it has a bit to do with the wine but also a bit to do with the fact that I thought I knew everything and everyone should listen to me!   I also think it was a time before this blog and before my Being a Better Man project when I spent a lot of time talking without thinking and a lot of time thinking without thinking.  My ‘heads up display’ (see My Religion) in those days was more like heads up my own arse – and while I’m looking at me you look at me!)

So, where was I, lonely.

2009-06-09 Me Jo Short Hol 077I have experienced periods of being alone when that is not only what I wanted, but what I needed.  I have experienced periods of lonely that weren’t really ‘sad’ lonely, but just that I wished I had someone to share that moment with.  Upon reflection, I suppose I wasn’t really lonely in those moments I was just disappointed that there wasn’t someone else there to have that shared experience.  I have experience moments of lonely which have nothing to do with being sad, but being in a different time in my life when I wished I was in another (perhaps that is melancholy and not lonely?)

But, the lonely that trumps them all is the lonely I have felt when I haven’t felt like I was one of you, when I was really lost and didn’t know why I was even here?

This is the Black Dog Lonely (see Better with the Black Dog).

I sort of like the sound of Black Dog Lonely (“BDL”) because it really is in a category of its own. Having the BDL explanation, description and now acronym, also makes it a bit easiery to perhaps ask a mate, or tell a friend  – I am feeling a bit BDL today mate?  Oh, shit mate, that sucks, I’ll pop over for a beer.

I have also experienced lonely when I was not alone.

I have experienced lonely when I was siting on the lounge with the girl I loved. Maybe I didn’t love her that way any more and the being lonely was the knock on the theoretical door in my head telling me it is time to let go, or maybe just time to go.

and

I have experienced lonely when I was realy alone, really really alone. In a time before BDL was invented (which factually is any time before today really), but BDL was still just as real.  It was only about me, only me, with me, lonely… and it didn’t pass…. and the Black Dog was not just stalking me but was a part of me.  This is the BDL were you feel like an alien in your own world, in your own house, in your own life, in your own skin.

But,

I have another mantra about that, which is not only a mantra for me, but is a mantra I share.  I share it with you wether you want me to or not.

It is also a mantra that on a couple of occasions I have said our loud to myself or when I have rung a mate who was in the grips of BDL.  This is a time in life when you have gone down the lonely lane, to lonely place, to sit at lonely cafe, to wait for the Black Dog to arrive.

I have spoken to that mate, who is sometimes me, or sometimes another bloke who no one else has rung because they don’t know what to say, and, I tell them the truth.  That is, that doesn’t matter what is good in your life, it is not.  It doesn’t matter how much you look around you and realise how lucky you are, because you are not.  It doesn’t matter how many of your friends and family love and care about you, because you can’t feel it.  It doesn’t matter how much of a great and bright future you have, because you cant see it.  You can’t feel any of it.  It is all tainted, and sad, and lonely and black.  You know this is not true, but, now, it is.

I have spoken to them (and I have spoken to me.)

They were hard phone calls to make (but, I will make them again), hard coffee meetings have, or even arrange.  They are times when you know you are going to talk about things that you don’t talk about.

I ring up, they are surprised I have called, often I don’t know them very well and I tell them a story and it starts with, “I heard you were a bit crook”.  This is not a real ‘question’ about how someone in Australia is going.  We can be anywhere between being on our death beds, having a squirting arterial bleed, or just a bit of a cold; all which falls into the category of feeling a bit crook.  The funny part is that we often greet each other with “how are you going” and reply “Good, thanks” and that is the passing of our connection.  I must admit it is sometimes a relief in comparison to asking “how are you going” and they actually tell you!   When I make the call, or greet them for the coffee, I don’t ask then how they are going because I know, and I know, they can’t explain it.  So I explain it for them and I tell them a story.

I tell them about BDL.  I tell them about all that is good in their life, that feels bad.  I tell them I understand the woman (man) you love, the one you you love with all your heart, doesn’t matter.  I tell them I know they love their kids, but that doesn’t matter.  I tell them I know the hurt, regret, hate, love, questions, confusion, blackness they are feeling and don’t understand.  I talk to them about the feelings that if you have never had those feelings, you can’t explain.

I talk to them and I tell them the story:
about the tough guy crying.
about the fearless being afraid, for no reason, about nothing, about everything.
about letting everyone down, when you’re not.
about, lonely, lonely, lonely.
about never seeing how you will ever be better.

But is is not about that, it is about another thing…

I ring them up and I speak to them about all those things,
There is venom in my voice, because those things are here now and the hurt and they are to be despised.  If they are not here now then they are waiting around the corner to ambush you.  I speak to them, I throw it at them, that this is shit, their life is shit, it feels too bad, it feels to black, it feels too lonely.  I do this because they don’t think anyone else knows and if they do they definitely don’t speak about it

And I say to them. I cant make it better.
And I say to them. I know you. I have been you.
And I say to them, I only ask only one thing of you.
And you have to promise, before I ask you.
And they always say yes, because they don’t have anything else.

I tell them, you only have to do one thing.  You have to promise..

Survive.

If you survive the next minute, survive the next 2 minutes, survive the next 5 minutes, survive the next 15 minutes.

Survive an hour, a day, a week, a month, a year.

If you survive, you may not feel better, but you will feel,
If you survive, you may not get it all back, but you will not lose it all,
If you survive, you may not find the love, but you wont lose any that’s left,
If you survive, you may not find the answers, but you still get to ask,
If you survive, you get to survive,

and

That, can just maybe, be okay in its self, for now.

and

I think, when they realise that it is not about everything, and in fact may all be about nothing.  Then, they may not be so lonely.

Sometimes, you can’t be a better man, you just have to survive.

 

Better with the Black Dog

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I wrote a post not too long ago about being naked – naked to the world by writing this blog, that is.

Well today I thought it was about time to get naked, climb on a pedestal and slam cymbals together over my head.

Let me tell you about the Black Dog.  First of all I got the phrase from a friend of mine who went on the Black Dog Ride (click here to go to their web site).  The Back Dog is depression.

I feel like I am really standing on the pedestal now….

Some time ago I wrote a letter to my family (although it was only for my wife as the kids already know I am not all there – all our kids think that about us! …. my kids know that Dad sometimes goes to a place that it is not a good idea to follow him too) trying to tell them what it was like.  Here it is again.  Let me tell you writing this feels a bit like tearng off a band-aid…. really slowly, plus it’s a bit scary:

“I am writing this because I am just feeling so bad, no worse than I have for the last 5 days, just more of the same worse.  Imagine you fill a glass with black water and then you keep pouring more, blacker water into the glass; but it never overflows; it just gets fuller, denser, deeper, heavier; more black than black.  This is what it feels like when the Black Dog arrives.  There is no joy in anything.  Even as I sit here and think about all the things that are good in my life (I can intellectualise it every time), and there are many.  There is no joy in it, there is nothing in it.  When the Black Dog comes he takes over your life, it’s dark, it’s black, it’s heavy and it’s overwhelming.  Although it always seems the worst when it is happening, it is always the worse at that time, and only that time, at the time that matters.  I can’t explain how it feels to feel so rotten.  I withdraw from you guys because I don’t want to hurt you, I don’t want to say the things I have said before, but I have to live with you all, and you have to survive me. I have been horrible to myself and to all those around me in the past when I have gotten in this hole.  I try to stay away, physically and emotionally because I know I will hurt you.  Hurting you makes me feel worse and I get further and go longer into the hole.  I know it is horrible and perhaps even scary and inflicts long lasting pain to everyone when I am like this.  But, when I am like this, I don’t care…. and you all rightfully stay away from me to protect yourselves, and I feel so lonely, and alone; me and the Black Dog.  I fail at all the mindfulness that has been guiding me, and get more into the hole.  My brain doesn’t work properly.  I spend most of the day in confused thinking, walking through noise and things I can’t quite grasp.  I shake without shaking, I can feel it but not see it.  I ruminate about every bad thing I have done from yesterday to 40 years ago.  Waves of regret, after regret, after regret, smashes into my mind and stabs my heart (sometimes it is so bad it actually feels like it is a real physical hurt).  The Woulda, Shoulda, Coulda witches haunt my every waking moment, and often the not waking moments.  I get to relive every bad moment in my life over and over again with increasing pain, regret, sadness and shame.  When the Black Dog arrives, I can feel him in the pit of my stomach, he doesn’t just ride on my back, he becomes an actual part of me, on a cellular level, he taints all the things that should be good, he makes everything so…. not good.”

So there is the Black Dog for me… and a lot of the above is probably on a good day.

Somedays I see the Black Dog hanging around in the back paddock and can scare him off.  Other days he attacks unexpectedly from my blind side with such ferocity and viciousness that there is not escape.  Some days getting out of bed in not an option.

I’ve slammed the cymbals together now and everyone is looking.  I don’t know if the noise of those cymbals scares off the Black Dog, but I know sometimes, banging a couple of things together just makes you feel better for not reason.

Maybe, being a better man, is sometimes, just about being able to tolerate yourself, so that later, you get to like yourself, then learn to love yourself..  and, that’s probably okay.

Better on the Riverbank

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I am really good at revenge. I suppose what I am saying is that revenge is really good at wrecking my life!!! I can consume myself in the company of the three Evil Witches – ‘Woulda’, ‘Shoulda’ and ‘Coulda’. But, they are just the ruminations of the past; the future is where real feelings of revenge can be placed with the Evil Warlock “Gunna’. My greatest gunna, is revenge.

But, I noticed a while back (before I became the all knowing mindful sea of tranquility I am today….?) that pursuing the future with Warlock Gunna was perhaps making me a little bitter. It is when I changed my mantra to:

“If you sit on the riverbank long enough, eventually the bodies of your enemies will come floating by” (Sorry, the closest citation I can get for this is an ‘ancient Japanese proverb’)

I decided that this was a good course of action and it actually involved doing nothing with a potentially vicious outcome. Historically the doing nothing part of revenge had not been my strong point and I had destroyed work environments, relationships and even a family (my own) in the activity of revenge and vengeance (well I thought at the time there was a degree of vengeance but most times it was revenge and it involved all consuming anger – and fuck the consequences… sad thinking about it now?).

So, I began to sit on the riverbank and wait. I was vigilant. What if someone missed something – it wasn’t going to be me. I was also pretty obsessed and imaginative about how my enemies would eventually end up in the river. Imagining the demise of my enemies was a good way to fill a few minutes of my day, or hours, or the entire day, or a week, month, year, or come to think of it, a life…….

Then something happened during my all consuming ruminating (which of course was better than the actual pursuit of my revenge because not doing anything and just waiting of course, was making me such a better man – outwardly anyway.)

… a friend came by and gave me a fishing rod.

I thought this was a good idea as I could use it to pull the bodies of my enemies over to the side of the riverbank so that I could see what their final agony was – which I hoped was prolonged and painful.

I didn’t do anything with the fishing rod at first, it just lay next to me all day. I couldn’t fish at that time, I was too busy; I had to be vigilant and watch for those bodies. Be under no misapprehension I was dedicated to this. I knew happiness would come from their pain (this never really quite sat right with me, but I had to put any thoughts of leniency out of my head, no weakness here! They had to pay, I had been wronged by them, I can’t remember all the specifics, but, that didn’t matter, whatever happened to them they deserved and I was going to be there to watch!)

Sometimes you do something for no reason, sometimes it is because you have to, sometimes it is because you need to, and sometimes it is just because now, in this place, at this time, it is the right time to do it. One day, I thought, for no reason, i would give the fishing rod a go. I picked that fishing rod up… and used it to just fish.

I did this a couple of times. Then I did it a lot. Then I found myself at the riverbank with the primary aim of fishing. I don’t think I actually caught very much, I don’t think that in the end I was even baiting the hooks; I just liked sitting on the riverbank. There was no purpose to it. I would sometimes think of my enemies, but they weren’t there, then, and I was fishing. I wasn’t even really waiting for my enemies anymore, as a matter of fact I started to notice that my friends used the river quite a bit and when they went past I would often wave to them; I also noticed all the other things around me on the riverbank, the birds, the small lizards, which would pop out, spy me and run away again. I noticed the movement of the sun during the day and how the wonderful river gum I sat under, cast a majestic shadow throughout the day that up until now, I had not notice, canopied the place I had been sitting for so long.

The other day, I went down to the riverbank. I didn’t go for any reason, I just went. And I sat there for a while. I didn’t think about too much. I didn’t think about my enemies, they weren’t there, and may possibly never be there. I did notice, that I was at the riverbank. I did notice what it really felt like to be at the riverbank.

And then I went home, I think, a better man.

I suppose the above should have been the end of this post.  But, I just have one more moment to write about.  It is the moment in the picture above.  It is actually the moment, my wife took me to the riverbank (both figuratively and literally), it was the moment in my real life that I picked up the fishing rod, and, can I say, it helps if you have a glass of wine in your hand, you’re with the one you love and one of the most beautiful sunsets you have ever seen is in the background.

Every time I think about that moment, I get that, NOW, all over again.  I made a new memory and feelings for my home (see Better Homes).

I think, sitting on the riverbank, can just be about, sitting on the riverbank.

Better Simple

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Yesterday I was commenting to a mate that sometimes it is all too hard and too complicated to bother doing half the stuff we have to do just to survive in modern society.

In my last job the boss said one of his things was, ‘don’t make it too complicated – keep in simple’.  Funnily enough in that job we did that and got the job done.  The down side was that because we didn’t create any fuss, demand additional money, people, resources, complain at every meeting and constantly bitch about how hard we were working…. no one noticed. In that job, what was a great strategy, faded into non-existence because it had actually got the job done, without fuss (oh the irony!)

I started to think about the complexity of things.

I know there are a lot of complex things in the world, and lots of complex things need to be done in life (bringing up kids is no walk in the park!), but…..

I am sure that most people don’t want it to be that hard, yet ‘those people’ are often the ones that are making it hard.  It is a bit like, it is only hard if I have to do it, but, it is not hard if you have to do it; do you know why? because you have to do it, it’s not me.

When a person is requiring you to do things a difficult way, they will justify this as reasonable because that is ‘the process’ (I’m sorry but you can’t have the refund etc etc etc, until you complete this form which of course requires information you don’t have with you – and a DNA sample – all of which you have to travel home to get, again…. you can of course fill out the form on line but that will require you sign up for a new account requiring the verification of identity which you can only do ‘in store’…. fucking kill me!)

Where was I….

…. this is the process or their job, or they don’t make the rules and they have been told it must be done that way (have you ever said these things and realised how stupid and obstructionary you sound – probably not).  In addition, when you explain the illogical nature of what they are asking, they mostly can not understand what you are talking about.  They don’t know why it is stupid, unnecessary. More often than not, they can not even explain what happens next and why you are doing it in the first place…. is this you, it has been me.

It is usually, if they can not explain why they want you do some obscure process usually for the age old reason of modern logic which is, because that is the way It has always been done.

Is the entire world going insane and not actually realising it, because insane (complicated) is the new NORMAL.

I think being a better man means I will be the one that doesn’t do this anymore. I don’t think I want to be ‘those people’ or the infamous ‘they’ (whoever ‘they’ are – perhaps I am they?). But, I suspect I will have to notice I am doing it first……

 

Better at Nothing… Something

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I was just reviewing something I had written a few months ago when I was having one of my profound moments (well I reckon they are profound – in hindsight sometimes they are just me getting something I didn’t get before – this is particularly hard to accept, especially when everyone else got it before you!).  It is about mindfulness and I suppose the best way to describe it is to just transcribe it:

“I have been writing for a long time now (I am guessing 2 years…) to be a better man.  When I say 2 years I am talking about when I discovered mindfulness and realised, that understanding this was how I would understand me.

It takes a long time to understand that mindfulness is about everything and nothing; changes nothing and changes everything.  It all has to do with nothing in your life and everything in your life.

But, even when you understand and accept that, you have to live your life everyday and everyday is full of noise;  the noise of life that takes your concentration and blurs each day, year and moment into the next.

So what does this revelation do for me?

Nothing, everything…… it makes me notice my life.”

Better Write a Note

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I was having a ‘discussion’ with my wife the other day and we started to stray into the zone of recrimination, accusation and allegation (plus a few good ones from the past).

We actually caught ourselves and stopped.

My wife actually presents a course called ‘Say it Safely’ and I was using my invented behavioural modification method (self taught of course) called ‘A Dangerous Dialogue” which is my anti ‘Say it Safely’ strategy.

I realised that I had a lot of tools I could have used (including ‘Say it Safely’) but they just don’t seem handy enough…. They weren’t around.

The funny part about this story is that after thinking about keeping my tools handy I wrote a note to myself which said “Note to Self – have a note to self”

There is no use having tools, ideas, plans, sayings, quotes etc etc unless they are where you can get at them, when you need them.  I have my Journal, but only after I write pages of ramblings as a madman and occasionally read back over the months, do I find the gem that is worth either keeping or thinking about more.

Yes, I know My Religion is just waiting to present me with the ‘heads up display’ of the right answer at the right time…. but, just in case, I think it pays to sometimes write a few things down.

I have my journal, but now days it can be Facebook, Twitter, whatever. You can even start a blog, like me!

I just think it pays to work on the fact that on some days your heads up display is more like be heads up your arse and there are no answers handy and no index to all the good shit you’ve been learning.

Note to Self – Write note to self….. And keep it handy.

 

Better Insanity

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I love the directness of ‘Fear is not Real” and have thought about it a lot.

I think that the ultimate position of mindfulness, is living in the now, it is to live without fear, without regret.

You have to keep asking that question “am I in danger right now” and if the answer is no, then there is no action needed, there can be no fear, as there is no danger and not even a reason for you to imagine things that cause fear.

Children live without fear,
Children live without regret (until we teach them),
Children live without worry for the future,
Children live now.

So I ask myself is experience really the best teacher?

Do we learn from experience.  Am I happier, that I now react to the world because of the experiences I have had, or am I like most and living in a fantasy that I am doing things differently and in actual fact I am doing them the same.

My favourite quote from Einstein: “Insanity: doing the same things over and over again and expecting a different result.”

Doing the same things and expecting a different results – is insane
Fear of things that are not happening now and may never happen – is insane
Regret and worry – are insane

I will not be insane anymore.

Better Homes – Make Yourself a Memory

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I was sitting at the computer, which is in our family room, and I could hear my wife in kitchen which is basically part of the same room.  She was cooking and filling the house with those warm smells of baking.  I am the luckiest man in the world as my wife cooks to relax (she also enjoys grocery shopping! – and alone!!!!).

It was raining outside and the gas central heating that we had saved for (no really, we didn’t buy it on credit and froze for 4 winters!) made the house a warm cocoon.

All I can advise is remember all the rainy Sundays that you spend at home with the one(s) you love.  It may be watching a movie, or doing your own thing.

Talking to each other or not talking to each other.

Remember these days, because they are special; they are the days that linger longest in your heart; if you let yourself they are easy to remember – to feel.

Remember the home that was there – not the house, but the home.

If you are sitting there right now, you have to be there right now.  Take a moment and make yourself a memory and a feeling for a lifetime.

I just did.

Mindfulness

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IMG_4828

 

Well I suppose I had to get to this.

This is really where things started for me… or is it better to say this is where I suddenly realised where I was, when I was.  I didn’t get a profound meaning of life revelation, or suddenly have some awakening.

One day I just understood.  I think it actually snuck up on me.

I tell a story, that eventually we all end up sitting in a chair, watching days of our lives, pissing our pants and waiting for the fortnightly (sometimes) reluctant visits from your family.  But that is the future and this is now.

So I’ve started to build my mindfulness pages and hope I can actually write with some sense of order and explanation… and dare I say it insight….