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Posts Tagged ‘managing stress’

Puttering

Posted in Creativity, Writing, tagged , , , , on 14 Oct 2021| 5 Comments »

the fraught world
retreats
    powerless
    in the face of
        recycling boxes
        tidying the garage
        fixing a broken chair

global tensions
dissipate
    impotent
    against the power of
        weeding the garden
        harvesting tomatoes
        clipping summer’s last rose

folded laundry
   smooths global supply chains
clean countertops
    muffle rattled sabers

they’re not solutions
   but they ease my pain
        for an hour
        or a minute
            and sometimes
            that’s all I need
                to continue

k

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The Inertial Brain

Posted in Culture, tagged , , , on 26 Nov 2012| 1 Comment »

A brain at rest stays at rest.
A brain in motion stays in motion

unless acted upon by an outside force.

Obey the Kitty!I’ve had a lot on my mind, of late. Problems at work, serious illness in the family, seeking a new job, the question of a career change, the question of additional training in my current career, another (possible) illness in the family, plus the self-imposed pressures about writing and book releases. In all, it’s kept my brain in motion pretty much all the time.

Normally, a brain in motion is a good thing. A brain in motion is a thinking brain, a learning brain. When all is calm, a brain in motion sails happily along. It thinks during the day, it dreams at night. But when placed under stress, it loses equilibrium. Sleep is disturbed. Patterns are disrupted. It cannot focus. It cannot concentrate. (more…)

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Retreat, Retrench, Repair

Posted in Culture, Writing, tagged , , , , , , on 13 Nov 2012| 2 Comments »

Yesterday, I went to Paris.

Put bluntly, yesterday was a crappy, crappy day. It wasn’t a tragic day, thankfully, but it was a crappy day, and one that means major changes ahead. And last night I was in that dangerous “fret zone,” where everything in my mind was whirling around the troubles, playing If Then Else with my future, and getting uncomfortably close to the death-spiral that would pull me down into depression.

Consciously, I retreated. It’s a mechanism I’ve learned, and it’s kept me from tumbling down into the dark many times. I retreated from the problem, tucked myself into a safe trench, and filled my forebrain with a fond memory while my subconscious wrassled with the problem.

And thus, Paris.

(more…)

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