Author: James Browning

Only the Dead Don’t Feel It

/ James Browning

My supposition is that life would be boring if things were always good. Fact or delusion, that’s a mantra that rings in my head to help me keep going. Life just gets damned difficult sometimes.

There’s a well-worn phrase that goes “its, not what happens, but how you react to it that matters”. My conclusion is there is wisdom in that statement to keep one from making something dreadful far worse than need be. However, what is awful will still be terrible. All practicing the “how you react” train of thought can do is impact how deep and engulfing the pain, grief or misery becomes. To think I can stop myself from feeling unpleasant things entirely is pure foolishness. What I put off ends up hurting worse later anyway.

Life is painful and messed up. It gets complicated at the worst of times, and sometimes you have no idea where to go or what to do. Lots of times people just let themselves get lost, dropping into a wide open, huge abyss. But that’s why we have to keep trying. We have to push through all that hurts us, work past all our memories that are haunting us. Sometimes the things that hurt us are the things that make us strongest. A life without experience, in my opinion, is no life at all. And that’s why I tell everyone that, even when it hurts, never stop yourself from living. Alysha Speer

Ready for my rant? Here goes. So much of a quandary my life is these days: single and not wanting to be; lonely, but afraid to let someone get really close; so tired of my work but addicted to the money; unable to see more than a vapor of what my future might be; too regretful of my past and unable to fully put some of it behind me; not completely comfortable with my age but trying to not let it show; working hard to get in shape with frustrating slow progress; far more loving than I know how to comfortably show; misunderstood by just about everyone I have ever known; good progress in recovery from codependence while aggravated some of the dysfunction will always exist; wanting to travel the world for months at a time yet fearful of taking the leap…. oh, woe is me; gripe, gripe, gripe and it’s exhausting!

Life will break you. Nobody can protect you from that, and living alone won’t either, for solitude will also break you with its yearning. You have to love. You have to feel. It is the reason you are here on earth. You are here to risk your heart. You are here to be swallowed up. And when it happens that you are broken, or betrayed, or left, or hurt, or death brushes near, let yourself sit by an apple tree and listen to the apples falling all around you in heaps, wasting their sweetness. Tell yourself you tasted as many as you could. Louise Erdrich

It should come as no surprise that I am working my way through a few days of my cycling depression that comes around every few weeks for a few days. These are times the half missing in the glass is painfully obvious and I’m too stymied to see much of the half full part. This will pass. It always does. But for the time I wrestle depression it feels like trying to swim in quicksand; moving with great effort and getting no where fast.

My gratitude is for knowing what is going on. For years I had no explanation for these days that sucked badly. So I will use the weapon I’ve learned that helps me walk through these dark days: “fake it until I make it”. I’ll put on a smile and show the world sunshine instead of my darkness. Just because I feel bad doesn’t mean I should make others feel it with me. Hello world, here I come.

Everyone is down on pain,
because they forget
something important about it:
Pain is for the living.
Only the dead don’t feel it.
Jim Butcher

Someone Who Can Completely Turn Your World Around

/ James Browning

Bob Marley was the most well know Reggae musician ever to live. His face is recognized world-wide and his music is iconic. Bob Marley was also a highly intelligent philosopher who expressed himself in ways I find particularly meaningful. I hope his words below serve you well too.

Only once in your life, I truly believe, you find someone who can completely turn your world around. You tell them things that you’ve never shared with another soul and they absorb everything you say and actually want to hear more.

You share hopes for the future, dreams that will never come true, goals that were never achieved and the many disappointments life has thrown at you. When something wonderful happens, you can’t wait to tell them about it, knowing they will share in your excitement.

They are not embarrassed to cry with you when you are hurting or laugh with you when you make a fool of yourself. Never do they hurt your feelings or make you feel like you are not good enough, but rather they build you up and show you the things about yourself that make you special and even beautiful.

There is never any pressure, jealousy or competition but only a quiet calmness when they are around. You can be yourself and not worry about what they will think of you because they love you for who you are. The things that seem insignificant to most people such as a note, song or walk become invaluable treasures kept safe in your heart to cherish forever.

Memories of your childhood come back and are so clear and vivid it’s like being young again. Colors seem brighter and more brilliant. Laughter seems part of daily life where before it was infrequent or didn’t exist at all. A phone call or two during the day helps to get you through a long day’s work and always brings a smile to your face. In their presence, there’s no need for continuous conversation, but you find you’re quite content in just having them nearby.

Things that never interested you before become fascinating because you know they are important to this person who is so special to you. You think of this person on every occasion and in everything you do. Simple things bring them to mind like a pale blue sky, gentle wind or even a storm cloud on the horizon.

You open your heart knowing that there’s a chance it may be broken one day and in opening your heart, you experience a love and joy that you never dreamed possible. You find that being vulnerable is the only way to allow your heart to feel true pleasure that’s so real it scares you.

You find strength in knowing you have a true friend and possibly a soul mate who will remain loyal to the end. Life seems completely different, exciting and worthwhile. Your only hope and security is in knowing that they are a part of your life.

Thank you Mr.Marley; I regret you are not still walking among us. The world is better for you having been here.

It’s the questions we can’t answer that teach us the most.
They teach us how to think. If you give a man an answer,
all he gains is a little fact. But give him a question and
he’ll look for his own answers.
Patrick Rothfuss

Ready For What Is Ahead

/ James Browning

Running out of weekend I ventured out for a Sunday evening jaunt to the Wally World amusement park known to some as Wal-Mart. What a madhouse! Most people whether alone, in a couple or a family group were in a big hurry with few smiles evident. Lots of grumpy people barking at each other, especially parents to children. The saddest faces I saw were on the kids. That bothered me.

Then there was the father who was talking to and amusing his little boy about a year old as he rode in the shopping cart. Slowing my speed intentionally to follow I enjoying listening to Dad trying to get the little guy to say “Da Da”. It didn’t happen while I was snooping, but with the concerted effort going into the prompting it’s just a matter of days before the kid starts and never stops making syllables. Listening to a toddler laugh is a special kind of music.

The there was a young couple pushing two carts. Dad had a little boy about three riding in his and Mom was carrying a baby about eight months old and pushing a cart. It was easy to tell from the woman’s baby bump another little one was on the way. Even with their hands full with two little kids while grocery shopping it was readily apparent Mother and Father loved each other and their children. It was on their faces and how they looked at one another. I saw their happiness  and was a little jealous for a moment. Even though I was a pretty good father to my son, given the chance today I would be far better.

The lines were long and not enough registers were open which happens often at the big box stores. I suppose they know once you have a cart of stuff most will wait their turn so they don’t have to do the gathering of stuff again at some other store. I stood in line for at least 10 minutes reading the latest issue of People which had a feature story on Tom Cruise. Three marriages, multiple relationships, two adopted children and one birth child have come into his life but none have stayed long-term. Seems sad to me to have so much and yet so little. Did you know his full name is Thomas Cruise Mapother IV? I didn’t until tonight.

My weekend has been good. The cooler temps, mostly cloudy skies and occasional rain made the time all the more special to me. Several hours were spent writing at my own pace and a good amount time was spent with friends, new and old. Reflecting now on the last two days it’s easy to comprehend how rich my life is. It’s not exactly what I wish and hope for in all ways, but it is good… damn good. I am thankful for what is and grateful for what will yet be. Each and everything I have experienced, good and bad, has made me more complete and ready for what is ahead; even my trip to Wally World!

Tonight I close my eyes and see
A strange procession passing me —
The years before I saw your face
Go by me with a wistful grace;
They pass, the sensitive, shy years,
As one who strives to dance, half blind with tears.
The years went by and never knew
That each one brought me nearer you;
Their path was narrow and apart
And yet it led me to your heart —
Oh, sensitive, shy years, oh, lonely years,
That strove to sing with voices drowned in tears.
Sara Teasdale

Don’t Waste Any of Your Seconds

/ James Browning

The slow misty fog caused a sparkling halo to surround the street lamps. Each shimmered with scattered rainbow. All I could see was wet with gentle rain that caused everything in view to capture light and glow with color. Only one car passed mine and no wonder, it was 4:55am. The length of my drive to the gym was less than ten minutes, but with heightened awareness I have cultivated, what once would have been hours worth of memories were catalogued in just those few minutes.

I passed a dry cleaner’s sign that with a few bulbs out spelled an unintentional word. Lights were on inside the donut shop and I assumed the bakers were busy in back making sweets for the day’s morning rush.

Stopped at a traffic light a policeman in a cruiser was beside me. He seemed lost in thought staring straight ahead. Maybe he had gone through a difficult and traumatic night. Or maybe he was daydreaming about getting home to crawl into bed next to the one he loved.

Lit up almost like daylight was the big hospital on my left that covers a city block and keeps growing and growing. The wet pink marble glimmered in the spotlights it was being bathed in. Driving past my memory bought up the time when I spent several days in intensive care there.  Thankfulness was immediate that was behind me. The thought was followed by a moment of concern for those whose illness placed them there now and the concerned loved ones of those sick people. For the good health I have, gratitude filled me as I stopped at the last traffic signal before my destination.

Usually  the radio on or a CD playing when driving, but the evening before on the way home I had turned it all the way down to take a phone call. The silence was bordered by the sounds of my car, the rain falling on the windshield and my wipers moving the water side to side. I could hear the friction of my tires against the water on the street; a steady noise that was comforting in some odd way.

My hair was bent and twisted into a bed head style since I had done little before leaving home except dress and make coffee. Sipping on the travel mug as I drove the last quarter-mile the realization came that I had come a long way to not care what someone might think when they saw me with my hair sticking up. I was pleased with my self.

I chose to workout with a trainer very early three times per week because I knew at any other time I would not stay with it consistently. Pulling into the gym parking lot the last seconds of my drive were spent thinking in the silence while  the wet world outside went  by. I was struck by how good my life is. Not perfect; far from it. But good; really good!

Taking the time away from relationships for a few years to truly come to know ‘me’, by myself, enriched my life beyond anything I could have imagined ahead of time. There is a sense of great satisfaction today for having endured what I had to go through to get here. Before my insecurity caused me always need to ‘be with someone’. The loneliness I endured in the recent past to become accustomed to being alone was the single most difficult thing I have ever faced. Today I have a whole heart and a calm soul that is comfortable in this body. Without hesitation I embrace life and am grateful for all its possibilities.

You can be the most beautiful person in the world
and everybody sees light and rainbows when they look at you,
but if you yourself don’t know it, all of that doesn’t even matter.
Every second that you spend on doubting your worth,
every moment that you use to criticize yourself;
is a second of your life wasted,
is a moment of your life thrown away.
It’s not like you have forever,
so don’t waste any of your seconds,
don’t throw even one of your moments away.
C. Joybell C.

Feeling Good

/ James Browning

A person I met by chance who has become a dear friend over the last couple of years writes a blog fairly regularly. Her raw honesty is refreshing and with regularity I find a jewel of thought that sticks with me. Here’s one from last week:

What leaves you feeling bad, do less of. What leaves you feeling good, do more of. This one suggestion is all I really need to find my destiny, form loving relationships, achieve optimal health, and have the best life story in the bingo parlor during my golden years. And it isn’t hard to remember. Yet many clever people, including me turn repeatedly to the very things that ruin our health and happiness: artery-clogging junk food, alcoholic lovers, soul-crushing jobs, negative relationships. I believe all human beings—even politicians—are born with the capacity for suffering and joy for a reason: so that we can navigate the world. I try pausing before any action I take and recall how that action made me feel in the past. If I think through how each action leaves me feeling, I’ll find myself more and more able to choose those that add up to my best life. http://mph510.wordpress.com/2012/09/24/she-generally-gave-herself-very-good-advice/

When I read P.’s words I was taken by how true and simple her thoughts are. You’d think something so abundantly factual would be something we all get. But few do.

Dr. Tiny Jaentsch wrote, Honestly, think about it. What makes you feel good? What makes you happy? Is it a new pair of shoes or a mountain of ice-cream or that guy/girl you met the other day? How does it feel inside? What I discovered about myself is I’m very good at hiding. Hiding behind work, behind studying for the thousandth certificate, behind being busy. I ran away from being close to myself. It’s ugly and uncomfortable. You discover yourself step by step. The discoveries you make may be painful. That will pass. You are only allowed to see what you can manage. You cannot speed through and be done with. You have to be patient and brave expecting the unknown.

Today my gratitude is for being reminded what leaves you feeling bad, do less of. What leaves you feeling good, do more of. Thanks P., I needed that.

If you don’t feel it, flee from it.
Go where you are celebrated,
not merely tolerated.
Paul F. Davis

Five Good Things

/ James Browning

The article below was exactly what I needed for the start of this Friday.  I hope it serves you well too!

Are you frustrated with your life, feeling stressed, and find many things just aren’t working? Would you like to find a way to make your life work better? If so, then read on because there is a simple adjustment you can make in your life to help things immediately begin to work better and feel better.

Start focusing on your happiness instead of the absence of it.

Now let me guess … this sounds too simplistic to you, doesn’t it? You’re probably wondering how focusing on your happiness is going to help fix things so they work better, right?

Yet the truth is, that’s exactly the fix that can have the most immediate impact on your life. Consider the following five ways in which by you focusing your thought and attention on what makes you happy — and making a point of looking for and acknowledging those things each day — you will begin to notice things working better in your life.

  1. You’ll be more attractive to others. As you place your focus and attention on what’s right and what’s working in your life, you immediately start to feel a little bit better. Because you feel better, you begin to behave and carry yourself differently. And that shift in how you carry yourself makes you much more attractive to others which means you’re going to start receiving more invitations, more opportunities and more things that are working well for you.
  2. Your relationships will work better. Because you are carrying yourself differently, you begin to come across as friendlier and you’ll find that you’re better able to listen because you’re not so preoccupied with what isn’t working. That’s going to result in healthier, deeper, more successful relationships with your family, you co-workers and your friends.
  3. Your job or business performance will improve. Your shift in focus carries benefits over to your overall work performance. You will find yourself thinking more clearly, more alert, and making better decisions.
  4. Your health will improve. Because you are feeling happier as you place your attention on what is working, a whole set of physiological changes start to occur. Your blood pressure lowers. Your blood flow improves. Your immune system starts working better. These all have a positive impact on the state of your health.
  5. You will start to have more flow. By law of attraction, you attract more of what you focus upon. Since you have repositioned your focus and attention on your happiness rather than your unhappiness, guess what happens? You get more of the things that are working better. And now you’ve got a positive spiral that you’ve started that is going to deliver more flow and positive momentum into your life going forward. And so begins a positive cycle of being inflow where things start to come more easily and frequently. Warren Wojnowski http://www.inspiredabundance.com/happiness-and-self-fulfillment

“Every day is a good day.  Some are just better than others”.  For years now that has been my standard answer to the greeting question from others of “how are you doing?”.  And guess what: it has made a huge different.  I am grateful for the goodness a shift in perspective has brought!

Stress is nothing more
than a socially acceptable form
of mental illness.
Richard Carlson

Accomplishment Is Empowering

/ James Browning

Over the last two years intentionally my wake up time has become earlier. I decided to take the most rested part of each day and keep it for myself. That has allowed me to write, workout, meditate and do other things I never seemed to be able to get to as consistently as I wanted. Going to bed a couple of hours of hours before what was my habit and getting up two hours earlier took some getting used to. The first six weeks it was very difficult and temporarily I gave up several times.

Conventional wisdom bantered about says it takes about a month to break a habit or instill a new one. Research indicates it takes longer. According to research about three years ago by Phillippa Lally and colleagues from the United Kingdom Cancer Research Health Behavior Research Centre it takes an average 66 days to form a new habit. Below Phillippa explains the key factors in creating and breaking habits and how we can help set up for ourselves new patterns of behavior.

What exactly takes 66 days?
In our study, we looked at how long it took people to reach a limit of self-reported automaticity for performing an initially new behavior (that is, performing an action automatically), and the average time (among those for whom our model was a good fit) was 66 days.

How do you define a habit?
Habits are behaviors which are performed automatically because they have been performed frequently in the past. This repetition creates a mental association between the situation (cue) and action (behavior) which means that when the cue is encountered the behavior is performed automatically. Automaticity has a number of components, one of which is lack of thought.

What are the key factors in breaking or gaining habits?
To create a habit you need to repeat the behavior in the same situation. It is important that something about the setting where you perform the behavior is consistent so that it can cue the behavior. If you choose a context cue, for example after lunch, we don’t think that it matters if you eat lunch at different times in the day. It is difficult to break any habit even when you are motivated to do so. If you are ambivalent about breaking it then you will be less likely to succeed.

What happens if we miss an opportunity to perform an action that will help us build a habit?
In our study we showed that missing one opportunity did not significantly impact the habit formation process, but people who were very inconsistent in performing the behavior did not succeed in making habits. We don’t have any evidence to suggest that men and women or young and old people acquire habits differently.

I am thankful for my new schedule and its benefits. I’m consistent at writing (have written this blog now daily for over 520 days in a row). From working out several days a week I’ve lost 12 pounds and about an inch and a half around my waist. The sense of personal pride and accomplishment is empowering.

We would accomplish many more things
if we did not think of them as impossible.
Vince Lombardi

A Common Search for the Good and the Beautiful

/ James Browning

I have limited personal proof that what is below is in practice what makes for a good marriage. But the words feel perfectly true and seem to speak clearly of how it could be, should be.

Happiness in marriage is not something that just happens.
A good marriage must be created.
In the art of marriage the little things are the big things…
It is never being too old to hold hands.
It is remembering to say “I love you” at least once a day.
It is never going to sleep angry.
It is at no time taking the other for granted;
the courtship should not end with the honeymoon,
it should continue through all the years.
It is having a mutual sense of values and common objectives.
It is standing together facing the world.
It is forming a circle of love that gathers in the whole family.
It is doing things for each other, not in the attitude
of duty or sacrifice, but in the spirit of joy.
It is speaking words of appreciation
and demonstrating gratitude in thoughtful ways.
It is not looking for perfection in each other.
It is cultivating flexibility, patience,
understanding and a sense of humor.
It is having the capacity to forgive and forget.
It is giving each other an atmosphere in which each can grow.
It is finding room for the things of the spirit.
It is a common search for the good and the beautiful.
It is establishing a relationship in which the independence is equal,
dependence is mutual and the obligation is reciprocal.
It is not only marrying the right partner, it is being the right partner.
It is discovering what marriage can be, at its best.
“The Art of Marriage” by Wilferd A. Peterson originally published in 1962

The majority of my married years were spent wishing I wasn’t someone’s husband. It’s ironic that now being single for five years I sometimes wish that was not my status. Was I a good husband? Sort of, kinda, sometimes and ‘not’ with regularity. It’s a lesson that loneliness and lost love have taught well. Gratitude is strong within for that hard learned knowing.

The trouble is not that I am single
and likely to stay single,
but that I am lonely
and likely to stay lonely.
Charlotte Bronte

Do You Trust You?

/ James Browning

Lack of self-trust can be the precursor of distrusting others. In an increasingly complex world, our ability to judge real or not real, scam or opportunity, credible or not credible, trust or no trust, is a twenty-first century necessity.  And it begins with self-trust.  Do you trust you?

Can you trust your motives, intentions, impulses, and judgment? Do you lie to yourself? Do you break promises you make to yourself? Can you count on you to deliver what you say you will? Are you in an authentic relationship with yourself? Do you trust your own judgment and the risks you take when giving trust?

Researchers have found that sharing physical traits with others creates a “perceived attitudinal similarity.” We expect people who are like us (e.g. gender, race, hair color, etc.) to be like us. So, if you break your word, you think that others will, too. If you over-promise and under-deliver, that’s what you’ll expect from others. But if you’re trustworthy, you tend to assume others are, too.

Yet, while we may see each other as alike, we’re very different. That’s why building trusting relationships at work requires self-trust.

Self-trust involves trusting your own intentions, motives and integrity. Self-trust includes reliance on self and confidence in self-actions. But it goes deeper. Self-trust is “the ability to trust oneself to trust wisely and authentically,” according to authors Robert Solomon and Fernando Flores. Self-trust is grounded in self-awareness, well-intentioned and consistent behavior, and commitments honored and fulfilled. You’re unlikely to be viewed by others as trustworthy, if you don’t view yourself that way. And you’re unlikely to view yourself that way, if you’re not that way.

Self-trust is a skill that fuels accountability. Self-trust grows when there is alignment between what you say and what you do, often referred to as behavioral integrity. Behavioral integrity is how you demonstrate your trustworthiness to yourself and to others. How’s yours? No alignment – no credibility. No credibility – no self-trust. No self-trust – no accountability. Self-trust is the basic tenet of accountability. When we hold ourselves accountable for our actions, decisions, choices, words, and behaviors we build self-trust. Building self-trust requires a mirror. It means there’s an self-initiated, account-giving relationship between who you say you are and who you are.

Self-trust is core to the most important relationship – the one with self. A practice of authentic self-trust offers a way to explore your possibilities, gifts, and passions. Self-trust grows the inner path. It aids the discovery of your life’s potential. As author Jack R. Gibb put it, “Trust creates the flow and gentles the mind-body-spirit. When I trust myself I am able to enter fully into the process of discovering and creating who I am. When I trust my own inner process I am able to become what I am meant to become. From an article in Psychology Today by Nan S. Russell http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/trust-the-new-workplace-currency/201201/lack-self-trust-precursor-distrusting-others

I am grateful to be able to say “yes, I trust myself”.  It took a long time but with pride I know it’s true.

Love all, trust a few.
Shakespeare

Genuinely Open To Accept It

/ James Browning

We must accept finite disappointment,
but never lose infinite hope.
Martin Luther King, Jr.

We all make plans, have dreams, and set goals. Will our plans materialize or end in complete failure? The only thing certain about life is uncertainty. So, our frail attempts may end in glorious victory or frustrating defeat. Such is the nature of life. We are destined to engage in a series of celebrations interspersed with a series of disappointments. Because of this, it is important to learn how to deal with disappointment. Martin Luther King, Jr. suggests one way of coping; mainly, by accepting it. After all, disappointment occurs in just one moment of time. And hope, or the understanding that future successes will follow, lightens its burden.

The word disappointment is made up of DIS and APPOINTMENT. DIS means separate, apart, or asunder. So, disappointment describes a feeling of dissatisfaction or anguish, which is experienced when we are torn apart from our expected appointment with fate. Yet, we don’t have to experience pain when things don’t go our way. The negativity surrounding disappointment exists not in the real world, but only in our mind. It is not the event, but our interpretation of it that causes pain.

Every time I take a walk with a friend named Will he always finds coins in the street and on the sidewalk. Mainly pennies, but sometimes nickels, dimes, and quarters. Hundreds of people walk by unaware of the change beneath their feet. So why is it that (he), who could use the extra money, always seems to find it? There’s no mysterious force at work here. Just common sense. Will finds the money because he’s looking for it! This is just a simple illustration of an important principle of life, which is WE FIND WHAT WE LOOK FOR. When things don’t go as I had hoped they would, is that bad? It is if I look for something bad. If I am slammed on the head by disappointment, is that good? Yes, it is, if I look for something good. We find what we look for.

You will not enjoy or win at cards if all you do is complain about the hand you’re dealt. Expect nothing more from life than what it offers and you will never be let down. Welcome the opportunities it provides by making the most of the cards you’re dealt. Also, don’t forget to feed your mind with positive thoughts by reading good books. Then make those thoughts your own by reflecting on them. When you understand them, you will fill your mind with light. Apply what you learn by practicing it.

Abandon childish demands and foolish expectations. Are you looking for the perfect mate? If you are, you’re sure to be disappointed. For only God is perfect. We mortals are imperfect. If you can accept that, you can eliminate much unnecessary misery from your life.
From “Dealing With Disappointment” by Chuck Gallozzi
http://www.personal-development.com/chuck/disappointment.htm

My gratitude this morning is for stumbling across Mr. Gallozzi’s article I saved a good while back. It is a perfect kick-start for Monday. Amazing how what I need comes to me when I am genuinely open to accept it.

Acceptance of one’s life has nothing to do with resignation;
it does not mean running away from the struggle.
On the contrary, it means accepting it as it comes,
with all the handicaps of heredity, of suffering,
of psychological complexes and injustices.
Paul Tournier