Embracing life

Dams In Our River of Life

/ James Browning

leatherback-sea-turtle-babyThe greatest emotional war I have ever witnessed as been the one with myself. For years there was a storm of thoughts and feelings moving round inside ranging in intensity from thunder on the horizon to a full-fledged hurricane. When I look back now it’s clear that fear was what stormed in me, so strong I could not face it. Instead I distracted myself with anything and everybody external and in being inordinately busy, I hid out.

Age grants wisdom if one is open to receiving it. I learned I had to get still sometimes, shake off everything outside me and stand square with my feelings and thoughts. It was in such moments that I began to discover what peace was. It was not about more of anything. Rather peace for me is about slowing, even stopping, the storm inside.

Dalai Lama XIV said “We can never obtain peace in the outer world until we make peace with ourselves.” Buddha spoke a shorter version; “Peace comes from within. Do not seek it without”. For me to sincerely begin the inner work toward peace, I had to face my greatest fears.

Fear is one of the biggest single factors that deprives one of being able to achieve your full potential. We experience fear more as a result of our internal communication of mind rather than because of actual external factors.

Fear is an unseen enemy that whispers negative thoughts into your mind, body and soul. It tries to convince you that you will not prosper and that you cannot achieve your full potential.

Our lives can be compared to beautiful streams, which are destined to flow, grow in majesty to create wonderful features such as cascading waterfalls, and give nourishment and life to those in its path.

Sometimes we let fear put up a small dam in our rivers of life and it causes us to have stunted growth. We need to be able to rise above it, rise above the fear, break the dam and let our potential flow.

When we allow fear to create dams in our rivers of life, then our streams become like the Dead Sea, which is stagnant and void of life and movement. When we confront fear, we break the dams and free our potential to flow forward.

We are beings of immense potential, ability and skills. In order to realize our God-given talents we need to break through the fear barrier, which through its invisible walls traps us better than any physical prison can be constructed by the hands of man. Our human will and faith can break any barriers that fear can construct. Inshan Meahjohn

Are my fears gone? Some are, some aren’t. The subtotal is considerably less now days. Sometimes I find big fears based on small things. Realizing that, the fears became small too. Some fears bother me less simply because I have grown accustomed to them. The known is always less scary than the unknown.

A summed up realization just hit me: I have more peace within that ever before because I am willing to face my fears. That’s an ah-hah moment to be grateful for.

Spirituality is not to be learned
by flight from the world,
or by running away from things,
or by turning solitary
and going apart from the world.
Rather, we must learn an inner solitude
wherever or with whomsoever we may be.
We must learn to penetrate things
and find God there.
Meister Eckhart

Innocence Leaves Us Free

/ James Browning

2709A friend posted this photo on Facebook last night. I was mesmerized by it. My curiosity to know what the two little girls are looking at is akin to what they must have been feeling when the photograph was made. Apparently they are in a museum’s modern art gallery, but it’s not what’s hanging on the walls that is fascinating the young ones. It’s in solving the mystery of what’s behind the grate.

Unadulterated awe about the mystery of simple things is weak by the time adulthood arrives. Grownups know all too well about what works and what doesn’t, with “too well” being the operative words. In “being big” most forget how to try the impossible and how to absolutely believe in things based only on faith like the Tooth Fairy and Santa Claus. We lose the majority of our curiosity and forget how to effectively waste time playing.

In a “Huffington Post” article I found suggestions of “10 Ways to Be a Kid Again”
1. Make a silly face at a stranger. Everyone likes a silly face. I bet you’ll crack someone up.
2. Eat ice cream for dinner. The fun part about being an adult is you can do what you want when you want. We are already aware of our immense responsibilities so for one night let it go.
3. Go to bed early. Some kids hate bedtime, but once they’re down they sleep like rocks. Give yourself a ridiculously early bedtime one night this week.
4. Hang out with your friends. Kids have play dates. Call a pal and actually get together and do something fun like go to the park and play Frisbee.
5. Color or draw something. Coloring brings back memories for most of us. Dig up some of your old coloring books if you can.
6. Try to say the alphabet backwards. Kids are great at crazy tasks. They try with all their might. See how fast you can say it.
7. Have a race. The next time you are walking with a friend race them to the corner. It’s fun to see other adults reacting to spontaneous racing.
8. Skip down the hallways at work. Mid-day sluggish getting to you? Skip to your meeting and you’ll probably brighten up the whole office.
9. Wear what you want. Kids come up with interesting outfits when they’re allowed by their parents to dress themselves. Come up with your own interesting outfit one day this week.
10. Try a handstand. Kids do yoga poses naturally, just for fun. Try a handstand and don’t worry about falling over.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tara-stiles/10-ways-to-be-a-kid-again_b_203831.html

Yes, some of the ten things are not that practical, but who cares. No grades will be given on how well done each one is. I wonder if I’ll break something trying the tenth one; a hand stand! Yet, the child in me wants to attempt it and is already badgering me “Come on Dad, can we try? Please, can we try? Please! Please! You can do it. I’ll show you how.”

I am grateful that voice of the seven-year old boy in me is no longer silent. He spent many years unnoticed and unwanted, but in my recovery, he is recovering too. I love my rediscovered whimsical childish side. Writing that makes me want to buy some finger paint. I don’t think I’ve done that since I was eight!

When we are children we seldom think of the future.
This innocence leaves us free to enjoy ourselves
as few adults can. The day we fret about the future
is the day we leave our childhood behind.
Patrick Rothfuss

In a Small Space

/ James Browning

Oak and Crescent Moon

This is one of those days when a lot can be said in a small space. Here goes:

This life
is for
loving,
sharing,
learning,
smiling,
caring,
forgiving,
laughing,
hugging,
helping,
dancing,
wondering,
healing,
and even more loving.
I choose to live life this way.
I want to live my life
in such a way
that when I get out of bed
in the morning,
the devil says, “aw s#!t, he’s up!”
Steve Maraboli

And for today that’s ’nuff said. I am grateful for the reminder of the man I aspire to be.

I don’t want to get to the end of my life
and find that I have just lived the length of it.
I want to have lived the width of it as well.
Diane Ackerman

As Good As Any Moment In All Eternity

/ James Browning

Beautiful%20Wallpaper%2006Amazing things have begun happening in my life, so much so, at first I doubted what was occurring. How can it be a man could wish for so much and not recognize dreams coming true as they began arriving?

Since childhood I believed everything flowed from within me outward completely of my own volition; from my thoughts and hopes to be turned into reality by my own hands. It was out of my comprehension to believe my hopes could materialize without my active participation causing it.

Make no mistake, reservation and disbelief still race round and round me like marauders attacking a circled wagon train, but I am discovering believing in my dreams and that I deserve them is the strongest force toward manifesting them. When my hope becomes my certainty, what I have struggled to find for so very, very long has the opportunity to appear.

Logic and thought have been the enemy of my dreams. Hopes are not math problems to be solved. They are seeds planted and watered with patience and a faith in being deserving of the wish being granted. Some call it “manifesting your own destiny”. Others make reference to “the power of attraction”.

Religion would say my dreams appearing on the horizon is “God’s work”. And if that is true, it a Higher Power working through me, not for me. Simply I have passed the threshold of being able to use what has been within me all along; what “God” put in me to begin with. Great religions frequently mention this power inside. Few actually believe it exists and fewer still think they can find any harmony with it. No matter; inwardly it’s there just the same waiting for us all.

Label me a kook if you want, I don’t care. You can think I smoked too much pot in my youth and fried my brain, but it won’t matter one bit. And before you ask, I hardly drink, don’t do drugs and am not a mental patient. I’m just an ordinary person who has extraordinary things happening in his life from a source truly beyond my ability to fully comprehend. My life has not turned into some panacea; far from it. But mixed in with everyday trial and tribulation are authentic dreams, to my amazement, coming true. How does it happen? By believing in my hopes and that I deserve for them to come true, then letting go of trying to steer reality into bringing them to me. All I have to do is show up, live well and believe.

The scary part is dreams coming true require me to at times take action purely by instinct and feeling; doing things that I know I should do even though there is little to no logic to support my actions. It’s not easy and feels like jumping off a cliff uncertain if there’s a parachute on my back. When I believe, truly believe in my dreams, the chute is always there.

The universe does not shout at me to make dreams come true, it only nudges. I need only pay attention to that direction and follow through on what I am lead to do. (Even writing that I laugh out loud for I know how it sounds outlandish, but it’s TRUE!). It’s amazing what has begun happening for me now that I don’t try to control everything. I am deeply grateful to have discovered some of the greatest wisdom possible is “not knowing” and “not understanding” but doing anyway; it’s where dreams are found.

Every morning is a fresh beginning.
Every day is the world made new.
Today is a new day.
Today is my world made new.
I have lived all my life up to this moment,
to come to this day.
This moment, this day, is as good
as any moment in all eternity.
I shall make of this day
each moment of this day,
a heaven on earth.
This is my day of opportunity.
Dan Custer

Joy Is Your Sorrow Unmasked

/ James Browning

couple-dance-dancing-in the rain-136255

“Be brave enough to be happy” read a stranger’s post on Pinterest. The quote plays perfectly in tune with my thoughts this morning.

Years ago skiing in Vail, I saw a sweatshirt inscribed with “No guts, no glory. No pain, no gain.” For the longest I kept those words mentally filed only under physical ability and achievement.

Time has tempered my thinking to know that courage and an openness to endure discomfort is most important with my feelings. The majority of my emotional weakness of old times is gone. Hurt goes no less deep when it comes, but I fully realize now that a willingness to openly accept the painful is what allows the full range of its mirror reflection, joy.

In the “Prophet” Kahlil Gibran wrote:
Your joy is your sorrow unmasked.
And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises
was oftentimes filled with your tears.
And how else can it be?
The deeper that sorrow carves into your being,
the more joy you can contain.
Is not the cup that holds your wine the very cup
that was burned in the potter’s oven?
And is not the lute that soothes your spirit,
the very wood that was hollowed with knives?
When you are joyous, look deep into your heart
and you shall find it is only that
which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy.
When you are sorrowful look again in your heart,
and you shall see that in truth you are weeping
for that which has been your delight.
Some of you say, “Joy is greater than sorrow,”
and others say, “Nay, sorrow is the greater.”
But I say unto you, they are inseparable.
Together they come, and when one sits,
alone with you at your board,
remember that the other is asleep upon your bed.
Verily you are suspended like scales
between your sorrow and your joy.

Occasions arise when I am overwhelmed with the sheer magnitude of my feelings. What a gift to be that passionately alive! Emotions long-buried awakened bring great pain paid back with interest, but also a full magnitude of joy that rides by its side.

I used to be so afraid,
Sometimes crippled;
Worry and anxiety held me back.
The fear remains, but
My courage is strong.
Good or bad,
joy or pain,
With open arms
I embrace the fullness of it all,
Knowing
The best life ever lived,
Was filled with great happiness
And lots of heartache and grief;
No life has ever been better.
To know the full joy
I openly accept pain that comes.
Whatever arrives in my path,
I welcome
With gratitude and anticipation.

There is enormous benefit to being well along into middle age before emotionally getting it together and finding balance. Feeling this much, this deeply can break some people, but it can also enliven a person’s being beyond what one might dare to imagine. There is a concentration of emotion within me focused like light through a magnifying glass that allows me to gratefully know the richness from side to side and top to bottom. With sadness on one mountain and joy on the other I live in the valley of hopes and dreams between.

What would you like to do?
Everything!
From the 1987 movie “Made In Heaven”

To Know Without Knowing How

/ James Browning

Country Valley with Storm CloudsWhile uncertain where the knowing comes from, my intuition is convinced 2013 will be a highly meaningful and eventful year for me; one filled with change, dreams moving closer and hopes coming true. One day in retrospect I will look back on this new year and realize what a pivotal time will have been.

How do I know that? Call it gut, hunch, sixth sense or whatever, I just know! After I faced the majority of my “childhood monsters” and gained dominion over them, I began with greater certainty to randomly know without knowing how I knew. This instinct is completely unpredictable and can’t be applied to any just subject or at any particular time. I have no control over the insights. They come when they come.

Being stubborn and bull-headed as I can be, simply believing my intuitive feelings was a struggle at first (and often still is). My mind will begin trying to figure out what it perceives my gut is telling me. Then my brain wants to think it has control of everything and puffs my ego up to try to take credit for what insight I am feeling. When logic makes no sense out of one of my “feelings” my mind then tries to label a hunch as fictional bull crap. Next comes denial that any sort of real intuition really exists. Then the sparring between thought and soul based feelings begins in earnest.

I have learned to tell my mind to “shut up” and it actually does what I ask sometimes. Once the noise in my head settles down a bit I can then begin to take in more clearly the intuitive feeling I am having. Personally I have discovered most of the time I am naturally pulled toward what I should do and repelled by what I shouldn’t do. All I have to do is get still enough to notice it.

It is my opinion we all have a sixth sense of sorts and if you ask me to explain it I can’t. Yet, my certainty is not harmed in the least by not knowing how it works. Science has no idea exactly how my brain really works either, but I know it exists. The same is true for the “knowings” that come to me.

The principle of my sixth sense was illustrated to me many times before I really began to believe in it. Hundreds of times I have gone to leave the house, picked something up to take with me and then put it down then repeated the up/down indecision several times. On occasions when I gave in to the hunch what I grabbed turned out to come in very useful. And when I refused to give in, often later I discovered why I should have brought it with me. And even when it didn’t, I have been left on frequently with the feeling that those few seconds of indecision may have kept me from a car accident or something of the sort.

Do I believe that everything is preordained destiny? No, I don’t. While at birth my path is set in motion to a degree by who my parents are, my physical attributes, nationality, level of intelligence and so on, my path is in majority that of my own choice. My belief is the moments of knowing without knowing spring up to help me make good choices and help me along the life as I choose it. Call it instinctive creativity, if you will, that can be applied to what I do and how I live. It’s no more mysterious than a moment of brilliance an artist has about the next piece of art they are going to create. Such impetus comes from the same inspirational well as my intuition.

Round and around in six paragraphs I have attempted to explain the inexplicable. To tell you how I know 2013 will personally be a remarkable year is beyond me, but my belief is unwavering. How in April 2011 I woke up to the certain knowing to begin and write this daily blog I can’t explain. To think I could be consistent enough to post every day for almost two years I would have argued to exhaustion was beyond me, but I have. From the same source comes my certainty about the coming year.

Sitting and waiting for things to happen is not how life works and certainly not how my intuition works. I have to do the work and heavy lifting. Choices must be made and decisions decided upon. Deep down I have a compass of guidance beyond rational thought. I won’t even bother to try to explain any further what I know with certainty. My gratitude overflows in knowing 2013 will be one of the best lived years of my life filled with abundant change, profound experiences and significant fulfillment beyond my current perceptions to grasp.

And above all, watch with glittering eyes
the whole world around you
because the greatest secrets are always hidden
in the most unlikely places.
Those who don’t believe in magic will never find it.
Roald Dahl

This Is Your Life

/ James Browning

this is your lifeFrom the holstee.com website: In the heat of the recession in May 2009, brothers Mike and Dave and their partner, Fabian started Holstee. Having just quit our jobs without a plan or idea of how we would spend our days, we were filled with a ton of raw energy, emotion, and ideas – a feeling that we never wanted to forget. So the first thing Holstee’s three founders did was sit together on the steps of Union Square and write down exactly what was on their minds and the tips of their tongues. It was a reminder of what we live for. The result became known as the “Holstee Manifesto”. A message that has since been shared over 500,000 times and viewed over 60 million times online. http://shop.holstee.com/pages/about#the-manifesto

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As I have spent almost two years now surfing the ‘Net looking for thought-starters for G.M.G., I have come to realize the large number of people who have posted material on-line that is truly inspiration. Case in point, “The Holstee Manifesto” that I have seen before but never stopped to take in and ‘taste each word’ until this morning. I am grateful the thoughts just above came across my path as part of the start of my first day of a “stay-cation” this week!

It is good to love many things,
for therein lies the true strength,
and whosoever loves much performs much,
and can accomplish much,
and what is done in love is well done.
Vincent van Gogh

Six Hundred and One

/ James Browning

gratitudeYesterday was my 600th day in a row to post a blog on goodmorninggratitude.com. In celebration, I have essentially taken the day off. However, I don’t want to break my string of consecutive posts and offer four quotes about gratitude that are personally meaningful to me.

True happiness is to enjoy the present, without anxious dependence upon the future, not to amuse ourselves with either hopes or fears but to rest satisfied with what we have, which is sufficient, for he that is so wants nothing. The greatest blessings of mankind are within us and within our reach. A wise man is content with his lot, whatever it may be, without wishing for what he has not. Roman Stoic philosopher, Seneca

The greatest wisdom is in simplicity. Love, respect, tolerance, sharing, gratitude, forgiveness. It’s not complex or elaborate. The real knowledge is free. It’s encoded in your DNA. All you need is within you. Great teachers have said that from the beginning. Find your heart, and you will find your way. Myan elder, Carlos Barrios

When you express gratitude for the blessings that come into your life, it not only encourages the universe to send you more, it also sees to it that those blessings remain. Self-help author, Stephen Richards

Dear God,
I just want to say thank you for waking me up this Saturday morning. You did not have too but, you did. I am grateful. I know you saw I have been through a lot in the past few weeks and helped me through it. Thank you for being there for me.
James

Be thankful for your allotment
in an imperfect world.
Though better circumstances
can be imagined,
far worse are nearer misses
than you probably care to realize.
Richelle E. Boodrich

Someone Who Knows the Song In Your Heart

/ James Browning

life-is-beautiful1A good friend with a mostly stoic demeanor but a soft and loving heart sent a piece to me this morning where what is below was taken from. He is one of those people you have to get to know in order to realize the depth of the human being. At the most unexpected moments he has a special way of touching my heart.

Too many people put off something that brings them joy just because they haven’t thought about it, don’t have it on their schedule, didn’t know it was coming or are too rigid to depart from their routine.

I got to thinking one day about all those people on the Titanic who passed up dessert at dinner that fateful night in an effort to cut back. From then on, I’ve tried to be a little more flexible.

I cannot count the times I called my sister and said , ‘How about going to lunch in a half hour?’ She would gas up and stammer, ‘I can’t. I have clothes on the line. My hair is dirty. I wish I had known yesterday, I had a late breakfast, It looks like rain’ And my personal favorite: ‘It’s Monday.’ She died a few days ago. We never did have lunch together.

Because we cram so much into our lives, we tend to schedule our headaches.. We live on a sparse diet of promises we make to ourselves when all the conditions are perfect!

We’ll go back and visit the grandparents when we get Steve toilet-trained. We’ll entertain when we replace the living-room carpet. We’ll go on a second honeymoon when we get two more kids out of college.

Life has a way of accelerating as we get older. The days get shorter, and the list of promises to ourselves gets longer. One morning, we awaken, and all we have to show for our lives is a litany of ‘I’m going to,’ ‘I plan on,’ and ‘Someday, when things are settled down a bit.’

When anyone calls my ‘seize the moment’ friend, she is open to adventure and available for trips. She keeps an open mind on new ideas. Her enthusiasm for life is contagious. You talk with her for five minutes, and you’re ready to trade your bad feet for a pair of Rollerblades and skip an elevator for a bungee cord.

My lips have not touched ice cream in 10 years. I love ice cream. It’s just that I might as well apply it directly to my stomach with a spatula and eliminate the digestive process. The other day, I stopped the car and bought a triple-decker. If my car had hit an iceberg on the way home, I would have died happy.

Now….go on and have a nice day. Do something you WANT to…not something on your SHOULD DO list. If you were going to die soon and had only one phone call you could make, who would you call and what would you say? And why are you waiting? I had a friend from high school that I was always going to call and never did. The other day her name was in the obituaries so we never had that chat.

Have you ever watched kids playing on a merry-go-round or listened to the rain lapping on the ground? Ever followed a butterfly’s erratic flight or gazed at the sun into the fading night? Do you run through each day on the fly? When you ask, ‘How are you?’ Do you hear the reply?

When the day is done, do you lie in your bed with the next hundred chores running through your head? Ever told your child, ‘We’ll do it tomorrow.’ and in your haste, not see his sorrow? Ever lost touch? Let a good friendship die? Just call to say ‘Hi’?

When you worry and hurry through your day, it is like an unopened gift….Thrown away…. Life is not a race. Take it slower. Hear the music before the song is over.

Thanks Jim, for the reminder and inspiration. I am grateful you are my friend! I love you.

A friend is someone
who knows the song in your heart
and can sing it back to you
when you have forgotten the words.
Unknown

An Entirely Different View

/ James Browning

bottom-of-a-wellIt has been my personal discovery that letting go of outcome has a tendency to make things actually turn out better than they would have otherwise. Planning and hope along with an optimistic attitude and good effort are all I have to do to allow life to unfold as it best can. To attempt to steer what unfolds beyond those things is setting myself up for disappointment. It is impossible to see all of what might happen, not matter how hard I try. Too much focus on a single spot causes a look too close to see things in a broad sense. One explanation of this principle is found in the book “The Other Way: Meditation Experiences Based on the I Ching” by Carol K. Anthony:

I saw myself facing a tall stone wall and understood it to be a wall of obstruction. Wondering about the meaning, I suddenly noticed the outline of a camouflaged doorway in the wall; I realized that I could have passed by it many times without noticing it.

Pondering the presence of this hidden doorway, I realized that our way of viewing things is so habitually logical that we fail to see the principle of the hidden door.

I saw that in looking at those around me, I have judged this person as “habitually improvident (lacking foresight)”, that person as “having a blind spot,” another as “too involved in seeing negatives,” another as “too parsimonious (excessively frugal),” and another as “too set in his ways to ever change,” and so on. What I fail to do in all this activity is to see the operation of the hidden door, the one factor that often makes a thing possible that otherwise seems unlikely.

The principle of the hidden door is constantly in operation, upsetting our best assessments and preparations. We think we have everything mapped out, and well-planned, while in fact, the unexpected controls everything. Good sense and hard work can succeed, but there is not guarantee of this. The most unlikely people turn out to be successful in their work, and people to whom we attached great expectation often fail.

All things being put together correctly, the chances are good for success, but the chances are greatly enhanced if the person putting them together is consistently open-minded about the possibilities of the unlikely. Such as attitude is in harmony with events, for there is always a hidden doorway through difficult situations. Looking for this hidden doorway is like looking at a picture that has another picture hidden within it. The harder we try, the more difficult it is to see it.

The reason things sometimes do not work out as we expect is that we have stopped the hidden door principle by presuming that because some particular outcome is unlikely, it won’t happen. It is easy to assume that a 10% likelihood, for example is really a 0% likelihood. An unassuming attitude, however makes it possible for things to work out, in spite of appearances to the contrary. Our attitude creates the possibility, for Fate mocks our attitude. The surest way to guarantee ourselves failure is to have the Titanic Complex: to be firmly confident that we have figured out, and accounted for, everything.

Opening my mind beyond its tendencies is not easy, but I am discovering the rewards are rich and meaningful. Any time I am absolutely certain of something is when I am absolutely certain to be wrong. There are always more possibilities, reasons and ways of things that I will ever be able to see in advance. With an open mind and grateful heart I accept this and endeavor to broaden my openness to the unexpected.

We think too small,
like the frog at the bottom of the well.
He thinks the sky is only
as big as the top of the well.
If he surfaced,
he would have an entirely different view.
Mao Zedong