Health

Don’t Worry, Be Happy (or “Blue Monday” is BS)

/ James Browning / 1 Comment

This week and next there’s a good chance you will be exposed to a fake hypothesis called “Blue Monday”, supposedly the most depressing day of the year.  Quite a few have accepted the theory as truth to the point there is disagreement about the actual date.  Some assert the gloomiest day falls on the third Monday of January.  Others declare the most dismal Monday of the year is the fourth one each January.

The theory behind “Blue Monday” is based on a bogus formula:  Weather plus debt minus salary multiplied by the time since Christmas to the time since failure to fulfill New Year’s resolutions. Then take that and divide by motivational level and the need to take action.  Sound fishy?  It is!

The origin of the idea of the most depressing day of the year is said to come from a psychologist named Dr Cliff Arnall.  He is usually described as a Cardiff University professor although it appears he may have only taught at UK’s Cardiff part-time.  There is actually no science what so ever behind the assertion of “Blue Monday”.  Since originating the idea to help a British travel agency sell vacations, Arnall has admitted that the formula is meaningless.  

Such nonsense actually distracts from a type of real depression that does occur with greater frequency this time of year.  Called SAD or Seasonal Affective Disorder, some people experience real symptoms of depression during the winter. The Canadian Mental health Association estimates 2% and 3% of the general population may have SAD. Another 15% have a less severe experience described as the “winter blues.”    

Cases of seasonal affective disorder, where the weather triggers depression, do tend to peak around this time of year, says psychiatrist Mark Berber of the University of Toronto.  “There is some truth to the fact that we do get low moods in mid-January, but the idea that there’s a particular day and a particular way of equating the severity of the low mood — I think that’s somewhat far-fetched,” he said.

So being depressed is a little more likely this time of year, but it is NOT the annual January epidemic that  the Cardiff psychologist suggests.  When one remembers Dr. Arnall created his formula for “Blue Monday” to sell travel packages the proper perspective is in place. 

In spite of knowing that the vast majority of people (north of 80%) are never affected by the winter blues of any sort, some will insist on being depressed just because they choose to.  For those people here are the lyrics to a Dave Bartholomew song that Fats Domino sings:

Blue Monday how I hate blue Monday!
Gotta work like a slave all day.
Here come Tuesday
Oh, hard Tuesday
I’m so tired, got no time to play
Here come Wednesday
I’m beat to my socks
My girl calls, gotta tell her that I’m out
Cause Thursday is a hard-working day,
And Friday I get my pay

Saturday morning
oh Saturday morning
All my tiredness is gone away
Got my money and my honey
And I’m out on the stand to play

Sunday morning my head is bad.
But it’s worth it for the time that I had
But I got to get my rest
because Monday is a mess.

Personally my discovery has been the level of happiness or depression in my life depends mostly on what I choose to think and feel.  I may not be able to control the world around me, but I do have a good bit of power over how deeply I let depression or happiness affect me.  My motto has long been “expand the good and diminish the bad”.  Guiding my thinking and paying attention to what I dwell on has a lot to do with my level of satisfaction with life.  It takes practice, but directing my mind in the direction I want it to go works most of the time.  I am grateful to know that!

By the way, research sponsored by an ice cream company has deemed June 17 to be the happiest day of the year. 

Most folks are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.
Abraham Lincoln

Wishing for What Might Have Been

/ James Browning

There is no possibility of accurately counting the hours of life I squandered mourning ‘what might have been’.  If I had only done that or if she had only done this… if he had made a different decision or if the one I made had been different… or if I knew today what I knew then I would have… The sea of possibility used to nearly drown me at times.

What a barrier to living well collecting what might have been’s is.  Very little life in the present happens while wandering about in one’s history.  The future was obscured on the horizon when clouds of what went before filled my thinking. 

Looking for solutions to problems that have no answers is a waste of time. Making sense of what never made sense is as futile as flapping ones arms attempting to get airborne.  Lots of energy expended with absolutely nothing achieved except a loss of time and energy and frequently utter exhaustion.  (Oh, my surfing the past looked pretty ridiculous to everyone around me!)

The contrast is striking to now when I know to live as much of my life as possible in the present.  Certainly I am not free of the ghosts of the past, but their haunting is briefer, comes less often and rarely for more than a brief time do they emote me from living in the present.  

How did I learn do become more present?  By teaching and helping the child in me grow up with self-guidance like a good parent consistently gives directions.  When I drifted into playing in the past, with love I repeatedly told myself: “stop doing that”, “you’re doing to hurt yourself with that” or something stronger like “stop it”. The process is little different from how as a child I was taught to say “please and thank you”:  repetition and consistency of the message.

“What Might Have Been” by Judith Anness
Looking back, now looking again,
Wishing for what might have been.
I guess that could be my worst sin,
Wishing for what might have been.
When you’re least satisfied
Then it creeps in,
Wishing for what might have been.
When things seem bad,
There it is again,
Wishing for what might have been.
Now age as a way of letting it in,
Wishing for what might have been.
It never helps,
Only hurts in the end
Wishing for what might have been.

Nuggets of wisdom living has taught me about the past are:
– What I remember is not what happened, it only my version of what happened.
– Memory gets twisted over time to an almost delusional view of the past.  
– Past hurt gets amplified beyond the actual pain by the amount of thought I give it.
– In the past there is no living to be done, only unnecessary self-torture.    

Repeated in other words:  Often what I remember is not the way something actually happened.  What I recall is mostly what I have made up instead of what went on.  Recollections don’t contain the actual intensity of what occurred and has been replaced by a self-manufactured level of pain and discomfort.  Life happens “now” and at no other time. 

The first and most important step I made toward the happiness in my life today was to fight the past.  Until that was accomplished it was like I was caught inside a clear bottle looking out at life, but not engaged in it. The lesson was a painful one to learn and live through, but another example of what does not kill you can make you stronger.  I am grateful to be at this point in my life knowing the best is still ahead.   

There is no relationship between what is real
and what you think is real.  
From “A Course in Miracles”

Thirteen Wishes for Friday the 13th

/ James Browning / 3 Comments

Many shun the number thirteen but I am not one of them.  Likely rooted in my desire to be unique and different, thirteen has been one of my ‘lucky numbers’ back further than I can remember.   With tomorrow being Friday the 13th, it seems an appropriate time to cast some wishes upon the wind in similar fashion as Tibetans cast hopes with prayer flags. 

1 – “To see more of the world around me”
Within this wish I hope to notice more sunrises and sunsets and marvel at the flowers of spring, the snows of winter and the people and places around me.  Beauty shows itself more when attention is focused toward it.

2 – “To hear more”
This wishing thought is to pay more attention to the sounds of the world, especially the words spoken to me and those who speak them.  I have two ears and only one mouth for a reason.

3 – “To be less self-absorbed”
With this wish granted, I can be about myself to a lesser degree and more about everyone and everything else.  Greater happiness is not to be found by going deeper in myself, but in the opposite direction.  I want to be more ‘out there’ and less ‘in here’.

4 – “Let go of things”
With this wishing is the hope to be freer of the grasp that “things” have on me. One day everything owned will belong to someone else.   Letting go more of my need for stuff will mean a ‘lack’ from childhood can dissipate further.

5 – “Be more humble”
I wish to practice to a greater degree the knowledge that anything I accomplish fades and is only a thread of life.  Each action has little specific long-term meaning, except when combined into the fabric of life with what others contribute.  I want more “us” and less “me”

6 – “Be happier”
Writing that wish brought the thought that being happy is not something a person causes to happen, but instead a state that allows happiness to grow.  Joy of living comes from creation of an environment and state of being that is fertile soil for happiness to thrive in.

7 – “Be more kind”
My wish is to continue to become softer and more pliable in my approach to others.  Everyone is carrying a heavy burden and the more I simply keep that in mind the more kindness naturally emanated to others.

8 – “Spend less”
This wish is first about keeping gratitude forefront for the richness of my life in having much more than needed.  If I spend less, I have more to share and there is less stuff to take care of.  Having things is OK as long as the things don’t have me. 

9 – “Become more spiritual”
With past experience I know the deeper my spirituality and more regular my meditation, the better my life is.  Within my wish is the knowing that attention to my spirit has the same effect spiritually as a multi-vitamin does for the health of my body.   

10 – “To love with less reservation”
This wishing is to be less concerned about my scars of my past that have often been a barrier to keeping open heart.  There is only one best way to love: with all of one’s self without reservation.  Pain will come when it does.  Reluctance to love fully will not change that fact.

11 – “To read more”
This wish contains a simple principle:  the more I read, the more I learn.  The more I learn, the better life is.  Less TV can be nothing but good.  Reading is sustenance  to my mind just as food is to my physical self.

12 – “To have greater appreciation of me”
This wishing is to have less of an ego that needs to be fed and more of a realistic and honest view of my talents, abilities and positive attributes.  Never will I completely lack fault-finding in myself.  Seeing better the good that I am is a balancing weight for the ‘negative judge’ within. 

13 – “Follow my dreams with enthusiasm”
In words made from my keyboard today this wish has some fulfillment.  Writing has been a life long, but mostly unfulfilled dream.  I am honored, pleased… no, THRILLED with amazement that people actually care to read I write down.  Like nothing I have ever known is the reward of writing here.    

By the simple act of writing these wishes and sharing them I take a leap forward.  Too long my hopes, wishes and dreams were echoed thoughts within that did little except bounce around inside me.  With going before the world and stating some of them today my growth into the person I have committed to be is brought more into reality.  I am thankful for your help in my journey simply by reading these words.  I am grateful to you.

 If I were to wish for anything, I should not wish for wealth and power, but for the passionate sense of potential — for the eye which, ever young and ardent, sees the possible. Pleasure disappoints; possibility never.  
Soren Kierkegaard

A Shuttered Heart Flung Open

/ James Browning / 1 Comment

Dear Heart,

You were an undeveloped child when the inaccurate realization came that love cripples.  That false knowing left you emotionally lame and wounded. Life was a mistaken tutor when it taught that, but you were too immature to do anything except accept the teaching as truth. That was the very reason you began a life-long search for the very thing which brought such anguish for so long.  Like a flame seeking fire to join with your pursuit of affection has been relentless.  Dear heart, don’t stop trying.

When the strength of childhood should have been yours you were already fatigued and exhausted by love.  It is not your fault that you became a near beggar for the warmth of the love of others.  You needed only to be needed.  You wanted only to be wanted.  Dear heart, don’t ever give up.

Shattered first by this one and then by another; family, lover and friend.  This has been your path.  Like one lost in a blinding snow storm your steps have been slow and labored, but you still have found your way toward what you yearned for.  Dear heart, don’t stop moving onward.

Flawed by your own faults and damaged by the defects of others, the imperfection of love grew within you.  In childhood dreams of love were found in fairy tales and movies.  Those were the only dependable reference point you had, but the fantasy of one and make-believe of the other taught little about how one loves.  Dear heart, don’t lose that knowing.

What one does not have is impossible to give another.  As your parents were and extended family was, you became.  No matter how much you allowed yourself to travel in the direction of love, it was a destination you never arrived at because you did not even know it when it was nearby.  Like a train that missed its stop, you ran by love when it was before you only realizing the mistake too late.  Dear heart, don’t cease using what has been learned.

In your untamed need and flailing pursuit, you have hurt many people.  So self-absorbed and singled-minded with your sense of purpose, the pain caused was barely noticed by you usually.  Only later with mind turned backward could your past deeds be seen for what they were.  It was not your fault.  You did not know better then.  You do now.  Dear heart, don’t forget to forgive yourself.

Others were to blame for you being orphaned of healthy love and emotion when you were a child.  It was not your fault.  You simply knew no better.  That was a good explanation for your behavior when you knew nothing more.  Now the ‘university of life’  has given you a degree in knowledge and experience.  Dear heart, don’t forget to use that education.    

Today: you are like the heart of a young man who feels love openly and expresses it freely; a child formed into an adult.  Expressing your love to others will never be a mistake.  Dear heart, tell of your self truly

Today:  One who has known true pain and heartache knows best what joy and love feel like.  Each is but the mirror reflection of the other amplified by familiarity and practice.  It is in facing fear and continuing in spite of it that the heart triumphs.  Dear heart, be brave and give all of yourself without expectation.

Today:  Living long without being fed the emotional sustenance you needed means you have more to give than most.  Those who have suffered long at the hand of life, of others and of their own doing can understand you.  The best chance of being loved as you need to be is with those whose days adrift from love are a close parallels to yours.  People with common life experience will best “get you” and you them.  Dear heart, open yourself to those who love you.

So dear heart, do you understand that this is a love letter to you? 

I feel you pumping in my chest every minute of every day.  What feelings you bring forth for this body to know get expanded and felt in every cell of your/my/our being.  A therapist said to ‘us’ a few years ago, “I am surprised you made it”.  But dear heart, ‘we’ did make it!  ‘We’ are alive, well and able to love like few can.  The peril and hazard of the past have today become ‘our’ reward:  the ability to love deeply, fully and completely. ‘Our’ gratefulness overflows and falls in tears down the face to settle above a long shuttered heart that is flung willingly open.

The hunger for love is much more difficult
to remove than the hunger for bread.
  Mother Teresa

Where Smiles Have Been

/ James Browning / 3 Comments

Back around Christmas I read about Cheetah, the chimpanzee thought by many to be Tarzan’s movie sidekick, had died.  He was 80 years old!  The story goes that this particular chimp was Johnny Weissmuller’s comic relief in a bunch of old Tarzan movies.  Some say this specific chimpanzee while owned by Weissmuller was never actually in any of his movies.  Others say the recently deceased was the “real Cheetah”. 

All those old Tarzan movies were rerun often on TV during my growing up years and I loved them. The films were decades “old” before I saw any of them for the first time and were in constant reruns on the tube  As an adult realizing how hokey those old B&W Tarzan movies were is clear, but as a kid they were spellbinding and heart pounding adventures. 

The famous Tarzan yell everyone knows actually was done by Johnny Weissmuller, the most famous of those to play the Lord of the Apes.  No one was ever able to duplicate Weissmuller’s call to the wild which is why it was used for other actors in many Tarzan movies.

In reading about the demise of Cheetah, it led me to some material about the life of Johnny Weissmuller.  As a champion swimmer, he won five Olympic gold medals and a Bronze.  He was victorious at fifty-two US National Championships and set sixty-seven world records.  Then he became a movie star with a face recognized around the world.  You’d think all that would have set him up for life.    

Weissmuller was married five times and seemed to have a penchant for making bad choices.  He repeatedly put his money into endeavors that never panned out.  Things were bad enough that as an old man in the 1970’s he worked as a “greeter” at the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas.  How sad to learn that a famous childhood hero of mine had to do something like that to provide for himself.   But a man does what he has to do.

No matter how much a person schemes and plans there is no certainty that he or she won’t someday lose nearly everything long before death takes it all.  Stories of one year rich, the next year a beggar are commonplace.  Rooted in growing up poor, I have a higher than average fear of “losing it all” to the point my apprehension defies logic. 

While my family had little when I was growing up, a lot of people had less.  Destitute old people were not uncommon sights then.  If not for family taking them in and providing care I don’t know what would have happened to those elders.   There is a distinct thread of dread in me about ending up old like that or on the street with nothing.  While the strength I sense the discomfort with is illogical, the feeling remains real to me just the same.  

Life has taught always playing it safe does not work.  It does nothing to insulate me from my mild phobia of having nothing.  There have been a lot of acceptable risks taken in my life and a good number have paid off.  So logic tells me I can lose it all and rebuild again enough to support and take care of myself assuming I still have good health. Fear does not easily submit to reason.  Need be, you will find me as a “greeter” like the man who was Tarzan to me.

Damn! That is thinking like an “old person” and I am not one of those… yet!  I have always been and will always be a risk taker.  Few times was a chance ever taken when being somewhat afraid was not present.  I was able to move forward in spite of fear then and will do so now as well.

My late middle years have arrived and old age is less faintly visible on the not so distant horizon.  In spite of my anxiety about not having enough money or losing good health at too young of an age, I am highly hopeful for the full and long ride of life.  There is a lot of optimism that I will live to experience the greatest mystery of all: old age. 

My gratitude is large to be alive today.  Outliving my father was a milestone accomplished last year.  There is deep thankfulness to have the amount of love present in my life:  of family, of friends, of loved ones and of a special woman.  All research points to loving and being loved as one of the necessary ingredients for a long life.  In that regard I am in great shape!

There is so much in my hopes to yet accomplish.  For example:  Peace Corps someday?  Probably.  Living in a foreign country again?  Likely.  Hiking the Inca trail?  Not sure about that one.  Publish a book?  You can bet on that one.  Visit the two states I have yet to set foot in?  Yes!   Growing gracefully old?  Absolutely and with immense gratitude.

My thankfulness is wide, deep and sincere for the richness bestowed on me.  As long as I am alive, life is filled with possibility. 

Wrinkles should merely indicate where smiles have been.  Mark Twain

The Art of Imperfection

/ James Browning

In art and architecture, what looks like a mistake is often a deliberate signal meant to attract the attention of insiders to a particular aspect of the work.

  • In the Zen tradition, “wabi-sabi” objects, carefully crafted to be intentionally imperfect, impermanent, or incomplete, are considered most beautiful – their humble elegance transcending fads and fashion.
  • In music, notes that deviate from an established pattern are often used to create emotional tension.  Beethoven was fond of this technique.  In the Third Symphony’s “Funeral March”, for example, he replaced sounds with silences to express the mounting sense of sorrow in the piece.

I imagine a different world, one in which people do not spend an inordinate amount of energy fuming against their fate each time they made a mistake.  A world in which one takes for granted that if things go wrong, they probably will.

It would be so civilized.  Folks would bump into furniture, miss deadlines, get lost on the way to the airport, forget to return phone calls, and show up at parties a day early, without getting unduly annoyed with themselves.

You and I would not be personally insulted when we dropped the sugar bowl on the floor, back the car into the mailbox, burned the dinner while on the phone or failed to meet our quarterly projections. 

We are convinced that getting it right is a matter of survival. Surrounded as we are by machines, we feel that we must perform flawlessly to stay ahead of the game.  An industrial-age mentality keeps us all on the steep and narrow path of productivity. 

Unfortunately, thinking that being right will save us from being wrong is a misapprehension.  While, in the last decade, we have labored to be as accurate as our machines, these same machines have been redesigned to be as impulsive as we are.  Today, some of the most advanced electronic devices, from satellites to pacemakers, are engineered to be partly inconsistent, in accordance with the dramatic finds of “chaos scientists.”

Today, in various fiends, from space exploration to stock market predictions, computers are programmed to be quirky on purpose… A case in point is an energy-efficient Japanese dishwasher, designed to be “chaotic.” That gets china, glass, and silverware cleaner by using two rotating arms that spin erratically.

In our day and age, the irrational is on the cutting edge. More and more, you are likely to run into people who will explain to you that… progress is knowing less and less about more and more. 

What a bummer?  Not at all.  Letting of basic assumptions is as exciting as looking at earth from space.  You feel something like a delicious vertigo, a sense of weightlessness.

Next time you break a plate or lose your keys, or jump to false conclusions, why not take it in stride?  Consider the possibility that there is a hidden pattern behind your random acts of blunderism.

Until this paragraph, words here today are those of another sharedbecause the thoughts are better than any original ones I have this morning.  It is rare to open up a book that grabs my attention so quickly and completely as “The Art of Imperfection” did.  It is even rarer for me to include so much of another writer’s material as I have today.  The borrowed words that fill this blog come directly from the first chapter of the book because I was moved to share what touched me so deeply.   With these thoughts once again I am reminded imperfections are perfect as they are.  They make me who I am; no less; no more.  I am grateful for my “perfectly imperfect” self.  

Kudos go to Veronique Vienne for her meaningful words
and Erica Lennard for her remarkable photography that fill their little,
but very meaningful book titled “The Art of Imperfection”.  

It is as hard to see one’s self
as to look backward without turning around. 
Henry David Thoreau

The Lies I Tell Myself

/ James Browning / 5 Comments

Once in a while in hindsight I marvel at succeeding at so much while lacking belief in myself.  For so long an inability to give credit for my abilities and what I was capable of achieving robbed me of feeling positive about anything accomplished.  Nothing was ever good enough.  Everything could have been better.  “That did not measure up” or “there I fell short” was the manner my “internal judge” barked incessantly at me. 

Not only did I find myself falling short in just about every way, that viewpoint was also used for those in my life.  Lovers and partners seemed always to be too imperfect, friends fell short, and even family did not measure up.  The problem had nothing to do with them and all to do with me and how I viewed the world.  If “rose-colored glasses” enhance what is seen and gives a view of reality better than what exists, then I wore “gray-colored glasses” that robbed life of color and depth making my perspective far worse than what was true and real.

Our culture is overly performance based.  The desire to do things perfectly, if not inbred, is certainly brainwashed into us. Easily I slipped from a difficult childhood into being an overachiever professionally.  For a couple of decades my work was who I was.   Without my professional life there was little to me.  Yet no matter what I achieved, nothing was ever good enough and my dissatisfaction with life continued, grew and accumulated.

Growing up feeling ‘not good enough’ created a powerful limiting mechanism in my life:  the “voice of an internal judge” that reigned supreme in my consciousness.  While others helped me create it, the voice of the bully inside was/is all mine.  I fed it daily.  The thoughts articulated silently, but so strongly were those of an internal critic that ran rampant for years while I barely noticed. The ego, even a damaged one such as mine, is very, very clever at disguising things and transposing meaning for preservation of its viewpoint.  In other words, my ego is a liar!

It does not matter the internal judge was often completely wrong. Somewhere along the way I became accustomed to believing EVERYTHING my internal critic said.  Eventually my life became so hollow questions began that always started with “why”.  In time, I became highly dissatisfied with being so unsatisfied all the time.   

Years of questioning eventually lead me to seek help with my issues rooted in a long ago childhood.  It was then that I discovered “him”, that booming voice of self-judgment and self-criticism that roared louder than any word ever spoken to me by anyone else.  I was shocked and surprised not only by the discovery, but alarmed by the power the judge had over me.  

Part of what I discovered was this voice was constantly resetting the bar for my performance at the best I had ever achieved or higher (usually the latter).  No matter how well something was done, the bar got moved up so I continued to be “never good enough”.  Even with extraordinary achievements the voice told me I had somehow failed, did not measure up and never would on a consistent basis.  The best I could ever see in me then was mediocrity.  Criticism from others, whether accurate or not, was inflated by my inner critic… ALWAYS.   From the vantage point of today that all seems so crazy!

When the voice was “king” of my days and I was worn down, it took me down further. The critic still can in moments I feel overwhelmed or vulnerable – until I expose it as the small thing with little actual power.  Like a mouse can cast a giant shadow when seen from a particular angle, my “judge” can cast a huge shadow that when seen from a proper angle shows itself to be something actually small only seeming big.  What a life changing discovery that was.  In coming to the reality that a lot of what I was thinking was utter BS, I began to get healthier mentally.  

What are the signs today that the “voice” is talking and I am listening?  Sadness, unhappiness, melancholy, anger, listlessness, lack of motivation, feeling unloved and related emotions that manifest for very long and don’t get better. When ever I find myself stuck in such a way, I know the critic is lecturing again but I am not tuned in to notice it.    Once I spot it for what it is, I almost always win the battle and the voice retreats “with its tail between its legs”.  Sometimes the battles are waged for hours or even days and I get beat up in the fight.  That’s no problem because fighting is how my freedom was won in the first place from the bullying “voice” that misguided my life for so long. 

My gratitude is large to know the “judge and critic” for what it is and to realize I will win a battle with it the vast majority of the time.  All I have to do is dispute the lies I tell myself.

We tell lies when we are afraid… afraid of what we don’t know, afraid of what others will think, afraid of what will be found out about us.  But every time we tell a lie, the thing that we fear grows stronger.  Tad Williams

Ten Things I CAN Do

/ James Browning / 4 Comments

Twenty hours ago a New Year was born: 2012.  I am grateful for the restart a new set of twelve months allows me.   Resolutions made at a year’s start have never been something I succeeded well at.  It has occurred to me that was likely because I chose the wrong things.  Instead of choosing what I want to do, my choice became what I thought I should do.  Without fail, when my “Want” does battle with my “Should”, what I truly want wins out in the long run.     

What could be on my “should-do” list this year?   Lose weight gained when I quit smoking.  Exercise every morning.  Get at least eight hours of sleep every night. ……Blah blah blah yadda yadda yadda.  Bore-ring!

If I make a choice to losing a particular amount of weight by a certain date, exercising every day or getting a specific amount of sleep each night, all it takes is one little slip-up and I have failed.  That’s what has happened too often in the past.  Goals were too narrow and with a failure or two the goal is abandoned.

This year I am making it simpler in a manner that adds some “elbow room” by making my self-made goals less specific.  Examples are “loss some weight”, exercise more often, eat more healthfully and increase how much I sleep.  These are things I know I can improve.   

To all of you die-hard goal setter’s who feel goals must be always be qualified and quantified; foey on you. Such thinking does not work particularily well in my personal life. 

I know the world of business is different.  One way or another, professional endeavors usually entail a certain amount of something by a certain date.  Expectations not delivered are met with reactions ranging from disapproval to termination.   I have lived my business life with goals, goals, goals… and succeeded.  

I have yet to successfully manage my personal life as do my professional life.  On my own time it’s the pride of accomplishing broad goals, a little at a time that pushes me forward.  Through a thousands small acts my life is made better in a collectively big way.  That’s probably why I have been attracted to hobbies that demand proficiency, yet can never be mastered (flying, photography, etc).  It is the doing my best consistently that makes me better at whatever I apply my heart and mind to.     

In 2012 I will lose weight, exercise more, eat better and sleep more.  However, my strategy to accomplish those things is indirect.  Improvement will come as a by-product of being more of the person I want to be.  In thinking about what I could do that would make me more true to myself, it didn’t take long to come up with the list below of “Ten Things I CAN Do”.   

  1. Love people more.
  2. Spend more time outside.
  3. Eat slower and chew more.
  4. Make photographs.
  5. Read more, watch TV less.
  6. Call friends more, send less email.
  7. Be more positive.
  8. Talk to old people more.
  9. Laugh more.
  10. Worry less.

I don’t have to be a rocket scientist to see that being outside more and making more photographs with my old fashioned view-camera will cause me to get more exercise.  Eating slower and chewing more will, without a doubt, cause me to lose weight. Sleeping more will be easier with less worry, being more positive and laughing more.   The remaining four items on my “Ten Things I CAN Do” list bring their own rewards echoing back from the doing of them (love people, call friends more/less emails, talk to old people, read more/watch less TV).

Just thirty-eight words split into an easy to read to-do list; one that I can put on my bathroom mirror and see each morning.  A simple list of ten things I can scan every day and set myself into the world to do them the best I can.  No doubt I will fail in some ways on a daily basis.  Yet, within every week the majority of list will get done.  And through the doing, my life will improve. 

What will “living a good life” get me?  A good life! 

When we have practiced good actions awhile they become easy;
When they are easy we take pleasure in them;
When they please us we do them frequently;
And then, by frequency of act they grow into habit.
Tilloyson

“When we have practiced good actions….” was the focus of a blog on October 25, 2011 https://goodmorninggratitude.com/2011/10/25/when-we-have-practiced-good-actions/

Future’s So Bright…

/ James Browning / 1 Comment

A time of personal evolution began for me fourteen years ago and the catalyst was a promotion/job transfer.  Left behind was a comfortable position of eleven years and a city known well after eighteen years of living there.  Familiar surroundings and old-friends quickly became something a thousand miles away from where I relocated.  While a son finished out a school year that just began, I lived by myself for eight months in the new city with visits back to my family around every 4 weeks.  Here began real awareness that something was definitely wrong in my life; with me.

The first reaction was to point attention to my childhood, other people and circumstances to explain some of my behavior.  “It was their fault!”  Then came separation, divorce, my son 750 miles away, a new relationship, therapy, a hiatus from affairs, a 2nd marriage, an affair that ended that marriage, five weeks in treatment for depression and compulsions, more therapy, four years spent avoiding love relationships and finally becoming accustomed to being by myself.  A good bit of the cure was overcoming loneliness and learning to be comfortable in my own company, a process that I thought at times was going to kill me.

Frequently I am asked what the “secret” was that allowed me to evolve, grow and change to be the person I am today.  My response is “there’s no secret”.  Trust me, I wish there was a shortcut because I would have taken it long ago.  Getting from there to here focused primarily on four things: 

1) Motivation, 2) Doing the work, 3) Support from others 4) Stop worrying about the future. 

Motivation:  For a day, week or even a full month here and there I thought was stimulated enough to make changes in my life and behavior.  Given time old habits came back.  Only when EVERY DAY I felt change HAD to happen did my behavior evolve positively in lasting ways. 

Do the Work:  Thinking about living life differently is not enough.  Growth takes hard and consistent work; lots of it!  It took reading (tons) about what ailed me to gain understanding.  I had to go to therapy and realize I got as much out of it as I put in. Working a twelve program was very hard, but yielded lasting results.  I had to make amends with those I had wronged, most of all myself.   had to bust my butt and even today that is the recipe for continuing to move forward.

Support of others:  There is no way I could have accomplished my personal growth and recovery without the help of others.  My therapist was a huge help.  The support of a handful of close friends even when they did not understand made a big difference. The support of peers during rehab helped a lot as did assistance an ex-wife gave me then.  Attending help-group meetings at least once a week has been an important part of my work to grow.  Without the support of others, I would not have made it.      

Stop worrying about the future: It was necessary to stop being concerned about the future and instead just take life one day at a time.  The attitude I had to adopt was to just get through the present day.  Sometimes I could stay focused only on the current hour or even the present minute. My behavior always happened in the “now” and could only be addressed in the “now”.  

I had to learn how to feel happiness and allow myself to know joy.  A good explanation comes From a book I read titled “Change Your Mind and Your Life Will Follow: 12 Simple Principles” by Karen Casey:  Joy is always available to us, moment by moment. But we must keep our minds open and pay attention. A closed mind or a mind filled with fear or judgment will never know joy.  More here:  http://www.dailyom.com/library/000/000/000000583.html

Learning the power of my thinking and coming to know my thoughts intimately, even the bad ones, was another key to getting better.  I could not truly embrace the good if I did not know those thoughts well.  Nor could the “stinking thinking” be changed unless I knew that thinking well.  From the Wisdom of the Mystic Masters by Joseph J. Weed comes:  Each thought at its inception produces an effect.  There is a vibratory wave, a radiation from the center, not unlike the radiation of a radio wave from a broadcasting tower.  The wave moves outward equally in all directions with gradually diminishing intensity, which varies with distance.  It continues to emanate from the mind of the thinker as long as the thought is held but it ceases instantly the thinking changes or stops.

Sitting here finishing this blog today, I am so happy to be where my efforts have taken me.  Getting here has been damn difficult, but worth every discomfort.  I am grateful to my Higher Power, all those who aided my journey to now and those who will help me stay on my path in the future.

The Future’s So Bright,
I Gotta Wear Shades”
Lyric from a Timbuk3 song

Six Good Reasons

/ James Browning / 1 Comment

Until four years ago I was completely ignorant it was moderate depression that hit me for a few days every four to six weeks.  My assumption was I was “normal” and everyone went through a short period several times a year when life was one big question.  When the darkened days arrived, uncertainties came that were many and answers few.  Colors appeared faded, nothing tasted good, all sound seemed like noise and touch became numbness.  In survival mode, I hid what I was feeling from everyone, or at least tried very hard to.  

Today I know it was “me” I was running from.  Once I came face to face with my self about five years ago and lived through the healing hell of self acceptance, the “monster” of depression lost much of its ability to abuse me.  It still comes, but less often and with far less intensity.  When depression pops up it no longer robs me of  my senses of color, taste, touch and sound.  With just knowing depression for what it is I am much stronger and far more alive. Awareness can do amazing things.   Coming to know and accepting the real “me”, forgiveness and self-administered kindness are highly effective curatives.

Now when dark clouds start gathering and the winds of dissatisfaction begin to blow, I fall back on what I have learned.  Simple sayings have become sign posts I hold on to so I am not blown off course.  Here are six good reasons that help me stay my course:   

Have patience with all things, but chiefly have patience with yourself. Do not lose courage in considering your own imperfections but instantly set about remedying them — every day begin the task anew.  Saint Francis de Sales

Pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our consciences, but shouts in our pains. It is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world.  C.S. Lewis

What you thought before has led to every choice you have made, and this adds up to you at this moment. If you want to change who you are physically, mentally, and spiritually, you will have to change what you think.  Dr. Patrick Gentempo

One of the most tragic things I know about human nature is that all of us tend to put off living. We are all dreaming of some magical rose garden over the horizon – instead of enjoying the roses blooming outside our windows today. Dale Carnegie

Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved. Helen Keller

It is never too late to be what you might have been. George Eliott

Trying at this moment to make a complete gratitude list for the help I found in overcoming the effects of depression, my attempt will be very incomplete.  However, top of mind that I am grateful for is my therapist who lit the way, the tools I learned at The Meadows, the support of other sufferers and the love and caring I received from a few dear to me.  Now I know around one in three people suffer at least sometimes as I used to.  In that knowledge comes great comfort for me that I have always been far from alone.  I am very grateful.      

Whenever someone sorrows, I do not say, “Forget it,” or “it will pass,” or “it could be worse” — all of which deny the integrity of the painful experience. But I do say ”delve into the depth. Stay with the feeling”. Think of it as a precious source of knowledge and guidance. Then and only then will you be ready to face it and be transformed in the process.  Peter Koestenbaum