Knowledge

Whatever the Outcome… Forgive Yourself

/ James Browning

Likely the period of most profound growth for me was time spent immersed in learning who I was and coming face to face with ‘what was and is’ while at “The Meadows” in Wickenburg Arizona.  Those weeks in the high Sonora  Desert in 2007 were eye-opening and life changing beyond anything I can describe.

When I think of the experience, the first things that come to mind are:
1) Life is pretty much what you make it into.
2) Letting the past go is critical to having a future.
3) People I care about and those who care about me are what really matters.

On point number three I was exposed at The Meadows to a loosely structured way of making amends.  The process can those willing to listen and hear what I have to say, but is not sure thing.  However it almost always works in helping me make peace with myself.

To verbally attempt to make amends all that’s needed is someone willing to hear me out, even if they can barely stand to do so.  Attempting to make amends with another who does not want to be around me and holds great bitterness and hatred will only serve to make the chasm between us wider and deeper.

The amends process is mentioned often in recovery and self-help groups although the only “written form” I am aware of is the sheet just below.

The process is to over time thoughtfully fill out the ‘amends sheet’ and share the contents with the person you hurt, offended or wronged.  Sometimes sharing it with another is impossible and my healing comes from the focus to complete the form.  At other times it will make no difference and the abhorrence the person feels will be unaffected.

There are other occasions when a someone considers what was shared and accepts the amends somewhere in the future.  And there are the instances when an amends makes an instant difference.  It has amazed me how a person who could hardly stand to be in my presence softened and connected with me again when I spoke my amends. The “Likes/Loves” section can lend a lot toward helping reestablish some equilibrium between people.

It is important to remember an amend is not just an apology, but instead is about establishing justice as much as possible. If the indiscretion can’t be paid back or rebuilt, then symbolically restoration needs to be made.  Nothing says the latter stronger than a true change in the behavior and future actions of the offender.

Sometimes it makes no sense to make an ‘in-person” amends as more damage could be done by it.  At others amends are impossible because a person one hurt has passed on or is impossible to locate.  Then a “living” amends can help. This simply means living differently. Amends are about a genuine change in behavior instead of the patchwork of an apology.

The ten tips below about making amends can be found here in depth LINK
1. Face your own feelings first… it’s not always self-evident.
2. Understand what it takes to make amends. Go beyond desire to cover up shame.
3. Write down the reasons to make amends.  Get out of your head and on paper.
4. Look over your reasons… See patterns emerging?
5. Practice what you need to say in your head. Prepare your notes (form).
6. Express genuine regret and provide measurable promises to change.
7. Decide to meet … face-to-face (at) a good, neutral place (if it makes sense)
8. Don’t overdo it! Avoid making assumptions about their feelings or perspective.
9. Keep it simple and to the point.
10. Resolve to move on.  Whatever the outcome… forgive yourself.

Today’s blog came from looking for a file in my documents and stumbling across “The Meadow’s Amends Form”.  It has served me so well in making peace with others and myself.  The greatest benefit of each attempted amends, whether accepted well or badly by another, is the healing that has come to me.  For every one I have made and all those I yet will, I am very grateful for the process I was taught its many benefits.

The injured party does not want to be compensated because he has been wronged;
he wants to be healed because he has been hurt.
G.K. Chesterton

NOTE:  To save the form right click on it at the top of the blog and select ‘save picture as”.

Only In Your Mind

/ James Browning

Not long ago I came across a slight twist on “as you think, so shall you find” written by Wayne Dyer.  It’s a long paragraph and took a few reads to get to the essence of what he had said.   So here I have broken it apart into five pieces so it is a little easier to absorb.

As you think so shall you be! Since you cannot physically experience another person, you can only experience them in your mind. Conclusion: All of the other people in your life are simply thoughts in your mind. Not physical beings to you, but thoughts.  

Your relationships are all in how you think about the other people of your life. Your experience of all those people is only in your mind.  

Your feelings about your lovers come from your thoughts.  

For example, they may in fact behave in ways that you find offensive. However, your relationship to them when they behave offensively is not determined by their behavior, it is determined only by how you choose to relate to that behavior.  

Their actions are theirs, you cannot own them, you cannot be them, you can only process them in your mind.

People are as you perceive them, not as they are is.  That’s the truth Dyer’s paragraph boils down to for me.  Of course, EVERYTHING on Earth is as we think of them and not the completeness of what they are.  For example, what we see is not what is actually before us.  It is what we perceive based on reflection of light.  Even then there are spectrums of light we can see and many we can not.

How I live today is far different from how it was ten years ago.  It is not the conditions of my life that have changed.  I am still me, the same person as before.  The world remains round.  The sun continues to rise and set.  Folks around me are still basically the same.  I have the same job in the same profession.  It is not people, places, things and situations that have been altered:  It is MY WAY OF THINKING that has become changed.

My practical discovery is the only way to change one’s life is to change my thoughts.  My previous experiments of applying external things to alter my existence did work sometimes, but only for a short while.  Rapidly my life always returned to the same as before:  the life I wanted to change.

These days I am mostly happy because I chose to be.  There was no internal switch I flipped and caused that to be.  I worked at it.  When I began to live as if I was happy, I began to have more happiness.  Optimism came to me because I planted the seed of it within, nurtured it and over time it grew.  And so on.

Stopping being obsessed with my past came only when thought by thought, little by little I began to catch myself thinking about it.  At first being able to push away tripping over my history only worked occasionally.  However, with long-term consistency and practice I can now, more often than, successfully push the past away.  All I have done and all that has happened is still within me and thoughts still arise about it.  The difference is I can exercise some control and shorten the duration of such thinking.  In this way my life is no longer directed by what happened and I live more in the present than ever before.

Nirvana eludes me.  Enlightenment has not descended upon my being.  Instead as an athlete trains to get in shape, I have trained myself mentally over time to compete with my thoughts.  I don’t always win, but I am victorious a lot:  enough to be permanently life changing.  My gratitude for these insights is profound and my thankfulness for the many teachers I learned about this path from humbly resounds within.

We tend to get what we expect
Norman Vincent Peale

A Straight Line From Then To Now

/ James Browning

Going through a tattered trunk filled with old things dating back to my teen years I came across an old wallet.  Two things were inside:  a photo of my brother when he was about thirteen and a small much yellowed clipping.  I remember cutting the piece out of a Sunday newspaper “Parade” magazine and recall it was writing by a man in prison.

Why do we usually view the past as a straight line from then to now, yet view today as filled with uncertainty and chaos?  In time what makes us feel lost today will eventually be perceived as part of a future straight line view. Why can’t I have that future view now? 

It’s quite ironic I found that clipping in a wallet made by a convict.  In my formative years road maintenance, right of way mowing and trash pickup on state highways was done by trustee convicts.  These were not “chain gangs” like the movies where men are chained to each other.  All dressed in white except for their prisoner number on the back and front of their shirt and jacket, these men were free to do their work unencumbered by bindings.

In these prison work crews were usually six to ten men who were transported in the back of dump trucks.  One or two guards with side arms were present to keep track of the convicts. Usually these men were those imprisoned for nonviolent, lesser offenses and had little to gain from trying to escape beyond extending the time they had already been sentenced to.  That’s why they were called “trustees” and were men who appreciated being allowed out in the open.

The work these men did was patching potholes, putting up signs, picking up trash and driving tractors to mow the right of way.  Most appreciated the chance to work and do something meaningful.  I’m not sure of the amount but seems like that got a quarter an hour for their work or less than $3.00 per day.  Back then cigarettes were less than fifty cents a pack and so a few bucks was a lot for men who had so little.

My home Alabama county had nothing but two lanes roads until about ten years ago. In my early driving years the convict work crews would block a lane when doing work on the other side.  At each end of the work area a convict would have the job of directing traffic into the one open lane.  It never failed if you were stopped and had to wait the prisoner there would try to sell you leather goods they made.  Wallets handmade and tooled were small enough to carry in their pockets and pull out to sell.  The one I found in my old trunk was one of those:  navy blue dyed, thick leather with a tooled design all over one end.  There is no memory of what I paid the convict for it, but I remember clearly the man and joy on his face that I bought it.  Such happiness for just a few dollars for something so well made that had to have taken days.

Around lunchtime convict crews working within a few miles would come into the family store I worked at in my early teens.  This was back in the days when soft drinks almost all came in reusable bottles that were worth three cents to a bottler.  We paid two cents per bottle to anyone who brought them in.  The prisoners would frequently bring in bags (we called toe sacks) filled with bottles they picked up on the side of the road.  We paid two cents for each one to the convicts who always seemed respectful and polite.

Once observation that sticks with me yet today is almost all the men on the work crews were African-Americans.  As the years passed I connected the dots to realize that these men were being discriminated against, likely to a degree I can’t even imagine.  Yet, they were probably better off than some since they got to “work” on the “outside”.  I can’t imagine what went on with minority men who were viewed much more sternly.

Today I am grateful for several things learned seeing these prison work groups as a kid.  Between seeing these crews and visiting my Mom’s cousin in prison one time I gained a healthy respect for the law and the basic values I was taught.  Witnessing the appreciation of the convicts for being “free on the outside” helped me know I never, ever wanted to be locked up.  Seeing their appreciation for tiny, little things made an impression never to be forgotten. And my memory of the work crews is a vivid reminder of the discrimination that went on in the Deep South when I was growing up.  All those nameless men on the work crews taught me well by just by their presence.  I am grateful.  In return I tell their story here as a testament to the fact they lived.

Inside these walls
things look so gray.
But, the crimes I committed
are why I’m here today.

I keep my head up
and learn to cope.
Freedom will come again
and this gives me hope.

So many different people
with faults to accept.
Looking to God with a smile
is all I have left.

My life has been better
and I still have waters to wade.
I plan to make my life good;
Turn lemons to lemonade.

From “These Walls” by a prisoner identified only as C.S

The Point Is To Live Everything

/ James Browning

In my 20’s there was this feeling that one day everything would be just the way I hoped it would be.  I grew up believing all would come if I worked hard and was a good man who did not murder, steal, lie, commit adultery or covet what someone else had.  In every single ‘rule of life’ I was not an “A+” student, but was a good, honorable and decent young man.  Disillusion came by my early 30’s wondering why my graduation into the life I thought I deserved had not unfolded for me.  Oh, to have known then what I know now!

I beg you, to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don’t search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer. Rainer Maria Rilke

Rilke wrote that over a hundred years ago, but his advice is as good now as then.  For me what rings most true are his words “the point is to live everything”.  In stunning simplicity I believe he states wisdom that will help lead anyone toward a richly meaningful life.  Not only the good, joyful and pleasurable should be embraced and lived; pain, disappointment and sorrow needs be lived fully as well.

My thinking used to be that grief, distress and heartbreak were interruptions to my life; just detours on the way to the “good life” I was convinced was ahead.  In retrospect it’s clear now I was living a richly wonderful and good life in my younger years, yet had limited awareness of it then.  Like one who chews food so fast they get little satisfaction or taste I was chewing up life without fully experiencing the myriad of flavors of life.

With regularity I come across quotes by Helen Keller and am touched by them, such as Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.  She gained a deep and profound wisdom that came through “living everything” well including being deaf and blind from the time she was a toddler.  Everyone knows a few people who seem to be able to bear life’s pain with poise and grace.  They have a special way of showing the world their magic without even knowing it and illustrate well the best way to live.

Famed psychologist and philosopher Carl Jung said what we resist persists.  Within those four words he encapsulates why I encountered so many malcontented years:  I resisted ‘what was’.   Fighting unchangeable reality only created more of it.  Amazingly simple to me now!

My life experience got a lot better as I learned to open up and accept ALL of my life’s circumstances. Today I know the more I resist the longer a difficulty or discomfort continues.  When I am able to accept my circumstances there is no immediate calm and joy.  Life does not work like that.  But when I can “just be” and say yes to what is, a frame of mind comes that enables me to cope well with what challenge is upon me and “live the questions” well.

Everything will be okay in the end. if it’s not okay, it’s not the end. Unknown

Content and Worth of My Thoughts

/ James Browning

Having had a series of little things happen all in one day I found the peace of mind from a wonderful week’s vacation knocked slightly off-balance this past weekend. I lost my car keys and never found them, a candle melted on a pillow and a speaker, a folding closet door broke off its hinges, an electronic photo frame a deceased friend gave me stopped working and three other similar annoyances came at me inside six hours.  But I am OK! I used number one and number two below of my ‘twelve guidelines for peace of mind’.  Almost always when I find myself agitated, uneasy, worried or irritated it is because I am violating one of my own guidelines.

1.  The only control possible is control over myself.  I can’t change what happens to me, but I can exercise some power over my feelings about any occurrence.  Plus, only when I am in self-control can I learn any lesson that might be shown to me.

2.  Accept what is.  Every day I will face inconveniences, annoyances, accidents, aches and pains that are completely beyond my control. The power of peace comes from my enduring them cheerfully.  When I do sometimes a disadvantage becomes an advantage.

3.  Give up the need to be recognized or noticed.  Praise is only momentary.  Nurturing my sense of worth is far more important than the praise of another.  All I need to do is believe in myself, do my best to live ethically and sincerely and let go of perfection.

4. Keep the green monster of jealousy out of my life.  Being jealous blocks my peace and ties me up with animosity, longing and fear while showing only insecurity.  Jealousy or envy always brings restlessness and is a quick and easy way to show just how stupid I can be.

5. Stay out of other people’s business.  I need to mind my own business no matter how good my intentions are.  Because I think my way is the best does not mean it is for someone else!  I must let others have their “own stuff” without interfering.

6. Forgiveness is a gift I give myself.  Nurturing ill feelings is like taking poison and expecting someone else to get sick.  Resentments and grievances fester to hurt only the one who bears them:  ME!  Forget, forgive, and move on.

7. Limit intake of information.  After a point “the news” is simply mental noise. My rule of thumb is consume no more newscasts, data and information than I need. Over indulging makes peace elusive as my mind becomes like an overloaded ship that’s difficult to sail and keep on course.

8. Listen to my intuition and my heart. My heart accurately guides me toward what is right.  When I pay attention to my intuition, deepest values and principles I find them to be nearly always a more accurate navigation system than my thoughts.

9. Eliminate unessential stuff.  This is a work in progress, but I FINALLY get “less is more”.  It is easier to have a peaceful mind with less to worry about. Eliminating the non-essential allows more focus better on the essential.

10. Think about self less.  In the past the majority of time was spent thinking about my needs and problems.  The lesson learned has been that purely self-centered thoughts rarely bring peace. More than ever I try to cultivate thoughts of what I can do for others and then do them.

11. Slow down.  My life is far too much of a rush, but I realize the detriment of it.  Another work in progress.  To make the best decisions I need to slow down and step away from distractions.  Only then can my heart and intuition best guide me.

12. Less procrastination. Failing the first time does not really matter.  Mistakes usually can be rectified.  Too much time previously was wasted with “should I or shouldn’t I?” Months and even years were lost in my futile mental debating. The key is to get off my buff just do it.

My gratitude this morning?  To be past the nagging happenings of Saturday!  The quality of my life begins with the content and worth of my thoughts.

Do not confuse peace of mind with spaced-out insensitivity.
A truly peaceful mind is very sensitive, very aware.
Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama

Frequently What Passes As Common Fact

/ James Browning

On occasion I find myself daydreaming about living in a different time; a simpler time as I perceive it to be. It is then my romanticized thoughts often drift to the mental imagery I have of the Victorian era of 120-150 years ago.

Many of my favorite poets and writers lived then.  To a large degree it is through their work my thoughts about that ‘old time’ have been created.  However, I often forget those authors were among the priviledged, if not wealthy.  Their time of the “Victorians” was a grand one of change and invention such as the telephone, radio, toilet, camera, train, vacuum cleaner and sewing machine (but only the very rich could afford them).

There were some curious and odd beliefs then. For example, If a single Victorian man called another single woman by her first name, it implied engagement. When a woman entered a room, it was considered rude for a man to offer his seat to her because the cushion might still be warm. For a lady to show her ankles was considered very risqué!

People thought food digested better in the dark, so a dining room located in the basement was considered the best spot in which to eat during Victorian years. A glance by a visitor into a bedroom was considered improper, so bedrooms were usually located on the second floor. Toilets were always stealthily hidden behind walls and/or curtains and it was considered grossly impolite to ask to use the bathroom when visiting another’s home.

And another little oddity: The Victorians began keeping Hedgehogs in their basements in an effort to control insects. The little things curled up and slept during the daytime, but roamed around dark kitchens at night eating cockroaches and other insects.

To shake me fully out of a fantasy world there are the Victorian health concerns such as Tuberculosis, called “consumption”; the main killer of the time along with rampant pneumonia, influenza and diarrhea. To make matters worse the poor or sick were often sent to harsh institutions called a poorhouse or workhouse.

And to make sure I have returned to reality, the following are all true facts about life in the United States in the early 1900’s just after the Victorian Period:
– The average life expectancy was 47 years.
– 14 percent of the homes had a bathtub.
– 8 percent of the homes had a telephone. 3 minute call from Denver to NYC cost $11.
– 8,000 cars and 144 miles of paved roads. Max speed limit in most cities was 10 mph.
– Average wage was 22 cents per hour. Average worker $200-$400 per year.
– 95 percent of all births took place at home. 90% doctors had no college education
– Sugar cost 4 cents a pound, eggs 14 cents a dozen and coffee was 15 cents a pound.
– Most women washed their hair once a month with borax or egg yolks for shampoo.
– 2 of every 10 adults couldn’t read or write. Only 6 percent graduated high school.
– Marijuana, heroin, and morphine were all available over the counter at the local drugstore including Bayer’s heroin, Metcalf coca wine, opium for asthma, cocaine tablets and drops.

All of a sudden everyday simple things mean a lot more. Just a few minutes ago I made a roundtrip to the kitchen where I flipped on the lights to get another cup of coffee from my automatic coffee maker, then moved the hallway furnace thermostat up a couple of degrees and stopped for a bathroom pit stop on my way back to my office. Very quickly Victorian life seems very challenging and difficult as compared to now. Already being eleven years past the average life expectancy of 100 years it is impossible not to stumble across gratitude for the time my life is being lived.

The good old days are never as good as they are reminisced to be…NOT EVER!  Time has a way of hiding away the jagged and sharp edges while keeping mostly the smooth and inviting parts.  Frequently what passes as common fact is actually only myth. Instead of wishing for what is long past, I choose instead to be grateful for the time of my life. One day, many will look back and wish they could have lived in my here and now.

In daily life we must see that it is not happiness that makes us grateful,
but gratefulness that makes us happy.
Brother David Steindl-Rast

Right Outside Your Door

/ James Browning / 3 Comments

Life unfolds in the present. But so often, we let the present slip away, allowing time to rush past unobserved and unseized, and squandering the precious seconds of our lives as we worry about the future and ruminate about what’s past. “We’re living in a world that contributes in a major way to mental fragmentation, disintegration, distraction, decoherence,” says Buddhist scholar B. Alan Wallace. We’re always doing something, and we allow little time to practice stillness and calm.

When we’re at work, we fantasize about being on vacation; on vacation, we worry about the work piling up on our desks. We dwell on intrusive memories of the past or fret about what may or may not happen in the future. We don’t appreciate the living present because our “monkey minds,” as Buddhists call them, vault from thought to thought like monkeys swinging from tree to tree.

Most of us don’t undertake our thoughts in awareness. Rather, our thoughts control us. “Ordinary thoughts course through our mind like a deafening waterfall,” writes Jon Kabat-Zinn, the biomedical scientist who introduced meditation into mainstream medicine. In order to feel more in control of our minds and our lives, to find the sense of balance that eludes us, we need to step out of this current, to pause, and, as Kabat-Zinn puts it, to “rest in stillness—to stop doing and focus on just being.”

We need to live more in the moment. Living in the moment—also called mindfulness—is a state of active, open, intentional attention on the present. When you become mindful, you realize that you are not your thoughts; you become an observer of your thoughts from moment to moment without judging them. Mindfulness involves being with your thoughts as they are, neither grasping at them nor pushing them away. Instead of letting your life go by without living it, you awaken to experience.   From a “Psychology Today” article By Jay Dixit November 01, 2008 link

“True Joy” by M. Jolynn Rawson-Hunt
I’ll be happy once I’ve done this certain thing.
We all say this often not realizing what it brings.
We look only to the future for our happiness.
Letting life slip through our fingers in its fullness.
Will we really feel complete when the task is done,
or look back and see how we missed so much fun?
Self consumed so we can’t see anything else,
hurting those we love as well as ourselves.
So many things around us to be grateful for,
when seeking for an answer willingly open the door.
So often, others see what’s in front of our face,
but we’re too blind to look as we’re snared in the race.
What is this life supposed to be about?
Is it money, fortune, fame, or a big house?
When speaking to a man on his dying bed,
none of these answers are what he said.
Family, love, laughter are what we should seek.
These are the precious things right outside your door.

Trying to be fully present in the “now” is a battle regularly fought and I am grateful for any reminder that brings me more fully to “this moment”.  Frequently I drift into the “stinkin’ thinkin'” about the past or present, but find more quickly than ever I can snap back into the now.  All I have to do is be mindful of what I am doing and reset myself.  I am grateful for the path I have walked and am still on, that moves me ever so slowly to being more and more fully present in the “now”.

Waste not fresh tears over old grief’s.
Euripides

Beauty Seen Is Never Lost

/ James Browning

Last year near sundown the day after Christmas I witnessed an incredible sunset. This morning something I wrote about that stunning spectacle just hours after witnessing it was discovered.  Through one good photograph taken with my phone while driving and the four paragraphs below, he beautiful memory is fully awake within this morning. 

It is late afternoon and near the end of a 750 miles road trip.  My friend and I are heading to visit my son in Boulder and are about 50 miles outside Denver, Colorado.  The mountains are due west directly in front of us.
 
Near the horizon in front and on both sides of my car, a spectacular display of wind shaped clouds is underway.  Strips of shredded yellow torn from clouds fill the sky almost to the horizon.  Above, the depth of the reds is so striking it appears surreal. The light of the ending day strongly accents the long furrows in the clouds enriching the reds and yellows as the clouds evolve and change in the wind. 
 
The wind is strong and the clouds are changing quickly.  To the south, long thin strips of red have been blown and tangled together.  A large oblong cloud without noticeable texture lies just above.  To the north there is less light from the fading sun and darkness is reaching there first. 
 
Within only a few minutes the sun has become a large half-circle directly in front view.  The big red ball is fast disappearing; turning the sky a deeper and deeper burgundy as the sun’s departure nears completion.

Sunsets happen every day and probably because they are so common people hardly notice the beauty of them most of the time.  On-line I found a short piece written by Kimbaline Navas of Ft.Collins, Colorado. The feeling she writes about of a sundown over water describes near perfectly how the memory of my late December sunset touches me. 

I close my eyes and I can vision my sunset laid across the water with clouds gently placed on top. 

The yellow is so bright that it consumes my thoughts I fall deeper into the colors of the sun so that I could touch the orange glow; what a soft feeling; my sunset.

My sunset takes me to another place and time where there will be no problem too tall to overcome. This vision is imbedded in my mind; it is like a river running free; a clear thought on a sunny day and it ends with my sunset and me.

My sunset frees my thoughts from confusion; it leads me to believe that I am on top of the world; setting me free to scourer over the waters of my mind.

My sunset places me in a part of heaven where the day comes to an end with the beauty of my sunset.

From John Greenleaf Whittier’s 1876 poem “Sunset On The Bearcamp”:
…beauty seen is never lost,
God’s colors all are fast;
The glory of this sunset heaven
Into my soul has passed,
A sense of gladness unconfined
To mortal date or clime;
As the soul liveth, it shall live
Beyond the years of time.

…I shall see a summer sun
Still setting broad and low;
The mountain slopes shall blush and bloom,
The golden water flow.
A lover’s claim is mine on all
I see to have and hold,–
The rose-light of perpetual hills,
And sunsets never cold!

Whittier expresses a gratitude that I find to be a near match for the thankfulness felt for the sunsets I remember, especially my cherished Colorado sundown of a few months ago. 

Everybody needs beauty as well as bread,
Places to play in and pray in,
Where nature may heal
And give strength to body and soul.
John Muir

Finding the Way Home

/ James Browning

Once there was a man completely lost inside
Thought he did not allow himself to know it.
The sensitive child within knew only to hide,
And to go along sadly pretending all was well.

Years passed and life became more hallow,
So many ways he tried to cure what ailed him.
He walked a long, crooked path easy to follow
Of money, success, possessions and distraction.

Travel, hobbies and work were ineffective too.
Relationships came but in time eventually failed.
Peace of mind always elusive; times of peace few.
A slow spiral continued toward an uncertain future.

Weight of years of pain and evasion strongly grew,
The manic search brought unclear delusion and lies
So hard he tried repeatedly with every thing he knew
To open the deep pit within of shadow and darkness.

And then the crash came….

And a discovery
Of emotions lame,
Of misplaced blame,
Of wrongs done,
Of deceit spun,
Of habitual lies
Of unnoticed cries,
Of answers none,
Of delusions spun,
Of self loathing,
Of guilt loading,
Of anger exploding
And in the unavoidable fall
Came a revelation finally exposing.
What was wrong, what could have been, what could never be and what was possible.

Hard lessons learned in the most difficult way,
Learning, accepting ways how not to go astray,
A child inside freed from being kept so far away,
Where once sorrow was real happiness is today.

You have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the
wilderness of your intuition. What you’ll discover will be wonderful. 
What you’ll discover is yourself. 
Alan Alda

Rather Be a Has-Been

/ James Browning

My life is blessed with a handful of close friends who feel deeply and express their feelings openly.  It is an honor to share my life with them.  I never know when one of them will pass along a thought that will touch me.  The morning I found the following Charlie Chaplin quote emailed from a new friend of about a year now (thank you P.!).

I have forgiven mistakes that were indeed almost unforgivable. I’ve tried to replace people who were irreplaceable and tried to forget those who were unforgettable.

I’ve acted on impulse, have been disappointed by people when I thought that this could never be possible. But I have also disappointed those who I love.

I have laughed at inappropriate occasions. I’ve made friends that are now friends for life. I’ve screamed and jumped for joy.

I’ve loved and I’ve been loved. But I have also been rejected and I have been loved without loving the person back.

I’ve lived for love alone and made vows of eternal love. I’ve had my heart-broken many, many times!

I’ve cried while listening to music and looking at old pictures. I’ve called someone just to hear their voice on the other side.

I have fallen in love with a smile. At times, I thought I would die because I missed someone so much. At other times, I felt very afraid that I might lose someone very special (which ended up happening anyway).

But I have lived! And I still continue living everyday. I’m not just passing through life and you shouldn’t either… Live!

The best thing in life is to go ahead with all your plans and your dreams, to embrace life and to live everyday with passion, to lose and still keep the faith and to win while being grateful.

All of this because the world belongs to those who dare to go after what they want. And because life is really too short to be insignificant.

There are times I play the Shoulda, Woulda, Coulda”  game.  It’s unavoidable.  Psychologists refer to this process of evaluating how I might have done things differently, as “counterfactual thinking”.  More often than not it is a mechanism that conjures up feelings of disappointment and regret, at least temporarily.

There is one good result that now usually follows a bout of ‘wishing backward’ thinking.  Frequently I start the circle of thought lamenting missteps with ‘should have, would have, and could have’ been.  But usually now I complete the loop being grateful for ‘what is’ instead of pondering what might have been.  What has changed from how I used to react to “Shoulda, Woulda, Coulda” to my response to that type thinking today?  One simple thing:  I have learned to be grateful for all of my life.  “All” includes not just what was positively wonderful and rewarding but also what was terribly difficult and challenging.

Learning to be grateful for my mistakes was not easy.   It took a long, long time before I grasped that my blunders and errors were frequently my greatest teachers.  Gratitude tempers and beautifies everything it shines upon, even mistakes.

I’d rather be a could-be if I cannot be an are;
because a could-be is a maybe who is reaching for a star.
I’d rather be a has-been than a might-have-been, by far;
for a might have-been has never been, but a has was once an are.
Milton Berle