Life as it really is

“Soft Hearted”

/ James Browning

melted heart

Maybe you don’t see,
Little things get to me,
A silly comment, words unmeant,
Things merely insignificant
Spend hours in my head,
They tear at my heart,
And don’t cease
Till its apart.
poemofquotes.com

There was never a time I don’t remember being soft-hearted, even as a little boy. Clearly I recall before first grade giving my uncle something for my first cousin. She was younger and had cerebral palsy. Giving her a prized rubber cowboy I kept safe in a drawer was my way to show I cared.

At nineteen I quit my job and moved a thousand miles with my roommate because he was relocating and needed help. I took off ill-prepared with no job and little money but it all worked out.

Close to ten years ago I relocated out of the country for the woman in my heart. Living on a tiny island where she wanted to be is not something a poor swimmer like me would ordinarily choose otherwise.

Professionally, I have stayed at jobs much longer than I wanted in order not ‘let down’ the people who worked for me.

More times than I can remember have been denials of my hopes and wishes in order to give to someone else.

Today I don’t really regret any of it, but do acknowledge the pain my actions caused me. For long years there was a struggle with thoughts like, “I do all this for them and they don’t appreciate it” or “I give and give and give. Why can’t they see what I need?” or “After all I have done for you, you do this to me!” I admit there is selfishness in those notions. To give with unspoken strings attached is not true giving. In every instance there was a lesson to be learned, but I had to wait until the ember of each emotion died down.

What remains behind of those things given in the past are stories I tell myself. Over time the tales have improved to where I can see my willing participation in each episode. Once the emotions settled and my part was exposed there came teaching that allowed me to see beyond the aches of a soft heart. Ultimately I realize now everything given eventually looped back to benefit me in one way or another.

“..It occurs to me that the peculiarity of most things we think of as fragile is how tough they truly are. There were tricks we did with eggs, as children, to show how they were, in reality, tiny load-bearing marble halls… Hearts may break, but hearts are the toughest of muscles, able to pump for a lifetime, seventy times a minute, and scarcely falter along the way. Even dreams, the most delicate and intangible of things, can prove remarkably difficult to kill.” Neil Gaiman

I am grateful for each time I have been hurt, misunderstood, left-out, given more than I got or was left behind. Such are what made my soft heart strong.

Suffering has been stronger than all other teaching,
and has taught me to understand what your heart used to be.
I have been bent and broken, but – I hope – into a better shape.
Charles Dickens

Walk Through Destiny

/ James Browning

2521-sun-through-the-trees-1920x1200-nature-wallpaperOften a brevity of well-focused words breaks through to be more meaningful than thoughts expressed in a pile of language. So for the sake of time (which I am short of this morning) here are Seven Rules of Life by an anonymous writer that breach my habitual thinking.

1) Make peace with your past so it won’t screw up the present.

2) What others think of you is none of your business.

3) Time heals almost everything, give it time.

4) Don’t compare your life to others and don’t judge them. You have no idea what their journey is all about.

5) Stop thinking too much, it’s alright not to know the answers. They will come to you when you least expect it.

6) No one is in charge of your happiness, except you.

7) Smile. You don’t own all the problems in the world.

I know not a single new thought exists on that list. Yet, keeping the ‘rules’ more present in mind will improve my walk through destiny. I am grateful for the reminders!

Life is short,
break the rules,
forgive quickly,
kiss slowly,
love truly,
laugh uncontrollably,
and never regret anything
that made you smile.
Twenty years from now
you will be more disappointed
by the things you didn’t do
than by the ones you did.
So throw off the bowlines.
Sail away from the safe harbor.
Catch the trade winds in your sails.
Explore.
Dream.
Discover.
Mark Twain

The Key to Cultivate, Know and Appreciate

/ James Browning

__by_unusualdream-d3el04tOthers have known greater emotional pain than me, but my life has included a healthy share of it. I used to think my allotment was enough to make me a “special” case. For a long time I thought the quantity of pain that came my way was more than most. But I learned better.

It’s self focused to think I know how the pain I have encountered compares to what others have been faced with. Every life is a unique experience and how a person reacts to difficulty is individually distinctive. As different as each life is, one thing is certain: pain hurts and everyone gets their share. The painful experiences are the boldest teachers about living if one is paying attention and accepting of the lessons.

Pain is a pesky part of being human.

I’ve learned it feels like a stab wound to the heart,
something I wish we could all do without, in our lives here.

Pain is a sudden hurt that can’t be escaped.

But then I have also learned that because of pain,
I can feel the beauty, tenderness, and freedom of healing.

Pain feels like a fast stab wound to the heart.

But then healing feels like the wind against your face
when you are spreading your wings and flying through the air!

We may not have wings growing out of our backs,
but healing is the closest thing
that will give us that wind against our faces.
C. JoyBell C.

Learning to appreciate emotional turmoil was a giant step forward, for it is one of my life’s most profound teachers. C.S. Lewis wrote, “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.” And so it was with me.

When the pain to stay the same exceeded the pain to change, I changed. Recognizing the teachings of pain was a breakthrough toward happiness. I will always remember the month and year: October, 2007. It was then I gratefully began to grasp that happiness does not teach about being happy; pain does. It is the painful parts of living that are the key to cultivate, know and appreciate peace and contentment.  I am grateful to know happiness is impossible without anguish, sorrow and grief plowing the ground for it to grow in.

It’s so hard to forget pain,
but it’s even harder to remember sweetness.
We have no scar to show for happiness.
We learn so little from peace.
Chuck Palahnuik

WHY?

/ James Browning

chinese_character_weishenme_why long reversed edit

Why? It’s a simple one word question, and the first one we learn to ask as a small child. And we never stop looking to answer it. I certainly haven’t. With age I ask “why” more, but expect an answer less.

“Why”
by Wanda M. R. Garrett

Why was I born?
For whom do I live?
What worth am I?
What can I give?

What will I be?
Where will I go?
What must I do?
Tell me if you know.

There is more to life than what I see,
There is much more of myself deep
down inside of me,
Who am I?

Where do I belong?
These words keep turning
like an endless song,
I feel I have so much to give,

But where do I start?
I feel that I’m special,
No one else like me,
But who am I?

I like feeling good
And strangely enough,
I like sometimes the feeling
of being sad.

I am an emotional being,
So many things move me,
Things I do and what I see,
I am touched by the,
tears of a child.

I feel a sense of freedom,
Sometimes I even feel wild,
I am here,
Yet I am there,

I am still also very aware,
I am sensitive,
And touched by how you feel,
I am loved by God,
And I know that feeling is real,
But still, Who Am I?

http://www.angelfire.com/nc/poetsstreet/

Sometimes there is no “why”. As my life experience has broadened, no answer echoes back more often than one comes.  And that’s okay. But never will I stop asking the question.

Frequently, the reply to “why” is “because”, the same that was said to me as a child. I am grateful that more and more that’s all the answer I need.

He who has a why to live
can bear almost any how.
Friedrich Nietzsche

How Much Love…

/ James Browning

love copy“How much love have you let in today?”

That question crossed my path and stopped me in my tracks. Reading the article by Cheryl Eckl that followed the question hit me like a ton of bricks: giving love to others is only half the equation.

Being a good giver but a poor receiver of love makes me in part affectionately impoverished. I am so much better at expressing my feelings to others, but not nearly so good at receiving affection. Talk about a ‘lick up side the head”! No wonder there has always been a lack in my heart.

To let love in, you have to be vulnerable. Not a familiar or comfortable state, especially for us Westerners. Even if we walk softly through life, we still carry a big stick in the form of inner defenses, resistances, psychological walls, and separations. Social media make avoiding actual people quite easy, so that creating real, honest, heart-felt, physical connections is not something we do well. Because to be that open means that we might get hurt or inconvenienced. Or we might be exposed for the frauds we may secretly suspect that we are.

It’s a crummy way to live. And yet, we’re so accustomed to being closed off that we don’t even notice. That is, until somebody asks, “How much love have you let in today?” Then we have to stop and examine whether we even know how to open up. Do we really know what love is? And what happens if we actually let it in?

Allowing ourselves to be touched by another’s differences is to be truly open and powerfully vulnerable. Parents are often really sweet in accepting the crude drawings of a child, knowing them to be an imperfect expression of perfect love. But somehow we lose that generosity as we age, forgetting that inside each of us remains a child who wants her gift to be cherished and pressed to the heart of the one she loves.

It may be more blessed to give than to receive. But if we fail to receive what others uniquely and affectionately offer us, the circle of love is incomplete. The heart’s door must swing both ways if we are to find wholeness—if we are to ever live life to the fullness that a loving Universe longs to give. Taken from “A Beautiful Grief” by Cheryl Eckl http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/beautiful-grief/201111/how-much-love-have-you-let-in-today

To expound any further would delude the impact a simple question had on me today. “How much love have I let in today?” will become a permanent part of my toolbox for better living. I am grateful to now have such a useful implement!

Treasure the love you receive above all.
It will survive long after
your good health has vanished.
Og Mandino

The Hungry Ghost

/ James Browning

7698002802_b7995efa67_zA hand clenched leaves no space for anything else. That thought has been taught to me repeatedly until it became accepted fact. When I rebel against life and grab on, wanting it to stay the way it is, nothing is accomplished except the narrowing of my life experience.

Over indulgence in wanting, wishing and hoping moves me either into future tripping or on a tour of the past. Nothing alive is to be found in either. This moment, who I am now and what I have currently is where living is found. Stated many times, I will always continue to express such thinking for it brings me back to the “now”.

When we’re in a state of wanting mind, we’re never satisfied, no matter what we have. If we attain the object of our longing, we simply replace the old desire with a new one. If we achieve revenge, we feel worse than we did before. The problem is that wanting mind is rooted in the incorrect belief that something outside of ourselves is the key to lasting happiness so we look there for the solution. The reality is that no emotion or state of being, however strong, is permanent and that happiness can’t be found outside of ourselves only within. Buddhists call this phenomenon of endless wanting and dissatisfaction the “hungry ghost. Ronald Alexander, Ph.D.

It is a uniquely human condition to desire. It caused the creation of civilization itself, brought a need to express in art and writing and started most any worthwhile endeavor. Want precedes doing. Longing comes before finding. Aspiration foreruns accomplishment. Feeling nourished follows craving. Happiness i soften recognized by a yearning sated. Flourishing is always a product of making peace with struggle and difficulty.

Sometimes we must confront painful options or make difficult choices. On occasion, flourishing is playing the hand we are dealt as well as we can, given imperfect and even undesirable circumstances such as family crises or financial distress, job loss or illness – the new reality for increasing numbers of people. Flourishing is different from happiness and it doesn’t always feel good. Many of our most painful experiences – unrequited love, loss of a beloved relative, professional failure – clarify our values, sharpen our determination and deepen our compassion. Jeffrey B. Rubin

Gone is the belief that being joyful and cheerful should fill me all the time. Can you believe I once thought that was possible?!?! Accepting the trials, challenges, heartaches and uncertainties are always predictable parts of life has been a huge step. And I don’t mean the usual acknowledgement of issues I used to make (as almost every one does). It is in seeing the greatest hurts and difficulties as teachers of cherished wisdom that I began to find contentment.

Being happy and flourishing is a state of contentment, even if what is happening is not what I want or would choose. Throwing off unhappiness and accepting all of life as one package has turned being alive into an exceptionally enjoyable adventure.

Unhappiness is a dangerous thing,
like carbon monoxide.
You don’t smell it,
you don’t taste it,
it’s formless and colourless,
but it poisons slowly.
It seeps into every pore
of your skin until one day
your heart just stops beating.
Bella Pollen

Newly Refocused to Clarity

/ James Browning

fa892c9ecFailing to meet your true destiny is a tragic act of free will.

Those dozen words from Anthon St. Maarten have been swimming around in my head since encountering them for the first time yesterday. I have since expanded the short statement into a generalized meaning that helps me to hang on to my interpretation of Maarten’s words:  when my life situation is no longer blamed on other people, circumstances and fate, my perception is peeled back to show it is my choices and actions that most shape my life. Intellectuality I already knew that. But having that wisdom newly refocused to clarity is a sure path to an improved use of my free will and in turn a conduit to a continually improving life experience.

I made sure to pay attention to everything I was doing. To be fully in the moment. Because that’s all life is, really, a string of moments that you knot together and carry with you. Hopefully most of those moments are wonderful, but of course they won’t all be. The trick is to recognize an important one when it happens. Even if you share the moment with someone else, it is still yours. Your string is different from anyone else’s. It is something no one can ever take away from you. It will protect you and guide you, because it IS you.

Until recently, I thought it was death that gave meaning to life–that having an endpoint is what spurred us on to embrace life while we had it. But I was wrong. It isn’t death that gives meaning to life. Life gives meaning to life. The answer to the meaning of life is hidden right there inside the question.

What matters is holding tight to that string, and not letting anyone tell us our goals aren’t big enough or our interests are silly. But the voices of others aren’t the only ones we need to worry about. We tend to be our own worst critics. Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote: ‘Most of the shadows in this life are caused by our standing in our own sunshine.’ … Wisdom is found in the least expected places. Always keep your eyes open. Don’t block your own sunshine. Be filled with wonder. From “Jeremy Fink and the Meaning of Life” by Wendy Mass

The meaning of life is not some cosmic, out-of-reach and mysterious explanation. That’s difficult to see most of the time because us humans have the innate ability to over complicate things and obscure our ability to accurately see, know and perceive. Only by living rooted in the present as much as possible is “the meaning of it all” to be found. It is not “outside of me”. I was born with it, but have been conditioned to believe I was incomplete and the meaning of my life was outside of me. IT ISN’T!

Even without being exposed to the clarity of St. Maarten’s statement before, I’ve been living with that sort of self-direction now for several years. Gratefully, with those dozen words as a newly focused reminder I can do it even more.

There are essentially two questions in life –
a spiritual question and a material question.
The spiritual question is ‘Who am I?’
The material question is
‘What am I to do with my life?’
One leads to the other.
Rasheed Ogunlaru

A State of Beingness

/ James Browning

infinity-signAcceptance of how much influence I actually have over the quality of my life is frightening. Grasping that I, more than any other factor, am what shapes the quality of my existence takes a bit of courage. When I used to blame and point fingers at people and circumstances for my lack of contentment and happiness, I felt confidently miserable. There is no courageousness in that, nor anything else that lends itself toward a good life.

That’s the thing about unhappiness. I realize in my past feeling certain why I was unhappy became the little island in the big scary ocean I hung on to. I felt dejected, but certain of why and that was my answer for things. Life sucked because it sucked. That’s pretty silly when I actually type the words.

Time and effort brought the lesson that in total, I usually cannot put a finger on exactly why I am feeling good; why happiness has invaded the space gloom used to occupy. Of course I can identify some of the causes, but far from all of it. What matters is that I live fully in my contented times and not try to mentally research the source. I need to “just be” as the phrase goes.

The same is true of my down times. Trying to sort out all the reasons “why” is impossible and makes the murkiness last longer. It is far better to simply bear well the gloomy moments and let them pass. Analyzing such times ALWAYS makes them last longer.

Do not waste the precious moments of this, your present reality, seeking to unveil all of life’s secrets. Those secrets are a secret for a reason. Use your NOW moment for the Highest Purpose- the creation and the expression of WHO YOU REALLY ARE. Decide who you are- who you want to be-and then do everything in your power to be that.

It is not nearly so important how well a message is received as how well it is sent. You cannot take responsibility for how well another accepts your truth; you can only ensure how well it is communicated. And by how well, I don’t mean merely how clearly; I mean how lovingly, how compassionately, how sensitively, how courageously, and how completely.

If you think your life is about DOINGNESS, you do not understand what you are about. Your soul doesn’t care what you do for a living-and when your life is over, neither will you. Your soul cares only about what you’re BEING while you’re doing whatever you’re doing.  Neal Donald Walsh

And so I enter into my day, self-reminded of how I to use well the gift of the next fourteen hours or so of consciousness. I will do my best to not waste too much applying logic and analysis to life. Instead, with gratefulness I will endeavor to embrace the time being as truly “myself” as I possibly can.

The reason people find it so hard to be happy
is that they always see the past better than it was,
the present worse than it is,
and the future less resolved than it will be.
Marcel Pagnol

Greet Yourself Arriving

/ James Browning

see myself arrivingLived in thirteen states and a foreign country.
Two marriages and numerous failed relationships.
Lots of jobs. Work, work, work.
Learned to fly. Bought an airplane.
Became a professional photographer.
Success and money.
Accomplishment created more emptiness
Often learned little from failure.
Going and going not getting anywhere.
Never satisfied. Always wanting more.
… et cetera, et cetera, et cetera…

When first looking at that list of ten things it does not seem like such a short inventory should take up as much space as they have during the last thirty years. Of course there was more, but in majority those ten things are where I spent most of my time. Searching and searching but not knowing exactly what I was searching for.. Then a few years ago my focus began to be clearer. Slowly, so painfully slow, a form took shape. I was surprised  when I finally saw what I had been searching for. It was me…. I had been looking outside myself for what was inside all along

“Love After Love”

The time will come
when, with elation
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror
and each will smile at the other’s welcome,
and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you
all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,
the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.
Derek Walcott

Uncomplicated and plainly said; today I am grateful for “me”.

Whether I fail or succeed
shall be no man’s doing but my own.
I am the force.
Elaine Maxwell

Sometimes…

/ James Browning

A_trail_into_the_clouds_by_endoftherainbow

Sometimes…

Doubt is the opposite of faith, but sometimes doubt can be a pathway to faith.

Sometimes…

Weakness is the opposite of strength, but sometimes weakness can be the pathway to strength.

Sometimes…

Addiction is the opposite of sobriety, but sometimes addiction can be the pathway to sobriety.

Sometimes…

Infidelity is the opposite of fidelity, but sometimes infidelity can be a pathway to fidelity.

Sometimes…

Failure is the opposite of success, but sometimes failure can be the pathway to success.

“Enough” by David W. Jones

It pleases me to know the kind of person I have become: most definitely imperfect; but imperfectly whole and happy. It feels extraordinary to now say “I love me!” and feel the authenticity of the words.

Gratitude abounds for a balance I feel within me the majority of the time. In being thankful for what is, I must have gratitude for what brought me here: heartaches, miracles, problems, blessings, difficulties, good fortunes, setbacks and lots of love. All that and more shaped me even though I frequently resisted with great tenaciousness.

Thankfully life is stronger than my will and when it overtook me, real happiness began. How wonderful it is to lose to the goodness of life and the power of love.

A loving heart
is the beginning
of all knowledge.
Thomas Carlyle

Photograph by Nick Owen