Life

The Great Weight of Small Joyful Moments

/ James Browning

It is natural for a person to notice and vividly remember moments of great joy and tremendous happiness.  Such beautiful experiences are for most people thought to be the sum total of the best of their life.  Yet, when I focus for a few minutes and mentally accumulate the big joyful moments experienced the initial list I come up with is shorter than I would have first imagined.  As remembrances of first love, the birth of my son, a miracle that saved my family’s life and other momentous occurrences come to mind, the moments of joy listed get smaller in size.    

In a sort of upside down mental pyramid, the biggest joyful moments of my life are at the top of my list with a great number of smaller joys listed below.  While the width and height of each lesser joy is not nearly as weighty as each entry in the big stuff above, it is in the totaled together small elated moments where I find the majority of my life’s joyousness.

A fresh one from yesterday was sitting in private with a part-time employee and her supervisor discussing how she had risen to the task of filling in, since last September, an open full-time position.  We were telling her that six months before we would not have seriously considered her for the position we were about to promote her to.   She had worked hard and shown what she could do resulting in her getting the position she wanted so badly.  In telling her how proud we were of her, my eyes welled up, her supervisors eyes got watery and so did hers.  It was a small moment of pure joy. 

Last week at the end of a business trip I stopped off in Alabama to see my Brother who I have not seen in over two years (shame on me!).  Once at the airport curbside with my bags I called to let him know.  In less than a minute he pulled up in the lane in front of me.  While just seeing him warmed my heart, it was the hug that lingered that touched me down to the core of my being.  In that moment I was reminded that he is the only true goodness I can trace all the way back to where my memory begins.  That realization was another small moment of joy. 

The warmer than usual winter here has fooled the daffodils of early spring into coming up early.  All over my yard the green little stalks are clustered in flower beds, but only one stalk has had the strength to flower.  The temperature has been down into the teens in the last week, but I noticed that one little yellow flower was still standing tall this morning when I took out the trash.  When color is everywhere, a single flower does not draw much notice, but when one dab of bright daffodil yellow is all there is it becomes very noticeable.  For that split second I noticed the bloom alive and well, I smiled and thought to myself “good for you little fellow”.  Another small moment of joy. 

My work has been extraordinarily busy for the last three weeks and I have spent almost no time with my best friend, Mel.  The couple of visits we have been together I have either been tired, distracted or both.  Outside of my Brother and Son, there is no man closer to me and I have missed his company.  Getting an email inviting me to see a movie tonight caused me to smile momentarily with just the thought of hanging out with my buddy.  Another momentary appearance of a tiny joy.

Sometimes joy is a discovery solely within myself.  Seeing the counter of the days I have written this blog cross 292 earlier this week brought a momentary feeling of joy.  That number represents an 80% accomplishment of my goal of writing here every day for a year, something I honestly would not have believed six months ago possible.  Realizing I had found the kind of discipline I have never been capable of brought a joyous feeling for a short moment.

Always I have considered myself to be a sensitive person with good awareness of my feelings and believed those to be accurate self perceptions.  One unexpected jewel of truth gained from writing about gratitude every day, is my level of gratefulness has increased ten-fold.  My heart, mind and soul have been brought to a level of insightful awareness beyond anything I have known or could have imagined. 

Life is blend of difficulty, challenge and grief combined with joy, happiness and delight.  In what measure I focus my thinking on each is the largest determining factor of the quality of my life. It is with much gratefulness I share publicly that personal truth.

Things don’t go wrong and break your heart
so you can become bitter and give up.
They happen to break you down and build you
up so you can be all that you were intended to be. 
Charles “Tremendous” Jones

You Are More Than Who You Think

/ James Browning / 1 Comment

Without cause or catalyst I can name, once in a while I have found myself alone glancing into a mirror being startled by the sudden realization “I AM!”.  These rare moments started in childhood somewhere about ten years old.  The feeling is not bad particularly, but one does send me into an odd loop of thinking and self-questioning for a little while. 
 
When I really SEE myself this way thoughts rattle quickly to temporarily permeate my being.  They range from a startling “I really am here!?!?” and one of surprise like “so that is what I look like” to one of questioning in the realm of “I look very different from what my mind tells me” and “who am I?”.  It is the latter that unnerves me the most.  I think that’s because no answer ever comes that is simple enough to encapsulate in a though and in trying to find one a twinge of fear shows up.  I don’t have a “motto”, “slogan” or “self-description” that sums me up in a comfortable way. Maybe no one does.  
 
Sorting out how “who I am” is something not taught at school and is one of the most bewildering things about life.  As a small child I was seasoned by the “old-fashioned” ways taught in the isolated rural south.  By the third grade my existence was peppered with the pain of a broken family and a general lack of caring from the adults responsible for me.  Children always blame them self for the problems of their parents and as a child my response to such feelings was to build a nature of conformity.  At a time that could have been about self discovery, my self-identity was obscured and largely out of my sight. 
 
Teenage years brought a time of questioning for the majority of what I had been taught intentionally or had learned from watching adults.  My formative quizzical years from thirteen to sixteen found me perplexed about 90% of everything!  And what does a healthy, trouble teenage boy do in regard to what he does not understand?  REBELLION, of course and pretend I knew everything!

Beginning in my teen world of the late 60’s and increasingly since, media hype surrounding celebrities – their image, body shape, fashion and hair style – it has been easy to get sucked in, longing to look like, sound like, act like and be admired just like the famous faces.  The silent pressure from all around created a gnawing tension between being myself and fitting in with the people around me. 

Internally I have forever been overshadowed by a self-consciousness that grew from a concern about what others think of me. With a dread of being put down for simply being who I really was it became easy in many circumstances just to do, say and act as I thought I was expected to.  It was my way of being accepted.  

Only in recent years has my fear subsided enough to where I can consistently talk openly about my problems, what I really believe in and the things that truly matter most to me. Before I was always afraid of not being understood or I’d be thought less of.  The issues of childhood and mistakes of my adult life combined with nausea from pretending gave me the impetus to change and grow beyond the “me” I had been.  Initially with reluctance, and later with growing confidence I have allowed myself to show more and more of the person that truly is me.

Now there is a knowing if others can’t respect me for the “true me” or are going to be judgmental then they are not worth my time, energy, friendship or love.  Today my knowledge is certain that my self-identity is so much more than what I wear or do.  Rather it is made up of what I believe in, what I dream of, what standards I hold myself to and about allowing myself the freedom to live first for no one else but me. 

In many ways my education of who I am has me still in class learning. Even now the questioning of who I am and where I belong linger and swirl, but thankfully not to the point of completely clouding life in front of me.   Though hard work, lots of honest introspection and the help of many I have found confidence and strength to counter my fears. There is much gratefulness to love, rather than fear, who I am.   

“Who You Are” by Wave Carberry

You are a rare wild orchid, magically lit from within,
But warmed outside by flaming sun of passion.
You are strong, and cling tenaciously to love.
No jungle predator can tear you from your home,
For you protect your own.
But when shrieking storms have blown down
All the stable trunks of home,
And you stand swaying in the shifting wind,
Know this, my friend:
You are more than who you think.
No one can define you, or diminish you,
Even at the brink of loss and sorrow.
You fold within yourself
Seeds of growth and power,
The light of understanding.

Saint Valentine’s Day

/ James Browning / 1 Comment

It is said the tradition of Valentine’s Day began because this was the date birds began to choose their mates. An early reference in print to Valentine’s Day is found in Geoffrey Chaucer’s “The Parliament of Fowls” in 1831: For this was Saint Valentine’s day, when every bird of every kind comes to this place to choose his mate.

Here are some random thoughts that touch me offered on this special day to honor those who loved before us and those who love now.

Over ten years ago at an estate auction in Arkansas I bought a beautiful old Valentine along with its envelope in a frame. The two cents in stamps are postmarked February 14, 1896 or exactly one hundred and sixteen years ago from today.

While the sender and the recipient are almost certainly no longer here, the loving and kind gesture of the sender lives on. Through the sentiment of the card and the care I and others have taken of it, the wish is here today for me to share. The outside of the card is at the start of this blog and on the inside is found:

Not sunlight in its prime,
Not moonlight’s gentle ray’s
Is half so fair as love
which brightens
day by day.

Here are three favorite quotes about love from the movies that bring the warmth of love to my heart when I read them:

My heart, it’s like my chest can barely contain it, like it doesn’t belong to me anymore, it belongs to you. If you wanted it, I’d wish for nothing in exchange, no gifts, no goods, no demonstrations of devotion – nothing but knowing you love me too. Just your heart, in exchange for mine. “Stardust”

I feel like you are the reward for everything I did right in my life. “Then She Found Me”

What is sacred? Of what is the spirit made? What is worth living for, and what is worth dying for? The answer to each is the same – only love.” “Don Juan DeMarco”

One of the most famous love stories of the last two hundred years is that of poets Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning.  The opening line Elizabeth wrote for Robert in the forty-third “Sonnet to the Portuguese” is widely known and the “Sonnets…” is one of my absolute favorite works of poetry:

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of every day’s
Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old grief’s, and with my childhood’s faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints,–I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life!–and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.

A few lines from the thirty-eighth sonnet:
First time he kissed me, he but only kissed
The fingers of this hand wherewith I write;
And ever since, it grew more clean and white,
With sanctifying sweetness, did precede
The third upon my lips was folded down
In perfect, purple state; since when, indeed,
I have been proud and said, “My love, my own.”

And from the thirty-ninth:
I think of thee!–my thoughts do twine and bud
About thee, as wild vines, about a tree,
Put out broad leaves, and soon there’s naught to see
Except the straggling green which hides the wood.

For the hapless romantic spirit of my soul and the joy in my heart, I am very grateful this Saint Valentine’s Day for life, for love and the insight to appreciate both.

The rose is red, the violet’s blue,
The honey’s sweet, and so are you.
Thou art my love and I am thine;
I drew thee to my Valentine:
The lot was cast and then I drew,
And Fortune said it should be you.
From 1792 English nursery Rhyme book
“Gammer Gurton’s Garland” by Joseph Ritson

Progressive Jerks Forward & Developmental Back Stepping

/ James Browning / 1 Comment

With a cut or scratch on my skin, I know with proper care healing will take place.  The deeper the wound, the more time needed for the healing to happen.  Even then there often is a scar and the size of it depends a good amount on the care I take of the wound.

Healing emotional wounds is similar.  How much care I give the abrasion in my psyche affects the mending process.  Just like a visible injury healed on the outer body, recovery of the heart and mind usually leaves behind a scar but inside, unseen.  The inability to see it lends difficulty to knowing when healing has fully taken place.

Ever noticed how when we get hurt physically and someone asks if we are OK, the first response is often “I’m fine”.  My response has been like that when I was in searing pain and ultimately had to get medical attention.  I suppose admitting being hurt suggests some sort of weakness.  Why this is my nature I really have no specific idea, but have been doing it recently by saying I am OK when I really am not.

I am wrestling with an issue with roots back in childhood and tentacles all over my adult. My belief was I had moved past the issue to where it would not bother me again.  That thinking was a mistake.  Just as scar tissue is never as strong as original skin, when recovered emotionally from a childhood wound there remains a tender and easily re-injured scar.

The Buddha said desire was the cause of suffering.  Addiction is compulsive desire run rampant.  From my early adult life I was a relationship addict and had to be involved with a woman to feel complete (if not more than one at the same time).  Like any addiction, desire was never sated for long and over time it took more and more to satisfy the desire if only for a short while.

A part of my healing was to live with loneliness until being with someone was not driven by compulsion.  Will I ever achieve that one hundred percent?  Not likely, but getting the upper hand over that desire is something I am glad happened for me.  However, I have discovered a part of my self-control came from cultivating aversion which actually is not about being healed.  It is rather about building another form of compulsion:  one away from what is desired.

It is healthy to make the discovery I have.  Doing the real work on one’s self to find more contentment in life brings a constant series of doors being opened where an entry point was previously unknown.  This journey of self-discovery is exciting and rewarding while at the same time difficult and worrisome.  Healing and recovery is not a process that moves at a constant speed.  Rather it is a combination of progressive jerks forward and developmental back stepping.

My present challenge brought another little piece of clarity.  It is something I know but was not practicing particularly well:  worry churns the same thought over and over in my head building it to a size beyond its real meaning.  Worrying is just aversion or more accurately, fear.  Slaying this dragon or at least making it my friend means moving past my fear.  I have to walk right into the mouth of what I am afraid of and stride through it in order to move forward.

What you have read today is simply me thinking in written form while sorting out why an old way of being and thinking is affecting me so much.  Sharing publicly here is my way of overcoming contempt and aversion prior to deeper investigation.  Such has been my way with many things.  Building disapproval and even hatred for ways of being in my past is not healthful.  Just admitting that truth will help me overcome my aversion so I can heal better.

In Zen, there is a path called the “Great Doubt” or the “Don’t Know Mind”.  Simply it is only when I accept the answer is not known that it may be found.  As soon as I settle on a quick solution blindness will come over me for other considerations.  As soon as I have it “figured out” that is when I stop learning.

I am grateful to realize the wisdom of every answer I arrive at must be provisional, based on the information I have at that moment and my own ability to see it clearly.  With my current quandary I am uncomfortable, yet am learning greater penetration into wisdom by bearing the questioning.  It is challenge, difficulty and pain that are the most prolific  teachers.

Today I will not fear change and new ways of seeing or being.  I will not hold discomfort at arm’s length.  Without fear of the learning’s impact on my life I will let insights openly come so the lesson being taught can find me   I am grateful for the new perceptions that will help me to do just that.

Growth means change and change involves risk,
stepping from the known to the unknown.
Anonymous

To Love More and Be Happy

/ James Browning / 3 Comments

A company business trip took me to the Florida for most of the week.  The trip was completed with a stop in Alabama to visit family for a couple of nights.  As much as I no longer find business travel to be enjoyable, the first part of the trip was more than a fair trade-off  to see my Brother, his wife and my niece.

Arriving home late yesterday afternoon I was near a walking zombie.  The meetings of the week started early and the evening dinners went late.  Arriving home my state was near exhaustion.  Too tired to unpack and too wired to go to bed at 7pm, I turned on the cable box to find something interesting to unwind and decompress with.  I ended up on pay-per-view stumbling across a documentary called “I Am” by Tom Shadyac who directed movie comedies such as “Ace Ventura:  Pet Detective” “Patch Adams” and “The Nutty Professor”.

For some people there are events that happen which are deeply life changing.  For Shadyac it was post-concussion syndrome after a 2007 bicycle accident in Virginia.  A 2011 New York Times article stated that: the symptoms of a concussion (didn’t) go away. Something as simple as a trip to the grocery store was painful for Shadyac, whose brain was unable to filter various stimuli. After medical treatments failed to help, he isolated himself completely, sleeping in his closet and walling the windows of his mobile home with black-out curtains. As his symptoms finally began to subside, the director wanted to share his inner quest in the way he knew best: through film. 

Shadyac gave away much of his fortune mostly through donations to worthy causes.  He reoriented and simplified his life, sold his 17,000-square-foot home and moved into a trailer park in Malibu.  Some think he “lost it” but after watching his documentary I think his experience enabled him to “get it”!

In the film, Shadyac does interviews with scientists, religious leaders, environmentalists, and philosophers focusing on two questions:   “What’s Wrong With the World?” and “What Can We Do About it?”  The documentary is about “human connectedness, happiness, and the human spirit” and explores the nature of humanity and our world’s ever-growing addiction to materialism.  In the trailer for the film Shadyac says he went looking for what was wrong with the world and found instead a lot of what was right about it.

Although some reviewers have not thought kindly of Shadyac’s documentary, I was moved to tears by what I saw and heard.  I don’t think he worries much about what others think as Tom Shadyac has found his own personal truth, something most people never even brush up against, much less tell the whole world about.  As the centuries-old wisdom in the “I Ching” says before a brilliant person begins something great, they must look foolish in the crowd.

Here’s are some of Tom Shadyac’s favorite quotes that shed light on his point of view and that of the documentary:  

“…Our life might be much easier and simpler than we make it…Why need you choose so painfully your place, and occupation…? Place yourself in the middle of the stream of power and wisdom which animates all whom it floats, and you are without effort impelled to truth, to right and a perfect contentment.”

“Study to overcome that in yourself which disturbs you most in others.”

“We don’t see things as they are. We see them as we are.”

“When we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

The final essence I am left with now some twelve hours after seeing Tom Shadyac’s “I Am” documentary is my life is better when I am guided more by my heart than my mind.  Within my feelings are the strongest and truest connections to my most authentic self.  I have known for a good while my mind spins falsehood and fabrication with regularity, but my heart rarely does.  The key for me is to tune out my egoic mind’s loud and constant talking when I can in order to hear and feel the soft voice of my heart.  While my practice of that wisdom is far from perfect, my gratitude is large to simply have knowledge of it.  I get better at living it every day. 

link to film website and trailer for “I Am”

When all your desires are distilled
You will cast just two votes
To love more
And be happy.
Hafiz

Only One Way To Happiness

/ James Browning / 4 Comments

A blog filled with words borrowed from
“14 Timeless Ways to Live a Happy Life”
by Alex Blackwell ( link ):

1. Notice What’s Right
Some of us see the glass as being half-full, while others see the glass as half-empty. The next time you are caught in traffic, begin thinking how nice it is to have a few moments to reflect on the day, focus on a problem you have been trying to solve, or brainstorm on your next big idea. Take all that life throws out you and reframe it with what’s right about the situation.

2. Be Grateful
How many times do you say the words “thank you,” in a day? How many times do you hear these same words? Learn to be grateful and you will be open to receive an abundance of joy and happiness.

3. Remember the Kid You Were
Do you remember how to play? I’m not referring to playing a round of golf or a set of tennis. I’m talking about playing like you did when you were a child – a game of tag; leap-frog, or street baseball. One way to find or maintain your happiness is to remember the kid you were and play!

4. Be Kind
Kindness is indeed contagious and when we make a commitment to be kind to ourselves and to others we can experience new heights of joy, happiness and enthusiasm for our lives.

5. Spend Time with Your Friends
Although an abundant social and romantic life does not itself guarantee joy, it does have a huge impact on our happiness. Learn to spend time with your friends and make the friendships a priority in your life.

6. Savor Every Moment
To be in the moment is to live in the moment. Too often we are thinking ahead or looking ahead to the next event or circumstance in our lives, not appreciating the “here and now.” When we savor every moment, we are savoring the happiness in our lives.

7. Rest
There are times when we need the time to unwind, decompress, or to put it simply, just “to chill.” Life comes at all of us hard and fast. Fatigue, stress and exhaustion may begin to settle in on us faster than we may think, or notice. The best remedy for this is indeed rest.

8. Move!
The expression a “runner’s high” does not infer an addiction, but a feeling or a state of mind – a state of euphoria. There is no question exercise, or any physical exertion, elevates your mood and enhances a more positive attitude as well as fosters better personal self-esteem and confidence.

9. Put on a Happy Face
Sometimes we have to fake it until we make it. I’m not suggesting that we not be honest, real or authentic, but I’m suggesting, sometimes, we just need to put on a happy face and keep moving forward.

10. Pursue Your Goals
The absence of goals in our lives, or more specifically avoiding to pursue our goals, makes us feel like we are stuck and ineffective. The pursuit of goals in our personal lives, in our relationships, or with our careers, is the difference between having a mediocre life or a life full of passion and enthusiasm.

11. Finding Your Calling
Some find meaning in religion or spirituality while others find purpose in their work or relationships. Finding your calling may be much more than accomplishing one simple strategy for increasing your happiness, but having a sense of purpose – of feeling like you are here for a reason – can perhaps bring the greatest joy of all

12. Get into the Flow
Flow is the form of joy, excitement and happiness that occurs when we are so absorbed in an activity we love that we can lose ourselves and time seems to stand still. To find and sustain true happiness in our lives, we must get off the sidelines and get into the flow.

13. Play to Your Strengths
One way to achieve flow is by understanding and identifying our strengths and core values, and then begin to use these every day. Once we are aware of our strengths we can better incorporate them in all aspects of our lives.

14. Don’t Overdo It
Know when to say when. What gives you joy and happiness the first time may not work the second time. Set healthy and reasonable boundaries for yourself and don’t overdo it.

When I came across this list and first read it I was glad to realize I practice all fourteen of them.  Some are more regular than others, but all are change agents for the better in my life.  I am grateful for the growth in my life!

There is only one way to happiness and that is to cease worrying about things which are beyond the power of our will.
Epictetus

Poetry of the Senses

/ James Browning

A dozen and a half thoughts about love:

1. It hurts to love someone and not be loved in return. But what is more painful is to love someone and never find the courage to let that person know how you feel, and then regret it.

2. Maybe God wants us to meet a few wrong people before meeting the right one so that when we finally meet the right person, we will know how to be grateful for that gift.

3. Love is when you take away the feeling, the passion, and the romance in a relationship and find out that you still care for that person.

4. A sad thing in life is, you meet someone who means a lot to you, only to find out in the end that it was never meant to be, and you just have to let go.

5. When the door of happiness closes, another opens. But often at times we look so long at the closed-door that we do not see the one which has been opened for us.

6. It is true that we do not know what we have until we lose it, but it is also true that we do not know what we have been missing until it arrives.

7. Giving someone all your love is never an assurance that they will love you back. Do not expect love in return; just wait for it to grow in their heart. But if it does not, be content that it grew in yours.

8. There are things you would love to hear that you would never hear from the person whom you would like to hear them from; but do not be so deaf as not to hear it from the one who says it from the heart.

9. Never say goodbye if you still want to try. Never give up if you still feel you can go on. Never say you do not love a person anymore if you cannot let go.

10. Love comes to those who still hope although they have been disappointed, to those who still believe although they have been betrayed, to those who still love although they have been hurt before.

11. It takes only a minute to get a crush on someone, an hour to like someone, and a day to love someone. But it takes a lifetime to forget someone.

12. Do not go for looks; they can deceive. Do not go for wealth; even that fades away. Go for someone who makes you smile, because it takes only a smile to make a dark day seem bright.

13. There are moments in life when you miss someone so much that you just want to pick them from your dreams and hug them for real!

14. The beginning of love is to let those we love just be themselves and not twist them with our own image. Otherwise, we love only the reflection of ourselves we find in them.

15. Happiness lies for those who cry, those who hurt, those who have searched, and those who have tried; for only they can appreciate the importance of people who have touched their lives.

16. Love begins with a smile, grows with a kiss, and ends with a tear.

17. The brightest future will always be based on a forgotten past. You can’t go on well in life until you let go of your past failures and heartaches.

18. When you were born, you were crying, and everyone around you was smiling. Live your life so that when you die, you’re the one who is smiling, and everyone around you is crying.

I am grateful for eyes that see, a mouth that tastes, ears that hear, a nose that smells, and fingers that touch.  But more of all I am grateful for a heart that loves.

Love is the poetry of the senses.
Honoré de Balzac

Like Wet Cement

/ James Browning

Years ago scientists conducted experiments proving wind is essential for a tree’s healthiest development. When grown in an overly protective environment without experiencing the wind and the elements, a tree’s roots grow shallow and weak.  Conversely, trees that grow in an environment with natural forces create a strong and flexible root system.
 
Vegetation that grows in rain forests frequently has less dense and shallower roots as compared to those growing in areas that receive more moderate amounts of rainfall.  When rain is too plentiful at the surface a plant does not have to grow deep and durable roots to be quenched. 
 
Plant life that is able to eek out stunted life in arid and near desert areas usually has deep and often immense roots.  With so little water, the plant has to look everywhere it can to find enough water to stay alive.  These plants often have evolved to go dormant and be near lifeless between rain falls in order to survive.  Not infrequently they die.
 
Human life has some parallels. 
 
Learning from a normal and moderate of “turbulence” encountered in life, a person can grow up experienced, knowledgeable and able to cope.  This wisdom is not automatic, but can be gained fairly easily while growing up in a supportive environment if one is paying attention and learning the lessons presented.  Like wind through a tree strengthens a tree as it grows, challenge and difficulty of life can help a person build strong roots where they cannot be easily toppled. 
 
A person overly protected growing up will often not have a firm foundation of life experience to keep them well rooted.  Love and caring in good amounts makes a life “well watered” with love and esteem.  Excessive amounts figuratively drown a person emotionally.  Like a tree with shallow roots, someone who grew up too sheltered will frequently find their ability to cope with life’s challenges falling short.  Getting knocked down easily is often their lot in life. 
 
Too little “watering” with care and love, a child’s emotional development is stunted and does not develop normally.  Such a person will often seem to be emotionally unavailable and appear to have dormant feelings.  When the need has primarily been to survive psychologically, one mostly develops those coping skills and little else.  It can be very challenging to interface with others for these people as they simply do not know how to.

The result of “too little watering, care and feeding” emotionally during formative years can be the root of all sorts of issues from anxiety and addiction to codependence and depression. While controversial in some medical circles, a lack of unconditional love early in a person’s life can result in what is called “Emotional Deprivation Disorder”. 

E.D.D was first noted by Dutch Dr. Anna A Terruwe in the 1950’s and is a disorder characterized by difficulty in forming relationships with others, a general feeling of inadequacy, and oversensitivity to criticism.  Emotional Deprivation Disorder results from a lack of authentic affirmation and emotional strengthening in one’s life. A person may have been criticized, ignored, neglected, abused, or emotionally rejected by primary caregivers early in life, resulting in that individual’s stunted emotional growth.

Some who have been adopted and grew up in loving and supportive homes may still have issues along the lines of E.D.D.  It is not uncommon for an adoptee to struggle with feelings of abandonment and rejection they feel about their biological parents. 

Unaffirmed people suffering most from E.D.D. are often incapable of developing into emotionally mature adults until they receive authentic affirmation from another person(s). Maturity is reached when there is a harmonious relationship between a person’s body, mind, emotions and spiritual soul under the guidance of their reason and will.
 
Does Emotional Deprivation Disorder actually exist?  I can’t speak from a medical or clinical point of view.  My thoughts originate solely from my personal experience.  Without a doubt I suffered for many years from the symptoms of E.D.D. without knowing exactly what the cause was.  Getting involved in therapy, exploring and making peace with my childhood and becoming an active member of Codependents Anonymous has made a huge difference in my life. 

The majority of the time now I enjoy a “harmonious relationship between body, mind, emotions and spiritual soul”. The lack of “care, watering and feeding” of my youth has been largely overcome.  I am deeply grateful for my recovery and thankful to be able to pass on to others a little of what I have learned.

Children are like wet cement.
Whatever falls on them makes an impression.
Dr. Haim Ginott

The Possibility is Always There

/ James Browning / 2 Comments

Good morning gratitude!  First thing that comes to mind writing those three words is my thankfulness for my life and ability to come here each day and leave a tidbit of myself.  Tomorrow will be 290 days in a row I have written something and frankly I am amazed that I have been able to do it!  I am pushed for time this morning and am resorting to filling this space mostly with something borrowed from the internet.  Some of the rules are whimsical, but all contain at least some good advice. 

13 Rules of Life:

  1. Never give yourself a haircut or call an old boyfriend/girlfriend after three or four margaritas.
  2. You need only two tools: WD-40 and duct tape. If it doesn’t move and it should, use WD-40. If it moves and shouldn’t, use the tape.
  3. The five most essential words for a healthy, vital relationship are, “I apologize” and “you are right.”
  4. Everyone seems normal until you get to know them.
  5. Never pass up an opportunity to pee.
  6. If he/she says that you are too good for him/her – believe them.
  7. Learn to pick your battles; Ask yourself, “Will this matter one year from now? How about one month? One week? One day?”
  8. When you make a mistake, make amends immediately. It’s easier to eat crow while it’s still warm.
  9. If you woke up breathing, congratulations! You have another chance!
  10. Living well really is the best revenge. Being miserable because of a bad or former relationship just might mean that the other person was right about you.
  11. Work is good, but it’s not that important. Money is nice, but you can’t take it, or anything else, with you. Statistics show most people don’t live to spend all they saved; Some die even before they retire. Anything we have isn’t really ours; we just borrow it while we’re here… even our kids.
  12. Be really good to your family and/or friends. You never know when you are going to need them.
  13. If you are going to be able to look back on something and laugh about it, you may as well laugh about it now.

Every day when asked how I am, my response is “Every day is a good day.  Some are just better than others”.  The more I am come to believe those words, the more true I have found to be in them!  I am grateful to have learned that largelyI find what I go looking for.

The moment when you first wake up in the morning is the most wonderful of the twenty-four hours. No matter how weary or dreary you may feel, you possess the certainty that, during the day that lies before you, absolutely anything may happen. And the fact that it practically always doesn’t, matters not a jot. The possibility is always there.
Monica Baldwin

Drink to Me Only with Thine Eyes

/ James Browning

Right about this time, one hundred and sixty-six years ago Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett were falling deeper and deeper in love.  Their communication was largely through letters the two writers crafted to each other expressing their deepest feelings openly in a rare manner for the time.

So on this morning about a week from Valentine’s day my heart is awake with these old words of love.  The sentiments and admissions of love and admiration are as current and contemporary as this morning’s sunrise.   What follows are passages from letters exchanged between Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett in the month of February in 1846, about seven months before they eloped and were married.

EB to RB Feb 2, 1846
Something, you said yesterday, made me happy – ‘that your liking for me did not come and go’… I can see nothing beyond you…. As to all that was evil and sadness to me, I do not feel it any longer – – it may be raining still, but I am in the shelter and can scarcely tell.

RB to EB Feb 4, 1846
And now, when my whole heart… would find you, and fall on you, and fill forever …I who do love you more at every breath I draw; indeed, yes dearest…. You have all my life bound to yours….

EB to RB Feb 5, 1846
Now think for a moment, and know once for all, how from the beginning to these latter days and through all possible degrees of crisis, you have been to my apprehension and gratitude, the best, most consistent, most noble…. In nothing and
at no moment have you… failed me.

RB to EB Feb 9, 1846
Now I kiss you, and will begin a new thinking of you – and end and begin, going round and round in my circle of discovery.

EB to RB Feb 10, 1846
…Drink to me only with thine eyes…

RB Feb 13, 1846
I shall see you tomorrow and be happy. Today – is it the weather or what? …something depressed me a little – tomorrow brings the remedy for it all. …if my spirits rise they fly to you; if they fall, they hold by you and cease falling.

EB to RB Feb 16, 1846
…I was decided from the first hour when I admitted the possibility of your loving me really…. I am more thine than my own… you are three times as much to me as I can be to you at best and greatest…. I want to see you so much….

RB to EB Feb 19, 1846
My sweetest, best, dearest… I do love you… and adore you more, more by so much more as I see of you, think of you – I am yours…..

EB to RB Feb 19/20, 1846
Best and kindest of all that ever were to be loved in dreams, and wondered at and loved out of them, you are indeed! …you are supernaturally good and kind…

RB to EB Feb 23, 1846
Dear, dear heart of my heart, life of my life, will this last… Can it be meant I shall live this to the end?

EB to RB Feb 24, 1846
I was thinking the other day that certainly and after all (or rather before all) I had loved you all my life unawares, that is the idea of you. I may say before God and you, that of all the vents of my life… nothing has humbled me as much as your love. Right or wrong it may be, but true it is… Your love has been to me like God’s own love, which makes the receivers of it kneelers. Do you want to hear me say I can not love you less…? That is a doubtful phrase. And I can not love you more… is doubtful too… More or less, I really love you

My heart has been broken and put back together so many times.  It bears the scars, hurts and sadness bravely.  No matter how many times love has failed, faltered or ended, it has at the same time brought great joy.  As long as my heart beats I will swoon at the beautiful words of poets, become emotional watching love stories movies and books and always be grateful for my ability to feel deeply. I can’t imagine being any other way.


Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength,
while loving someone deeply gives you courage.
Lao Tzu