Self Awareness

A Beautiful Struggle

/ James Browning

For close to 20 years, when asked what I hoped for most my answer was the same:  I want peace.  My desire was for tranquility within; for the storm of emotions to die down to a distant soft rumble; for feeling so constantly troubled to change.  What I wanted so badly is found in a basic definition of peace:  freedom from disturbance; quietness; tranquility; calmness; stillness.

The reasons peace stayed beyond my reach were within since I was little, but I did not consciously know that for a long, long time.  My first hand awareness did not begin to come until my late 30’s.  That wish alone for peace was the actual beginning of moving toward it.  However I was 50-something before I had enough focus to make changes for the better and begin to find “freedom from disturbance”.   That came not in doing away mentally with what happened to me when younger, but instead learning to coexist with those things.  I had to learn to see clearly through and beyond my “junk from childhood”.

Here’s a teaching tale told about Buddha that helps to explain, at least in part, how to find peace.   Once Buddha was walking from one town to another town with a few of his followers. While they were traveling, they happened to pass a lake. They stopped there and Buddha told one of his disciples, “I am thirsty. Please get me some water from that lake.”

The disciple walked to the lake. When he reached it, he noticed some people were washing clothes in the water and others were bathing in the lake.  As a result, the water was stirred up and murky.  The disciple thought, “I can’t give this muddy water to Buddha to drink!” So he came back and told Buddha, “The water in there is very muddy and not fit to drink.”

After about an hour, again Buddha asked the same disciple to go to the lake and get him some water to drink. The disciple obediently went back and found all the bathers and washers were no longer in sight.  Now the lake was clear. The mud had settled down and the water above it looked clear and clean.  He collected water and brought it to Buddha.

Buddha looked at the water, and then he looked up at the disciple and said, “See what you did to make the water clean. You let it be … and the mud settled down on its own – and you got clear water.  Your mind is also like that. When it is disturbed, just let it be. Give it a little time. Let thoughts pass and your mind will settle down on its own. You don’t have to put in great effort to calm it down. It will happen. Let go your grip on your thoughts and it becomes effortless to gain peace.”

That’s a great story, but does not address how one lets go of habitual ways of thinking and stops threshing in the mental water making it muddy.  My efforts for peace within could not take root until there was awareness for what caused my mind to be muddy.  I had to bring to the surface my childhood traumas and abuse, make them commonly known and accepted.  Then through hard work, healing and understanding the majority of their energy over me was taken away.   I had to cultivate a new way of being to let the “water of my mind” clear.

Breaking habits and ways of being so deeply ingrained was literally “facing my own dragon”, learning I could not slay it and befriending him instead.  And in doing so I took away the negative fire of my dragon and learned to coexist with him.  I learned “peace does not mean to be in a place where there is no noise, trouble or hard work.  It means to be in the midst of those things and still be calm in your heart”.

Some things I learned are good weapons to use when my “dragon” wants to breathe fire:
Read, study and learn
Spread good feelings and kindness
Be as present as possible in the “now”
Love without boundaries as much as I can
Forgive and remember forgiveness is an act of peace
Cultivate and tend empathy and understanding of myself
Meditation and reflection are acts of encouraging internal peace
Stay involved with others who bravely battle what I do (self-help meetings)
Be kind to others and myself keeping mentally fresh that kindness is an act of peace

Happiness and suffering are states of mind, and so their main causes cannot be found outside the mind.  The knowing intellectually of that truth combined with actions to practice it has been life changing.  I am incredibly grateful!

Life is a beautiful struggle.
Martin Luther King

So the Present Can Be More Present

/ James Browning / 1 Comment

Some believe we hold on so tightly to our problems because they can give us a sense of identity. The theory goes that we replay past mistakes over and over again mentally which allows feelings of shame and regret to shape our present. There is a clinging to worry about the future, as if that somehow lends strength.   I am guilty of spinning such self-deception thinking that if I can finally crack the mystery of something in the past somehow the key to the future will be unveiled.

What I have learned is the “key” to the future is “today”.  By living well in the present is how I can best effect what is yet to be.  There are few answers, if any, to be found in the past.  No amount of fretting, pointed thinking or anguish will find sense and logic where none actually exists.  Looking from “now” into the past is sort of like looking through a kaleidoscope:  the view is colorful and interesting, but in no way is an accurate view. My memory of something in the past is actually a story I have spun to remember what I think happened.  It is NOT what actually happened, but only my story about the happening:  factual or inaccurate in what measures is impossible to know.

Even with the knowing my view of the past is no more than partially correct I am still guilty of holding too tightly to some of my delusions about happenings of long ago.  They may even be lies I tell myself, but regardless I know them well.  And in knowing them well I trust what is not trustworthy in the first place.  This is one of the reasons that expressing myself openly and fully to someone I care deeply about is so difficult for me.  All the knowledge I have acquired and tools I have learned for coping with life have not erased the tendency to regulate today based on the past.  The fear of telling my true and deep feelings remains a challenge.

There is someone special in life who I have opened my heart to and found love with.  For years I thought that would never happen again.  In part, I wished it wouldn’t as a way of trying to protect myself from being hurt.  Love, like life, works best when its movement forward is free, but guided somewhat by lessons learned:  signposts created through difficulty dealt with and adversity overcome.  However, the key is the lessons must be viewed in “past tense” with only the wisdom gained being present today.

I have had difficulty expressing my feelings about something specific for several weeks to my special someone.  Hesitation came from reviving memories of the past and making them alive in the present.  Clear in memory is telling one in my past “I can’t tell you my problems because if I do you’ll only make them worse by using them against me”.  That ember of the past floated into the present, blazed brightly and blinded me with its heat and smoke.

After trying for several weeks to speak about what was bothering me, I exercised both courage and cowardness by expressing my feelings in writing.  My preference would have been to speak my thoughts, but they would not form in an audible manner.  So I typed them in MS Word instead.  When I pressed ‘send’ for the email, at least I knew I was being open, honest and caring.  I hoped for the best.

While I had not specific idea how the woman in my life would react, I hoped everything would be OK.  That it would turn out that way could have been seen more easily had I judged our relationship purely by what we have shared.  However, as hard as I try for it not to be a factor my old conditioning from the past jumped up to be a strong force.  My primary mistake is thinking the past was completely past and of little influence on my present.  What has come before will continue to fade as time passes, but will never disappear completely.  This was a wakeup call proving that.  Avoiding getting caught up in my history does not mean blocking it or forgetting it.  Rather I just need to pay some attention to the signposts of wisdom gained along the way and let go of past pain and heartache.

Having not slept well due to concern about how my letter would be received, I was greatly relieved when the woman I love responded this morning with a kind and understanding email.  Yes, there is something to deal with but it exists ONLY due to how we both have been treated in our past.  We will work together to make the past, past, so the present can be more present.  Now that has been recognized a return to living in the present is upon me.  I only hope the same can be said for her and as much as I want to make it so, I can not.  As I must deal with “my stuff”, she must deal with hers.  If we both do so with courage and good intention what we share will strengthen, the present will grow more vibrant and the past less influential.  With hope and gratitude I believe that is what will happen.

The past is our definition.  We may strive, with good reason,
to escape it, or to escape what is bad in it
but we will escape it only by adding something better to it.
Wendell Berry

Can I Trust You?

/ James Browning

Definition of trust:
A firm belief in the reliability, truth, ability, or strength of someone or something;
being able to predict what other people will do and what situations will occur.

“Can I trust you?”  Numerous times greater than needles on a pine tree I have faced that question.  Sometimes my response is “yes, I can” and gratefully I am correct more often than not.  But with higher frequency than I wish were true it is my discovery my trust was ill placed.

Wisdom gleaned from living has made me more discerning about who deserves my trust but still at times I will rely on those I should not.  Problem is I really want to trust everyone, but reality keeps showing me I can’t.  Instead I have to be reminded that trust has to be earned even knowing then no certainty is created.

Sometimes my disappointment is small.  I have faith in someone to return a book I loaned them and am let down when they don’t remember borrowing it.  Or, I trust a person to keep a confidence and they tell someone.  Or another will say they will do something and forget their words were ever spoken.  Such is the realm of everyday life.

If honestly is to prevail, I must admit the person who frustrates me most by violating my trust is me!  Let me explain.  I promise to faithfully begin working out once the weather turns cooler and the heat is gone, but the cold comes with me still parked on the couch.  I make the commitment to stop interrupting others while in conversation but find myself still doing it far too often to be considered an occasional mistake.

From John Mayer’s song “I Don’t Trust Myself…”
No I’m not the man I used to be lately
See you met me at an interesting time
If my past is any sign of your future
You should be warned before I let you inside.

Those words describe a warning that once could have been said truthfully about me.  With my best effort I attempt to not go tripping in my past, but being human invariably I do here and there.  Forgiveness is within for the vows of faithfulness broken in two marriages, but just because I forgive myself does not mean I have forgotten those ultimate violations of trust.   I have paid my penance, done my time in therapy and have grown beyond breaching such trust.  I learned from the mistakes made and am a better man now.

There is plenty in my past to regret, but tears and painful, sleepless nights of self-punishment have been paid.  Today I am a faithful man beyond doubt, but I do it for myself.  Being loyal to another is good for me, even more so than for the object of my fidelity.  Being proud of one’s self is a good addiction to cultivate.

One of the most painful aspects of trust is when one is being honest, but viewed as being deceitful.  It took a long time for the realization to come that telling the truth is all that is required.  Whether another believes me or not is their business, not mine.  If I have been honorable and am viewed otherwise the dishonestly is solely in the other person and his or her inability to see the truth when is presented.

Ultimately I have arrived in the here and now to be one of the most trustworthy people I have ever known. I know this to be true for it is with myself I live every moment of every day.  None of my actions or thoughts are a secret from me.  No longer do I need to try the impossible task of outrunning or fooling myself.  The transformation inside has been remarkable as I have learned to live up to my own standards.  Simple?  YES!  Hard to do?  YES, but worth every ounce of effort, sweat and tears!   Living parallel to my beliefs brings a sweet taste to living I have never known before.  I am grateful for the satisfying taste of my life today.

As soon as you trust yourself, you will know how to live.
Johann Wolfgang von Goeth

If Not Now, Then When?

/ James Browning / 2 Comments

If life is so short, why do I do things I don’t like and like things I don’t do?  What one thing have I not done that I really want to do?  If not now, then when?

Last evening those quandaries came across my path within a list of ‘stop and make you think questions’.  Those three grabbed my attention strongly enough to made me stop to ponder them at length.  The questions were still fresh on my mind when I woke up this morning.

On a thousand occasions I have tripped over the phrase “You can do anything you put your mind to”.  I believe that is true.  I also know it is easy for me to think all I have to do is imagine what I’d like to accomplish, point my mind in the direction of the goal and wait for success to arrive.

To a some degree this is how dreams and hopes come true. Intention blended with action is a powerful force. But the “you can do anything statement is misleading because it fails to mention the absolute necessity of focusing mentally on a specific goal and leaves out completely how very difficult doing that is”.

Digging deep, if honest with our self, most people don’t know what they want. On the surface we think we do, but in reality we really don’t. Instead we have a laundry list of things we know we don’t want. We don’t want to be a failure.  We don’t want unfulfilling work.  We don’t want a troubled relationship. We don’t want to be poor. We don’t want to disappoint those we care about.  We don’t want…. on and on.

In “Alice in Wonderland” she asks the Cheshire Cat “Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?”.  The cat replies “That depends a good deal on where you want to go”.  Alice responds “I don’t much care where” to which the cat says “Then it doesn’t matter much which way you go”.  Like a pinball bouncing around a pinball machine I have done lots of going nowhere particular in my life. 

I realize on some levels I have learned to love what I do but under examination the realization comes that learning to love what I do is not the same as doing what I love. The former is a compromise and there is nothing wrong with that.  It’s clear to me now that the latter is the way I define life on my terms, a way to live when survival is not an issue for me.  Have I EVER been at that point? Either I haven’t, have not done so very often or more likely, something has kept me from it.

To pointedly know what I want is far different from knowing what I don’t want.  As long as I know only what I don’t want, my intentions aren’t focused and little will change in my life.  Another issue that has been constant, is what I want, even when I am aware of it, often morphs and changes over time.  Yet, there are a very few things rooted deeply inside me that never falter.

Back to the questions are the top:  the first one quizzes me if life is so limited why do I spend so much of it on things I really don’t like and forsake things I do with such frequency.  Without hesitation a substantial piece of the answer quickly pops into my head:  FEAR of making a bad choice, FEAR of failure, FEAR of lack of money,  FEAR of appearing foolish, FEAR….. Admitting that is progress!

Mark Twain said something that sheds a little light on the subject: a habit cannot be tossed out the window. It must be coaxed down the stairs one step at a time.  So in an effort to step out of my upstairs room of fear and attempt the slow journey down the stairs I will admit two of my deepest dreams:

1 – To travel the world unencumbered for long periods of time, weeks and months, staying in places long enough to come to know and savor a place, its people and its customs in some sense as a ‘local’ might.

2 – To write and publish a book.  That is the impetus that has driven me to come here every morning for 278 days in a row:  to learn the discipline to write daily and through practice, improve my writing skills.  I believe a book created from the best of what I have written here will be completed by this time next year.

With those two points made, I can apply the 2nd and 3rd question this blog started with today:  What one thing have I not done that I really want to do?  If not now, then when?  Those questions are answered for the second dream, but the first one is still a blur.  However,  just stating it openly is a big step forward.  Realizing that far too soon “that’s all folks” will be flashed for the end of my life, I commit myself to either making firm plans to accomplish dream number one or getting it off my “hope list”.  I am grateful for the wakeup call!

The only way you know you love yourself — or anyone else — is by the commitments you are willing to make and keep.
Dr. Pat Allen

Unruly Children and Childish Adults

/ James Browning

Some people spend leisure time keeping up with their favorite TV programs or sports teams.  Others enjoying going out frequently and being on the go.  Some give their available time to volunteering or supporting causes dear to them.  Many have lives so filled with responsibility there is little time except for trying to do what has to be done.  I don’t fit into any of those exactly, but have symptoms of all of them from time to time.

Generally I spent a good bit of time with friends, my son or the love in my life.  Otherwise on any given day I am most apt to spend spare time at home with my nose in a book or reading on-line.  The older I get the more insatiable my desire to learn has become and the greater my yearn to grow as a person has increased.  Those are mostly good things, except when I allow my self-absorption to take over a little too much.

In my daily grazing on the ‘Net’ and looking for inspiration for the writer in me, I came across a blog entry titled “40 Things To Teach My Kids Before They Leave Home” link by a woman only identified as Sherri.  In her article is a good list of admirable behaviors almost all parents hope to teach their children.  Here are four of the lessons Sherri says “I will teach my kids”:

– that they can be happy if they choose to be happy.

– to focus on enjoying what they already have instead of wasting time focusing on what they don’t have.

– that it’s okay to be wrong as that’s how we learn.

– that life is short and that they should make the most of each and everyday. They should do things that make them smile, that make them feel alive and energized. Live.

There are some of us who accept our parents did the best they knew how but also know their parental performance left a great deal to be desired.  There are those who were hard-headed, stubborn, even high rebellious as children who never “got” what parents were trying to teach.  Then there are those who moved through childhood being taught and guided well overall who grew up to be relatively well-balanced and happy adults.  I am one of the first group and was left as an adult to teach the child within some of the behaviors that are most healthy for me.

The four items above from “Sherri” are all ways of behaving I accepted long ago as being wise.  Knowing is a far cry from doing.  Having not been well taught such things nor having any discernible examples to follow, such habits never became instinctive. Consequently, here in the late middle of my life I am growing by being a parent to myself the adults of my youth never were.  John Lee wrote a book titled “Growing Yourself Back Up” whose title accurately describes the process and its content has helped me achieve the title’s premise.

One of the issues of a lack of upbringing in some areas is that childish behavior gets brought into adult life.  To me such things seemed natural as that is the way I had always been.  To other adults some behaviors looked like how a kid might conduct them self.  The scenario is one where the child within me always thought some problems were because of the ‘others’ way of reacting and being, when in fact the problem was me all the while.  I am certain there are two wives in my past and a number of others who would agree completely there where frequent times in my past when I behaved like a child!

There has been no miraculous cure.  No grand epiphanies have arrived.  No self-help book fixed me.  Rather by slowly acquired simple awareness, understanding and forgiveness I have become a kinder and gentler man who treats everyone, including myself, much more appropriately.  A slow and difficult process for certain, but one of the most rewarding of my life.

In the end I don’t believe any of us are ever completely grown up and thinking to the contrary only makes that point more readily true.  For everyone there are places in childhood where we got stuck on something and never completely moved past it.  That’s OK.  It is healthy to admit it.   Acceptance of my shortcomings, flaws, mistakes, failings and imperfections is at least half of the remedy for them.  To know this wisdom and to practice it as best I can each day is a way of living that fills me with gratitude and thankfulness.

In the United States today, there is a pervasive tendency to treat children as adults, and adults as children. The options of children are thus steadily expanded, while those of adults are progressively constricted. The result is unruly children and childish adults.
Thomas Szasz

What’s In a Name?

/ James Browning / 1 Comment

Who am I?  Often when such a question is posed, it is being asked of one’s self in an abstract sense.  The quandary usually attempts to measure what qualities of body, mind and soul a person is defined by.  Influences like family, work, environment, gender and age are also a frequent consideration in the analysis of  what makes up “self”.

Most men have a limited concept of what it is like for a woman to give up her last name and take her husband’s as is tradition within marriage.  And if one name change’s impact exists beyond the usual grasp of the majority of men, a second or third matrimonial name modification is completely out of most male’s sphere of knowledge.

There are some men who can relate because their name was changed due to divorce, remarriage and/or adoption.  I am one of those.  More than just a little confusion of identity in younger years was rooted there.

I was born James Browning and was named after my dad.  I grew up being called “Rick or Ricky” which is short for my middle name (although it feels strange unless called that by a few family members and old friends).  My parents divorced when I was age seven with my mother remarrying in my tenth year.

My mom’s choice of a second husband may have been alright for her, but it was terrible for my little brother and I.  Our stepfather which we were made to call “Dad” was at the least mentally ill and at worst an evil SOB.  Actually he was both in my opinion.  My brother and I were afraid of him for good reason. One example was seeing him wave a pistol once at my father telling him never to visit us boys ever again or he’d kill him.

The evil stepfather insisted that my brother and I change our last names through legal adoption.  Not wanting to was no balance for the fear we felt and we reluctantly went along.  So in the 5th grade I went to school one day with a different last name, but my teacher refused to use it for over a month.  That was OK.  I hated my new last name anyway.  In the adoption process my birth-father’s first name of James was also eliminated from mine.  At least my nickname was still intact… at least for a while.

At 16 years old with the help of my real father I was able to do a legal name change back to what I was born with.  However, the stepfather I loathe to this day is still listed on my birth record.  Adoptions are very difficult to undo when the birth and adoptive father are deceased.

That may seem a good place for my name game story to end, but there’s more.  At fifteen I landed a part-time job at the little radio station in my hometown and that began a career in broadcasting.  At that time I still wore the adoptive name and used it on the air out of fear of the evil stepfather.

Fast forward a few years.  I am nineteen and have landed an overnight DJ job in Colorado.  I am “Rick Browning” and am all ready to begin using the name I think of myself as.  But I can’t.  The person on the air after me was named Rick Martin and management did not want two “Rick’s” on the air back to back.  A new “nickname” was picked for me in a staff meeting with a show of hands.  Had that new handle been only a temporary thing it would have been no big deal.  Wouldn’t you know while using the new nickame was when my career took off.   Not wanting to start over again I ended up being stuck professionally with the “on-air” name.  Are you confused yet?

Generally today I think of myself as one name professionally and another in my private life.  However, I’d be telling a fib without admission of wondering a little sometimes just who the heck I am.  I find solace, consolation and gratitude in knowing what matters most is inside me.  The label people call me by is, in reality, of little consequence.

What’s in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet.
William Shakespeare

Enjoy the Ride

/ James Browning / 1 Comment

Stated in an article I read recently was the premise that science now believes our brain has no dependable ability to accurately predict our emotional reaction to life changes that have not happened yet.  No matter how much contemplation of a subject in advance, a person can not know for certain through anticipation how something is going to feel.

Apparently, in most cases we physically simply don’t know for sure ahead of time what we want and don’t want.  Only when we get it can we find out what makes us happy and what does not.  Again the point is made that experience is where the greatest amount of true knowledge comes from for each of us.

The line of thinking in the article went on to an even more important point:  the act of pondering, wondering, thinking, contemplating and brooding over what our reaction might or might not be to something is what can screw us up!

We live in a time the vast majority of humans before us never had the luxury of. The many generations preceeding had to mostly be obsessed with just staying alive.  When the majority of time was spent gathering berries and running from wild animals there was little left to spend considering what might bring happiness.

Research now shows that things like friendship, love, altruism and religion or spiritual practice help to bring happiness.  In other words, moving the focus away from our self is what creates fertile ground for happiness.  That feels true for me.  When I was finally able to let go, stop worrying all the time and began attempting to live life well one day at a time, my existence became a much better experience.  When I began to enjoy the ride instead of trying to figure out where it was taking me my satisfaction of life took a positive leap forward.

In working a successful 12 step program for codependence and compulsion, these admissions had to be made:  1)  my life had become unmanageable  2) something beyond me could help 3) a choice to accept help and stop trying to do every thing myself.  Summed up I can say this a different way in just a few words:  I stopped trying to be my own God! 

In counseling and recovery the word God is a tricky thing.  For many, words such as Higher Power, Nature or The Universe make more sense.  That is true for me as I believe God is all those things and more.  My convictions say that whatever energy and force there is beyond me is outside my ability to accurately comprehend.  All trying to grasp such a heady concept does is complicate and cloud my mind without any further understanding. By attempting  insight from a limited human perspective I can only put myself further away from the force of life.

I respect all different viewpoints regarding ‘God’ and would never tread on anyone’s beliefs, hoping they will extend to me the same consideration.  Personally I am better off not to try to sort out the ‘God thing’ and make sense of it.  Rather my choice has been to find acceptance.  By embracing a power beyond my capacity to grasp and letting myself fall into it is how I found the freedom to be alive, happy and contented in spite of all my faults, mistakes and imperfections (at least most of the time). 

Oh, I still doubt sometimes.  Bad things still happen.  Life is still painful and difficulties can seem almost unbearable some days.  I just don’t get permanently stuck there any more.  Knowing “this too will pass” makes a huge difference. Once I stopped trying to force my way onto life and instead allowed the power behind everything to take me where it wanted, being alive became a so much better experience.  I am very grateful.

Grant me the serenity
To accept the things I cannot change;
The courage to change the things I can;
And wisdom to know the difference.
Living one day at a time;
Enjoying one moment at a time;
Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace;
Taking this world
As it is, not as I would have it.
Adapted from original concepts by Reinhold Niebuhr

Are You Limiting Yourself?

/ James Browning / 4 Comments

I don’t speak well enough.
I’m not attractive enough.
I don’t dress well enough.
I’m not confident enough.
I’m not educated enough.
I’m not talented enough.
I’m not creative enough.
I’m not smart enough.
I’m not good enough.
Sound familiar? 

All those pieces of crazy thinking have afflicted me at one time or another.  Some of them still dance in my head from time to time.  Experience has taught me I do not have to join in that dance.  Ignoring the tango of my limiting beliefs does not make them go away but the more I fight them the shorter duration the dance is and the slower the beat they thump my psyche with. 

From “Notes from the Universe” by Mike Dooley: 

Your invisible limiting beliefs are only invisible when you live within their limits – or when you keep on doing what you’ve always been doing.

Push yourself.  Dare yourself to think bigger, to reach, and to behave as if a dream or two of yours has already manifested. Then you’ll see ‘dem little buggers pop out of the woodwork, painted fluorescent orange, loaded to the teeth with logic, imploring you to turn around and go back to safety!

Do something, do it today, something you wouldn’t normally do. Like maybe… take off early from work and go to a matinée movie.

Aha!  Did you just see a couple of ‘em?

Be warned:  Sometimes, once exposed, they’ll try to snuggle up to you, looking sooo innocent and adorable.  And as if that wasn’t bad enough, they’ll start with their “baby talk”.  Sickening. 

The key to not giving in to limiting beliefs is learning to argue with myself over my inaccurate impressions. One battle is never enough and in some cases the fight may be something fought over a life time, although with practice the skirmishes become less and less severe.  All I had to do as try… then try again… then again.  With consistent practice and attention my beliefs that have limited my life have been greatly lessened.  

https://goodmorninggratitude.com/2011/08/23/being-a-superb-disputer/ On this previous blog entry a few months ago I wrote about learning to dispute my own BS.  Then I said “I learned a while ago that my world without is but a reflection of my world within.    My thoughts create the conditions my mind imagines.   “Superb Disputing “is an effective tool for inwardly sorting out my own thinking.  All I need to do is remind myself that I have a lot of control over what I think. From experience I know I can sort my thoughts into ones worthy of further attention and the ones that are garbage and proceed accordingly. I just have to not forget I know how to do this.” 

I am grateful to know four weapons effective in fighting my self-limiting thoughts:
FIND THEM
FACE THEM
ERASE THEM
REPLACE THEM

I just have to keep telling myself:
You are not as you think you are.
You are not as others think you are. 
You are so much more than either fully realize.
Your potential greatly exceeds what your mind can grasp.
You can do anything. 
No one can stop you but you! 

      Somebody should tell us, right at the start of our lives, that we are dying. Then we might live life to the limit, every minute of every day. Do it! I say. Whatever you want to do, do it now!
There are only so many tomorrows. 
Pope Paul VI

In the Gaining of Much, Much Has Been Lost.

/ James Browning / 2 Comments

The last decade plus a couple of years has been the most turbulent.  This life adventure includes relocation to a new city from one I had lived in for eighteen years, separation and later divorce, my 16 year-old son suddenly 800 miles away, loss of a job of two decades, semi-retirement, life as an entrepreneur, living on a Caribbean Island, a category five hurricane, second marriage, car accident injuries and recovery, new job, second divorce, rehab for depression and….. whew that’s enough and those are only the major points.

It has been said factually that life is the greatest teacher.  I know this to be true as the last decade or so of study has given me at least one PhD in how to live life.  Regretting anything that has happened would mean regretting who and what I am today.  Finding the peace of mind enjoyed and the balance felt most of the time would not have been possible without the turbulence of the last twelve years.  Even for the actions and behavior I needed or yet still need to make amends for, there has to be gratitude for the teaching tools they were. 

In the gaining of much, much has been lost.  Relationships are gone.  People have left. Possessions have been lost; some have been stolen.  Love that was is no more and in other cases it remains carried quietly and silently.  Some things have been misplaced and some are gone forever, to where I have no idea.  Emotionally I have been crushed and broken open.  A good bit of the person I used to be was banished.  Then I rebuilt myself better and stronger than ever before into the “me” I am today (with the help of many others…thank you!).   

What belongings a person cherishes is often not the most valuable in the sense of monetary worth.  Some of what I have not longer was worth a good deal, but I honestly do not lament it being gone that much.  Recently I began to unsuccessfully sort thought my garage and storage unit trying to find an old trunk.  I had no luck and was completely bummed out about it.  Then just yesterday, I thought to look behind some things in my storage unit and was ecstatic when I found that old trunk.

Actually the container just looks kind of like a trunk and was probably some sort of wooden storage crate originally.  I suspect it had a military origin and was used to house equipment judging from interior.  It was left behind in a house I once resided at in Colorado Springs, the home of a large Army base.  In the early 70’s the ‘trunk’  became the keeper of the treasures of my late teens and early 20’s. 

I brought the old trunk home last night, put it on the kitchen counter and quickly found myself immersed in what was inside.  Thinking for weeks the trunk and all its contents were gone only increased the value of it all.  In three hours there was only time to skim the surface.  The time was spent going through old pictures of people I used to know, old girlfriends, my sisters when they were very little, my brother, old friends and my high school days.  There were letters from family, past loves and even old paycheck stubs from places I worked.  I found newspaper clippings about my early accomplishments, school newspapers, my first checkbook, deposit slips and even old airplane tickets including one when I went back to see an old girlfriend in 1972.  

One collection of my prized remembrances I gathered together and put in their own little box.  These were from the first girl I ever truly loved.  I wrote about that relationship about a month ago.  A photo of some of those treasures now begins that blog:  https://goodmorninggratitude.com/2011/12/21/part-of-loving-is-to-let-go/

I believe it is the growth made in the last ten years that makes these old things so meaningful to me.  Last evening it was as if I was for the first time discovering bits of myself and feeling the emotions denied before.  The contents of the old trunk are not worth more than a few dollars, but when believing it was all lost I would have paid thousands to have them back.  I am grateful beyond words for what has been found!

In my ‘treasure trunk’ was the following, handwritten on stationary paper.  The handwriting is familiar to me, but I can not yet place it.  Maybe in time I will.  Without an author noted the paper contains “On This Day” which I was able to research and find was written by Howard W. Hunter.

This year, mend a quarrel.
Seek out a forgotten friend.
Dismiss suspicion and replace it with trust.
Write a letter.
Give a soft answer.
Encourage youth.
Manifest your loyalty in word and deed.
Keep a promise.
Forgo a grudge.
Forgive an enemy.
Apologize.
Try to understand.
Examine your demands on others.
Think first of someone else.
Be kind.
Be gentle.
Laugh a little more.
Express your gratitude.
Welcome a stranger.
Gladden the heart of a child.
Take pleasure in the beauty and wonder of the earth.
Speak your love.
Speak it again.
Speak it still again.
Speak of it still once more.

Wishing for What Might Have Been

/ James Browning

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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