Self Awareness

Yesterday, Tomorrow and the Power of Now

/ James Browning / 1 Comment

From one of my favorite books “The Power of Now” by Ekhart Tolle: 
A beggar had been sitting by the side of a road for over thirty years. One day a stranger walked by. “Spare some change?” mumbled the beggar, mechanically holding out his old baseball cap. “I have nothing to give you,” said the stranger. Then he asked: “What’s that you are sitting on?” “Nothing,” replied the beggar. “Just an old box. I have been sitting on it for as long as I can remember.” “Ever looked inside?” asked the stranger. “No,” said the beggar. “What’s the point? There’s nothing in there.” “Have a look inside,” insisted the stranger. The beggar managed to pry open the lid. With astonishment, disbelief, and elation, he saw that the box was filled with gold.  

I am that stranger who has nothing to give you and who is telling you to look inside. Not inside any box, as in the parable, but somewhere even closer: inside yourself.  

The “gift inside the box” is my own life and it can not be found in the past for what I recall of it is only partial fact spun with delusional memory of what happened.  My life is not in the future for nothing there has yet happened and that time will materialize far differently than any way I imagine.  My life is here and now in this very instant and no other place.  The more I am able to experience each moment of my life as it happens the sweeter the taste will be and the grander the outcome will seem. 

YESTERDAY, TODAY, TOMORROW

There are two days in every week about which we should not worry.
            Two days which should be kept free from fear and apprehension.

One of these days is yesterday with its mistakes and cares,
            Its faults and blunders, Its aches and pains.
            Yesterday has passed forever beyond our control.
            All the money in the world cannot bring back yesterday.
            We cannot undo a single act we performed.
            We cannot erase a single word we said. Yesterday is gone.

The other day we should not worry about is tomorrow.
            With its possible adversities, Its burdens, 
            Its large promise and poor performance.
            Tomorrow is also beyond our immediate control.
            Tomorrow’s Sun will rise, either in splendor or behind a mask of clouds, 
            but it will rise.

Until it does, we have no stake in tomorrow, for it is yet unborn.
            This just leaves only one day . . . Today.
            Any person can fight the battles of just one day.
            It is only when you and I add the burdens of those two awful eternity’s –
            yesterday and tomorrow that we break down.
            It is not the experience of today that drives people mad.
            It is the remorse or bitterness for something which happened yesterday 
            and the dread of what tomorrow may bring.

Let us therefore live but one day at a time.
Author Unknown

An abstract way of looking at my life story is thinking of “today” as a comma.  Grammatically a “period” denotes an end, but a “comma” indicates a transition.  So each of my “today’s” is a transition and not an ending.  Today is the only place where my life happens. 

What lies behind you and what lies in front of you pales in comparison to what lies inside of you wrote Ralph Waldo Emerson.  Today has little to do with the yesterday I keep in distorted view over my shoulder nor does today have a lot in common with what I anticipate about the tomorrow on my foggy and distant horizon.  My life is all about today and today is found between my ears and in my heart.  It is happening  “Now” and I am grateful!

Whatever the present moment contains, accept it as if you had chosen it.  Eckhart Tolle

Five Biggest Regrets Before Dying

/ James Browning / 1 Comment

Life became more difficult to bear as I aged due to collecting an ever growing quantity of regrets.  Over time qualms collected were thrown on my conscience pile.  Little by little that burden became heavier and heavier.  Eventually it was a single huge regret that broke the back of my resistance less than five years ago.  Then all my smaller regrets began to surface buoyed by the repentance I was attempting to make for what I considered the great wrong I had done.  As the smaller misgivings have been taken out, examined and some sort of peace attempted with them I made a discovery that many were not that small at all.  In hurting others, ultimately I hurt myself as much or more. 

Some of my regrets at random:
– A friend and I got 200 bait crickets and let them lose in our basketball coach’s new car when we were 16.  We were upset at him because he got mad at our team and made us practice way too hard late one night after a game.
– Telling my eight or nine year-old son who was behaving badly that he was not acting like a human being and taking him outside saying he could come back into the house until he decided to act human.
– Not making car payments when I was eighteen and my car getting repossessed.  I caught up payments and got the car back.  A year later the same thing happened again and I lost the car for good.
– Sleeping with a woman when I was 19.  Then the next morning hurting her when let her know I was engaged.
– Not staying in better touch with my three half sisters and completely losing track and now having no idea where my sister Kelly is.
– Throwing a sandwich in a guy’s face that I worked with, even though he lost his temper and spit on me.
– Not going to more of my son’s hockey games when he was growing up.
– Refusing to accept that I suffered from depression for so many years and the damage to me and those around me that self-chosen blindness caused.
– Getting into a verbal tiff with my ex-mother-in-law in the car and her getting out and walking when we all were in Lake Tahoe.
– Not being truthful when my 2nd ex-wife told me she would stand by me no matter what if I would just tell her the truth.
– Losing track of a good friend and former roommate/co-worker fromJackson,Mississippi named Bruce Owen.
– Stealing a camera from K-Mart on a dare when I was 17.
– Not flying home for my favorite Uncle Jimmy’s funeral.
– Hurting a woman whose initials are RW so badly she will not even speak to me. 
– Not showing more appreciation for my first wife who always took such good care of me.
– Letting my personal life affect me to the point that I got fired from a company I was employed by for 18 years.
– Realizing what I felt about Desi Kershaw long after I had lost track of her.
– When home visiting, driving by the nursing home where my grandfather was living and not going to see him before he died two months later.
– For falling out of touch with my half sister Lisa and not finding out she even had cancer until after her funeral.
– For telling my Father off about his drinking and drugging then not speaking to him at all for the year and a half before he died at an AA meeting.
– Allowing sexual compulsiveness to take me into darker behaviors and today having that  knowledge even thought the behavior is long behind me now.
– Having no idea where my 1st cousin Vickie is now for over 20 years even though we were best friends growing up.

Bronnie Ware is women who once lived on the street and went on to become a nurse for the dying.  She has written about the top five regrets that terminally ill patients express during the last three to twelve weeks of their life.   http://www.inspirationandchai.com/Regrets-of-the-Dying.html

Here are the Top Five regrets she heard and has written about:

  1. I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.  This was the most common regret of all.
  2. I wish I didn’t work so hard.  This came from every male patient that I nursed.
  3. I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings. Many people suppressed their feelings in order to keep peace with others.
  4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends. Often they would not truly realize the full benefits of old friends until their dying weeks.
  5. I wish that I had let myself be happier. Many did not realize until the end that happiness is a choice.

While all five points touch me, I am especially moved by the fifth. It is in that spirit that I come here each day to share of myself without walls and allow the world to see me as I am, warts, mistakes and all.  For the admission of my random regrets today I am a little healthier mentally and my psyche has been lightened.  Contained within me is much gratitude for each of you for sharing my path of learning to live life better and more happily. 

Life is a choice. It is YOUR life. Choose consciously, choose wisely, choose honestly. Choose happiness.  Bronnie Ware

The Pain to Stay the Same

/ James Browning / 1 Comment

(Continuing on the theme from yesterday about personal change)

More than usual this week I have been experiencing a feeling of gratitude for the quality of my life today.  In looking over my shoulder I can see what appears now to be a somewhat straight line path that brought me from where I was to where I am.  However, from where true change began to present day the path I walked was much different.  It actually zigzagged all over with a greatly varied pace containing many stops, starts, successes and failures.     

The beginning:  “When the pain to stay the same exceeds the pain to change, you change.” 

The first time I saw those fourteen words was on a bulletin board.  They have been burned into my psyche ever since.  The initial glimpse was at the time when realizing I could not read or learn myself into life changes through applying my intellect.   I had to do the emotional work and face what I had long avoided.  

Lobsters grow by molting, or shedding their shells.  When its shell has been shed the lobster spends time under a rock or in a crevice while growing a new shell.  During that time the lobster is vulnerable without the protection of its old hard shell.        

The process of “change” caused me to feel a lot like a lobster.  For a while it had been evident to me I was stuck inside a hard shell that resulted from childhood abandonment and abuse.  It was stifling me.  I needed to shed the old casing and grow a new one.  I had to be vulnerable in order to change. Yet, doing what I needed to do felt impossible at the time.  I could not muster the courage to “jump in and do it”, but knew not changing meant I would continue to suffocate in my old shell.  

Did I muster the courage to shed the safety of my old hard outer armor plate and jump into the sea of change?  No!  I wish I could say I became brave enough to do that.  Instead life events came along and left me only with drown or swim options.  My old shell was shattered and stripped away and then “the pain to stay the same exceeded the pain to change”.  

Pain and discontent was stage one of my growth and change.  Suddenly I saw myself more clearly and could view my past at least with some accurately.  As if being slugged, the force of it crushed my shell and  figuratively “knocked the wind out of me emotionally”.  Getting knocked down and broken open was step #1.   

Admitting I had problems was stage two of my growth and change.  There had to be an end to my running away.  I had no choice but to let the issues take me over.    Opening up and allowing myself to feel the full force of what I had so long avoided was what I needed.  Accepting my issues was step #2.  

Realizing I needed help was stage three of my growth and change.  One of the effects of childhood trauma can be to become an overly self-reliant and a seemingly needless adult.  I became quite good at denying my own needs.  Seeking outside aid was rarely an allowed possibility.    Accepting that I needed help was step #3. 

Doing the work was stage four of my growth and change.  Being one who wants to begin today and have everything accomplished tomorrow, this step was difficult.  Coming to grips with my dysfunction took lots of time.  Gaining the upper hand on it took much longer and now spans years.  Putting in the time and making a long-term effort was step #4. 

Realization I was getting better was stage five of my growth and change.  At first it seemed as if nothing was changing, but over time I began to feel a little different.  Life began to taste better.  The better I got, the more I wanted.  Working past setback and disappointment without completely losing my momentum became a key for me.  Realizing I could heal was step #5. 

Real change takes a long time.  Clinical perspective says real personal change takes at least three years to be fully implemented.  That is why small changes I made and continued to repeat over a long period of time have yielded a positive impact.  On my path there has been an abundance of stubbornness and hanging on to the past combined with emotional dread and frightful depression at times.  What began with “baby steps” and became one step at a time, one day at a time has now several years later brought me to much better mental and spiritual health.  There is joy for living I have not known before. 

I am not fixed and will never be completely.  The scars will always remain, but I am better and continuing to improve.  To even try to express the quantity of thankfulness I have for my life today would be completely futile.  I am grateful to a power greater than me for the inspiration and to every person who has helped me along the way.  

Change is not made without inconvenience, even from worse to better.
Richard Hooker

Road to Self-Acceptance

/ James Browning / 1 Comment

A perspective of youth:    The more things change, the more they stay the same. I’m not sure who the first person was who said that. Probably Shakespeare. Or maybe Sting. But at the moment, it’s the sentence that best explains my tragic flaw: my inability to change.

I don’t think I’m alone in this. The more I get to know other people, the more I realize it’s everyone’s flaw. Staying exactly the same as long as possible, standing perfectly still… It feels better somehow. And if you are suffering, at least the pain is familiar. Because if you took the leap of faith, went outside the box, did something unexpected… Who knows what other pain might be waiting out there. Chances are it could be even worse. So you maintain the status quo. Choose the road already traveled and it doesn’t seem that bad. Not as far as flaws go. You’re not killing anyone… except maybe yourself a little.

When we finally do change, I don’t think it happens like an earthquake or an explosion, where all of a sudden we’re like this different person. I think it’s smaller than that. The kind of thing most people wouldn’t even notice unless they look at us really, really close. Which, thank God, they never do. But you notice it. Inside you that change feels like a world of difference. And you hope this is it. This is the person you get to be forever… that you’ll never have to change again.  (Insightfully written by Everwood)

Taking in again the meaning of the thoughts above while retyping them I find myself feeling OK with, and even thankful for my quandaries about my own personal change.   Frequently I have brutalized my self for an inability to be what it was I thought I should be.  Not infrequently such musings have focused on things that hardly mattered a month later. 

There is much I can complain about concerning getting older.  Yet the passing of years have allowed me to become wiser and to find less to be unhappy about.  As there is less discontentment the easier change seems to come.  There is something about loosening my grip on everything the way it is, the more life becomes the way I want it to be.  Yes, I have unfulfilled plans, goals, hopes and dreams, but they are not the heavy obsessions I once labored under.  Now such desires are more like coins tossed in a wishing fountain with faith such things can happen.  Figuratively, as I toss them into the water I let the wishes go keeping a hope the wish might come back to me manifested one day.  Often a wish is about a change I want to make within or about my self.   I know all my wishes won’t come true, but many of them can if my desire is sincere, my need is consistent and I am willing to bear the discomfort of change. 

On one hand maintaining the status quo can become very easy as I have made it to middle age.  Change can become my enemy if I allow it to.  Or change can be my great friend.  By a person’s 40’s and 50’s either he or she is either completely stuck and will slowly fade into oblivion with age just as they are.  Or else, he or she realizes time is precious and earnest change becomes much more possible, even mandatory.  Either a person just evaporates slowly or realization hits one upside the head with thoughts like:  “you don’t have forever… get moving if you want to accomplish what you promised yourself to do… you can change if you truly want to… gain takes pain so don’t fear it… you can do it…” and so on.

The last five years have been the hardest and most painful of my life.  At the same time the last half decade has also been my most insightful and wisdom producing period.  The thinking for most of my days has been an uncertainty if I was happy, but felt at least I was not unhappy.  Those thoughts have changed in recent times to where frequently I say with a smile “I’m happy”.  Some of that knowing comes from real personal change and coming to grips with old tragedy and heartache.  However the majority does not come from change, but rather from acceptance of my self and living better the live that I have.

Plainly, I have discovered the major culprit causing dissatisfaction and discomfort in my life:  ME!  That epiphany did not suddenly cure, fix or change anything specific except my attitude and view of things.  And with that simple adjustment, my life now has wonder and possibility I did not see before.  I’m a very grateful man for that slow to come and difficult, but simple insight. 

It doesn’t matter what we do until we accept ourselves. Once we accept ourselves, it doesn’t matter what we do.  Charly Heavenrich

Talent, Compassion, and Honor

/ James Browning / 1 Comment

There is an old fable about a young man who inherits three locked treasure chests from his father.  

One was a heavy chest marked “Talents” and was filled with ability, gold and jewels.  With it could be bought all in the world. 

The second treasure chest was even heavier and marked “Compassion”.  It was filled with magic rings that when worn, would let him feel the emotions of another. 

The third treasure chest was marked “Honor”.  It was the largest and heaviest of the three treasure chests but the contents were a mystery.   

There were two keys given to the young man.  One key was to open the chest marked “Talents” and the other was for the chest marked “Compassion”.  The instructions that came with the keys said that “Talents” and “Compassion” were meant to be used.  There was no key to the third chest and the instructions said “Honor” was a thing too easily squandered.  To have the contents of that chest the young man must find his own key. 

As the story unfolds the young man goes out into the world and uses the chest of “Talents” wisely and carefully.  Each time he did he was given a parcel of land until in time he came to possess the entire world. 

Now owning the world, the young man turned to the chest called “Compassion”.  One at a time he put the magic rings on his fingers so he could understand the hopes and fears of all the people in his world.  He became a great ruler and champion of justice. 

For the third box marked “Honor” the young man tried and tried to find a key to open the chest.  He ordered his people to find a key to open it.  None did.  Many offered to break into the chest for him, but he always refused saying violence was not a key to honor.  

After many, many years the now old man said to his people “I have not found the key to “Honor” and I can not rule this world or the hearts of the people without it.  So he began to give away what he had gained through his use the chests of “Talents” and “Compassion”.  He gave every person a piece of land and a magic ring until he had given everything away.  

Then the old man thought to himself  my “Talents” are gone and my “Compassion” is spent.  I have nothing to give to my son except this chest I can not open.  With that thought, to his amazement the lock on the chest called “Honor” suddenly fell off.  

This is when the old man knew, Honor is not something to be spent or used, but to be kept.  The key to honor is to keep it, always, and pass it on.  He was so glad he had not given in and broken into that chest.  

With the lock off the heavy chest marked “Honor”, the aging man lifted the lid and to his amazement inside he saw two more filled and heavy chests, one marked “Talents” and the other “Compassion”.  So he took those two chests out, closed the lid on “Honor” and put the lock back on that chest.  When he did it instantly became the heaviest chest of all once again.  Then the called his son to him and said “Son, I am very old, and I want you to have these three chests…..” 

And so it has been so with me.  I went in search of money, success and fame and was blessed with all three.  I obtained them in abundance but was actually more unhappy than I had been at the start.  As I grew older, experience of living and pain from my own mistakes taught me and broke the seal on my heart.  Then I began to be much more compassionate of others.  When money, success and fame were not of great meaning to me any more and when helping others became one of my primary motivations, I began to find the honor that I had sought my entire life.

So now the tattoo on my left arm of two Chinese characters that mean “Honor” are beginning to match the man whose skin they were inked upon years ago.  It is my sincere hope that my son can see clearly what I have become and through that example encourage him to pay little attention to things I once was.  Within I feel gratitude in great quantity for the insight I have today.  And in doing so I must thank the trials and tribulations that taught me the lessons that brought me to where I am.  

Character is doing the right thing when nobody’s looking.  There are too many people who think that the only thing that’s right is to get by, and the only thing that’s wrong is to get caught.  J.C. Watts

Apology to Anna

/ James Browning / 4 Comments

What sort of ass would ask a woman to marry him while engaged to another woman and let an announcement in the paper be how she found out?  I am not exactly sure what kind of man he was, but I know him.  He was me.  

Only two women and their families know this story and until now I have not had the courage to admit it to others.  I began writing this blog in an effort to become more self-aware, especially of what I have to be grateful for.  Quite often I come to know thankfulness through revealing a misstep or mistake and finding a bit of resolution and peace.  In writing here today I am keeping my promise to dig down deep within and come face to face with my behavior in my past.  I don’t blame anyone who reads what I write here today and thinks less of me. However through telling this story I hope I can let go of some heavy regret and think a little better of myself. 

Talk about lost and confused, I was so baffled and bewildered in my early 20’s.  Today I find that to be a flimsy excuse however for hurting any one the way I did.  Wrong is wrong!  There is no changing that.  

Yes, I had a difficult childhood, but so did others who in spite of it grew up to behave better than I have at times.  In my younger years I meant no harm, but did a lot of it others anyway.  Thinking about disappointing someone or hurting another has always been near impossible for me to bear.  The thought of it is paralyzing, but was especially so years ago.  My inability to break up with a girl caused me to hurt her far more than I would have had I ended the relationship as I should have.  It is my hope that by writing here today I can finally get some reprieve for the burden of guilt and shame I have carried for over 30 years.  

I was 19 and living  in Colorado Springs when I met Anna at a concert a few days after I got out of the hospital for reasons that are another story for another time.  Anna was 17 and almost done with her junior year of high school when we met that spring.  After dating for a short while we moved into an exclusive relationship before she started her senior year.  By the time she graduated, we got engaged.  

Anna’s family welcomed me openly and treated me very well.  She was kind, caring and fun to be with.  For over a year I was her faithful and loyal fiancé, but as was so often the case in my past life, given time I strayed.  The person I met and started also seeing was the woman I ended up being married to for 20+ years.  I should have told Anna, but I just couldn’t.  I should have let her go, but was weak and did not.  To this day my actions, or rather lack of them, haunts me to the very core of my being.  

Also I was unfair to Bobbie, the “other” woman who married me.  When she and her family found out about what I had done it was very embarrassing for them.  She almost did not marry me.  She deserved better, but she got the “me I was then” instead.  We’ve been divorced for years now, but once in a while something with our son brings us together again.  One of those times when I can summon the courage, I will apologize to her.  

Recently I came an across a line of thinking that fits well why I am sharing what I am today. The passage goes something like “Good people end up living their life in hell because they can not forgive themselves”.  That type of hell on earth is well-known to me.  I am hopeful by my self admission here I can let go of a piece of self-induced torment I have lived with for so many years. 

Today I come here to publicly apologize to Anna and ask for her forgiveness although I doubt she will ever be aware I have written this (but I hope somehow she finds out).  I was completely and thoroughly wrong in how I conducted myself.   I very much regret the lack of respect and caring I showed her and her family.  Anna, I am deeply sorry I hurt you.    

From the song “Angel” by Sarah McLachlan
Spend all your time waiting
For that second chance
For a break that would make it okay
There’s always one reason
To feel not good enough
And it’s hard at the end of the day
I need some distraction
Oh beautiful release
Memory seeps from my veins
Let me be empty
And weightless and maybe
I’ll find some peace tonight. 

Three words, eight letters, so difficult to say,
They’re stuck inside of me, they try and stay away.
But this is too important to let them have their way.
I need to do it now, I must do it today.
I am sorry.
Author Unknown

Discovering My “Undiscovered Self”

/ James Browning / 1 Comment

In the “Undiscovered Self” Carl Jung wrote that man often remains…”an enigma to himself.  Most people confuse “self-knowledge” with knowledge of their self-conscious ego personalities.  But the ego knows only its own contents… What is commonly called “self knowledge” is therefore a very limited knowledge…”   Jung went on to say self-knowledge is possible “only when the individual is willing to fulfill the demands of rigorous self-examination”. 

I have several years now of serious introspection and rigorous self-examination. The resolute searching within began earnestly with the epiphany I could be the “me” I wished to be only by knowing better the “I” which already existed.  Having dedicated myself to shining a little light into my own darkness to discover self truth, I have learned first hand how difficult and daunting a task of self-discovery is.  My ego has fought me every step of the way and has done its best to blind me whenever it could.  This journey has been irregularily enlightening, difficult most of the time, unnerving during every step and worth every effort! 

In embracing the past my emotions and feelings released have shaken me to my core.  What I have done and what was done to me, what I have said and what was spoken to me and the pain I dealt to others and the pain received all colluded at times to “knock the breath out of me mentally and emotionally”.  But this process of allowing myself to be “broken open” has benefited me greatly.  I am grateful for the outcome, enough so, to continue to face the “demons” and “desert walks” the process requires.  Yet, the fear that is a prelude to each step to understanding is still daunting.  It is the knowledge of the reward only that is the impetus that keeps me on this path. 

I am thankful for those whose teachings I have benefited from in my growth and development.  One specific example is Elisabeth Kubler-Ross M.D., a psychiatrist who wrote the landmark book “On Death and Dying” in 1969.  While her book was originally written about terminal illness, it has accurately been applied to many forms of catastrophic personal loss such as job, freedom, divorce, death of a loved one, addiction, disease, tragedy and disaster.  My 2nd divorce was a deep personal catastrophe.  The fact I did not want it was made worse by knowing I was the majority cause of the demise of the marriage.  For me the ending was a “death” I mourned more so than any physical death I recall.

Kübler-Ross‘s work says recovering from catastrophic personal loss requires at least two of these five steps below and most will go through all five but not necessarily in order.  This process is popularly known by the acronym DABDA.

1.  Denial — “I feel fine.”; “This can’t be happening, not to me.”  Denial is usually only a temporary defense.  

2.  Anger — “Why me? It’s not fair!”; “How can this happen to me?”; ‘”Who is to blame?”  Once in the second stage, a person recognizes that denial cannot continue.  Because of anger, the person is usually very difficult to care for. 

3.  Bargaining — “I’ll do anything for a few more years.”  The third stage involves the hope that the person can somehow postpone or delay what has happened. Usually, the negotiation is made with a higher power in exchange for a reformed lifestyle.

4.  Depression — “I’m so sad, why bother with anything?”; “What’s the point?”  During the fourth stage, a person begins to understand the certainty of what has happened. It is an important time for grieving that must be processed.

5.  Acceptance — “It’s going to be okay.”; “I can’t fight it, I may as well accept it.”  In this last stage, the individual begins to come to terms with what has happened.

Personally in working past my 2nd divorce I experienced all five steps in order.  Once in a while the first four steps are still a big help in bringing me to step five (Acceptance) when I momentarily regress into denial, anger, bargaining or depression about the end of the marriage.

There has been nothing more sobering than all my self-discovery to date.  Exploring my “self” on deeper and deeper levels has been very healing and enriching for me.  Though my development can be described as a repetitive process of three steps forward and two steps backward, over time my slow growth has been steady.  Today I am more true to my self than before.  My morals, standards, needs and desires parallel themselves the closest ever in belief and deed. I am more free of what others think than I ever was previously.   While there is not always peace within, there is no longer a war going on inside.  My cup of gratitude runs over every time that realization comes to me. 

Your vision will become clear only when you look into your heart.  Who looks outside, dreams.  Who looks inside, awakens.  Carl Gustav Jung

Love Letter To Someone I Don’t Know & Never Met

/ James Browning / 2 Comments

“The Love Letter” painted by August Toulmouche

Recently I have read several articles about old love letters being discovered by people unrelated to the writer or addressee.  In one instance a letter discovered was written 50+ years ago and finally made it to the intended recipient.  Another was a note scribbled 200 years ago and discovered folded up tightly in the arm of an antique chair being restored.  In another example a bundle of love letters from World War I was discovered in an antique shop and the finder was trying to locate the family of either the writer or the one being written to.  Reading these stories brought what may be viewed as a silly thought, but one I followed through on.  I imagined a letter I had written being discovered decades after my death.  I decided to attempt writing one I would be pleased for a future third-party to read. What follows flowed without effort from within me.

An old love letter never written from a time long ago to someone I don’t know and never met…..

Dear ________ ,

When we met for the first time is as fresh in my memory as one moment ago.  As of today it was exactly one month ago.  So much has happened in a very short time.  My world is permanently changed and I am altered beyond what I can express with language.  If I never saw you again I would mourn that happening deeply.  Yet what has been awakened within me would remain as a permanent reminder that my heart is not yet dead as I had long thought it was.

How do I express the feelings growing inside me without seeming to be lost in some obvious state of delirium?  My answer is “I can not”.  Science says the initial attraction between a man and woman creates a sort of partial insanity.  Then that explains it.  I am insane over you my darling and I revel in my madness.

How well I know that life never brings a path filled only with joy and delight.  To think so so is an illusion.  I know what fills me now will certainly in time be intertwined with challenge, trial and difficulty.  Am I a lunatic to think now that such things can be borne with grace upon the back of the love I have discovered?  No.  I do not think I am crazy to think that. What is built in the future upon the rock of what we are sharing, can withstand most any force a human can bear.  Of that I am certain.

Yes, I dare speak of love knowing it has not been spoken between us so far.  Am I a coward for writing here instead of looking into your eyes as the words are formed by my heart and released through my voice?  Maybe so, but my feelings are true.  I write because my poetic soul is determined to use beautiful words to express itself to you.  The depths of my feelings demand I can do no less.

Yes, my sweet… I am in love…. with you.  As I write this letter I know as certainly as the moon will rise later tonight and the sun will follow in the morning, what is expressed here in pen and ink is dependable and true.   My restless soul is no longer be searching for something unknown. The purpose of its quest has been found:  YOU!  Without confusion and with complete clarity I say again, I love you ______.   I speak first of what I am nearly certain is within you in like form.  With all my being I hope my perception is accurate!

What we are sharing is admirable and sincere.  Our enchantment is real.  Our bliss is genuine.  I know someday when we share the delight of our selves in physical form our delight will be heightened and multiplied beyond what I ever could have hoped for.  For now I am glad we have resisted what could have happened so easily.  It is a testament that we guard what has been discovered and so want only the best for the gift of love between us.  May we continue to take the time to build a love strong and lasting while resisting haste.

So please know my sweet darling you have touched me as I have never been touched before.  You have reached me on a deeper level than I thought possible.  It has been said by some that loving another makes them feel more complete, yet I question the accuracy of that.  I do not feel more complete by loving you, but I do feel richer. It’s as if I have discovered more of myself through knowing you.  You were the light I needed in order to glimpse who I really am and can be.

After you read this letter, I wonder how you will greet me when next we meet.  My heart vibrates with hope that you will meet me with your heart matched to what I hold inside mine for you.

I love you my darling,

__________

With much gratitude that I am able to do so, I wrote the above openly and without reservation.  It was written with no one specific in mind and formed only from hope. The words traveled from mind to fingers to screen at the moments I thought them just as I thought them without editing.  No longer do I feel the need to hide away any element of my hapless romantic soul.  I no longer fear the real me within and instead here and now express my thankfulness for it.

A day, a week, a month are past,
Another year is by;
Beside her on the open’d desk,
His old love letters lie.
She reads them till the day-light fades,
And ‘neath the moon-lit sky,
She sleeps at rest, for on her breast
Those old love letters lie.
Auguste Toulmouche

Wisdom: Hidden, But Not Concealed

/ James Browning / 1 Comment

Most people spend their entire life imprisoned within the confines of their own thoughts.  They never go beyond a narrow, mind-made, personalized sense of self that is conditioned by the past.  In you, as in each human being, there is a dimension of consciousness far deeper than thought.  It is the very essence of who you are.  

How easy it is for people to become trapped in their conceptual prisons. The human mind, in its desire to know, understand, and control, mistakes its opinions and viewpoints for the truth.  It says:  this is how it is.  You have to be larger than thought to realize that however you interpret “your life” or someone else’s life or behavior, however you judge the situation, it is not more than a viewpoint, one of many possible perspectives.  It is not more than a bundle of thoughts.   

Wisdom is NOT a product of thought.  The deep knowing that is wisdom arises through the simple act of giving someone or something your full attention.  Attention is primordial intelligence, consciousness itself.
From “Stillness Speaks” by Elkhart Tolle

If it were possible to intellectually repair one’s self, I’d have “fixed” myself ten times over.
I searched.
I read dozens and dozens of religious, self-help and spiritual books.
I attended retreats and spent time at a Benedictine monastery.
I began to attend church again.
I looked deeply into Buddhism, attended classes and became a practicing Buddhist.
I explored the Bible and bought a concordance to help my study.
I scrutinized codices of the Nag Hammadi and the Dead  Sea  Scrolls.
I learned about Gnosticism and ancient Gnostic teachings.
I investigated the teachings of Confucius.
I became a serious amateur student of psychology.
I poured over texts of spiritual practices from Sufism to Rosicrucian Principles.
I studied ancient philosophies of Plato, Socrates, Aristotle, Epictetus, Pythagoras and Marcus Aurelius.
I probed the contemporary philosophies of Emerson, Thoreau, Huxley, Gandhi and Einstein.
I looked into the writings of Ram Das, Deepak Chopra, Rumi, Thich Nhat Hanh, Osho and Huston Smith.
I……..

While becoming more educated I consistently became more weighted down as I fed my intellect.  In choosing an outward quest in search of answers to my questions about living and its meaning, I neglected the ability to let them find me.  

What I searched for, to borrow the words of Socrates, was “hidden, but not concealed; evident, but not visible”.  The two best outcomes of my decade and a half of probing and investigating were:  1) I got into therapy and recovery and 2) I began a meditation practice.  I found no specific answers through those avenues I can identify, but I did find a lot of myself.  

In my opinion a good therapist does not heal a person, they help a person learn how to heal them self.  In the process one can learn how to “crack them self open” and heal from the inside out.   

My meditation practice is not about stopping my mind from stirring constantly with its whirlwind of thought.  Rather it is about letting the wind of thinking blow strong through me while paying as little attention as possible to it.  It is then I have room to focus narrowly and allow natural and innate wisdom to come to me.  Some days I gain a lot of insight, on others hardly any at all.  The answers are in the trying.  It is my consistent effort that heals. 

Make no mistake; “book” knowledge gained in my search has helped.  However, it was the acceptance that some things can not be intellectually known when I truly got better.  To get at the true essence of who I am all I have to do is keep faith in my self and a power beyond me I can’t explain and don’t now feel the need to.   There is gratitude within for every step on my path but most of all I am glad to be alive today!

 The beginning of knowledge is the discovery of something we do not understand.  Frank Herbert

A Broken Heart and a Youthful Promise

/ James Browning

The dance was in the school auditorium and the cover group playing was easy to hear in the basement immediately underneath.  Her name was L—– and she was an attractive and well-blossomed 13 year-old.  I was a year older and one grade in front of her.  Except for the dim glow of an outside security light through a window it was dark there in the storage room where we were making out.  Boy, were we!  There were rumors L. was pretty wild and still virginal me was finding that out first hand.  Admittedly I was essentially male hormones on legs at that moment, but when she moved to unzip my pants I pushed her hands away.  After pushing them away several times, I said “I can’t do this”.  L. was angry and mocked my unwillingness with profanity.  I raised my voice to say “stop it” and she stormed out of the room.  We were never together again. 

I was comfortable in my early/mid teens being on first or second base with a girl but not moving beyond that.  Having seen way too much at too young of an age, I had this notion I was going to “save myself” and not be like my parents.  During the less than 8 years my Mother and Father were married they were not faithful to each other and even as children we knew it.  Sex seemed to be a good bit of what their lives revolved around.  For me there was a youthful belief I was going to be different. 

Soon after getting my driver’s license, I asked K— out who I had a crush on.  We went to a movie, the Diary Queen and she suggested parking afterwards.  After a short while making out in my VW Beetle it blew my mind on our first date when she took her top off.  I found her haste to be naked a huge turn off.  After a bit of her pouting and coldly asking “what is wrong with you” I started the car and took her home.  Afterwards we hardly spoke to one another at school.  On one hand there was a feeling of doing right for myself, but also plenty of confusion.  Was there something wrong with me? 

The first girl I fell truly in love with was a year older than me.  I was a junior and E—– was a senior at another high school six miles away from my school.  To have an older girlfriend who went to a different school was a big deal.  We were an item for over a year and went together to each other’s proms.  I was in the audience when she graduated.  We daydreamed sometimes about a possible life together after we finished college.  

It was a June evening less than a month from my 17th birthday when E. took me riding around in her mother’s car. Only in hindsight would I much later comprehend what she had in mind that night.  Once the sun was almost down she turned onto a little traveled dirt road calling it a “shortcut” back to town.  Before long E. parked the car and said “let’s get in the back”.  We steamed up the back glass even with the windows partially open, but nothing but kissing and petting happened.  She wanted more, but I never let things go there.  Silly me imagined we’d do those things one day when we were married and she would be proud of me for being strong and saving myself until then.  Driving back into town, not much was said.  Things had changed.  I just did not know it yet.     

I had a part-time job in a town 40 miles away from home.  To get there I drove through the town where E. lived and each night on my way home I would drive by her house.  It made me feel chivalrous and close to her.  At least it did until the night I was driving by and saw her kissing a guy by his car in her driveway.  I went home with a broken heart.  Later she somehow convinced me her parents had put pressure on her to see others and she gave into their feeling we were getting too serious.  They were probably right, but we continued on and off for a few months even after she left for college.  Those days what was special inside me was mostly gone, but it still hurt badly when we stopped seeing each other.  

About eight months later after having moved 200 miles to live with my Father for my senior year of high school I met D—–.  She was 16 and I was 17 when I fell for her and for a time, her for me.  We were each other’s “first”.  An engagement ring on her finger said we planned to get married once she was eighteen and out of high school although we were way too young to know what we were doing.  Being youthfully blind there was no doubt within that D. was the “one” until just before her 18th birthday she informed me she wanted to see other guys.  I later found there had been others while we were together.  I was shattered and ended up moving a thousand miles westward as I tried to run away from the heartache I thought she caused me.

I changed soon after.  The environment I grew up in caught up with me completely.  A clear conclusion was reached within.  Then and there I decided women used men just the same as they accused men of using women.  I consciously chose to be what I perceived everyone else was.   I just did not know any better.  All that was going on in my life was a more or less normal passage into adulthood.  The problem was I was not normal.  

In hindsight my response was predictable.  No adult ever talked to me about love, sex and relationships.  There were no examples of healthy adult relationships close around me growing up.  Within one personal choice made late in my 18th year I became what I viewed everyone else was to be and dysfunctional ways took over.  Until then I had been faithful to my girlfriends and did my best to be the “white knight” gentleman to each one of them.  That suddenly changed.

Eventually I ended up regretting the direction I chose, but it took decades.  Allowing youthful perception to so darkly color life my life brought dysfunction to every love relationship that followed.  Ignorance is often not bliss.  Lack of knowledge can be emotionally dangerous.  Being blindly dysfunction is corrosive and damaging. 

Today I am grateful to have clear hindsight into where my wayward path began.  Sometimes understanding can only come once one locates the root of behavior.  That insight combined with some therapy and a lengthy period of introspection, meditation and celibacy has helped me to feel fresh, new and reborn.  For that I am deeply grateful.     

Sometimes I wish I were a little kid again, skinned knees are easier to fix than broken hearts.  Unknown