Wisdom

Like Friction On the Strings

/ James Browning

gmajphotoWhen life seems to have possibility, the present has so much more meaning. I know that psychologists and philosophers say the present moment being lived in is where I should be centered. For the most part I am. However, it’s deeply meaningful how much accepting the real possibilities of life ahead brightens today. The point is not to get stuck there too far ahead of myself.

Certainly to spend too much time daydreaming moves me out of the present and falling head first into “future tripping”. Yet, thinking about what might be and the many branches life might take helps me to make good choices when I come to forks in the road.

Life is painful and messed up. It gets complicated at the worst of times, and sometimes you have no idea where to go or what to do. Lots of times people just let themselves get lost, dropping into a wide open, huge abyss. But that’s why we have to keep trying. We have to push through all that hurts us, work past all our memories that are haunting us. Sometimes the things that hurt us are the things that make us strongest. A life without experience, in my opinion, is no life at all. And that’s why I tell everyone that, even when it hurts, never stop yourself from living. Alysha Speer

Unlike getting lost driving when one can do a u-turn and get back on the intended course, life is lived forward only. The best I can do if a bad choice is made is take a detour and attempt to get back headed in the direction I first intended; or pick a new heading. Sometimes getting lost is how I have discovered myself.  Many of the greatest discoveries about myself have come from a period outside of my comfort zone when I was completely lost and even out of control.

“You’re reaching out
And no one hears you cry
You’re freaking out again
‘Cause all your fears
Remind you another dream has come undone
You feel so small and lost like you’re the only one
You wanna scream ’cause you’re
Desperate
You want somebody, just anybody
To lay their hands on your soul tonight
You want a reason to keep believin’
That someday you’re gonna see the light
You’re in the dark
There’s no one left to call
And sleep’s your only friend
Well even sleep
Can’t hide you from all those tears
And all the pain and all the days
You wasted pushin’ them away
It’s your life, it’s time you face it ”
― David Archuleta

Feeling desperate enough to take a pointed look at my behavior has brought great rewards. The lessons were learned not because I wanted to. There simply was no other choice. With one way out it’s easy to choose that direction. When discomfort and sadness have been strong enough is when I stepped up to face my wrong turns and mistakes.

I am grateful for the grief and sadness of my life for within has been my most prolific teacher. And there I have also gotten the clearest look forward at life’s possibilities. Discomfort has a way of clearing one’s “windshield” forward.

Pain is the greatest of teachers. It makes me look up from wallowing in my own junk. Like friction on the strings toughens a guitar player’s finger tips, I have been made strong.

If you feel lost, disappointed, hesitant,
or weak, return to yourself, to who you are,
here and now and when you get there,
you will discover yourself,
like a lotus flower in full bloom,
even in a muddy pond, beautiful and strong.
From “The Secret Life Of Water” by Masaru Emoto

Getting Back Up

/ James Browning

There comes a time

Living is not nearly as complicated as I frequently have made it to be. Once the self-created gray began to clear my true needs, wants and desires were no longer obscured. Life is simple. It really is. It’s just very, very difficult at times. Acceptance of that simplicity and coming to know “love is all that really matters” have been the largest two nuggets of wisdom that have come my way. Never more do I frequently make life complicated in ways it is not. I live. I love and am loved. I am happy. I am grateful.

Life is simple.
Everything happens for you,
not to you.
Everything happens
at exactly the right moment,
neither too soon nor too late.
You don’t have to like it…
it’s just easier if you do.
Byron Katie

Celebrate Your Differentness

/ James Browning

Odd Man out series - Reasoning Questions and AnswersIf you have been beat down long enough, believing in yourself can seem impossible. When you have had people in your life who do not lift you up, you pretty much take over for them when they are not there. You proceed to discount your skills and abilities based on what other people have said. You are doing a great disservice to yourself and giving your power to someone else. To reach your goals in this life, believing in yourself is extremely important if you want to get anywhere. Those assumptions about who you are become a way of life. You will stay stuck in these patterns until you change the way you think.

Here are some simple ways to start learning how to believe in you:

1) Try Even When You Still Think You Can’t Do It
Because you have a pattern of not believing in yourself, this will take a little work. Make a vow to yourself today that you will try your best at any opportunity that comes your way. It does not matter if you have fallen on your face before or whether you think it’s even possible. The important thing is to pledge to yourself that you will try no matter what the outcome may be. The worst thing to do to yourself is to assume you can’t do it before even trying. Tell yourself right now that any effort to do better is not a waste of your precious time.

2) Establish Evidence For The Assumptions
Get some paper and start a list. List every one of those things you really believe about yourself and your abilities or the lack of them. List them whether they are large or small. Once you have that list go through each assumption and examine it. Ask yourself, “Is this true? What is the proof?” Then go and do whatever it is you feel you cannot. It does not matter if you do it better than anyone else. It only matters that you DO.

3) Recognize The Possibilities
A constant onslaught of self-defeating assumptions obviously puts you in the place of believing you cannot succeed. This goes back to the people in your life who have impressed their own beliefs on you. A silly bunch of girls in high school told you that you were fat and no one would ever want you. Guess what you have been doing since? Saying that same self-defeating comment to yourself. It is time to push beyond what you believe are your capabilities. This is a scary thought. It also will be a step in the direction of finding the belief in you. The assumptions you have about yourself may not be true. You have simply accepted these assumptions as truth without proof. Consider all the possibilities of each situation. Challenge the assumptions and have an open mind to the possibility that you could be wrong!

With every success, whether large or small, the belief in yourself will grow. That will be the push you need to keep stepping outside your comfort zone and attain the accomplishments you truly deserve. Robin Skeen http://www.selfgrowth.com/articles/How_To_Believe_In_Yourself.html

As I read over Ms. Skeen’s article this morning, the aspects of it seemed so simple; easy even. At almost whiplash speed, my psyche responded “that’s not how it used to be!”. I am reminded there were many years when I was awful at disputing the BS I told myself about me. Now on the other side of such thinking (mostly anyway) it is shocking how stuck I was for so very long.

It’s said that if you speak something aloud for thirty days in a row you will begin to believe it. Scoff if you wish, but it’s true. The disbelieving judge within was in fact the source of the trouble I had seeing all the good in me. Once I began to argue for myself against my thinking, things began to change; slowly at first but rapidly over time. The majority I used to think about me turned out to be false and untrue. My gratitude abounds for knowing that now.

If you celebrate your differentness, the world will, too.
It believes exactly what you tell it…
through the words you use to describe yourself,
the actions you take to care for yourself,
and the choices you make to express yourself.
Tell the world you are one-of-a-kind creation
who came here to experience wonder and spread joy.
Expect to be accommodated.
Victoria Moran

Live In the Layers, Not On the Litter

/ James Browning

59325Six hundred and fifty-seven days I have been here to post a thought, a photo or a borrowed contemplation about gratitude. Through business travel, vacations and even illness my faithfulness to my self-assigned daily task never wavered for over a year and nine months. Until yesterday… when travel problems invaded my unbroken string.

A return home from a business trip should have allowed arrival in my home city around 4pm, leaving close to eight hours to post a new installment of goodmorninggratitude. What happened instead was landing here at 2:30am the following morning after a long day of flight delays and cancellations. And so, I can not longer say “I haven’t missed a single day in almost two years”. And you know what? I am not bothered by it.

What I now realize is my goal of posting here each day had an element of “look at me”; “look what I can do” contained within. Yes, there was personal satisfaction to consistently post each day and that was the primary driving force (most of the time). But sometimes it was duty that brought words to my screen; that and little else. How long did I need to prove the point to myself that I could do this? A year? A year and a half? Even six months showed I could, but I became ‘hooked’ instead. The realities of life jumped up to teach me, with the greatest of intentions I had let my self assigned duty to post here become a ‘rut’; the very thing I was trying to avoid. As John Lennon wrote “Life is what happens, while you are making other plans”.

I have walked through many lives,
some of them my own,
and I am not who I was,
though some principle of being abides,
from which I struggle not to stray.
When I look behind,
as I am compelled to look
before I can gather strength to proceed on my journey,
I see the milestones dwindling toward the horizon
and the slow fires trailing from the abandoned camp-sites,
over which the scavenger angels wheel on heavy wings.
Oh, I have made myself a tribe out of my true affections,
and my tribe is scattered!
How shall the heart be reconciled to its feast of losses?
In a rising wind,
the manic dust of my friends,
those who fell along the way,
bitterly stings my face.
Yet I turn.
I turn,
exulting somewhat,
with my will intact to go wherever I need to go,
and every stone on the road precious to me.
In my darkest night,
when the moon was covered and I roamed through the wreckage,
a nimbus-clouded voice directed me:
-Live in the layers, not on the litter-
Though I lack the art to decipher it,
no doubt the next chapter
in my book of transformations is already written.
I am not done with my changes.
From “The Collected Poems” by Stanley J. Kunitz

My unbroken string of posts is broken and that’s just fine! It doesn’t bother me although I would have thought it would. Instead, I get a sense of relief knowing that missing a day or two here and there is of no consequence. Another life lesson taught unexpectedly is the subject for my gratitude this morning.

Our brightest blazes of gladness
are commonly kindled
by unexpected sparks.
Samuel Johnson

What the World Needs More Of

/ James Browning

 

1

The world has enough beautiful mountains
and meadows, spectacular skies and serene lakes.
It has enough lush forests, flowered fields and sandy beaches.
It has plenty of stars and the promise of a new sunrise and sunset every day.
What the world needs more of, is people to appreciate and enjoy it.
Michael Josephson

Embrace and Appreciate Life

/ James Browning

_meditation_of_autumn__by_janek_sedlar-d5ggia7For a long time I internally felt inferior at company meetings and business gatherings. It always seemed there were so many smarter and more successful people around, that surely I did not belong. No matter how successful I became or how many plaudits were laid at my feet there was a sense of being counterfeit; that surely I lacked the brains and ability to belong. Of course, I was always mistaken but did not know it. Instead of seeing myself clearly I learned to fake confidence and assuredness. Only a select few were ever able to see past the facade worn by my cowering inner-self.

The erroneous sense of self started with how I was conditioned as a kid. However, no matter what my parents did or didn’t do they don’t deserve the majority of the blame for my lack of self-esteem. I do! My caregivers had control of my life for around a decade and a half. I’ve had it well over thirty years. The majority of making me feel inferior was self-induced.

In the vantage point of latter middle age, now it’s obvious the inferiority feelings were all smoke and illusion. It took a long time, but no longer do I feel like I don’t belong to the “club of successful professionals”. The total of who I am makes me the equal of ANYONE.

You are one thing only.
You are a Divine Being.
An all-powerful Creator.
You are a Deity
in jeans and a t-shirt,
and within you dwells
the infinite wisdom
of the ages
and the sacred
creative force
of all that is,
will be
and ever was.
From “Devine Living:
The Essential Guide to Your True Destiny”
by Anthon St. Maarten

For what took decades to manifest, gratitude abounds within for the healthy self-esteem I enjoy today. I am less fearful, have more courage and generally feel like I can take on the world with a level of vigor previously unknown. As I often say now, the best is yet to come!

All I have learned in life really just boils down to this:
there is only one difference between the so-called wise
and the so-called foolish…and between those who are
truly happy and those who are not.
Those who are wise – and those who are happy –
embrace and appreciate life.
Those who are unhappy and unwise do not.
That is all; that is the only difference.
Rasheed Ogunlaru

My Best Self

/ James Browning

uplifting-karen-scovillIn his poem “The Devine Comedy” Dante said the “Seven Deadly Sins” are:

1 – Lust (inordinate craving for the pleasures of the body)
2 – Gluttony (to consume more than that which one requires)
3 – Greed (unreasonable desire for material wealth or gain)
4 – Sloth (great avoidance of physical or spiritual work)
5 – Wrath (anger embraced while spurning love)
6 – Envy (desire for others’ traits, status, abilities, or situation)
7 – Pride (excessive and blind belief in one’s self)

Rare is the person who aspires to such a dark list, although at sometime or another almost all of us fall into practicing items on it. “Don’t do’s” have meaning to me, but not nearly so much as the “Do’s”. In a mirrored reflection of Dante’s “sins” I came up with a list of “virtues” to remember as good sign posts for living:

1 – Love (tender affection for others)
2 – Moderation (using only what a person needs)
3 – Honesty (freedom from deceit or fraud)
4 – Effort (physical or mental exertion of will)
5 – Kindness (a generous and considerate nature)
6 – Contentment (satisfied ease of mind)
7 – Humility (modest view of one’s own importance)

The virtues list gives me ideals to aspire to. I am glad and grateful for a new week that begins with a reminder of what can help me be my best self.

The way of the superior person is threefold;
virtuous, they are free from anxieties;
wise they are free from perplexities;
and bold they are free from fear.
Confucius

Wisdom Accumulated Slowly

/ James Browning

jamesappleton04Once upon a time living felt mostly like an endless obligation to have a place to live, a car to drive, food to eat, money to spend and to take care of others. Although it often appears a break through insight comes quickly, usually it is actually wisdom accumulated slowly but fully realized in a moment. How true my perspective of being alive matches that process. From a life of obligated responsibility, to a true gift realized has been my path.

What I am obligated to has not changed much. But existance is far more than an endless list of “have to’s”. Instead I am pulled forward by the possibilities of life, for as long as I live they are endless. Thankfully, gone are those days when living felt mostly like a burden.

to love life, to love it even
when you have no stomach for it
and everything you’ve held dear
crumbles like burnt paper in your hands,
your throat filled with the silt of it.
When grief sits with you, its tropical heat
thickening the air, heavy as water
more fit for gills than lungs;
when grief weights you like your own flesh
only more of it, an obesity of grief,
you think, How can a body withstand this?
Then you hold life-like a face
between your palms, a plain face,
no charming smile, no violet eyes,
and you say, yes, I will take you.
I will love you, again.
“The Thing Is” by Ellen Bass
From book ” From The Courage to Heal”

Today I love my life In a deeper way I never knew until recent years. There is something about accepting mortality that makes living far more valuable. Being old enough to have witnessed the cycle of life from birth to death many times takes away youth’s fantasy of living forever. Those words are written not with morbidly shaped thoughts, but rather with a perspective shaded with realness that makes being alive all the more precious. For every second, minute, hour, day, week, month, year and decade of my days, gratitude is deeply resident within.

You’ve got to take the good with the bad,
smile with the sad, love what you’ve got,
and remember what you had.
Always forgive, but never forget.
Learn from mistakes, but never regret.
Unknown

A Living, Not a Life

/ James Browning

4535868510_a1bdaf6707What is work? According to the dictionary: activity in which one exerts strength or faculties to do or perform something; job; employment; a trade, profession; labor, task, or duty that is one’s accustomed means of livelihood.

Yep. That’s where I will be heading shortly this morning: off to work to earn my paycheck. But later this year I will leave the profession I have long grown tired of and jump off into the unknown. Each thought of doing more of I really want to do with less money, I grow increasingly excited. Fifteen years ago I would have thought that was craziness. Today I know the scorecard of life is NOT about money, what job is held nor how much one works, but instead about how much one lives.

We’re ambivalent about work because in our capitalist system it means work-for-pay (wage-labor), not for its own sake. It is what philosophers call an instrumental good, something valuable not in itself but for what we can use it to achieve. For most of us, a paying job is still utterly essential — as masses of unemployed people know all too well. But in our economic system, most of us inevitably see our work as a means to something else: it makes a living, but it doesn’t make a life. Gary Gutting, New York Times

Do not waste the vast majority of your life doing something you hate so that you can spend the small remainder sliver of your life in modest comfort. You may never reach that end anyway. Resist the temptation to get a job. Instead, play. Find something you enjoy doing. Do it. Over and over again. You will become good at it for two reasons: you like it, and you do it often. Soon, that will have value in itself. Adrian Tan

When I weigh things out I don’t believe I wasted the majority of my life working. The way forward was blessed with a rewarding profession that enhanced my existence to a great degree. Over time though, it became just a job; something I did because I thought I was required to do. There were true responsibilities of paying bills, saving, helping my son get the education he wanted and supporting a couple of ex-wives. Those are behind me.

Eventually I will need to generate income to augment my savings, but what I do will be something I truly want to do that does not rob me of too much time. What a rare advantage to have the room to sort out what that might be (actually I believe if I keep an open mind and my awareness sharp it will appear in my path). I’m approaching a new personal frontier that is both stimulating and forbidding. It’s the new and uncertain feelings that I am the most grateful for. They make me feel fully alive!

Work without love is slavery.
Mother Teresa

The One You Feed

/ James Browning

indianstortellA Cherokee Legend

An old Cherokee is teaching his grandson about life. “A fight is going on inside me,” he said to the boy.

“It is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves. One is evil – he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.”

He continued, “The other is good – he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. The same fight is going on inside you – and inside every other person, too.”

The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather, “Which wolf will win?”

The old Cherokee simply replied, “The one you feed.”

Having lived long enough to know the words of the “Old Indian” are true, I can attest to the wisdom in this legend of my ancestors. I have been know to frequently say “a person finds what they are looking for” or “we end up right where we put ourselves”. By those I mean “expecting good brings them and anticipating bad attracts it” and “thoughts are our compass that directs us to where we end up”. Plain and simple: thoughts breed more like thoughts.

Far from having become some namby-pamby simpleton who is lost in positive euphoria all the time, I am still very much human in spite of my growth and present day understanding of myself. I have bad moments like everyone else. I just don’t allow myself to get stuck there. I readily fight the “bad wolf” for my happiness and contentment.

With long-term intention and lots of practice, being somewhere north of the line between happy/sad and good/bad has become relatively easy to maintain most of the time. Practice does not make perfect, but it can make one darn good at something! In the beginning throwing off the negative thoughts was difficult; a war of sorts. However the more battles I won, the more I began to win until today shooing away negativity is usually not that hard. I am very grateful for the slow process of practice and learning that brought me to the good life I life today. I ended up living with the “good wolf I fed”.

Negative thoughts breed negative thoughts,
and positive thoughts breed positive thoughts.
When you are aware of this,
you will become aware
of the ultimate power
that you hold over your own life!
Unknown