happiness

Becoming the Person You Want To Be

/ James Browning

become-less-busy

The first thing to get clear on, is that becoming the person you want to be is not an outside search. You will not find your self-love in the affection you get from your partner, you will not find your confidence in the title you hold at work, and you will not find your true abundance in the amount of money in your bank account.

The secret to becoming all you want to be, lies in remembering that you are already everything you want to be. What you are looking for is not out there in the world that you see. If your level of self-love, confidence or abundance is dependent on circumstances that are external to you, then you will live in constant fear of them being taken away. True inner power comes from believing that the source of all that you desire to become, is within you.

Let go of everything that is not who you want to be

You already have all the answers. You are already the sexy, confident, successful, abundant, happy person that you long to be. All that prevents that part of you being expressed are the blocks you have created inside of you. All you have to do is release whatever it is that is blocking you from connecting with that part of you now.

+ Be willing to go deeper: Many of us are afraid of going deep inside ourselves. Doing this means facing those parts of you that perhaps you do not feel proud of. However, it is through loving and accepting these parts, that they can then be healed.

+ Remember you are already complete: There is an illusion that exists in our minds, that we are incomplete in some way. It is important to remember that there is nothing wrong with you, and this belief that you are somehow flawed is a block that you need to release.

+ Listen for the answers within you: Too many of us ignore the soft inner calling of our intuition which loves and adores us. It reminds us to just relax and trust. Practice making the distinction between the harsh, critical voice that pushes you, and the soft, nurturing voice which loves and supports you.

+ Let go of thoughts that contradict your truth: Any time you tell yourself you cannot do something or have something, you are lying to yourself. Your truth is that you have the ability to become anything you wish to become. All you have to do is believe it, and you can achieve it.

+ Do the work: If you are aware that you have some inner blocks going on, then it is about time you did something about it. You can no longer bury your head in the sand, suppress your emotions with food or drugs and distract yourself with television and partying. Get very honest and real with yourself.

+ Trust and relax: You do not need to continue to try and figure it all out. You simply need to identify what it is that is blocking you from being who you want to be right now. Once you can heal your blocks, and re-connect with those inner qualities, your actions naturally shift, the results you get naturally change. Taken from a post by Connie Chapman http://alifeofperfectdays.blogspot.com/2012/03/secret-to-becoming-person-you-want-to.html

Forty-Seven days until my semi-retirement officially begins. Nothing is more top of mind than allowing myself to relax more fully into the person I am. Graduation from the college of life is about to happen and what is coming I have been preparing for all along, professionally, personally and otherwise. I am grateful to be so richly blessed.

The ego is your self-image;
it is your social mask;
it is the role you are playing.
Your social mask thrives on approval.
It wants control,
and it is sustained by power,
because it lives in fear.
Deepak Chopra

Undisturbed Calmness

/ James Browning

Public domain image, royalty free stock photo from www.public-domain-image.com

Inherently there are only two states of being:
1. A state of inner wholeness
2. A state of inner incompleteness

This state of inner incompleteness starts developing the moment your focus became identified totally with the physical, specifically with the mind – usually by the age of 4. You get identified with the narrow, label based, identity created by the mind – what is called the “ego structure”. The ego structure by itself is not a problem, and serves a practical purpose in allowing a meaningful physical experience, but when you become totally identified with it, your perception of yourself becomes very intensely narrow.  [W]hen your state of being is one of inner incompleteness…

– You feel needy of approval from outside and many times your actions are influenced from this place of needing someone’s approval of you.

– There is an element of “craving” that’s always present in your being because of the delusion that some manifestation/experience will make you feel whole permanently.

– You sense momentary peace now and then, in your being, subject to some external outcomes but this peace is soon clouded by the feeling of incompleteness

– There is a constant background of unease/frustration/irritation within you which you constantly blame the outside for

The stronger your identification with the ego… the narrower your awareness becomes, and the more incompleteness you sense within yourself. The physical realm does not have the capacity to take you to permanent wholeness because by its very design it’s a “temporary” realm and is subject to constant change, dissolution and impermanence…

Total identification with the mind’s ego structure, and its consequential negativity, created the sense of incompleteness, and a movement of “dis-identification” with the momentum of the mind takes you back to your original wholeness.

Don’t try to imagine what this place would feel like. The mind, as usual, has the tendency to associate “extra ordinary” ideas about this state of being. It may imagine that this state feels like some constant trip of exhilaration or an unending high or some blissed out state, like what you get out of a drug – but all these are “excited” states, that are temporary and fleeting, what I call surface level ripples on your being.

If you have such imaginations, you will end up running into some unending pursuit without ever resting in the ordinariness of your being. Wholeness is very ordinary, it’s very simple, and it does not come with any bursting lights and sounds, it’s the undisturbed calmness inherent to the space that you are. Take from a blog written by “Sen” http://www.calmdownmind.com/do-you-feel-whole-within-yourself/

When I can take myself “out of gear” is when truth overrules logic. I used to believe that what was true and what was logical was the same thing. No more. Now I understand that logic is only “principles of proof” while truth is fact or reality. Logic is only a construct of the mind and a companion of inner incompleteness. Truth is undeniable and where inner wholeness is rooted. I am grateful to understand the difference and know wholeness begins with acceptance of what “is”.

Become totally empty
Quiet the restlessness of the mind
Only then will you witness everything
unfolding from emptiness.
Lao Tzu

Tools of Their Tools

/ James Browning

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There’s never enough of the stuff you can’t get enough of.
Patrick H.T. Doyle

There is no memory when I first came across the website, but it became an addiction for a few weeks. Before you jump to a conclusion, let me tell you the site is an on-line auction of estate items in Southern Ohio. I’ve had “auction-fever” before but that was at a series of live antique auctions over a decade ago. Back then the realization arrived that buying for no particular reason except ‘I could’ was not healthy. It was easy then to think the necessary lesson had been well learned. In time that teaching feel dormant and needed waking up.

It was the feeling that I just had to win a particular auction that I noticed and jolted me back to reality of what was learned years earlier. I thought “you have too much stuff already and now you’re buying more. What’s up with that? You’re retiring soon. Shouldn’t you be a little more careful with your money?” The answer was an emphatic “YES”. At least the balance on my credit card stopped at about a thousand dollars!

Henry David Thoreau said “Men have become the tools of their tools…” I can relate. My symptom is similar.

…in affluent societies, where most have more than enough to live well, Thoreau would ask: ‘are the more pressing wants satisfied now?’ The suggestion is that, unlike the wise and prudent primitive societies, we are satisfying less pressing wants (for superfluous comforts, luxuries, and tools) and neglecting what are for us more genuinely pressing wants, such as a flourishing inner life. Thoreau claimed, ‘Most of the luxuries, and many of the so-called comforts of life, are not only not indispensable, but positive hindrances to the elevation of mankind… a man is rich in proportion to the number of things he can afford to let alone’. http://simplicitycollective.com/thoreau/thoreau-on-comforts-luxuries-and-tools

Redemption for my buying spree was the realization that items purchased could be redirected as gifts to friends and family for future birthdays, anniversaries and holidays. Once I decided many of the items and some I already had could be a gift appreciated by loved ones I began to feel better.

All my life I’ve been told I am too hard on myself and I have come to see that is frequently true. The difference now is I don’t beat myself up (as much). Instead when the self-examination begins I start to ask “where is this coming from” and “what can I learn from it”. Answering those questions softens my self-adminstered treatment.

The days are filled with many opportunities to educate myself about how to live a more fulfilled life. While I miss more than I grasp, an awareness of how frequently the chances to learn come is helping me grab onto an ever-increasing share of them. I am grateful for every opportunity to be a better person in my own eyes.

Wealth is not an absolute. It is relative to desire.
Every time we yearn for something we cannot afford,
we grow poorer, whatever our resources.
And every time we feel satisfied with what we have,
we can be counted as rich, however little we may actually possess.
Alain de Botton

Let the Gratefulness Overflow

/ James Browning

Happiness revealed Brother DavidYou think this is just another day in your life. It’s not just another day. It’s the one day that is given to you. To-day. It’s given to you. It’s a gift. It’s the only gift that you have right now and the only appropriate response is gratefulness. If you do nothing else but to cultivate that response to the great gift that this unique day is. If you learn to respond as if it were the first day in your life and the very last day, then you will have spent this day very well.

Begin by opening your eyes and be surprised that you have eyes you can open. That incredible array of colors that is constantly offered to us for our pure enjoyment. Look at the sky. We so rarely look at the sky. We so rarely note how different it is from moment to moment with clouds coming and going. We just think of the weather and even the weather we don’t think of all the many nuisances of weather. We just think of good weather and bad weather. This day, right now, is unique weather. Maybe a kind that will never exactly in that form come again. That formation of clouds in the sky will never be same that is right now.

Open your eyes. Look at that. Look at the faces of people whom you meet. Each one has an incredible story behind their face, a story that you could never fully fathom. Not only their own story but the story of their ancestors. We all go back so far and in this present moment on this day all the people you meet, all that life from generations and from so many places all over the world flows together and meets you here like a life-giving water if you only open your heart and drink.

Open your heart to that incredible gift that civilization gives to us. You flip a switch and there is electric light. You turn a faucet and there is warm water and cold water… and drinkable water. It’s a gift that millions and millions in the world will never experience.

These are just a few of an enormous number of gifts to which we can open your heart. and so I wish that you will open your heart to all these blessings and let them flow through you… that everyone you will meet at this day will be blessed by you.

Just by your own eyes, by your smile, by your touch, just by your presence. Let the gratefulness overflow into blessing all around you. Then it will really be a good day.

Take from a piece of the film “Happiness Revealed” was originally shown at the http://www.TED.com conference on November 16, 2010 by notable film maker Louis Schwartzberg. What’s just above are comments included in that film segment spoken by Benedictine monk Brother David Steindl-Rast. Watch here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gXDMoiEkyuQ

Having seen this film segment previously about two years ago in no way lessened the positive impact it had on me last night as I watched again. Transcribing Brother David’s comments kept me misty eyed all the way through. I am grateful for the warm and meaningfulness his words bring to my soul and am glad I still feel them this morning.

Beauty and seduction, I believe,
is nature’s tool for survival,
because we will protect
what we fall in love with.
Louie Schwartzberg

I would be grateful if you’d forward to a few friends
an installment of G.M.G. you find meaningful and help set a record
for readership for GoodMorningGratitude.com’s second birthday on April 25, 2013.
Thank you.

 

To Learn and Grow

/ James Browning

Beautiful-Nature-beautiful-nature-1600x900Another new day has arrived I am blessed to get to live. Some things I do will be well done. Others mediocre at best. Through it all I will try to live the hours better than yesterday. I will do my best and be content with it, yet knowing life will continue to improve me day by day if I live with intention.

 “The true measure of greatness is our capacity to navigate between our opposites with agility and grace — to accept ourselves exactly as we are, but never to stop trying to get better.”

Constantly seek to learn and grow, but accept yourself exactly as you are.

Learning and growing require a willingness to look honestly and unsparingly at our shortcomings. Start with your own greatest strength. When you overuse it, it’s almost surely a window into your own greatest weakness.
In my case, the strength is drive and passion. Overused, it turns into aggressiveness. By being aware of my inclination to overuse a strength — by recognizing my own vulnerability — I was able to make a different choice.

Add Value to Others and Take Care of Yourself

Gratifying our most immediate needs and desires provides bursts of pleasure, but they’re usually short-lived. We derive the most enduring sense of meaning and satisfaction in our lives when we serve something larger than ourselves. Giving to others generates an extraordinary source of energy.

Selfishness is about making your own gratification paramount. Self-care is about making sure you’re addressing your own most basic needs, so you’re freed and fueled to also add value to others.

Focus Intensely and Renew Regularly

Unlike machines, however, human beings aren’t meant to operate at the highest intensity for very long. Instead, we’re designed to pulse between spending and renewing energy approximately every 90 minutes.

The world’s best performers — musicians, chess players, athletes — typically practice the same way: for no longer than 4 ½ hours a day. They also sleep more than the rest of us, and take more naps.

These great performers figured out that when they push for too long, their attention wanders, their energy flags, and their work suffers. But because they’re so focused when they are working, they get more done, in less time. Taken from “Six Ingredients of a Good Life” By Tony Schwartz http://blogs.hbr.org/schwartz/2010/12/six-ingredients-of-a-good-life.html

To find balance between who I am and who I wish to be is my intention this day. To wish for no more than I am, but know it is made possible by living each day well. For the every breath I take today, I am grateful!

2 things:
If it makes you happy, do it.
If it doesn’t, then don’t.
Unknown

Memo To Myself

/ James Browning

NOTEBOOK IN CHECK WITH PEN IIFebruary 3, 2013
Memo
To: Myself
From: Me
RE: Living well

This morning, please read the list below s  l  o  w  l  y  before scurrying off into your day. Don’t hurry. Take your time. Soak up the wisdom and your day will be better for it.

  • Remember that no one has all he answers to life.
  • Life is an adventure that must be enjoyed to the fullest.
  • Sometimes it is the surprises along the way that make it all worthwhile.
  • Remember that if today seems dark, tomorrow will always be brighter.
  • Sometimes we need to get lost in the darkness before we can fully appreciate the light on our path.
  • Remember to appreciate the moment you are in.
  • When you live in the past or for the future, you miss everything in between, and you will have never truly lived.
  • Remember that change is a good thing.
  • When you learn new things and take on new challenges, you expand your mind and become a better person for it.
  • Remember that if you love someone, tell them.
  • Life is short and it moves very quickly.
  • Loving someone openly gives purpose and meaning to your days.
  • Remember to stop and take a breath.
  • Life is not a race to be won.
  • The only way to enjoy all of it is one moment at a time.

(List originated by Rebecca Finkelstein)

Remember you are perfectly imperfect.
I am grateful for you.
I love you,
Me

Talk to yourself
like you would
to someone you love.
Brene Brown

A Powerful Elixir

/ James Browning

nightfall_by_nelleke-d4yt7swThere comes a time in life when you have to let go of all the pointless drama, and people who create it… And surround yourself with the people who make you laugh so hard… That you forget the bad, and focus solely on good. After all life is too short to be anything but happy. Justice Cabral

Happiness flight 01

For a long time it had seemed to me that life was about to begin–real life. But there was always some obstacle in the way, something to be gotten through first, some unfinished business, time still to be served, a debt to be paid. Then life would begin. At last it dawned on me that these obstacles were my life. Alfred D. Souza

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gratitude for life;
gratitude for good health;
gratitude for my education;
gratitude for the car I drive;
gratitude for the home I live in;
gratitude for the spiritual sense within;
gratitude for my friends and loved ones;
gratitude for a curious and seeking mind;
gratitude for the sun that rose this morning;
gratitude for the abundance and plenty in my life,
gratitude for the inspiration to write my thoughts down;
gratitude for knowledge and wisdom left behind by others.

All this and so much more I am thankful for. Writing down a simple list of twelve things I feel gratitude for this morning helps me embrace the day with enhanced appreciation. Taking a moment to say “thank you” is a powerful elixir.

God gave us the gift of life;
it is up to us to give ourselves the gift of living well.
Voltaire

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

Long Dreamed Dreams

/ James Browning

____by_mindshelves-d5cdm9vAs long as I live, my life is filled with great possibility. I began saying that with regularity about a decade ago. It was around the time my standard response to someone asking “how are you” became “Every day is a good day. Some are just better than others”.

Over time as I repeated both personal clichés more and more their meaning grew to where the two thoughts combined into a strong fiber running through me. Such thinking is a key ingredient in my conviction that the best of my life is still in front of me. Certainly there is fear and apprehension, but my hope and belief in myself is far stronger. I am braver than I have ever been and the best prepared to take on the greatest adventures of my life. No longer do I fear getting older and the slow march forward toward old age. Now I see that advancement as just part of my adventure.

Most dreams die at dawn

When I began writing GoodMorningGratitude.com each day near two years ago, I settled into a routine of writing about a page and a half most days. Occasionally images would motivate me to fill the space with them. Once in a while I would be either focused on a brief pointed thought to post or else just did not have a lot to say on a particular day. From now on I’m not going to feel compelled to fill any particular amount of space. While I am certain my habit will keep the majority of what I leave here to be near the average length I began with, on more days I plan to intentionally be short and/or to post images.

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Long dreamed dreams are in my path. It’s as certain as the sunrise this morning. My heart will chart the course. My spirit will light the way. I am convinced all my previous life was simply to prepare me for the days ahead. What I have dreamed of has already begun to unfold.

i-Ching-Chaos

Before the beginning of great brilliance,
there must be chaos.
Before a brilliant person begins something great,
they must look foolish in the crowd.
From the I Ching

The Desire Within

/ James Browning

greenhouse-long-rowI began three times to write down my thoughts here this morning and abandoned each attempt because I could not focus so the words would flow. Some days there is so much swirling in my thoughts and feelings that isolating on one to write about becomes impossible. Those are those days when to even try is futile; like day. Instead I borrow words from other writers that in some small way express a few of the random thoughts I cannot find words for.

You make lists in your head about what you want in a lover,
like brown hair and a sweet voice.
A sharp mind and a soft heart,
a sense of humor that actually makes you laugh like you mean it.
This and that. And it’s all BS.
Because people aren’t lists.
And I’ve always wanted to be the person who made someone realize that.
I want to come across someone with a list in their head
that is nothing like the person I am,
and I want to show them
what they didn’t even know they were looking for.
People who think they know what they want are fooling themselves.
Nobody really knows what they want.
Not until it’s right in front of them.
Marianna Paige

I’ll go out there and make my mistakes.
I’ll fall down, get hurt, cry, laugh, love, and get back up.
I’ll stand on the highest mountaintop and go into the deepest caverns.
I’ll roam across the world, visit the moon and swim in outer space.
I’ll let my imagination run wild and let my spirit soar.
Why?
Because when my life flashes before my eyes in those final moments,
I want to have something worthwhile to watch,
with plenty of love and laughter, good times and bad.
I don’t want to regret a thing and I plan not to.
Remember, it’s not usually the things you do that you regret,
it’s the things you don’t do and leave unsaid.
Laugh out loud.
Cry in the rain.
Love with all your heart and soul.
Get hurt.
Tell the truth.
Go crazy.
But never forget that you only get one shot.
One shot at this day, one shot at this minute.
One shot at this age.
One shot at life.
So make sure your life is one
you will enjoy watching in your final moments.
Anna Floyd

If there were no great writers whose work I could read, I would never have become one who loves reading so much. And if I had not grown to love the written word, I would never have attempted to put my thoughts down for someone else to read. Be my attempts ever so humble, I am deeply grateful for the desire within that drives me to share myself in written form.

Sometimes the bad things
that happen in our lives
put us directly on the path
to the best things
that will ever happen to us.
Unknown