learning to be happy

An Illumination of Words

/ James Browning

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There’s a young author whose work I have come to enjoy and admire. C. Joybell C. may be youthful in years but on a spiritual level she strikes me as a “wise old soul’. Her writing covers a myriad of topics, but centers on life and love more than anything else.

The two paragraphs just below were selected because I have a heart that has been broken many times. Some times a woman hurt me. At others I did things that ended up hurting me. A broken heart feels the same no matter who the villain is.

I have met so many heartbroken men. It’s a catastrophe. Women are easily overcome by the process that happens when a boy falls in love and becomes a man. Men’s hearts are so often broken. Still, you have to leave your broken heart in a place where… when the woman who knows how to see what a gift is, sees it… your broken heart can be picked up again. I think that it takes a very strong woman (inner strength) to be able to handle a man falling in love with her, without morphing into a monster (the process is a very potent process, it can poison a woman, really).

A woman thinks she wants a man to fall in love with her for all the perks that come with it; but when a real love really does happen, when a real man shows his manhood; it’s often too powerful a thing to endure without being poisoned. Hence, all the heartbroken men. But, I do believe that there are strong women in the world today. A few. But there are. You could say, that the mark of a real woman, is a woman who can handle a man… a man falling in love with her. A woman who can recognize that, and keep it with her. C. Joybell C.

Too much life energy gets spent on trying to sort out where I’m headed. More and more I am learning to just sit back and enjoy the flight.

I have come to accept the feeling of not knowing where I am going. And I have trained myself to love it. Because it is only when we are suspended in mid-air with no landing in sight, that we force our wings to unravel and alas begin our flight. And as we fly, we still may not know where we are going to. But the miracle is in the unfolding of the wings. You may not know where you’re going, but you know that so long as you spread your wings, the winds will carry you. C. Joybell C.

“All Things Lit Like Fireflies: An Illumination of Words” is C. Joybell C.’s new book and I am looking forward to getting a copy soon. She has a special way of expressing feelings that speaks strongly to me. Thanks ‘My Lady’… I am grateful for you and your work! http://cjoybellc.com/

I think that we are like stars.
Something happens to burst us open;
but when we burst open and think we are dying;
we’re actually turning into a supernova. A
nd then when we look at ourselves again,
we see that we’re suddenly more beautiful
than we ever were before!
C. JoyBell C.

The Nail on the Head

/ James Browning

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Of my favorite things few come close to two of them: 1) Finding good music I have not heard before 2) Discovering the meaningful work of an author I was previously unaware of. This week a writer unknown to me named Dan Millman came across my path. Dan’s a former world champion athlete, university coach, martial arts instructor, and college professor. His story goes that after an intensive, twenty-year spiritual quest, his thoughts formed into something he calls the “Peaceful Warrior’s Way”. He is an insightful man and his thoughts about life hit the nail on the head for me.

Life has three rules: Paradox, Humor, and Change.

– Paradox: Life is a mystery; don’t waste your time trying to figure it out.

– Humor: Keep a sense of humor, especially about yourself. It is a strength beyond all measure

– Change: Know that nothing ever stays the same.

So be gentle with yourself; show yourself the same kindness and patience you might show a young child – the child you once were. If you won’t be your own friend, who will be? If, when playing an opponent, you are also opposing yourself, you will be outnumbered.

There is no need to search; achievement leads to nowhere. It makes no difference at all, so just be happy now! Love is the only reality of the world, because it is all One, you see. And the only laws are paradox, humor and change. There is no problem, never was, and never will be. Release your struggle, let go of your mind, throw away your concerns, and relax into the world. No need to resist life, just do your best. Open your eyes and see that you are far more than you imagine. You are the world, you are the universe; you are yourself and everyone else, too! It’s all the marvelous Play of God. Wake up, regain your humor. Don’t worry, just be happy. You are already free!

Finding new expressive material that can help me gain new insight makes me feel like a kid  who received the birthday gift he wished for. I am grateful for the work of Dan Millman and look forward to knowing him better through his writing. Dan’s webiste can be found here: http://www.peacefulwarrior.com/

Be happy now,
without reason;
or you never will be at all.
Dan Millman

Memories of Better Days

/ James Browning

Storm-Rainbow

If you know someone who’s depressed, please resolve never to ask them why.
Depression isn’t a straightforward response to a bad situation;
depression just is, like the weather.
Try to understand the blackness,lethargy,
hopelessness, and loneliness they’re going through.
Be there for them when they come through the other side.
It’s hard to be a friend to someone who’s depressed,
but it is one of the kindest, noblest, and best things you will ever do.
Stephen Fry

What a proficient teacher feeling down has turned out to be for me. Please don’t misunderstand. The sort of despair that depression brings hits me a few days each month and is never fun. It’s is anything BUT something anticipated positively. Uderstanding the what’s and why’s of it has brought a painful appreciation. And what I have been taught is useful for any sort of bad day any person ever has.

The most basic awareness the big “D” has taught me is to be grateful for good times. In appreciating the silver lining in dark clouds even a gloomy sky is diminished in intensity and duration. The enemy is made less powerful when memories of better days are used to counter it.

This is the day I’m going to choose —
I’m coming out of the blues.
I don’t believe, I’ve got anything to lose,
I’m coming out of the blues.
Kissed too many days goodbye —
Too many tears I’ve cried —
I’ve got to get rid of these blues…

I remember when sleeping was something I abhorred
Then it became something I adored.
I remember when eating was such an event
Then it became just a job just to live.
I remember when the mirror was a friend of mine,
Then it became a painful reminder.

I’m not gonna stay in this state I’m in,
I’ve got too much to live for; so much to give.
I’m not gonna think of lost days gone by;
I’m not gonna hang my head and cry;
I’m just gonna leave these blues behind.
Anonymous

The wider one has been emotionally stretched the greater the knowledge of the distance between two points becomes. In the process good, bad and all parts in between bring a more detailed knowing of how precious all parts of life are. A person feeling moderately good and above most of the time may only partially grasp what I have shared. But even those living the happiest lives possible will in time find them self in the dark valley of wretched sadness and gut-wrenching grief. For one and all, good memories are the good medicine when those days come.

The good news today is I am not feeling depressed. Actually my mood is quite contrary to being down. And this sense of happiness, even joy, is made larger by not forgetting how bad “D” feels when it comes. I am grateful to have made depression my friend.

If you desire healing,
let yourself fall ill…
Rumi

Wasting Time Well

/ James Browning

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Time is an equal opportunity employer.
Each human being has exactly the same
number of hours and minutes every day.
Rich people can’t buy more hours.
Scientists can’t invent new minutes.
And you can’t save time
to spend it on another day.
Denis Waitley

Until recently losing track of time was mostly restricted to great moments of a vacation, being totally engrossed in a good conversation or activity, being stunned by beauty or becoming caught up in the rapture of love. In those instances my awareness of the day and/or hour was fleeting and lasted for no more than seconds and minutes.

The fact that I lose track of time more now in semi-retirement is a wonderful thing. What’s meaningful is the experience of being so absorbed and so immersed is no longer restricted to “doing”. With increasing regularity I find myself wasting time without much care about its passage. It feels like I have been freed from a prison where time was my jailer.

One of my newly founded beliefs of the last decade is modern wealth is more about time than money. It was not that long ago rushing from one endeavor to another, one meeting to the next one and seeing this person and then the next person occupied the majority of my awake time. For a long while being so involved in work gave me a sense of importance that today I don’t find significant.

Time goes faster the more hollow it is. Lives with no meaning go straight past you, like trains that don’t stop at your station. Carlos Ruiz Zafon

Today I am discovering time has only the amount of importance I place on it. My experience of being alive is better when I can stop having thoughts like “what should I be doing?”, “I should be working on ___” or “I’ve got to be productive”. Such things are all in my head and broken down to their essence are actually borderline crazy! My time is mine to spend any way I choose and if ‘wasting’ it feels best, then I will do just that.

I had the mistaken belief that value should be placed based on rarity. My finding concerning time is my value of it is now placed based on the quantity of it I have. It is my hope that I can become as proficient at wasting time well as I once was at being productively time conscious.

For the wealth of time life has brought me to, I am grateful. To realize wasting time well is a good thing brings a smile of happiness and peace.

Free time is the most expensive time you have,
because nobody pays for it but you.
But that also makes it the most valuable time you have,
as you alone stand to reap the profits from spending it wisely.
Jarod Kintz

From the Twisted Metal

/ James Browning

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Every morning I make a posts on two other blogs I keep other than this one. With the description “love is so short, forgetting is so long” www.brokenheartsanonymous.com is centered on the pain and sorrow love can bring. On the flip side is my blog www.loveletterdaily.com which celebrates the sweetness of love at its best (“Passages from Poetry, Love letters and Expressions of the Heart”) .

Do I love “love”? You betcha, but if I ever was lost in the fantasy and make-believe of it, I am over that. However, I am grateful for the reverence I hold for love that is possible between a man and woman. “Once upon a time…” still has meaning!

I have not loved often, but I have loved deeply with all my being. To have felt such deep emotion once is a blessing. More than once is something I never imagined possible, but have experienced.

With each heartbreak I learned about the value of love. My mistakes have been great teachers. The lesson that hurting one I love left great pain in my heart and was an important teaching to suffer through. In my pain was forged a faithful heart.

I dreamed I spoke in another’s language,
I dreamed I lived in another’s skin,
I dreamed I was my own beloved,
I dreamed I was a tiger’s kin.

I dreamed that Eden lived inside me,
And when I breathed a garden came,
I dreamed I knew all of Creation,
I dreamed I knew the Creator’s name.

I dreamed–and this dream was the finest–
That all I dreamed was real and true,
And we would live in joy forever,
You in me, and me in you.
From “Days of Magic, Nights of War”
by Clive Barker

Healthy love” is the warm cherishing of another person without expectation and clinging. This love “accepts” all aspects of another person and “requires” nothing from them. This love is something we create in our own heart and give as our gift, freely, willingly. With a compassionate, open heart, we truly, sincerely, authentically want the best for the other person: the best seat in the restaurant, the best of ourselves, the best job, the most fulfilling life they can have. We create this contentment in order to share it; we don’t depend on the other person in order to feel it. This “unselfish” love doesn’t need the other person’s happiness in order to exist, but it knows that when we increase someone else’s happiness, everyone’s happiness, satisfaction, and contentment multiply exponentially. Love is an essential part of life. It is the expression of inner happiness and contentment. Karuna Cayton

And so my once dysfunctional love affair with love, is no less strong than before, but has morphed into a positive presence within me. No longer the untrained steed, loves power can take me safely upon its back.  I am grateful for each woman I have loved and who loved me. Each one was a blacksmith of my heart who helped burn, shape and forge the faithful heart within me from the twisted metal it once was.

Your task is not to seek for love,
but merely to seek and find all the barriers
within yourself that you have built against it.
Rumi

Franklin’s 13 Virtues

/ James Browning

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1726, at the age of 20, Benjamin Franklin created a system to develop his character. In his autobiography, Franklin listed his thirteen virtues as:

1. Temperance. Eat not to dullness; drink not to elevation.
2. Silence. Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself; avoid trifling conversation.
3. Order. Let all your things have their places; let each part of your business have its time.
4. Resolution. Resolve to perform what you ought; perform without fail what you resolve.
5. Frugality. Make no expense but to do good to others or yourself; i.e., waste nothing.
6. Industry. Lose no time; be always employed in something useful; cut off all unnecessary actions.
7. Sincerity. Use no hurtful deceit; think innocently and justly, and, if you speak, speak accordingly.
8. Justice. Wrong none by doing injuries, or omitting the benefits that are your duty.
9. Moderation. Avoid extremes; forbear resenting injuries so much as you think they deserve.
10. Cleanliness. Tolerate no uncleanliness in body, clothes, or habitation.
11. Tranquility. Be not disturbed at trifles, or at accidents common or unavoidable.
12. Chastity. Rarely use venery (sex) but for health or offspring, never to dullness, weakness, or the injury of your own or another’s peace or reputation.
13. Humility. Imitate Jesus and Socrates.

Seems a tall order to live up to this list every day, but then Franklin said he never did. Ben admitted that he was never able to live the virtues perfectly, but felt he had become a better and happier man for having made the attempt. It occurred to me if I pick one each day and focus on bringing more of it in my life I will benefit. I am grateful to you Mr. Franklin for the idea!

It’s about living in the moment
and appreciating the smallest things.
Surrounding yourself with the things that
inspire you and letting go of the obsessions
that want to take over your mind.
It is a daily struggle sometimes and
hard work but happiness begins
with your own attitude
and how you look at the world.
Gretchen Rubin

Where Wisdom Grows

/ James Browning

School of hard knocks EDIT

Misfortunes make us wise.
Mary Norton

I learned a lesson yesterday, taught a few times before but without me getting a passing grade. Like a child held back in school, it took repetition for the insight to sink in. It does not matter what the particulars are of what I learned. The jewel of knowledge that sparkles within now, came with a great deal of pain and difficulty; the ground and fertilizer where wisdom grows.

The best teachers have showed me that things have to be done bit by bit. Nothing that means anything happens quickly–we only think it does. The motion of drawing back a bow and sending an arrow straight into a target takes only a split second, but it is a skill many years in the making. So it is with a life, anyone’s life. I may list things that might be described as my accomplishments in these few pages, but they are only shadows of the larger truth, fragments separated from the whole cycle of becoming. Joseph Bruchac

When we search for “ourselves” in the eyes of others, we have imprisoned our own-selves in believing that our self-worth is nothing unless others validate who we are. Unless we approve of whom we are, what we are, and what we are capable of doing as an individual, only then we will have released “ourselves” from our own imprisonment. D. A. Isley

The names of my best teachers are Grief, Pain and Heartache along with their half-brothers Hurt, Sorrow and Anguish and their half sisters Misery, Sadness and Despair. In hopelessness, misfortune and depression each has been my hard, but honored teacher. When I get tired of repeating the same mistake and falling into the same dysfunction those instructors of the “hard way” school show me the best path when I let them.

Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding. Kahlil Gibran

If only I could have stronger belief in my abilities; show greater self forgiveness; and love myself more. Then most anything would be possible. Gratefully, I can, I will and I shall so that I might.

Experience is the hardest
kind of teacher. It gives
you the test first, and
the lesson afterward.
Oscar Wilde

Into the Void

/ James Browning

voids DARK

If life is so short,

why do we do so many things

we don’t like

and like so many things we don’t do?

I looked into the image and let my mind, heart and soul rest while the unguided remainder of me went into the void. There a response came without my intentional help and amazingly it was clearer than thought, emotion or feeling.

My answers to the BIG question are personal and matter primarily to me, so I won’t list them. What matters is I am becoming able to put my ‘self control mechanism’ into neutral at times and allow solutions to come from the outside in. Like a randomly caught virus that can bring healing, more often than I thought possible I find a remedy floating outside me.

Or maybe it’s from a Higher Power… Or maybe it’s the power of allowing solutions to manifest them self… Or maybe it’s my subconscious… Or maybe it doesn’t matter how.

I am grateful to realize that sorting out where needed answers outside me come from is irrelevant. What does matter is an awareness that guidance can come from beyond me if I humble myself and realize I don’t have control of everything. For a person used to controlling everything and everyone, the realization that I am not my own God is a break through.

A human being is part of the whole, called by us ‘universe’,
a part limited in time and space.
He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings,
as something separate from the rest –
a kind of optical delusion of consciousness.
This delusion is a kind of prison for us,
restricting us to our personal desires
and to affection for a few persons nearest to us.
Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison
by widening our circle of compassion
to embrace all living creatures
and the whole of nature in its beauty.
Albert Einstein

How To Tell If Somebody Loves You

/ James Browning

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Somebody loves you if they pick an eyelash off of your face or wet a napkin and apply it to your dirty skin. You didn’t ask for these things, but this person went ahead and did it anyway. They don’t want to see you looking like a fool with eyelashes and crumbs on your face. They notice these things. They really look at you and are the first to notice if something is amiss with your beautiful visage!

Somebody loves you if they assume the role of caretaker when you’re sick. Unsure if someone really gives a shit about you? Fake a case of food poisoning and text them being like, “Oh, my God, so sick. Need water.” Depending on their response, you’ll know whether or not they REALLY love you. “That’s terrible. Feel better!” earns you a stay in friendship jail; “Do you need anything? I can come over and bring you get well remedies!” gets you a cozy friendship suite. It’s easy to care about someone when they don’t need you. It’s easy to love them when they’re healthy and don’t ask you for anything beyond change for the parking meter. Being sick is different. Being sick means asking someone to hold your hair back when you vomit. Either love me with vomit in my hair or don’t love me at all.

Somebody loves you if they call you out on your bullshit. They’re not passive, they don’t just let you get away with murder. They know you well enough and care about you enough to ask you to chill out, to bust your balls, to tell you to stop. They aren’t passive observers in your life, they are in the trenches. They have an opinion about your decisions and the things you say and do. They want to be a part of it; they want to be a part of you.

Somebody loves you if they don’t mind the quiet. They don’t mind running errands with you or cleaning your apartment while blasting some annoying music. There’s no pressure, no need to fill the silences. You know how with some of your friends there needs to be some sort of activity for you to hang out? You don’t feel comfortable just shooting the shit and watching bad reality TV with them. You need something that will keep the both of you busy to ensure there won’t be a void. That’s not love. That’s “Hey, babe! I like you okay. Do you wanna grab lunch? I think we have enough to talk about to fill two hours!” It’s a damn dream when you find someone you can do nothing with. Whether you’re skydiving together or sitting at home and doing different things, it’s always comfortable. That is f@&king love.

Somebody loves you if they want you to be happy, even if that involves something that doesn’t benefit them. They realize the things you need to do in order to be content and come to terms with the fact that it might not include them. Never underestimate the gift of understanding. When there are so many people who are selfish and equate relationships as something that only must make them happy, having someone around who can take their needs out of any given situation if they need to.

Somebody loves you if they can order you food without having to be told what you want. Somebody loves you if they rub your back at any given moment… Somebody loves you if they don’t care about your job or how much money you make. It’s a relationship where no one is selling something to the other… Somebody loves you if they’re able to create their own separate world with you, away from the internet and your job and family and friends. Just you and them. Somebody will always love you. If you don’t think this is true, then you’re not paying close enough attention. Ryan O’Connell

I love this piece and am grateful for its blunt clarity. Love is not a special one or two things, it is everything.

Individuals who want to believe
that there is no fulfillment in love,
that true love does not exist,
cling to these assumptions
because this despair is actually easier
to face than the reality that love is
a real fact of life
but is absent from their lives.
Bell Hooks

In Doing, I Find My Way

/ James Browning

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“Everything I do is a step on a path to where I end up”. That’s an almost too obvious statement and maybe the reason most know the words but don’t grasp the full meaning. A million course changes, intentional and not, make up the route of this ship of life I ride in. Each happening, choice or splinter of destiny set me in the direction of exactly where I am today.

In retrospect, a lot of time slipped by before the wisdom of forward motion soaked in. Often I thought, “I’ll decide/make a choice/figure it out” tomorrow, next week or after so and so happens. The days came and went with no insight or inspiration arriving. Instead frustration grew.

Some of my best decisions have been rooted in the illogical notion Sir Richard Branson frames as “screw it, let’s do it”. When something feels right, it usually is, even if logic can’t reassure that. My breakthroughs come from making a choice and just getting on with it. Conversely, logic and reason have pushed me into a lot of decisions that in hindsight were mistakes.

More often than not waiting for inspiration has meant letting time expire without much to show for it. Revelation has usually come while I was busy implementing some uninspired choice. Insight has rarely come while sitting still and instead usually shows up while I am busy painting myself into a corner. Need is a rapid and prolific incubator of concepts, ideas and possibilities!

The advice I like to give young artists, or really anybody who’ll listen to me, is not to wait around for inspiration. Inspiration is for amateurs; the rest of us just show up and get to work. If you wait around for the clouds to part and a bolt of lightning to strike you in the brain, you are not going to make an awful lot of work. All the best ideas come out of the process; they come out of the work itself. Things occur to you. If you’re sitting around trying to dream up a great art idea, you can sit there a long time before anything happens. But if you just get to work, something will occur to you and something else will occur to you and something else that you reject will push you in another direction. Inspiration is absolutely unnecessary and somehow deceptive. You feel like you need this great idea before you can get down to work, and I find that’s almost never the case. Chuck Close

“In doing, I find my way”. That sums up one of the more insightful pieces of wisdom life has taught me. In movement, no matter how uninspired, purpose is found. Sitting motionless in one spot trying to decide is akin to being partially dead. I am grateful to realize living is always in the trying, even if I fail.

The only thing standing
between you and your goal
is the bullshit story
you keep telling yourself
as to why you can’t achieve it.
Jordan Belfort