learning to be happy

Loneliness and Solitude

/ James Browning

Solitude 268px-Frederick_Leighton_-_

In our language we have two words,
Solitude and Loneliness.
Solitude is being alone
Without thinking about being alone.
While Loneliness is being alone
And being aware you’re alone.

When I read those words in a small book from 1981 called “Meet Me Halfway” by Javan I was struck pointedly about the difference between solitude and loneliness. The two had always been associated together as essentially the same thing in my thoughts. The epiphany of the moment is the greatest block to being able to find solitude is loneliness itself. Having spent the majority of my life feeling a lack and being lonely for someone or something I could not put my finger on, it now comes as no surprise that solitude was always out of my reach.

Psychology Today had this to say about the two states: Loneliness is a negative state, marked by a sense of isolation. One feels that something is missing. It is possible to be with people and still feel lonely—perhaps the most bitter form of loneliness.

Loneliness is harsh, punishment, a deficiency state, a state of discontent marked by a sense of estrangement, an awareness of excess aloneness.

Solitude is the state of being alone without being lonely. It is a positive and constructive state of engagement with oneself. Solitude is desirable, a state of being alone where you provide yourself wonderful and sufficient company.

Solitude suggests peacefulness stemming from a state of inner richness. It is a means of enjoying the quiet and whatever it brings that is satisfying and from which we draw sustenance. It is something we cultivate.

Coming to understand the different between loneliness and solitude I can grasp better a comment by one of my heroes, Henry David Thoreau. He wrote I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude. We are for the most part more lonely when we go abroad among men than when we stay in our chambers. Previously I always thought that statement was in the realm of being anti-social. I get it now!

Before I am misunderstood, its important to note how much I enjoy being with close friends and a few members of my family. Often while with them in the past I still felt great loneliness. Why? I was a stranger to myself. Wishing my childhood had been different and running away from mistakes as an adult, I had never gotten to know myself. And that is the most lonely state a person can know.  We are always with our self and to be disconnected from self is the greatest loneliness possible.

I have lived alone now ten of the last fifteen years and for a good part of that time my loneliness was so acute I actually ached, but for exactly what I did not know. I thought it was a partner; a lover; some angel to come save me and make everything okay. No one fitting that description came that I noticed. However, the person to do the saving was around the whole time: ME!  I am deeply grateful for the self discovery, an awakening, that came to me in the last five years.

In this age of ultra-connectedness it’s challenging to find solitude. Sometime I have to step away from email, Facebook, texts, and a phone that’s always on. When I first tried to do that it was harder to shut it all off than I would have thought. Now I can do it for a half day, a day and even for a weekend sometimes. It is an ability acquired only through difficulty which in turn brought clarity.

Today I enjoy my solitude. I relish the times when it is me alone in my home and all is quiet except the occasion creak of the house or the soft hum of a car going by outside. It’s then my thoughts are clearer, my meditations more peaceful, my reading better comprehended and my mind, body and soul seem to connect at a higher level.

The best art, the best writing, the best discoveries are often created in solitude, for good reason: it’s only when we are alone that we can reach into ourselves and find truth, beauty, soul. To even comprehend a portion of the magnitude of that statement brings earnest gratitude into my heart.

The greatest thing in the world
is to know how to belong to oneself.
Michel de Montaigne

For Seekers and Searchers

/ James Browning

JDDavis-letting-go-water-efict-gifFor a long while long I have labeled myself a “seeker” and a “searcher”. That comes from an earnest desire to garner more wisdom, to understand and embrace life more fully and to grow my level of contentment and happiness. I think I picked the right labels. How do dictionaries define Seeker or Searcher?

a person who inquires;
 one who looks for truth;
 someone who makes a thorough examination or investigation;
 those who look carefully in order to find something;
 a person who intentionally comes to know

Within my seeking and searching here’s a few random bits of wisdom that have I have assimilated,  backed up by a quote:

Living well takes consistent practice.
As a single footstep will not make a path on the earth, so a single thought will not make a pathway in the mind. To make a deep physical path, we walk again and again. To make a deep mental path, we must think over and over the kind of thoughts we wish to dominate our lives. Henry David Thoreau

You are the fix to whatever bothers you.
No one saves us but ourselves. No one can and no one may. We ourselves must walk the path. Buddha

There is only now. Nothing else.
What matters is to live in the present, live now, for every moment is now. It is your thoughts and acts of the moment that create your future. The outline of your future path already exists, for you created its pattern by your past. Sai Baba

Your difficulties are often your greatest teachers.
Adversity is the first path to truth. Lord Byron

If you keep going you’ll find the answer.
Over every mountain there is a path, although it may not be seen from the valley. Theodore Roethke

The easy way is usually a trap.
The path of least resistance and least trouble is a mental rut already made. It requires troublesome work to undertake the alternation of old beliefs. John Dewey

Experience is the only truth humans readily accept. No matter how often we are told or reminded we don’t accept a fact as 3-dimensional until we have first-hand experience.  I am grateful for the life lessons learned without having to repeat learning them a dozen times.  And for the ones I have yet to learn, I will keep trying until they sink in.

If you find a path with no obstacles,
it probably doesn’t lead anywhere.
Frank A. Clark

Just the Way I Am

/ James Browning

free-beautiful-landscape-desktop-wallpaper-06-2010_2560x1600_81790I am been an emotional and sensitive person going back to as long as I can remember. Over time feedback from others (grown ups mostly when I was a kid) taught me to hold in my emotions. At times I felt as if I was going to combust with the feelings I held back.

Learning to deal properly anger came with learning that anger is fear turned inside out. Once I accepted and began to practice that wisdom expressing being angry in a healthy way followed.

Hiding happiness was not an issue for a long time simply because I rarely ever felt truly happy. Feeling like something was wrong with me (which it was) I faked happiness and got damn good at it. In the last decade getting to the roots of what was amiss inside me changed all that. Peace is within me about the happenings of my childhood. YEA!!!

In “finding myself” that was inside me all along, a full spectrum of emotions was freed to show themselves in healthy ways. One of the more important is no longer am I ashamed to cry. Of course, grief and sadness can bring tears, but happiness is just as likely. Being touched by something truly beautiful makes my eyes mist up. Movies bring tears frequently, but passages in books can do it just as easily. A hug from someone I care about  touches me frequently to watery eyes as can a thoughtful card or an email. I am blessed to be as I am.

It is a grave injustice to a child or adult to insist that they stop crying. One can comfort a person who is crying which enables him to relax and makes further crying unnecessary; but to humiliate a crying child is to increase his pain, and augment his rigidity. We stop other people from crying because we cannot stand the sounds and movements of their bodies. It threatens our own rigidity. It induces similar feelings in ourselves which we dare not express and it evokes a resonance in our own bodies which we resist.

As adults, we have many inhibitions against crying. We feel it is an expression of weakness, or femininity or of childishness. The person who is afraid to cry is afraid of pleasure. This is because the person who is afraid to cry holds himself together rigidly so that he won’t cry; that is, the rigid person is as afraid of pleasure as he is afraid to cry. In a situation of pleasure he will become anxious. As his tensions relax he will begin to tremble and shake, and he will attempt to control this trembling so as not to break down in tears. His anxiety is nothing more than the conflict between his desire to let go and his fear of letting go. This conflict will arise whenever the pleasure is strong enough to threaten his rigidity.

Since rigidity develops as a means to block out painful sensations, the release of rigidity or the restoration of the natural motility of the body will bring these painful sensations to the fore. Somewhere in his unconscious the neurotic individual is aware that pleasure can evoke the repressed ghosts of the past. It could be that such a situation is responsible for the adage “No pleasure without pain.” From “The Voice of the Body” by Alexander Lowen

It’s a great gift to feel as deeply and profoundly as I do. Today, tears are to me like rain is to trees: water to grow on. Ever noticed how happy trees look after a good rain? I am affected the same way and grateful now for what I once hated about myself. And with that another two points goes up on the side of being happy with my self just the way I am.

But smiles and tears are so alike with me,
they are neither of them confined
to any particular feelings:
I often cry when I am happy,
and smile when I am sad.
From “The Tenant of Wildfell Hall” by Anne Brontë

You Are Here Now

/ James Browning

tumblr_mb9ou0V4zm1rbvjfno1_500Like the joy of the sea coming home to shore,
May the relief of laughter rinse through your soul.

As the wind loves to call things to dance,
May your gravity by lightened by grace.

Like the dignity of moonlight restoring the earth,
May your thoughts incline with reverence and respect.

As water takes whatever shape it is in,
So free may you be about who you become.

As silence smiles on the other side of what’s said,
May your sense of irony bring perspective.

As time remains free of all that it frames,
May your mind stay clear of all it names.

May your prayer of listening deepen enough
to hear in the depths the laughter of god.

“For Equilibrium, a Blessing”
From “To Bless the Space Between Us: A Book of Blessings”
John O’Donohue

For the joy, laughter, grace, reverence, respect, freedom, perspective, time, freedom, clarity, love and every blessing of my life I have learned a gratitude in the last two years never before experienced. The more I acknowledge the gifts and express my thankfulness, the more of the good, wonderful and beautiful arrives.

I ask, “If life was always this uncomplicatedly simple why did it take me so long to see that?” The answer immediately echoes back “It does not matter, you are here now”.

Courage is the price
that life exacts
for granting peace.
Amelia Earhart

Dams In Our River of Life

/ James Browning

leatherback-sea-turtle-babyThe greatest emotional war I have ever witnessed as been the one with myself. For years there was a storm of thoughts and feelings moving round inside ranging in intensity from thunder on the horizon to a full-fledged hurricane. When I look back now it’s clear that fear was what stormed in me, so strong I could not face it. Instead I distracted myself with anything and everybody external and in being inordinately busy, I hid out.

Age grants wisdom if one is open to receiving it. I learned I had to get still sometimes, shake off everything outside me and stand square with my feelings and thoughts. It was in such moments that I began to discover what peace was. It was not about more of anything. Rather peace for me is about slowing, even stopping, the storm inside.

Dalai Lama XIV said “We can never obtain peace in the outer world until we make peace with ourselves.” Buddha spoke a shorter version; “Peace comes from within. Do not seek it without”. For me to sincerely begin the inner work toward peace, I had to face my greatest fears.

Fear is one of the biggest single factors that deprives one of being able to achieve your full potential. We experience fear more as a result of our internal communication of mind rather than because of actual external factors.

Fear is an unseen enemy that whispers negative thoughts into your mind, body and soul. It tries to convince you that you will not prosper and that you cannot achieve your full potential.

Our lives can be compared to beautiful streams, which are destined to flow, grow in majesty to create wonderful features such as cascading waterfalls, and give nourishment and life to those in its path.

Sometimes we let fear put up a small dam in our rivers of life and it causes us to have stunted growth. We need to be able to rise above it, rise above the fear, break the dam and let our potential flow.

When we allow fear to create dams in our rivers of life, then our streams become like the Dead Sea, which is stagnant and void of life and movement. When we confront fear, we break the dams and free our potential to flow forward.

We are beings of immense potential, ability and skills. In order to realize our God-given talents we need to break through the fear barrier, which through its invisible walls traps us better than any physical prison can be constructed by the hands of man. Our human will and faith can break any barriers that fear can construct. Inshan Meahjohn

Are my fears gone? Some are, some aren’t. The subtotal is considerably less now days. Sometimes I find big fears based on small things. Realizing that, the fears became small too. Some fears bother me less simply because I have grown accustomed to them. The known is always less scary than the unknown.

A summed up realization just hit me: I have more peace within that ever before because I am willing to face my fears. That’s an ah-hah moment to be grateful for.

Spirituality is not to be learned
by flight from the world,
or by running away from things,
or by turning solitary
and going apart from the world.
Rather, we must learn an inner solitude
wherever or with whomsoever we may be.
We must learn to penetrate things
and find God there.
Meister Eckhart

Evaporates With Breakneck Speed

/ James Browning

GW-in-my-hear EIDTI will find a way in my everyday life to slow the world down and take away some of the pressures – moments when the demands of making a living take too much away from making a life. I will give myself time to smile and relax. To show how much I care. To share my love. To say what’s in my heart and on my mind. To stop and reflect on my goals.

Don’t run through life so fast
that you forget not only where you’ve been
but also where you’re going.
Life is not a race,
but a journey to be savored
each step of the way
Nancye Sims

sands-of-timeToday’s finds me with gratitude for the little reminders life brings into my path. All I have to do is pay attention. The two reminders above come from a cool book (“Promises to Myself”) that came to me used complete with notes by the original owner that make it more meaningful. Eddie Cantor’s thought below popped up in an email sent by a friend.

I am grateful for the gentle prompts this morning to remember to live each day, even each moment, as completely as I possibly can. Life evaporates with breakneck speed.

Slow down and enjoy life.
It’s not only the scenery
you miss by going too fast –
you also miss the sense
of where you are going and why.
Eddie Cantor

Why Does Criticism Bother Us?

/ James Browning

!!~~!! morning-fogBenjamin Disraeli once wrote, “How much easier it is to be critical than to be correct.” That thought was illustrated clearly to me a few days ago. Someone I know, but not particularly well, jokingly said something like “you drive me crazy with all your stuff about optimism, gratitude and hope for the future. I think you make a lot of it up.”

He saw the look on my face and think that’s why he followed up “Don’t worry about it. I’m just kidding.” It had never occurred to me that it was even possible to fake happiness successfully and I was a bit put off by the comment. My reply was along the lines “think whatever you want. Its your loss if you don’t believe in such things”.

The comment continued to take up more space in my thoughts than it should have for a couple of days. I found myself randomly quizzing my psyche asking if I was pretending or imagining the lightness of being that I feel most of the time. The response has been the same each time the questioning surfaced. What echoed back was, “you know it’s all true. You feel it too strongly deep down for it not to be the real.”

It’s idiotic how a random casual comment by another person can sporadically occupy a lot of room in a another person’s internal space. Now being past giving any credence to the comment, still I find a curiosity about why it bothered me at all.

On her website ( http://www.namastepublishing.com ) Constance Kellough shared her perspective.

Why does criticism bother us? And, the flip side of the coin—and possibly the most important question of all—why do we let what others say bother us to the point that we in turn criticize them? Have you ever considered that the two might actually be proportional? In other words, we are upset by criticism to the degree we ourselves are critical of ourselves, and often in turn of others.

Some years ago an Ohio State University study found that those who make disparaging comments about others often are tarred with the same brush. It’s the old adage that when we point the finger, there are three fingers pointing back at us. What this means is that a person who accuses another of being controlling is either controlling in themselves or, which is often the case, lacks self-control.

It’s our insecurity that causes us to resent others, criticize them, put them down. Sarah Grand put her finger on what criticism is all about: Our opinion of people depends less on what we see in them than on what they make us see in ourselves. When someone can criticize us and we can “let it in,” we are finally becoming mature. If the criticism is baseless, we can hear it, feel its intent, and evaluate it as nothing to do with us. There’s no emotional wash from it.

What do we mean by “no emotional wash?” Well, for a start it doesn’t make us feel attacked. We don’t become defensive, compelled to argue against what’s being said. We have no inclination to respond in any kind of protective way, just to appreciate the person and their concern.

Ms. Kellough’s comments ring true to me. What echoes in my thoughts is 1) what others say is frequently much more of a reflection of their state of being than the person they are criticizing and 2) Past pain and self-doubt can make a person more susceptible to swallowing anothers criticism.

Reflecting on what was said to me I concluded: the speaker lacks what they accused me of having too much of (optimism, gratitude and hope) and my old hurts, while healed, remain sensitive to being criticized. While the latter is much improved, I am grateful for the reminder. In spite of how much I have grown, I am still vulnerable and can give in to other’s false thinking about me, even if only for a short while.

Don’t criticize
what you can’t understand.
Bob Dylan

http://www.namastepublishing.com/blog/compassionate-eye/why-does-criticism-bother-us-so-much

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

Full Power Ahead

/ James Browning

letting go

If “holding on” was a class one could take, I’d get an A+ without having to study. Being a world-class practitioner of the tightly gripped past I have both benefited and been hurt by my stubbornness. It’s takes strength and wisdom to look into the murk of what was and clearly know what to let go and what to hold on to. Sometimes it’s impossible.

There is a danger in hanging on to what is unhealthy. Gerald D. Jampolsky was focusing on the potential peril when he wrote, When we think we have been hurt by someone in the past, we build up defenses to protect ourselves from being hurt in the future. So the fearful past causes a fearful future and the past and future become one. We cannot love when we feel fear… When we release the fearful past and forgive everyone, we will experience total love and oneness with all.  The key thought in all that is “forgiveness”. When I have truly forgiven my the pain becomes exorcised, but love remains untarnished.

Like most of us, often a past chapter of my life was a combination of joy and love mixed with heartache and pain. More than I care to admit I have swirled the two together and killed the good memories burying them with the bad ones. Doing that strips my recall of not only sorrow, but happiness as well. What works much better is to find some sort of equilibrium between the two where the focus can be the reminiscent joy and love. But the sadness is not forgotten for in many ways it is the pain that makes the good all the more meaningful, like night gives meaning to daytime. This only works if my forgiveness is genuine and complete. Grief, pain and sorrow are important landmarks for my life and to completely try to make any of them vanish is to deny myself wisdom earned the hard way.

Such thinking is nowhere more important than on the subject of romantic love. In “Never Let Me Go” Kazuo Ishiguro said I keep thinking about this river somewhere, with the water moving really fast. And these two people in the water, trying to hold onto each other, holding on as hard as they can, but in the end it’s just too much. The current’s too strong. They’ve got to let go, drift apart. Often there is a story after the story where the same river brings the two who drifted apart back together at a later time . What once was can not be recreated, but with letting go new possibility is created.

A second chance is not feasible until the contents of the initial possibility are cleansed by releasing it. That does not mean to deny any part of what once was, but instead to hold memories with reverence in a past tense. Sometimes in your life you have to leave some precious things not because you don’t deserve it but because you deserve something better than that and it’s just like creating space for some bigger and much better things waiting for you in your life ahead is how Shubbanshu Tiwari explained clearing the path for new possibility. Precisely, what might be bigger and better can not come to be until what was has been let go.

I am grateful for what Ray Bradbury said: Learning to let go should be learned before learning to get. Life should be touched, not strangled. You’ve got to relax, let it happen at times, and at others move forward with it. It’s like boats. You keep your motor on so you can steer with the current. And when you hear the sound of the waterfall coming nearer and nearer, tidy up the boat, put on your best tie and hat, and smoke a cigar right up till the moment you go over. That’s a triumph.

Well written Mr. Bradbury! I am grateful that your words are exactly what I needed to read this morning. My past is at peace (at least much more so than ever). I gratefully have hope for the future that the best of my life lies in front of me. Full power ahead.

…Love is easy, falling in love is even easier,
but letting that love go, is the most difficult thing
you’ll ever have to do. Some of us never let it go
and sometimes it takes a while to realize what you want.
But your heart will always have the right answer in the end.
You just have to figure out what it’s telling you.
Marie Coulson

In a Small Space

/ James Browning

Oak and Crescent Moon

This is one of those days when a lot can be said in a small space. Here goes:

This life
is for
loving,
sharing,
learning,
smiling,
caring,
forgiving,
laughing,
hugging,
helping,
dancing,
wondering,
healing,
and even more loving.
I choose to live life this way.
I want to live my life
in such a way
that when I get out of bed
in the morning,
the devil says, “aw s#!t, he’s up!”
Steve Maraboli

And for today that’s ’nuff said. I am grateful for the reminder of the man I aspire to be.

I don’t want to get to the end of my life
and find that I have just lived the length of it.
I want to have lived the width of it as well.
Diane Ackerman