rediscovering the child within

Peacefulness Within

/ James Browning

Christmas-Presents-dIt’s Christmas Eve and I feel genuinely happy for the second year in a row. Little outside of me has changed. I still have my share of issues, troubles and things to sort out. However, what is inside me has grown to be mostly mellow and calm. There is a peacefulness within that allows me to be more fully present in the moment than ever before. And that is the gift I am most grateful for.

Love Was Born at Christmas

It has been a lot of years since I can remember having the spirit of Christmas alive and frolicking within as I do this year. It could easily be true I have never been this happy at this time of year.  The little boy who lives inside me is enjoying reports of Santa’s progress in my direction.  The grownup within is dazzled by the feeling inside that sparkles and shines brightly like the lights of the season.  My eyes see Christmas. My ears hear the music.  My mouth tastes the food.  My nose smells the trees.  My touch feels bows and wrapping paper.  My heart is soft and childlike, yet touched deeply in mature ways.  Santa is coming.  Christ-mas is near.   

Eva K. Logue
A Christmas candle is a lovely thing;
It makes no noise at all,
But softly gives itself away;
While quite unselfish, it grows small.

Emily Matthews
From home to home, and heart to heart, from one place to another
The warmth and joy of Christmas, brings us closer to each other.

Christina Rossetti
Love came down at Christmas;
Love all lovely, love divine;
Love was born at Christmas,
Stars and angels gave the sign.

Phillips Brooks
The earth has grown old with its burden of care
But at Christmas it always is young,
The heart of the jewel burns lustrous and fair
And its soul full of music breaks the air,
When the song of angels is sung.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
I heard the bells on Christmas Day
Their old familiar carols play,
And wild and sweet the words repeat
Of peace on Earth, good will to men!

Helen Lowrie Marshall
The merry family gatherings –
The old, the very young;
The strangely lovely way they
Harmonize in carols sung.
For Christmas is tradition time
Traditions that recall
The precious memories down the years,
The sameness of them all.

Ella Wheeler Wilcox
When Christmas bells are swinging above the fields of snow,
We hear sweet voices ringing from lands of long ago,
And etched on vacant places
Are half-forgotten faces
Of friends we used to cherish,
And loves we used to know. 

Calvin Coolidge
Christmas is not a time nor a season, but a state of mind.
To cherish peace and goodwill, to be plenteous in mercy, is to have the real spirit of Christmas.

Augusta E. Rundel
Christmas… that magic blanket that wraps itself about us, that something so intangible that it is like a fragrance.
It may weave a spell of nostalgia. Christmas may be a day of feasting, or of prayer, but always it will be a day of remembrance — a day in which we think of everything we have ever loved.

If only for a day, the world will be just a little safer, a little more peaceful and life will arrive with a little more kindness.  Even the bad guys and criminals are not quite as busy on Christmas.  For every gift ever received I am grateful.  For every hardship and lack that taught to appreciate them I am even more thankful. Merry Christmas!

Were I a philosopher, I should write a philosophy of toys,
showing that no thing else in life need to be taken seriously,
and that Christmas Day in the company of children
is one of the few occasions on which men become entirely alive. 
Robert Lynd

Courage Enough To Step Through My Fear

/ James Browning

afraidoflove2What a dichotomy it is to want to be loved, yet fearful of it beyond explanation. Such a condition is called “love avoidance” and it’s a dysfunction I know for my own. It’s a form of “love addiction” and feels like slowly starving even though there is food within reach.

Dr. Janice Caudill wrote, Love avoidance is the systematic putting up of walls in a relationship to prevent feeling emotionally overwhelmed by another person. Consequently, it prevents true intimacy. It can be described as a form of emotional anorexia.

First hand I know love avoidants are romantics. Thirsting for love they spend a lot of time thinking about love and imagining being loved. However, when love arrives in not too long a time the walls begin to go up against it. Sounds crazy doesn’t it. A love avoidant looks for love constantly but runs away when it finds him or her. That the lunacy I lived with for far too long.

Love entered in my heart one day
A sad, unwelcome guest.
But when it begged that it might stay
I let it stay and rest

It broke my nights with sorrowing
It filled my heart with fears
And, when my soul was prone to sing,
It filled my eyes with tears.

But…now that it has gone its way,
I miss the dear ole pain.
And, sometimes, in the night I pray
That Love might come again.
J. California Cooper

Many wounded adults actually avoid love, becoming restless around persons who might provide genuine care and nurturing. In these cases, the closer the adult comes to obtaining the reality of love, the more they will push their partners away. This move, becoming avoidant and trying to create emotional distance within the relationship, is fueled by a fear of intimacy. Some love avoidants push away love as a test to see if their partner will continue to love them even when they are acting disagreeable or unpleasant. This behavior is a result of the conditional and irregular love the wounded adult experienced as children from their caregivers.

The struggle for the love avoidant is that he/she, like anyone else, wants to feel love and closeness. Regardless of what the past emotional, physical and/or sexual wounds might be, there is still an intrinsic desire for the security and affection and healing that comes from love.

For most love avoidants, they are very good at beginning relationships, but horrible at keeping and maintaining a relationship. There is a lot of pulling in and pushing out – pulling in their love interest and then once the connection happens and the relationship becomes deeper, they push their partner away. Douglas Dobberfuhl

It’s said that knowing is half the battle. Today my love avoidant tendencies are not nearly as pronounced as they once were. A good therapist, growing awareness of my habits and consistent work to amend them has made a remarkable difference in my life. Am I cured? Heck no; never will be completely. But I am deeply grateful for the more open heart that lives within me today. It has been a hard-fought battle against myself, but today I have courage enough to step through my fear and let love in.

Of all the events of my life,
inclusive of its afflictions,
nothing has humbled me
so much as your love.
Elizabeth Barrett to Robert Browning

Who You Really Are

/ James Browning

Something really cool happened today… a break through. When I first began facing the ill effects my dysfunctional family of origin had on me, it seemed like I was wandering around in a dark tunnel swinging at always escaping ghosts. Over time as I stayed in recovery some of my demons were slain; others were faced and death with. I began to see light at the end of the tunnel. Slowly, step by step I started toward the end of it. What I realized today is I’ve made it out of the tunnel and am in the light. I’m ready.

Not all, but most of my fears are gone, most of the time. There are bouts of dealing with old issues, but I get through them just fine. Depression knocks me around sometimes, but only rarely does it get grip on me. On a good or bad day, I’ve gotten better at handling my stuff.

The break through today was I am now standing smack-dab in the middle of a good life ready to be lived fully by a healthy person, physically and emotionally: ME! It’s time to reach for my dreams. How excited I feel. How grateful I am!

It takes courage to grow up
and become who you really are.
E.E. Cummings

A Gift You Give Yourself

/ James Browning

I am mostly me, but bits of others people are mixed in. For some habits and tendencies I know exactly who I intentionally copied them from. Then there are those I picked things up from simply being around others; some good, some not.

What did I get from my Father? I look a lot like him and stand sometimes like he often did. He was a womanizer and with the best of intentions to be otherwise, I found myself in adult life following in his steps to a point. However, how he made a mess of his life went far deeper.  In his late 40’s and 50’s came a slow suicide with alcohol and hard drugs. The addictions were picked up trying to be “cool” with 20-something women he liked to have around. He was attracted to truly “bad girls” who were a perfect fit his addictions. Dad got sober and straight the last year and a half of his life, but I never spoke to him during that time. He died at an Alcohol Anonymous meeting from a heart attack.  I don’t hold anything against my Father any more. I actually feel sorry for him.

Then there is my Mother who taught me how to be truly selfish simply from watching her behavior. She was eighteen when I was born and not even 21 when my brother came along. By twenty-five my Father got another woman pregnant and left to be with her. Mom went kind of crazy after that and became highly self-absorbed. She was attractive and “easy” with a steady flow of men. From her antics I saw and heard way more about sex than any 8-year-old kid should be exposed to. She was completely oblivious to how she was screwing up her children. Like pets one might keep, she saw that we didn’t go hungry, had a dry place to sleep and went to school. Past that my Brother and I took care of each other but grew up starved for parental affection. My Mother is still alive but to my knowledge has never admitted any regrets. I have not spoken to her in 20 years and it’s a toss-up if I ever will. I pity my Mother and the mess she made of her life, but forgave her a long time ago (mostly anyway).

Forgiving our parents is a core task of adulthood, and one of the most crucial kinds of forgiveness. We see our parents in our mates, in our friends, in our bosses, even in our children. When we’ve felt rejected by a parent and have remained in that state, we will inevitably feel rejected by these important others as well.

The sins of parents are among the most difficult to forgive. We expect the world of them, and we do not wish to lower our expectations. Decade after decade, we hold out the hope, often unconsciously, that they will finally do right by us. We want them to own up to all their misdeeds, to apologize, to make heartfelt pleas for our forgiveness.

Getting to a forgiving place, finding the forgiving self inside us, is a long and complicated journey. We have to be ready to forgive. We have to want to forgive. The deeper the wound, the more difficult the process—which makes forgiving parents especially hard. But when we get there, the forgiveness we achieve will be a forgiveness worth having. From the May 2003 issue of “O”, the Oprah Magazine

For my own sanity, I forgave both my parents long ago. I forgave my Father for abandoning us and my Mother for not even trying to protecting my Brother and I from the evil stepfather she brought into our lives. I am grateful to have found some peace and light within memories that once were filled with darkness and fear.

Forgiveness is a gift you give yourself.
Suzanne Somers

Five and Five

/ James Browning

Remembering how good early childhood was brings fond memories. While there was much chaos and heartache to come, those were peaceful times that preceded. Birth to seven years old is recalled as a carefree and happy time. My mind and spirit were not yet crowded with remembrances of how difficult and painful life can be could be. Back as a small child most of my focus was on playing, eating and sleeping. What a life! I am grateful for the sweet and dear memories from when I “was little”.  Here’s five (sayings) and five (images) that I hope serve as meaningful memory joggers for you as I found them to be.

I want to be in fifth grade again. Now, that is a deep dark secret, almost as big as the other one. Fifth grade was easy — old enough to play outside without Mom, too young to go off the block. The perfect leash length. Laurie Halse Anderson

…when you’re a kid, everyone, all the world, encourages you to follow your dreams. But when you’re older, somehow they act offended if you even try. Ethan Hawke

I am convinced that most people do not grow up…We marry and dare to have children and call that growing up. I think what we do is mostly grow old. We carry accumulation of years in our bodies, and on our faces, but generally our real selves, the children inside, are innocent and shy as magnolias. Maya Angelou

Critics who treat ‘adult’ as a term of approval, instead of as a merely descriptive term, cannot be adult themselves. To be concerned about being grown up, to admire the grown up because it is grown up, to blush at the suspicion of being childish; these things are the marks of childhood and adolescence. And in childhood and adolescence they are, in moderation, healthy symptoms. Young things ought to want to grow. But to carry on into middle life or even into early manhood this concern about being adult is a mark of really arrested development. When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty I read them openly. When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up. C.S. Lewis

I have found the best way to give advice to your children
is to find out what they want and then advise them to do it.
Harry S. Truman

Need Washing?

/ James Browning

It fascinates me how a friend who has passed on can continue to give to me long after he is gone. Sometimes it’s a memory of a special moment or something that was said. At other times it’s when I notice a physical reminder like a gift or a keepsake. Now in the age of computers, I found the story below saved on my computer from when my dear friend Bill (know to close friends as “The Banger”) sent it to me. I am uncertain of the original source of the piece, but it’s a touching parable that connected me closely to my old friend in a moving moment.  

 

Need Washing?

A little girl had been shopping with her Mom in Target. She must have been 6 years old, this beautiful red-haired, freckle faced image of innocence. It was pouring outside. The kind of rain that gushes over the top of rain gutters, so much in a hurry to hit the earth it has no time to flow down the spout. We all stood there under the awning and just inside the door of the Target.

We waited, some patiently, others irritated because nature messed up their hurried day. I am always mesmerized by rainfall. I got lost in the sound and sight of the heavens washing away the dirt and dust of the world. Memories of running, splashing so carefree as a child came pouring in as a welcome reprieve from the worries of my day.

The little voice was so sweet as it broke the hypnotic trance we were all caught in ‘Mom let’s run through the rain,’ she said. ‘What?’ Mom asked. ‘Let’s run through the rain!’ She repeated. ‘No, honey. We’ll wait until it slows down a bit,’ Mom replied.

This young child waited about another minute and repeated: ‘Mom, let’s run through the rain’. ‘We’ll get soaked if we do,’ Mom said. ‘No, we won’t, Mom.. That’s not what you said this morning,’ the young girl said as she tugged at her Mom’s arm.

This morning? When did I say we could run through the rain and not get wet?

‘Don’t you remember? When you were talking to Daddy about his cancer, you said, ‘If God can get us through this, he can get us through anything!’

The entire crowd stopped dead silent. I swear you couldn’t hear anything but the rain. We all stood silently. No one came or left in the next few minutes.

Mom paused and thought for a moment about what she would say. Now some would laugh it off and scold her for being silly. Some might even ignore what was said. But this was a moment of affirmation in a young child’s life. A time when innocent trust can be nurtured so that it will bloom into faith.

‘Honey, you are absolutely right. Let’s run through the rain. If GOD let’s us get wet, well maybe we just needed washing,’ Mom said.

Then off they ran. We all stood watching, smiling and laughing as they darted past the cars and yes, through the puddles. They held their shopping bags over their heads just in case. They got soaked. But they were followed by a few who screamed and laughed like children all the way to their cars.

And yes, I did. I ran. I got wet. I needed washing.

Circumstances or people can take away your material possessions, they can take away your money, and they can take away your health. But no one can ever take away your precious memories…So, don’t forget to make time and take the opportunities to make memories everyday. To everything there is a season and a time to every purpose under heaven.

I hope you still take the time to run through the rain.

Thanks “Banger”! I love you, miss you and am grateful for the true friend you were and always will be to me.

In everyone’s life, at some time, our inner fire goes out.
It is then burst into flame by an encounter with another human being.
We should all be thankful for those people who rekindle the inner spirit.
Albert Schweitzer

A Multi-Colored Continuum

/ James Browning

At four years old I had all the world I wanted: Davy Crockett gloves with fringe, a tricycle, parents I still thought were cool and grandparents who fussed over their oldest grand boy. The world was a giant mystery that I was busy discovering. Each morning I woke up liking life.

With no kindergarten where I grew up, the day I was thrust into first grade was scary. I didn’t want to be there. Quiet and withdrawn, in time I found a good friend that got me through. The buddy was school that came easy. I liked succeeding at something and being appreciated for it.

Before I knew it the age of ten rolled around. This was the year life began to bring real disappointment and even fear as a “nasty stepfather” came into my life. I learned to dislike and even hate through how he treated my brother and I. The lesson was some people truly are evil.

It was a Sunday afternoon and I was thirteen when something never felt before came over me. A magnetic attraction toward a girl was sparkling new and near startling, but felt deliciously daring. I didn’t understand what was going on but I liked what I was feeling during that sweet and innocent afternoon.

In what felt like only a month, two more years passed and almost abruptly I was sixteen years old, had a car (a blue VW) and was ‘in love’ for the first time. I witnessed an amazing sense of being vibrantly alive before the coin flipped to introduce me to romantic heartbreak for the first time six months later.

The world began to go crazy. I was kicked out of home for reasons I don’t understand even today. I was a good kid, a Boy Scout and an honor student but the “evil pretend father” feared me after I stood up to him the first time. He took my car and pushed me out of the house.  Walking down the street with a suitcase and enough money for a motel and food for two days was one of the most fearful moments I’ve ever experienced.

The words I spoke in the phone booth were “I have no place to go. Can I come live with you?”. On the other end of the line was my birth father who was near a complete stranger.  I had seen him only twice since I was seven years old. From two hundred miles away came the word “yes” and one of the best years of my growing up began; my senior year of high school.

Looking back at the plethora of emotions touching me for the first time, my memory is clear of how bewildering life was during those formative years. At the same time I felt vibrantly alive during the ups and downs. Living was filled with near constant firsts and fresh experiences and quite possibly the deepest range of joy and unhappiness ever experienced. Each and every one was a tile in the mosaic of the person I am today.

In recent years the view has arrived of seeing life as a multi-colored continuum instead of separate individual experiences. Each and every event and occurrence are connected. Like a “draw by numbers” portrait those first eighteen years shaped the outline of who I became and am today. I am grateful to be able to look back now and realize how important ALL those experiences were.

I believe that everything happens for a reason.
People change so that you can learn to let go,
things go wrong so that you appreciate them when they’re right,
you believe lies so you eventually learn to trust no one but yourself,
and sometimes good things fall apart so better things can fall together.
Marilyn Monroe

Hope and New Ways of Being

/ James Browning

In my time I have come to life on two separate occasions: the day of my physical birth and the moment I was ‘reborn’ emotionally. The former was when as a baby I came into the world and the latter was when I woke up and became psychologically self-aware about five years ago. At both times I was barely functional, but each was a grand beginning.

My second birth occurred when I got into recovery for codependence and depression as I accepted both were conditions of my being. Over and over, like a baby I have learned to do things through repetition, growing a tiny amount each day. There is yet much to learn and experience in ways I never could have before. Life is filled with possibility, hope and new experiences.

There are many things I don’t know, but quite a few I do.
I know you can’t be lost if you know where you are.
I know that life is full of precious and fragile things,
and not all of them are pretty.
I know that the sun follows the moon
and makes days, one after another.
Time passes. The world turns, and we turn with it,
and though we can never go back to the beginning,
sometimes, we can start again.
Megan Hart

Today when all is considered, I’m probably about fourteen years old emotionally which is a far cry from the “wailing baby” I was for many years. Truly the child within is growing up emotionally now. The pain to get here is something I hope never comes again, but for the result I will be continually grateful for the rest of my days.

The truth is that our finest moments are most likely to occur
when we are feeling deeply uncomfortable, unhappy, or unfulfilled.
For it is only in such moments, propelled by our discomfort,
that we are likely to step out of our ruts and start searching
for different ways or truer answers.
M. Scott Peck

I am Right Here

/ James Browning

Taken from “Finding Your Real Self” by Kathleen D. Cone

Hi,
It is me,
I am here,
Right inside of you,
and, although
You don’t know me
Very well,
Quite yet,
Time is on our side
and the days will grow longer,
The times together stronger.

We are friends,
and I’m here
Where I’ve always been.

You are light,
You are joy,
You are kindness beyond measure.

I am the child in you.

The purest part of me is you, the little boy who lives within. You are filled with an innocent joy for being alive and have never lost your sense wonder and adventure. For as long as my memories go back you have been with me and we have witnessed together a broad scope of the experiences of life. I know you have been scared at times and upset at others. We have shared wonderful moments of happiness. We’ve gone through a lot of sadness and heartbreak too. Even though I misplace my spark for life sometimes, you never lose your abundant joy for being alive.

I am deeply grateful for the little boy inside, the child within, who reminds me what true and honest feelings are, how beneficial hope and simple joy can be and how much fun playing is!

You will find more happiness
growing down than up.
Author Unknown

Lost and Found

/ James Browning

At the back of the class room was the “cloak room” is where we hug our coats. In one corner was a round cardboard “can” with metal edges that had originally been made to hold about three gallons of ice cream in the lunch room. Taped on the container was a piece of construction paper with “Lost and Found” written on it in Miss Pittman’s near perfect handwriting. She was a soon to retire, old maid school teacher who lived in the rundown school teacher dorms behind the high school. Years late I would come to feel sorry for her as I realized how lonely and sad her life must have been. She had evaporated into obscurity before I was twenty-one.

If we found anything in the class room and did not know who it belonged to, we were supposed to put it in the lost and found. If we lost something that was the first place to look for it. Sometimes things ended up there because some 5th graders would put other people’s things there as a joke, although I never thought it was funny.

No matter how strict Ms. Pittman was or how much in turmoil was in my life then, those were simpler times in that wrong and right seemed clearer to me then. My Mother had decided to marry a man sixteen years older that my Brother and I did not like. As we would come to know, that was for good reason. He was a mean and abusive stepfather and we always thought he had a few screws loose. In those days I knew bad was bad. That was clear. Then I imagined good was simply the absence of the bad.

Through my childhood and into early adult life there were parts of me that ended up lost and stayed unfound for many years. Unlike the classroom of my youth, there was no ice cream bin to check out for what was missing. I did not develop the ability to love a girl/woman properly and it was replaced with neediness and want. With very little family influence of love expressed and shown, there were no teachers to emulate. So I read books, watched TV and saw movies. When I was sixteen that’s about all I knew about love.

My education continued, but painful and slow, learning the most difficult way from repeated mistakes and bad choices. The girls, then women, I was attracted to were often attached and several times I became the ‘secret guy” on the side. Too, I had a penchant for choosing ‘female roller coasters’ who were emotionally unstable. I sure could pick ’em, but they were not the problem. It was my ‘picker’ that was. I look back now and can see I thought the intensity, the anguish, the heartache and the longing totaled together was love.

Today awareness of who I am, where I come from and what I have been through has brought a willingness to pull the lost part of me out of “lost and found”. Like a broken vase that has been glued back together, the fractures and scars will always visible. But it is from those very wounds that knowledge and wisdom benefits me today. My sensitivity, ability to relate and identifying my feelings are all keen sense now. From what once hurt and confused me came great teaching from strict and difficult teachers too, just like Miss Pittman. But I got A’s and B’s in her class and give my self pretty good grades for living life and knowing how to love today. I am grateful for the difficulties I endured that eventually made me more able than most to know and express my feelings.

People often say that this or that person has not yet found himself.
But the self is not something one finds,
it is something one creates.
Thomas Szasz