relationships

Letter to a Heartbroken Friend

/ James Browning

33373_originalEDITDear _______,

Don’t worry about the future. It will unfold as it does, unaffected by your thought and worry. What is to be will not be swayed one millimeter by your anguish. I know you are heartbroken, but it is not love that is the source of most of your pain. Love is always pure and never the source of grief.  Given time, if you allow it, misery and sorrow will overpower the purity of your love and bury it in animosity and bitterness. Please don’t let that happen.

Deep grief sometimes is almost like a specific location, a coordinate on a map of time. When you are standing in that forest of sorrow, you cannot imagine that you could ever find your way to a better place. Someday you’re gonna look back on this moment of your life as such a sweet time of grieving. You’ll see that you were in mourning and your heart was broken, but your life was changing… Elizabeth Gilbert

Comfort and happiness, as enjoyable as they feel, are not catalysts for personal development. It’s the difficult times where fertile ground exists for our growth. Please do not hate your pain. Growth is always uncomfortable; sometimes even agonizing. Accept the hurting with a thankfulness for what was instead of a dread for what might or might not be again one day.

I wish I could tell you getting past your heartbreak will be easy. It won’t be. But if you intentionally let go a little each day, slowly your aching will ease. With effort you’ll be able to not think about your loss for a little while at a time and with practice your heartache will be out of heart and mind more and more. Progress will be slow, but certain if you make is so.

Giving her the space she has asked you for is a certain way to show your love to her. To cling and grab to hold on, will only shred into jagged pieces what was once shared. If there is more for you two to share, it will arrive in its due time and not one second before.

Peace and Love,

James

I am grateful for friends who are comfortable enough with me to share their deep private feelings. It is in a common trust and sharing of emotion and thought with others who “get me and I them” that healing and recovery is possible.

We crucify ourselves between two thieves:
regret for yesterday and fear of tomorrow.
Fulton Oursler

Wiser, Stronger, Older…

/ James Browning

aged_feb15From an article on-line, comes these three steps about how to fall in love.
1. Find a complete stranger.
2. Reveal to each other intimate details about your lives for half an hour.
3. Then, stare deeply into each others eyes without talking for four minutes.
Psychologist, Professor Arthur Arun, has been studying why people fall in love. He asked his subjects to carry out the above 3 steps and found that many of his couples felt deeply attracted after the 34 minute experiment. Two of his subjects later got married. http://www.youramazingbrain.org/lovesex/sciencelove.htm

Falling in love is easy. I have done it a number of times in my life. Some lasted a short while; some endured for years; none lasted a lifetime. The ups and downs taught me a good deal including the following random rules for managing one’s self when starting to fall in love:

  • Be patient. Resist the urge to move too quickly.
  • Listen. Pay attention to what is said.
  • Remember what the other person tells you about his/her self.
  • Don’t sacrifice your “must-haves”.
  • Be prepared to meet in the middle on everything but “must-have’s”.
  • Let the other person be as they are; not how you wish they were.
  • Everything changes once physical intimacy begins. Put it off as long as you can.
  • Don’t judge this new love by the ones from your past.
  • Don’t pretend to be what you’re not.
  • Some people do change, but most do not.
  • A new love does not care to know about the lovers of your past.
  • Learn to sit quietly together saying nothing. Let eyes do the talking.
  • Love is not for filling holes of emptiness within.
  • Love can only make you more of what you already are.
  • Ask yourself, “could I die peacefully in this person’s arms?”
  • Without trust love never survives.

There is no question being attracted to someone is a key ingredient to falling in love. However, research has shown kindness and intelligence are very close behind. While being attracted to someone is nearly instantaneous, how kind and intelligent a person is can only accurately become known over time. Of the two, studies have shown kindness is the strongest indicator for a successful long-term relationship.

Wiser, stronger, older… with a bit more time I may actually begin to understand this thing called love. I am grateful for my progress.

Love is simple.
You fall and that’s it.
You’ll work the other stuff out.
You just gotta let yourself fall
and have faith that someone
will be there to catch you.
From “My Favorite Mistake”
by Chelsea M. Cameron

Six Well Made Comments

/ James Browning

With the exception of about 100 words, today’s focus topic is love; written with pictures. Let the images paint in your heart, mind and soul meanings that are uniquely yours.

d9fe2323a72b5b1da7bda59a13be9700-d4xry5y  it__s_because_you_love_me__by_jonathoncomfortreed-d3jszaq  my_lonley_valentines_by_Calisto_Melancton 4___pencil_vs_camera_for_aoc_by_benheine-d3eaigr

Empty_Inside___Necklace_by_UntilItEnds

Key_to_my_Heart_by_SerendipitousMistake

Ultimately love is all that matters. No one has too much. We are all to some extent starved for love. The college of life has taught me this the hard way. I am grateful.

For one human being to love another,
that is perhaps the most difficult of our tasks;
the ultimate, the last test and proof;
the work for which all other work is but preparation.
Rainer Maria Rilke

* All images from deviantart.com and are the property of their individual copyright holders.

Hate Hurts the Hater

/ James Browning

Hate is never good, but it’s understandably felt by some toward people such as child abusers, perpetrators of violent crimes, terrorists and some who are just plain evil.

Otherwise, with ordinary people there’s an adage that goes, someone most often hates you for one of three reasons.

1. They either see you as a threat.
2. They hate themselves.
3. Or they want to be you.

Thinking about hating someone is sobering. Hate is a strong word. Definitions of hate on-line are: to dislike intensely or passionately; feel extreme aversion for or extreme hostility toward; detest; feel antipathy towards. So if I dislike someone a lot, I in fact hate them. I never thought of it that way. And yes, there are people I really don’t care for. I just never thought of strong aversion as being hate.

I cringe at the thought that I might actually hate someone and subscribe to Madeleine L’Engle’s thoughts that “Hate hurts the hater more’n the hated.”

At this point I really don’t think I hate anyone and readily admit I have at times confused hurt with hate. There are those who caused me great grief and lots of pain for who forgiveness is not 100%. There is no one I can think of who I lack the intention of forgiveness for in my heart. However with some I am uncertain if complete forgiveness is possible. Emotional scars stand in the way. I have come to the understanding that most who hurt others have been hurt themselves, often as children, and end up passing along their pain. Completely true or not, that thought helps me forgive people who have injured me emotionally. Not 100% forgiveness, but close.

Elie Wiesel wrote, “the opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference”. I readily admit there are those who hurt me I feel completely indifferent about. I wish them no harm or difficulty, but frankly don’t care to know anything about them today. Such people are now blanks where a relationship of some sort has been erased due to the pain they caused me. It’s a healthy sort of turning a blind eye and putting those old pains up high on a shelf and forgetting about those caused them.

It’s only human to like some people more than others, to respect some more than other folks, to not be comfortable with some people and quite at home with others. I am grown up enough to no longer beat myself up about simply not caring for some people. It’s a form of healthy self-care to at least be able to recognize who’s good for me and who isn’t. I am grateful to know the difference!

The unhappiest people in this world,
are those who care the most about what other people think.
C. Joybell C.

Someone Somewhere for Everyone

/ James Browning

Some say a hapless romantic is hopeless; always searching, but never finding. They believe an insatiable yearning for ‘someone else’ afflicts some people to the point they can never be fully content with one person. I believe they are wrong and there is at least one ‘someone’, somewhere for everyone. I find inspiration, hope and even joy in the possibility of what Tom Hiddleston wrote:

When I love someone’s character, over time I’ll see that personality, I love so much, shining through their eyes and fusing with their appearance, turning them in the most beautiful girl in the world.

It’s not about appearance, it’s about someone’s beautiful, amazing, wonderful, fantastic personality, you’ll see every time you look at her.

It’s about the fact that when you look in her eyes, you just feel home…

You forget all your problems, all your fears, you just feel safe, you feel like you’ve finally found a place where you belong…

A place you can spend an eternity, where you will spend an eternity, cause those enchanting, beautiful eyes will slow down time and make every second; looking in her beautiful eyes, right into her amazing personality, last more than a lifetime.

It’s about the fact that the whole world, the whole universe just looks so much more beautiful!

All of a sudden everything looks different and your heart will just start smiling.

That’s what love is all about… the moment someone you only “liked” before, changes into the most aesthetically pleasing girl in the world.

The moment you realize how blind you’ve been all those days, how you were living in a fake universe, never knowing that the only thing your life is all about, the only thing that keeps you smiling, was all the time right next to you.

I am grateful my youthful heart is still alive in this middle-aged body and capable of appreciating, even feeling joy, at just reading such words. Truly blessed am I to be so open to love.


My whole body sank forward into his arms.
His lips moved against mine, exploring my mouth so gently.
I tried to mimic his movements–slowly,
uncertainly, until I didn’t have to think about it at all.
It just felt right. He cupped his hands behind my head,
pulling me closer until I couldn’t tell where my mouth ended
and his began. A liquid sensation swooped throughout my stomach.
It was the most amazing thing I’d ever felt
and it kept growing,
the vibrating heat expanding outward.
I was surprised I was still able to stand.
Heather Anastasiu

A Common Search for the Good and the Beautiful

/ James Browning

I have limited personal proof that what is below is in practice what makes for a good marriage. But the words feel perfectly true and seem to speak clearly of how it could be, should be.

Happiness in marriage is not something that just happens.
A good marriage must be created.
In the art of marriage the little things are the big things…
It is never being too old to hold hands.
It is remembering to say “I love you” at least once a day.
It is never going to sleep angry.
It is at no time taking the other for granted;
the courtship should not end with the honeymoon,
it should continue through all the years.
It is having a mutual sense of values and common objectives.
It is standing together facing the world.
It is forming a circle of love that gathers in the whole family.
It is doing things for each other, not in the attitude
of duty or sacrifice, but in the spirit of joy.
It is speaking words of appreciation
and demonstrating gratitude in thoughtful ways.
It is not looking for perfection in each other.
It is cultivating flexibility, patience,
understanding and a sense of humor.
It is having the capacity to forgive and forget.
It is giving each other an atmosphere in which each can grow.
It is finding room for the things of the spirit.
It is a common search for the good and the beautiful.
It is establishing a relationship in which the independence is equal,
dependence is mutual and the obligation is reciprocal.
It is not only marrying the right partner, it is being the right partner.
It is discovering what marriage can be, at its best.
“The Art of Marriage” by Wilferd A. Peterson originally published in 1962

The majority of my married years were spent wishing I wasn’t someone’s husband. It’s ironic that now being single for five years I sometimes wish that was not my status. Was I a good husband? Sort of, kinda, sometimes and ‘not’ with regularity. It’s a lesson that loneliness and lost love have taught well. Gratitude is strong within for that hard learned knowing.

The trouble is not that I am single
and likely to stay single,
but that I am lonely
and likely to stay lonely.
Charlotte Bronte

A New Way to Remember

/ James Browning

My dysfunctions have been with me all of my adult life. However, conditions like depression, compulsion and trauma from childhood were not clearly known to me until the last ten years.  When I began to ask “why” particular behaviors came over me in certain circumstances and situations, a true effort to educate myself started. In trying to understand some of my actions, I read book after book after book.

My studies were primarily two-fold: 1) about human behavior and why we do the things we do 2) about religion and how spirituality affects a person. Over several years I became fairly well-educated in the realm of psychology and generally knowledgeable about the origins of a wide number of religions and the spiritual practices that grew out of them. After all this time I was smarter and quite a bit kinder to others, but inside I was not a whole lot better.

Of particular attraction to me were some of the basic tenants of Buddhism. There I found direction about learning to live a better life contained within the “Eightfold Noble Path”.

 

This on top of the “Ten Commandments” of Christianity became a sort of roadmap for improving the quality my existence. Other teachings of Buddha helped me as well such as I was not my thoughts and how my constantly chattering mind can at times create insane lines of thinking. Having these insights made me more knowledgeable and I did get better, just not enough to overcome my demons.

…The problems of the mind cannot be solved on the level of the mind. Once you have understood the basic dysfunction there isn’t really much else that you need to learn or understand. Studying the complexities of the mind may make you a good psychologist, but doing so won’t take you beyond the mind, just as the study of madness isn’t enough to create sanity… From the second chapter of Eckhart Tolle’s “Power of Now”

What Tolle wrote explains well the dilemma I ended up lost within. Alone, I could not fix myself. I needed help. In some ways I wish I could say that realization came to me easily, but it didn’t. It took the ending of a marriage I did not want to be over and coming to face to face with the reasons why that were my responsibility. What I came to know is all of my romantic relationships had suffered because of childhood issues that had never been dealt with. It was like being hit in the head with a ‘two by four” that brought me to my knees determined to recover.

When the pain to stay the same, exceeded the pain to change, I sought help and truly began to grow and change. There is nothing particularly admirable about it. I simply felt I had no other choice.

Today life is pretty darn good and certainly better than ever before. Am I “fixed”? No, far from it. But I am a lot better and as the months pass, I continue to grow. The past is past, but I recall it differently today as containing my greatest lessons.  With true positive anticipation and hope for the future, I am grateful to be where I am!

Forgiving does not erase the bitter past.
A healed memory is not a deleted memory.
Instead, forgiving what we cannot forget
creates a new way to remember.
We change the memory of our past into a hope for our future.
Lewis B. Smedes

Thank You Doug

/ James Browning

For today’s blog to make any sense, one should first read yesterday’s installment https://goodmorninggratitude.com/2012/08/30/thank-you-sherry/

Doug, a dear friend of mine, liked yesterday’s post. When I arrived home after work the short email from him below was in my inbox:

Well, I hope you’ve heard from Sherry by now! I just had to find her. What a sweet lady. She recited a two-line poem she wrote that I thought was really insightful: Ode to an Oyster. Oh little oyster, teach me the secret of your world. For who else can take an irritation, and change it to a pearl. Groovy. Have a great rest-of-the-day! Doug

Further down in my inbox was another email:

James, I was contacted early this morning by your friend Doug, he told me about your blog and that you had posted my poem ‘Ghosts’. James I was so touched by your words and couldn’t keep my eyes dry. You did me great honor. Hope to hear from you soon, Sherry

I immediately began a reply:

Dear Sherry,

… This morning when I was writing tears never overtook me, but this evening reading your note they came, but were joyful tears. I so feared your cancer had taken you and am so happy to find my fear was unfounded.

In recent years often my life has been divinely guided. I was led to begin writing goodmorninggratitude. I woke up on a Saturday in April of 2011 and knew I was supposed to begin it. Yet I had never written a blog and spent most of the weekend figuring it out. Then Monday morning, April 25, 2012 I wrote “Hello World” and have written something daily on goodmorninggratitude.com without fail for 492 days now.

Through illness, business travel, vacations and visits to far away friends and family I have remained faithful to what I feel I was called to do. I have never been as faithful to anything in my entire life. To date goodmorninggratitude has been read in 72 countries and is seen daily by hundreds of readers. I am mystified except to say it’s God’s work. I have no other explanation. When I listen to the soft and gentle direction He gives…. my life always comes to something better than I ever could find by myself.

Sometimes my daily written gratitude is for what I learned from some of the most painful and difficult experiences of my life.  Others days it’s about the pure beauty and good I see. It takes me an hour or so daily to focus, write and complete each post. I could not have predicted how focusing on gratitude would so profoundly change my life. From what I write I get back what I give multiplied many times over. Hearing from you is proof once again of that.

I am so glad you are still filled with life and grateful to know there is more to read that originates from the same tender heart and sharp mind I felt in “Ghosts”. I am emotionally stunned, but happy and glad to hear from you. Thank you for reaching out to me and thank God (and Doug) for causing it to happen. James

Once I read Sherry’s email I wrote Doug:

What a beautiful end to a long work day. Thank you for continuing to contribute good to my life. I am near speechless and don’t know what to say except… God bless you. He blessed me with knowing you.

We cannot live only for ourselves.
A thousand fibers connect us with our fellow-men;
and among those fibers, as sympathetic threads,
our actions run as causes, and they come back to us as effects.
Herman Melville

White Knight, Boy Scout or Good Guy

/ James Browning

My ghosts are still around, but thankfully not as prevalent as they once were. Even when my past is conjured up, I don’t get stuck there for long periods of time as I once did. The echoes of my past mostly sleep until something bushes up against my recall. Like last night…

My best bud M. and I attended a concert last night to see Motley Crue and Kiss. While not a big fan of either, I do enjoy performance art and was not disappointed. Early on came my notice that two rows in front of me was a woman who looked like a girl whose heart I broke badly over thirty years ago. She didn’t “kinda” resemble the one I hurt; she was the spitting image of her when she was 20 years old! I looked again and again at the woman/girl from different angles and my impression was always the same. She looked just like Anna! While some regret will always remain, the realization came that I had reached peace within for the injury I caused her. A while back I wrote here about what I did:  https://goodmorninggratitude.com/2011/08/17/apology-to-anna/

Later between bands at the concert, I glanced around and coming up the stairs ten feet away from me was a woman who strongly resembled another whose heart got broken from being involved with me. Although we had some great times, R. and I were not good for each other from the very beginning. We were both drowning in our own issues while trying to hold on to the other to keep from sinking. The face and body shape of the woman on the stairs was a reminder that threw me back into my regret for how things turned out. She won’t even speak to me today. Still working on forgiving myself for that one, but found the memory last evening came with more serenity than before. That’s progress.

The third memorable sight from the concert last night was a man and woman across the aisle from where I was seated. At first they seemed to be having a good time. With her back to his front they were looking at the stage while dancing with the music and smiling ear to ear. A short while later I glanced over as he began to overtly grope her. First he was grabbing her breasts.  She repeatedly swatted his hand away and smiled nervously. Soon after he began shoving his hand between her jean covered legs. She squirmed and pushed him away with a look somewhere between fear and disgust on her face. Trying not to stare, the next time I looked up he was gone and she was sitting down looking sad and disappointed. The fun was over for her. She just stared at the stage lost in thought from then on and left early with the female friend she was sitting with.

I was angry with the guy for his complete lack of respect for the woman and felt sorry for her. Then I tied it all together; the earlier reminders of the two women I had hurt along with what I had just witnessed across the aisle. While I never disrespected the two I hurt in the way the groping man did her, some of my behavior was just was contemptuous in its own way.

All in all I did not end up lost in remorse last night. Rather, I was simply reminded of what I have done and of what not to do. My reactions show me I have come far. My deeds can’t be undone, but they are no longer transgressions I can’t think about without getting distressed. There is a sort of melancholy peace within that allows me to learn from my past.

A reminder I am left with today is to always show respect for a woman. Whether others see what I do does not matter! How I treat a woman states loudly and boldly how I feel about myself. I am grateful to know at my core is finally the “white knight”, the “boy scout” or the “good guy” I always knew I could be.

Don’t rely on someone else for your happiness and self-worth.
Only you can be responsible for that.
If you can’t love and respect yourself –
no one else will be able to make that happen.
Accept who you are – completely; the good and the bad
and make changes as YOU see fit –
not because you think someone else wants you to be different.
Stacey Charter

The Need and Desire for Love

/ James Browning

My past is filled with falling in love over and over; at least I thought it was love. A few times it actually was! There is a condition called “Love Addiction” that’s a behavior in which people become addicted to the feeling of being in love. It’s common although most Love Addicts do not realize they are addicted to love.

My particular brand of Love Addiction is that of a “Love Avoidant” which used to cause me to have issues staying in one relationship. At the start of a new romantic connection you’d never know it because Love Avoidants like I used to be come on strong at the start. My desire for love was extraordinarily strong, but after some time into a relationship a part of me is overtaken and becomes afraid of being left or being alone.

My compulsion was to be a philanderer who rarely stayed committed to just one person for very long. I left before the one I loved could leave or else “hooked up” just in case.  In childhood I learned how deeply the ones I love could hurt me and my avoidant tendency rooted there caused me to have difficulty depending on one person.

With professional help and a lot of diligence, my pattern of Love Addiction/Avoidant has been largely overcome. By understanding what is going on and replacing walls with boundaries, I have learned how to experience the joys of being truly intimate. At least I believe I have, although so far I have not fully proven it long-term.

Love addiction is not just my issue and is wide-spread and growing. In an article* on http://www.mailonline.com Martha De Lacey last week wrote:

You may believe in love at first sight. Or you might be someone for whom love takes time and patience. But the average time for telling your partner you love them is after 14 dates, according to a new survey.

Participants in the new study revealed the average number of dates per week with a new partner was two, meaning that couples tend to first say ‘I love you’ seven weeks into a new relationship. First kisses tend to take place two dates or one week into the dating process, and the first time a couple has sex is, on average, after four dates or two weeks. (Yes, you read correctly… four dates! A highly probable sign of Love Addiction since real intimacy takes far longer.)

The research also showed that most partners are introduced to friends for the first time after six dates or three weeks, and that people are most likely to introduce their new boy or girlfriend to their parents after 12 dates or six weeks. And if things go well, dating couples move in with each other, on average, after 30 weeks or 60 dates.

The study was carried out by dating website seekingarrangement.com who polled their 100,000 British members to find the average time for a whole series of ‘firsts’ in a new relationship.

The need and desire for love is stronger than ever in a world where we’re exposed to its opposite continually through every day. The news is filled with it. We walk in fear on the streets and treat strangers with great distrust initially. We have multiple locks on our doors and many have security systems. We carry pepper spray and some even conceal weapons to protect them self. It’s a crazy world.

No wonder I want love so badly. Taken together a rough childhood and an overwhelming need to be loved combined to create a strong compulsion. Thankfully, my Love Addiction/Avoidance is something I understand and control today. It’s an old friend/enemy that I know well through growth and counseling. While I still feel the feelings, they are not as strong anymore. I know better and have become appropriately cautious about falling and being in love. I’m only interested in the real thing; love that comes slowly over time to prove itself to be lasting and real. I am so very grateful for the knowledge and learned ability that can make that possible.

You better have insurance on your heart
if you plan on being in LOVE.
Unknown

* Full article here: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2188819/Dating-milestones-revealed-new-survey.html#ixzz24BxiAB2Y