self-awareness

Amid Pleasures and Palaces

/ James Browning

The past six days have had me traveling; first on business and the latter half of the week visiting a dear friend. Time has passed very quickly while hanging out with my buddy. He introduced me to several new people including one I feel a particular kinship with and hope in time we might become friends. Time will tell. 

Knowing I will be home in twelve hours is a good feeling. When I have been a way for a week or so, walking into my home is refreshing experience. It’s then I more keenly notice the house I live and what is in it. The feeling of that moment is gratitude for the common things that often get overlooked on a day to day basis.

There are shaggy asters blooming in the bed that lines the fence,
And the simplest of the blossoms seems of mighty consequence.
Oh, there isn’t any mansion underneath God’s starry dome
That can rest a weary pilgrim like the little place called home.
So where’er a man may wander, and whatever be his care,
You’ll find his soul still stretching to the home he left somewhere.
From “The Path To Home” by Edgar Guest

Whether it’s my bed, the coffee pot that I am accustomed to or unwrinkled clothes, I will be glad to get home.

Amid pleasures and palaces
though we may roam,
Be it ever so humble,
there’s no place like home.
John Howard Payne

Small Gratitude

/ James Browning

Have you ever stopped to ask yourself, “what self-image do I project to the world and more importantly to the universe?” or ” what are my actions and words actually saying”. Today I’m speaking to you specifically about gratitude and how you express it. Do you project appreciation for the gifts you receive no mater how small or seemingly insignificant, thereby opening yourself up to receive more. Or are you projecting a low self-worth that says I don’t deserve this small thing so please don’t burden me with my total abundance.

Now I don’t believe any of us would consciously stop the flow of abundance into our lives, yet the way we express gratitude may be doing just that. How you ask? Well, have you ever received a gift from someone and said any of the following statements “thanks, but that wasn’t necessary”, “thanks, but you really over did it” or “thanks, but you really shouldn’t have spent so much on me”.

The first thing these statements do is to diminish the effort the giver put into the gift. Secondly, these statements also tell the universe that you’re not worthy of receiving such a gift so please don’t send any more. These statement are merely a reflection of our belief of low self-worth which when projected to the universe stops our flow of abundance. The flow can very easily be turned back on by accepting gifts and gestures of love, appreciation and simple kindness without any conditions whatsoever.

By moving in this direction you will instantly improve your relationships because the people in your life will feel appreciated and the universe will see that you are open to receive all it has to offer to you. So starting now realize that you are worthy of all the things the universe provides to you and simply say “thank you” with no add-ons to the giver or more importantly to yourself. This one action will open you up to receive your total abundance very quickly. Coach Mike http://www.warriorforum.com/mind-warriors-success-power-self-improvement/

We have no right to ask when a sorrow comes, ‘Why did this happen to me?’
unless we ask the same question for every joy that comes our way.
Unknown

Selfish or Unselfish?

/ James Browning

If you know for certain you’d die in just one week and could have three wishes come true what would they be? Would they be selfish or unselfish? Here’s some random answers found at various places on line:

1. To erase everything I hate
2. To have a trip to the places I want to go
3. To die a peaceful death (like fall asleep never to wake.)

1. To slow down time
2 .Travel the world with my closet friends
3. Find true love

1. To have my daughter and grandkids here.
2. Make sure that my family has everything they need
3. Have a big farewell party with my friends and family

1. Leave a good impression a memory of me
2. Make sure I do my main goal in life
3. When I leave I do not want to leave anything unaccomplished

1. To make everyone happy who is in my life
2. Have not regrets when I die
3. Laugh as much as possible

1. 10 more years of a healthy life
2. To be surrounded by the ones I love most during those 10 years
3. 1000 more wishes

1. Unlimited wealth
2. Excellent health for me and those I love
3. Peace on earth

The Three Final Wishes of Alexander the Great.

As a military commander, he was undefeated and the most successful throughout history. On his way home from conquering many countries, he came down with an illness.

At that moment, his captured territories, powerful army, sharp swords, and wealth all had no meaning to him. He realized that death would soon arrive and he would be unable to return to his homeland. He told his officers: “I will soon leave this world. I have three final wishes. You need to carry out what I tell you.” His generals, in tears, agreed.

“My first wish is to have my physician bring my coffin home alone.

After a gasping for air, Alexander continued: “My second wish is scatter the gold, silver, and gems from my treasure-house along the path to the tomb when you ship my coffin to the grave.”

After wrapping in a woolen blanket and resting for a while, he said: “My final wish it to put my hands outside the coffin.”

People surrounding him all were very curious, but no one dare to ask the reason. Alexander’s most favored general kissed his hand and asked: “My Majesty, We will follow your instruction. But can you tell us why you want us to do it this way?” After taking a deep breath, Alexander said: “I want everyone to understand the three lessons I have learned.

To let my physician carry my coffin alone is to let people realize that a physician cannot really cure people’s illness. I hope people will learn to treasure their lives. My second wish is to tell people not to be like me in pursuing wealth. I spent my whole life pursuing wealth, but I was wasting my time most of the time. My third wish to let people understand that I came to this world in empty hands and I will leave this world also in empty hands.” he closed his eyes after finished talking and stopped breathing.

I am grateful for the path of quandary this line of thinking has put me on. After spending the next 24 hours pondering, tomorrow I’ll share what three selfish wishes and three unselfish wishes I personally settle on. I hope you give the topic some thought also.

May you have love that never ends,
lots of money and lots of friends.
Health be yours, whatever you do
and may God send many blessings to you.
Traditional Irish Blessing

A Few Baby-Steps Everyday

/ James Browning

Deeply felt and fully expressed gratitude is an effective way to positively influence attitudes and behavior, our own and that of others. Learning to feel and express gratefulness has a significant effect on my happiness and success and that of every one around me. Understanding there is more than one level or gratitude can have even greater impact.

Level I Gratitude… This is gratitude for your possessions and your immediate circumstances. It’s the kind of gratitude we learn as children: Thank you for the gift, for the candy, for the trip to park, etc. When you practice this as an adult, it spawns thoughts of gratitude for things like:
* a roof over your head
* your material possessions
* a car that runs
* your health
* your relationships
* your family
* your job
* your skills
* the holidays

Level II Gratitude… I think of this as “holistic gratitude” because it’s independent of situations and circumstances. This is a feeling of gratitude for life itself, for existence, for anything and everything you experience. But rather than being a temporary emotion that requires constant focus, Level 2 Gratitude is more of an underlying attitude. With practice it becomes part of your identity. It encompasses everything in Level 1, but Level 2 goes beyond that to include being grateful for:
* your life
* the universe
* time and space
* your problems, challenges, and hardships
* your foibles and mistakes
* your consciousness
* your ego
* people who treat you unkindly or unfairly
* your thoughts and emotions
* your freedom of choice
* ideas and concepts
Level 2 Gratitude says, “How wonderful it is to exist!” Circumstances are irrelevant because this form of gratitude is a choice that needs no justification. It is a sense of utter fascination with the very notion of existence.
By Steve Pavlina http://www.stevepavlina.com/

Without realizing I had moved into level II Gratitude, I am pleased to find I have.  Oh, how life has changed since gratefulness became a way of living. A few baby-steps every day becomes a lot of distance covered over time.

In daily life we must see
hat it is not happiness that makes us grateful,
but gratefulness that makes us happy.
Brother David Steindl-Rast

How It’s Meant To Be

/ James Browning

Where this day takes me I do not know.

The odds are I will be alive when the sun goes down, but there is no certainty of it.

Whether the day will be mundane or painted by some major life happening I can’t foresee.

Will my awareness be sharp or dull?

Will I be as kind as I intend to be?

Will I be as unselfish as my heart wants?

Will I be able to love without reservation?

Will I be giving or stingy?

Will I see perfection in spite of imperfection?

What mistakes will I make?

What will I do right? Wrong?

Will I be good enough or fall short?

Stop!

The day will be as the day unfolds.

No amount of worry, predisposed thought or crystal ball gazing will make the day any other that what it will turn out to be.

Loosen my grip.

Take a deep breath.

Look up and see.

Hear life. Sense it. Feel it.

Allow everything to be as it is and let the day arrive as it will.

I am grateful for the over-flowing spring of thoughts this mental exercise sprang from.  Within I found guidance and clear direction for my day.

Sometimes you have to stop worrying,
wondering, & doubting.
Have faith that things will work out,
maybe not how you planned,
but just how it’s meant to be.
Unknown

Position My Sails To Catch The Best Wind

/ James Browning

There are the parables of Aesop, the insights of Buddha, the stories Jesus told, the Muslim chronicles of Rumi, the anecdotes of Confucius and many teaching tales from Hindu, Sufi, Jewish and other spiritual and secular traditions. With origins in verbally passed on narratives, may are written down for our benefit today. Today I chose to begin my day reading a hand-full and here are the two whose message stuck with me the most this morning.

Teaching Tale #1:  A lady had a precious necklace round her neck. Once in her excitement she forgot it and thought that the necklace was lost. She became anxious and looked for it in her home but could not find it. She asked friends and neighbors if they knew anything about the necklace. They did not. At last a kind friend of hers told her to feel the necklace round her neck. She found that it had all along been round her neck and she was happy. When others asked her later if she found the necklace which was lost, she said, ‘Yes, I have found it.’ She still felt that she had recovered a lost jewel.

Now, did she lose it at all? It was all along round her neck. But judge her feelings. She was as happy as if she had recovered a lost jewel. Similarly with us, we imagine that we will some day realize the ‘Self’ we seek, whereas we are never anything but our ‘Self’ all along. (Ramana Maharshi)

Teaching Tale #2:  A man found an eagle’s egg and put it in a nest of a barnyard hen. The eaglet hatched with the brood of chicks and grew up with them.

All his life the eagle did what the barnyard chicks did, thinking he was a barnyard chicken. He scratched the earth for worms and insects. He clucked and cackled. And he would thrash his wings and fly a few feet into the air.

Years passed and the eagle grew very old. One day he saw a magnificent bird above him in the cloudless sky. It glided in graceful majesty among the powerful wind currents, with scarcely a beat of its strong golden wings.

The old eagle looked up in awe. “Who’s that?” he asked.

“That’s the eagle, the king of the birds,” said his neighbor. “He belongs to the sky. We belong to the earth– we’re chickens.” So the eagle lived and died a chicken, for that’s what he thought he was. (Anthony de Mello)

So I go into my day reminded of two things:
1) The greatest treasure I possess is the “self” I already am. All that I will ever be will spring from there.
2) As I think, so I will be. Who and what I perceived myself to be, I will be.

I am grateful for the essence of those two traditional teaching tales. Each helps to place my ‘rudder” on course and to position my “sails” to catch the best wind for this Monday.

P.S. The mountain snow photo at the top is self-imposed distraction from 111 degrees it will be here today and tomorrow!

You are the embodiment of the information
you choose to accept and act upon.
To change your circumstances you need
to change your thinking and subsequent actions.
Adlin Sinclair

To Find Rest In Knowing Inwardly

/ James Browning

Something I read once said people come in three basic varieties:
1. People who find something bad regardless of how good things may be.
2. People who find something good regardless of how bad things may be.
3. People who ‘go with the flow’ and generally accept whatever happens to them.
The conclusion was to have peace in your life, you need to be number two or three.

If life were only as simple as finding a bit of wisdom and then being able to consistently follow it. Category one above grabs me more than it should, but the seasoning of age has improved my ability to stay in number two and three more often than not. How? Acceptance and Growth.

Acceptance is described as a person’s ability to see the reality of a situation without attempting to change it, protest, or exit. The base word ‘accept’ has it roots in the Latin word ‘acquiēscere’ which means “to find rest in”.

Growth in people is generally defined as development and maturity from a lower or simpler way of being to one that is higher and more complex. Conceptually the word “grow” has its meaning derived from the Latin word “conscius “, meaning “knowing inwardly”.

Simplifying the origin of ‘acceptance’ and ‘growth’ down to the meanings they sprouted from I came up with the phrase “to find rest in knowing inwardly”. That describes ‘peace’ as well as I have ever seen it stated!

The serenity prayer learned from attending Codependence Anonymous meetings helped me gain a good deal of insight. Taken a piece at a time this prayer is about change and growth with ‘acceptance’ bookends on either side. “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change” (acceptance) ” courage to change the things I can” (growth) and wisdom to know the difference (acceptance).

At first I thought such thinking was far to simplistic to be helpful. My analytical mind believed to find peace I had to figure everything out. From the past to the future to the current moment my need was to find some balance of logic for everything that happened and for what everyone did. That’s like a never-ending adult ‘snipe hunt’.

Admission I am powerless over certain people and some circumstances then accepting that powerlessness is one of the keys to a better life. Trying to fix the unfixable used to be maddening and even today is at times is a challenge.  However, the more I apply acceptance the more peace from “resting in knowing inwardly” comes to me. I am grateful for every smidgen of it!

Our entire life consists ultimately
in accepting ourselves as we are.
Jean Anouilh

I’m Living Proof!

/ James Browning

It’s a shame modern society trains to hold our emotions in and not express them fully, including gratitude. Most of us robotically say “thank you” and “I appreciate it” a good bit of the time, but words alone are not an expression of feeling. We’re frequently taught that emotion plus words equals expressed feeling and its our feelings that make us vulnerable. I suppose that’s true, but hiding our feelings always insulates us from enjoying the full richness and fullness of life. Being happy takes risks!

All relationships to be functional must contain a level of mutual duty and loyalty. Gratitude is a step past being such moral obligations and gratefulness generally falls under the heading of “altruism”. Altruism is a motivation to provide something of value to a party who must be anyone but the self with no expectation of any compensation or benefits, either direct, or indirect. In other words, expressing true gratitude is giving purely for the sake of giving.

A study by James Fowler of the University of California, San Diego, and Nicholas Christakis of Harvard, stated when one person behaves generously, it inspires observers to behave generously later, toward different people. In fact, the researchers found that altruism could spread by three degrees—from person to person to person to person. “As a result,” they write, “each person in a network can influence dozens or even hundreds of people, some of whom he or she does not know and has not met. In other words, the ‘giving’ of gratefulness breeds gratefulness.

Giving (such as expressing gratefulness) has been linked to the release of a hormone released during sex and breast-feeding that induces feelings of warmth, euphoria, and connection to others. In laboratory studies, Paul Zak, the director of the Center for Neuroeconomics Studies at Claremont Graduate University, found that a dose of the hormone (oxytocin) will cause people to give more generously and to feel more empathy towards others, with “symptoms” lasting up to two hours. And those people on an “oxytocin high” can potentially jumpstart a “virtuous circle, where one person’s generous behavior triggers another’s”.

That’s boomerang effect of giving gratitude. Plainly and simply, what you give comes back to you. Maybe not in the quantity or frequency you give it, but more gratefulness expressed will cause you to get back more. Further, telling others of your gratitude for them is it’s a gift you give yourself. Expressed regularly, thankfulness can change the world and your perception of it. Author Mary Angela wrote, If you were to stop and feel the thank you each time you gave it, you would be living in gratitude. True gratitude is spiritual and fills the heart with warmth and joy!

Genuine gratitude, given or received, accumulates over time and softens a hard heart and opens a closed one. I am living proof!

Live with intention.
Walk to the edge.
Listen hard.
Practice wellness.
Play with abandon.
Laugh.
Choose with no regret.
Appreciate your friends.
Do what you love.
Live as if this is all there is.
Mary Anne Radmacher

Improved Means to an Unimproved End

/ James Browning

Living in a country where I have been programmed to consume, it’s difficult not to indulge to or even past the point of what I can afford. Things have not always been so in this country. Somewhere in the last hundred years or so American culture went from pursuing our needs to one of chasing our wants. Hence, the concept of a “standard of living” came about which is made possible by all who want to sell stuff at a profit.

It is evident to me I don’t need most of what I have, but have been advertised into a little bit of insanity about raising my “standard of living”; having more stuff, newer stuff, better stuff or more expensive stuff. Like a hamster on a wheel I have gone round and round trying to satisfy an insatiable desire. There is nothing wrong with wanting, but what I do about those desires matters.

As one friend said to me years ago, “having lots of stuff is OK, as long as the stuff does not have you”. Having grown up poor it has been easy for me to grow emotionally connected to my stuff as I have succeeded and progressed professionally. Having “stuff” is part of my “other esteem” issue when things outside me sometimes get substituted for where my self-esteem should be. Just recognizing I do that and accepting it has been a healthy step.

Now days I sometimes finding myself feeling burdened by all the things I have. Moving out of the country for a year a while back I was amazed how much storage space was needed for my stuff. No storage unit was large enough. I had to rent a warehouse!

What I hang on to actually shapes my life to an extent. The stuff determines to a point how I spend my money, where I live, what I do and don’t do and even when I do it. Honestly there have been times when I yearned for the youthful days when everything I owned would fit in my car and the smallest Uhaul trailer I could rent. True or not, I recall feeling freer back then. Certainly youth contributed to that sense, but the lack of things/stuff/possessions/crap/junk, whatever you want to call them, had a lot to do with how I felt.

So what have I done recently? Completed a project of framing items collected for twenty plus years.  My holiday weekend project is to hang them in my home. More stuff to care for and maintain. Alas, my addiction continues, but not without some progress.

I am grateful to recognize my affliction and even understand it a little. Half of facing any issue is coming to realize it exists. There I have arrived and now the difficult work begins over time: making my load of stuff lighter. After all, everything I own will belong to someone else one day. One of the sorting mechanisms I have already discovered for deciding what to keep and not keep is asking myself “I wonder how much this will sell for at an estate/garage sale some day?”

Our inventions are wont to be pretty toys,
which distract our attention from serious things.
They are but improved means to an unimproved end.
Henry David Thoreau

Letting Go and Letting Life

/ James Browning

“If it is to be, it’s up to me” was my motto for a long time. However experience helped me to discover that simply letting go and letting life unfold is a key ingredient to a good life. Instead of trying to force every step I take into a self-fixed direction quite frequently the best course to take is to give up control. Some would label it intellectual blindness. Others could call it spiritual naiveté. There are those who might say I am childishly not being responsible. To them my response is, “you just don’t know yet what I know”.

For me it comes to this: When I don’t know what else to do, the ‘secret’ learned has been to simply let go; give it up; release controlling; and let things turn out as they naturally do.  Allowing the forces that exist in the universe and the power of something beyond me lend help when I am at wit’s end is one of the greatest pieces of wisdom garnered so far.

When I was learning to be a private pilot one of the more challenging parts was going through spin training. No matter how much my trusted instructor told me the aircraft would recover from a spin on its own if I would let go of the controls, it was impossible to do at first. Nothing he said could get me away from my instinctive feeling that the only way out of a frightening spin was doing it myself. Little by little I began believe my teacher when he talked ‘inherent stability”. He said ‘it’ was built into modern small airplanes and caused them to recover from a spin on their own as long as you were high enough when spinning begins.  It took MANY tries before he got me to let go my need to control. When I did, recovery worked just like he said. I let go of the controls and within less than two spins the aircraft always recovered. Things turned out far better WITHOUT my control!

It’s that place in our lives where what we’ve been hanging onto . . . clinging to for dear life . . . is stripped away. It’s that place in us where we let go of what we know, what we think we know, and what we want and surrender to the unknown. It is the place of saying and meaning, ‘I don’t know.’

It means standing there with our hands empty for a while, sometimes watching everything we wanted disappear; our self-image, our definition of who we thought we should be, the clones we’ve created of ourselves, the people we thought we had to have, the things we thought were so important to collect and surround ourselves with, the job we were certain was ours, the place we thought we’d live in all our lives. . .

Surrender control to the supreme wisdom… the Divine in your soul. Step into the void with courage. Learn to say, I don’t know. That’s not blind faith. It’s pure faith that will allow… your spirit to lead you wherever your soul wants and needs to go. (from Melody Beattie’s “Finding Your Way Home”)

When I know of nothing else do to and have tried all I know to try, letting go of control and the outcome always seems to allow things to turn out OK. At the very least resolution comes. Such occurrences are good lessons for my big ego that always tries to run everything.  It does not know it all like my ego tries to always convince me. I am grateful to know that with regularity things turn out best when I muster the strength to leave them alone.

All the art of living lies in a fine mingling of letting go and holding on.
Havelock Ellis