self-care

Tools of Their Tools

/ James Browning

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There’s never enough of the stuff you can’t get enough of.
Patrick H.T. Doyle

There is no memory when I first came across the website, but it became an addiction for a few weeks. Before you jump to a conclusion, let me tell you the site is an on-line auction of estate items in Southern Ohio. I’ve had “auction-fever” before but that was at a series of live antique auctions over a decade ago. Back then the realization arrived that buying for no particular reason except ‘I could’ was not healthy. It was easy then to think the necessary lesson had been well learned. In time that teaching feel dormant and needed waking up.

It was the feeling that I just had to win a particular auction that I noticed and jolted me back to reality of what was learned years earlier. I thought “you have too much stuff already and now you’re buying more. What’s up with that? You’re retiring soon. Shouldn’t you be a little more careful with your money?” The answer was an emphatic “YES”. At least the balance on my credit card stopped at about a thousand dollars!

Henry David Thoreau said “Men have become the tools of their tools…” I can relate. My symptom is similar.

…in affluent societies, where most have more than enough to live well, Thoreau would ask: ‘are the more pressing wants satisfied now?’ The suggestion is that, unlike the wise and prudent primitive societies, we are satisfying less pressing wants (for superfluous comforts, luxuries, and tools) and neglecting what are for us more genuinely pressing wants, such as a flourishing inner life. Thoreau claimed, ‘Most of the luxuries, and many of the so-called comforts of life, are not only not indispensable, but positive hindrances to the elevation of mankind… a man is rich in proportion to the number of things he can afford to let alone’. http://simplicitycollective.com/thoreau/thoreau-on-comforts-luxuries-and-tools

Redemption for my buying spree was the realization that items purchased could be redirected as gifts to friends and family for future birthdays, anniversaries and holidays. Once I decided many of the items and some I already had could be a gift appreciated by loved ones I began to feel better.

All my life I’ve been told I am too hard on myself and I have come to see that is frequently true. The difference now is I don’t beat myself up (as much). Instead when the self-examination begins I start to ask “where is this coming from” and “what can I learn from it”. Answering those questions softens my self-adminstered treatment.

The days are filled with many opportunities to educate myself about how to live a more fulfilled life. While I miss more than I grasp, an awareness of how frequently the chances to learn come is helping me grab onto an ever-increasing share of them. I am grateful for every opportunity to be a better person in my own eyes.

Wealth is not an absolute. It is relative to desire.
Every time we yearn for something we cannot afford,
we grow poorer, whatever our resources.
And every time we feel satisfied with what we have,
we can be counted as rich, however little we may actually possess.
Alain de Botton

To Love Life

/ James Browning

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Self-knowledge has no beginning and no end.
It is a constant process of discovery,
and what is discovered is true,
and truth is liberating…
Jiddu Krishnamurti

Once I became open to discovering the truth about who I was and how life really worked I became happier. That happened NOT because I was always pleased with what was found, but because what I discovered was the truth. There can be no happiness without self-honesty and a genuine acceptance of reality. Now I am grateful to have some knowledge about both.

…to love life, to love it even
when you have no stomach for it
and everything you’ve held dear
crumbles like burnt paper in your hands,
your throat filled with the silt of it.
When grief sits with you, its tropical heat
thickening the air, heavy as water
more fit for gills than lungs;
when grief weights you like your own flesh
only more of it, an obesity of grief,
you think, How can a body withstand this?
Then you hold life like a face
between your palms, a plain face,
no charming smile, no violet eyes,
and you say, yes, I will take you
I will love you, again…
Ellen Bass

The Hungry Ghost

/ James Browning

7698002802_b7995efa67_zA hand clenched leaves no space for anything else. That thought has been taught to me repeatedly until it became accepted fact. When I rebel against life and grab on, wanting it to stay the way it is, nothing is accomplished except the narrowing of my life experience.

Over indulgence in wanting, wishing and hoping moves me either into future tripping or on a tour of the past. Nothing alive is to be found in either. This moment, who I am now and what I have currently is where living is found. Stated many times, I will always continue to express such thinking for it brings me back to the “now”.

When we’re in a state of wanting mind, we’re never satisfied, no matter what we have. If we attain the object of our longing, we simply replace the old desire with a new one. If we achieve revenge, we feel worse than we did before. The problem is that wanting mind is rooted in the incorrect belief that something outside of ourselves is the key to lasting happiness so we look there for the solution. The reality is that no emotion or state of being, however strong, is permanent and that happiness can’t be found outside of ourselves only within. Buddhists call this phenomenon of endless wanting and dissatisfaction the “hungry ghost. Ronald Alexander, Ph.D.

It is a uniquely human condition to desire. It caused the creation of civilization itself, brought a need to express in art and writing and started most any worthwhile endeavor. Want precedes doing. Longing comes before finding. Aspiration foreruns accomplishment. Feeling nourished follows craving. Happiness i soften recognized by a yearning sated. Flourishing is always a product of making peace with struggle and difficulty.

Sometimes we must confront painful options or make difficult choices. On occasion, flourishing is playing the hand we are dealt as well as we can, given imperfect and even undesirable circumstances such as family crises or financial distress, job loss or illness – the new reality for increasing numbers of people. Flourishing is different from happiness and it doesn’t always feel good. Many of our most painful experiences – unrequited love, loss of a beloved relative, professional failure – clarify our values, sharpen our determination and deepen our compassion. Jeffrey B. Rubin

Gone is the belief that being joyful and cheerful should fill me all the time. Can you believe I once thought that was possible?!?! Accepting the trials, challenges, heartaches and uncertainties are always predictable parts of life has been a huge step. And I don’t mean the usual acknowledgement of issues I used to make (as almost every one does). It is in seeing the greatest hurts and difficulties as teachers of cherished wisdom that I began to find contentment.

Being happy and flourishing is a state of contentment, even if what is happening is not what I want or would choose. Throwing off unhappiness and accepting all of life as one package has turned being alive into an exceptionally enjoyable adventure.

Unhappiness is a dangerous thing,
like carbon monoxide.
You don’t smell it,
you don’t taste it,
it’s formless and colourless,
but it poisons slowly.
It seeps into every pore
of your skin until one day
your heart just stops beating.
Bella Pollen

The Flower of Life

/ James Browning

Tibetan%20Yin%20Yang%20MandalaFor most of my life if a friend drifted away I felt what we shared was completely lost. Once in a while we’d get hooked up again at some point, but most often not. Then there were the romantic relationships frequently referred to as “not working out” even though for a time they may have worked well. That was then. My perspective is different now.

Love of any kind is never truly lost. It may end, fizzle out or be damaged beyond repair, but what came before never dies. Whether shared with a friend, lover or family member, whatever good existed will always survive. The fact that love once was, will always be a fact.

No matter how much heartache and pain may have followed, love is never wasted. It’s a gift one always get to keep. It’s important for me not to bundle what was positive then turned negative, into a completely terrible memory. I believe the ability to separate good from bad and appreciate both individually for what they were is a sign of maturity.

…”falling in love” is largely unconscious and by its very nature involves a considerable amount of idealization and projection. When we fall in love, we look upon the object of our desire as someone who will complete us or provide what we imagine we have always wanted or needed. For that reason… idealization always leads to disillusionment because another person cannot be a product of your imagination; he or she is always a separate, real person.

Coming to know and accept an other for who they really are is the practice of true love: becoming knowledgeable, witnessing, holding in mind, and repeatedly turning to the beloved with interest and willingness to enter into and resolve conflict, these are the components of true love. Often, love begins with a strong emotional attachment—a magnetic attraction, a “falling in love”—but not always. It can also begin in friendship. Over time, you feel fascinated that you can be close and trusting and different, all at the same time. This is the nature of love: the beloved is both mysterious (fascinating) and familiar (comfortable); we begin to see the world through someone else’s eyes. By Polly Young-Eisendrath, Ph.D. http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/living-love/201111/over-60-and-looking-love-why-not

Inside me there used to be a driving need not to be alone, especially in a romantic sense. In due course no matter how many friends or how deeply ‘in-love’ I felt to be, my discovery was I am always alone. Sharing my life and others with me does not change that fact. Accepting this was a doorway to greater understanding.

Bearing witness  to one another’s existence makes people feel less alone and therein lies a component of the magic of love. Love does not change the world so much as it changes how one views it. I am grateful for the love of friends, family and lovers, past and present, I got to keep which molded me to be the person I am today. Love is NEVER wasted.

Love is the flower of life,
and blossoms unexpectedly and without law,
and must be plucked where it is found,
and enjoyed for the brief hour of its duration.
D.H. Lawrence

The Song Still In Them

/ James Browning

Gratitude11“Make believe and fantasy only find truth
in an imaginative heart and an open mind.”

Often I save scraps of unfinished thoughts for future inspiration. Frequently they end up forgotten taking up space on my hard drive. While looking through a file of remnants this morning I came across the fifteen words above. What seemed incomplete when saved appears now a surprisingly finished and meaningful thought. Maybe time was needed to forget the original context the concept came from so I could forget enough to see the notion’s broader meaning.

A discovery of the last couple of years is how important daydreaming is. The habit to intellectually sneer at thoughts conjured within fantasizing is not gone. Such rational disbelief is taught and engrained in us all. We’re told “be realistic”, “you’re dreaming”, “get in the real world” and such. Today it is my open acceptance that anything beyond who I presently am, what I know and have already accomplished resides in the dominion of wishing and dreaming. Those realms are not found in the “real world” so often we’re reminded to live within.

For “make believe and fantasy” to find any rational meaning and have a chance of coming true they must come to an “imaginative heart and an open mind”. That’s the way many great insights or discoveries came to be. From trying an approach someone was almost completely convinced could not work was a break through made.

There is no doubt the world has millions of ‘dreams’ kept secret or given only lip service. Making aspirations, grand or more humble, come true takes effort and toil that only imagination can make bearable. There lives the blindness to logic that is so often the robber of our “castles in the sky”.

One of my mentors in absence has been Henry David Thoreau who wrote, “Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them.” That shall not be me! The longer I live the more prolific my hopes and dreams become and the more committed I am to pursuing them. No longer do I fear failure that much, for it matters very little.

My most meaningful reward is not accomplishment, but within pursuit of my fantasies and daydreams. To know I tried; to know I went for it will have me more apt on my deathbed to say “I had a good life. I lived well” instead of being filled with regret and “shoulda, coulda”. What an amazing piece of wisdom to have resonating with me. From whatever source it came, I am humbly grateful.

If there were ever a time to dare,
To make a difference
To embark on something worth doing
It is now.
Not for any grand cause, necessarily –
But for something that tugs at your heart
Something that is worth your aspiration
Something that is your dream.
You owe it to yourself
To make your days count.
There is only one you
And you will pass this way but once.
From the poem “Dream Big” – Author Unknown

Today is Your Day!

/ James Browning

Dr Suess 2

” Life” by Susan Polis Schutz

dreams can come true
if you take the time to
think about what you want in life

get to know yourself
find out who you are
choose your goals carefully

be honest with yourself
always believe in yourself

find many interests and pursue them
find out what is important to you
find out what you are good at

don`t be afraid to make mistakes
work hard to achieve successes
when things are not going right
don`t give up – just try harder
give yourself freedom to try out new things
laugh and have a good time

open yourself up to love
take part in the beauty of nature
be appreciative of all that you have
help those less fortunate than you
work towards peace in the world

live life to the fullest
create your own dreams and
follow them until they are a reality

Grateful for life is how I woke up this morning. I am thankful for this day and especially that it’s Friday. The weekend will be filled with lots of time with people I care about. Being healthy, having a life rich in possibility, appreciation, loved ones, peace of mind and direction, I am indeed a very wealthy man.

Congratulations!
Today is your day!
You’re off to great places!
You’re off and away!
You have brains in your head.
You have feet in your shoes.
You can steer yourself
any direction you choose.
oh the places you will go
Dr. Seuss

Back In Love With Life

/ James Browning

his quest

The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious.
It is the source of all true art and science.
He to whom the emotion is a stranger,
who can no longer pause to wonder and stand wrapped in awe,
is as good as dead —his eyes are closed.
To know what is impenetrable to us really exists,
manifesting itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty,
which our dull faculties can comprehend
only in their most primitive forms—this knowledge,
this feeling is at the center of true religiousness.
Albert Einstein

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Mystery appears new again to me. My list of future possibilities grows ever larger much like how a very small child perceives life. I have rediscovered awe, wonderment and a sense of miracles. Through a slow awakening I have fallen back in love with life much like when I was very young, but better and now seemingly more possible.

For a long time my adult life consisted of a continually shorter and shorter list of potential and promise. In reality that was only my perception, not what was really truth. And there in lies the key and one of my more profound realizations about being alive: my quality of living has mostly to do with my perceptions about it. Simple, but magnificent in its magnitude. I am grateful for the weighty insight eluded me until I was ready for it.

What is given to you is what is needed;
what you want, requires giving up what you don’t need.
George Alexiou

The Perceiver’s Vantage Point

/ James Browning

tumblr_m3wbh9fPRD1qzjwnko1_500Being solitary is being alone well:
being alone luxuriously immersed in doings of your own choice,
aware of the fullness of your own presence
rather than of the absence of others.
Because solitude is an achievement.
Alice Koller

For a long time the beliefs I carried made Alice Koller’s statement impossible for me to grasp and appreciate. Knowing people who were alone used to bring thoughts tinted with pity, suspicion and sympathy. I was compassionate, but looked at such people as not being whole. Surely there must be something wrong with them. In other words, something would be wrong with me if I was alone.

The glass that life is viewed though is only the perceiver’s vantage point. It can feel true and be far from it. I did not realize my fear of being along drove me from one relationship to another. I honestly thought I was normal and feeling incomplete without a woman in my life was typical for every man. Without any rational examples in childhood of what love between a man and woman was supposed to look like, I ended up believing it meant ‘to be with someone’.

So many people are terrified of their own company. The thought of being at home, by themselves, with nobody to talk to, is debilitating for them. So they do everything possible to avoid just that; they create an overactive social life so that they are always with friends, or they become workaholics so they can drown themselves in their jobs, or sadly many even become alcoholics; but all with the same goal: to avoid the pain and darkness that they feel by being alone.  http://jeanniepage.com/2011/04/09/the-art-of-being-alone/

My phobia of being alone is not unique to me. Many carry the burden with a fear greater than heights, snakes or even death. My irrational fear was based on the belief that being “alone” was like an illness or some other unfortunate condition that happened and had to be cured. It was a great sense of failing; a sort of emptiness when a romantic partner (or several) was not in my day-to-day life.

The shape of my thinking today about being alone is quite different. Not only do I not fear aloneness as I once did, I actually enjoy it a good bit of the time. And that amount seems to be growing as who I wish to be and who I am become more parallel.

The pain in loneliness comes from all that surrounds it, not the act itself. And when you spend enough quality time alone, you realize that it is indeed nothing to fear. You realize that you, by yourself, are happy and are confirmed in life and worth by everything around you. Chelsea Fagen http://thoughtcatalog.com/2013/the-best-part-of-being-alone/

I don’t love being alone all of the time but find the peace in it more and more. Aloneness is not for the faint of heart for it will twist and wring a person at any point in their psyche where one feels ‘less-than’. Being solitary forced me to wrestle  a long list of inadequacies. The attacks of loneliness I felt were actually those things assaulting me when I was not distracted by a relationship. Being alone was damned hard and the first two years by my-self felt like they were going to kill me sometimes. But I survived and am so much better for it. Will I always be alone? I don’t know and hope not. However, today I am grateful to know alone or not is a choice I can make and not a perceived lack I have to fill.

I don’t want to be alone,
I want to be left alone.
Audrey Hepburn

The Truth About Yourself

/ James Browning

Psy“Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves” is the 4th step used in anonymous recovery groups for compulsions that range from alcohol, narcotics and gambling to overeating, workaholic behavior and the recovery group I am active in, Codependence Anonymous.

The first time I encountered the words “searching and fearless moral inventory” they spooked me (more than that… they scared the crap out of me!). The fear was of the unknown for so much of my past behavior was buried so deep within me I was not even sure what all was there. I felt deeply ashamed, but was uncertain exactly why.

The majority of people never get involved in a 12 step recovery group, but EVERYONE could benefit from doing a 4th step (Inventory) and the following 5th step that boils down to Admitted …the exact nature of our wrongs.

Going through the inventory and admission process then beginning to let go of the regret we poison our self with is one of the best self-care efforts that can be made. Yet, most don’t do it for the very reason I didn’t for decades: fear and not wanting to face the truth. My personal experience was I had previously made a mountain out of a molehill. Yes, inventory and admission was difficult for me but far, far easier than I had imagined. The good I got from the process was and continues to be life changing.

Many newcomers to the Steps feel dismayed when they first see this (5th) Step. It’s bad enough, they think, that the 4th Step requires them to beat themselves up for all the bad things they’ve done . . . but now the 5th Step says they must shame themselves before someone else so he can beat them up, too! How can I do that? they ask. What purpose could such torture possibly serve?

Such doubt and dismay are understandable, even reasonable, given such mistaken ideas about the nature of the Steps. It’s important to understand that the 5th Step is not about wallowing in guilt and shame over our past behavior. Instead, it is a practical and effective means of reconciling ourselves with the past and finally putting guilt and shame behind us where it belongs. It’s also a critical step toward restoring our battered sense of honor and self-respect.

We will never really be at peace with ourselves until we are completely, whole-heartedly okay with who we are-and that includes being okay with who we were and what we have done in the past.

Only by revealing who we really are can we become the same person on the outside as we are on the inside. http://serenityweb.com/?page_id=70

From my vantage point there are two ways of getting to the process outlined in the 4th and 5th step of recovery: 1) great need and courage or 2) great pain that allows us to do nothing else. Most people, including me, take the plunge for the second reason that is outlined well in the quote “When the pain to stay the same exceeds the pain to change, we change”.

Today I think of each of the 12 steps kind of like having a cavity in a tooth filled. Until I do, what is wrong with me will continue to get worse and worse, hurting more and more as time goes on. While getting a filling is not my idea of fun, it’s not that bad either. Same is true for the steps. Not painless, but far less so than I originally though. Getting to feel better about life and myself makes it worthwhile just like a trip to the dentist is.

My gratitude today is for all the goodness and positive growth that has come my way since getting into Codependence Anonymous ( http://coda.org/ ) six years ago. Saying it has been “life changing” is vastly inadequate to describe the personal renaissance and growth that has come. To CoDA and my brothers and sisters in recovery I say thank you with a humble mind and grateful heart.

If you do not tell the truth about yourself
you cannot tell it about other people.
Virginia Woolf

Path To Gratitude

/ James Browning

There are many pathways to being more grateful, to be happier and to improve one’s outlook on life. Here are a few from the ongoing dialogue I have with myself.

GMG image for 4 22 2013 copy

Growing gratitude has been a game changer. Gratefulness fosters the growth of additional thankfulness; makes me stronger and more resilient; more patient and understanding; helps me love with an open heart; brings added belief in myself and enhances every step I make on the path of my life, even the painful and difficult. Making gratitude a way of life does not change things quickly, but over time the difference has been remarkable.

The way you treat yourself
sets the standard for others.
Sonya Friedman

I would be grateful if you’d forward to a few friends
an installment of G.M.G. you find meaningful and help set a record
for readership for GoodMorningGratitude.com’s second birthday on April 25, 2013.
Thank you.