Morning Reflection: Learning to live in silence

Learning to live in silence.

We live in a world of distractions. Through technology we have miniaturized the mechanisms of media, creating a constant cacophony of devious distractions that threaten to insulate us in our own solitary of sound and sequences.

Isolated and individual, we have made for ourselves a world entirely of our own desires, yet we are dependent upon a never ending source of input to balance the screaming that we hear from deep inside the maelstrom of our minds.

For we do not take time to rest in silence.

When was the last time that you sat in the silence of your mind, listening to the deepest desires of your soul? For most people, it’s so long ago that they cannot remember what the voice of their intuition sounds like, nor are they aware of the wants and needs of their heart. They go from day to day, distracted, avoidant and determinedly unaware.

Because the voices they hear within are discordant, disorganized and distressing.

We don’t take the time anymore to really ponder, and think slowly and clearly about our problems, our desires and our destinies. In the midst of the ever increasing pace of life, we have grown accustomed to seeking that which others have told us will make us happy, without ever deciding to find out what really works for ourselves.

In our rush to be ‘enough’ we have forgotten how to be ourselves, which is where silence comes in.

In the quiet moments, and especially in moments of meditation, we can begin to uncover and integrate the many parts of our fractured souls that are desperately desiring a return to the whole. 

Yet for many, the silence is uncomfortable, and even painful, as the many wounds that we have sought to suppress are brought to the surface in a painful and disheartening symphony of suffering.

And so we avoid through distraction, hoping to forever outrun the darkness deep in our souls.

But it doesn’t work, it never does. No matter how far or how fast you run, eventually you are going to have to do what you were always going to have to do. Someway, somehow, you have to learn to live in silence with yourself, being able to calm the troubles of your soul, encompassing them with understanding, kindness, forgiveness and peace.

It’s never easy, but without learning to live with yourself, you’ll never become the person you could really be.

So today I challenge you to take a few minutes out of your day, and experience nothing external, and everything internal. Try to silence your mind, and listen to the thoughts and feelings you cannot suppress nor avoid. 

For those are the signposts of your soul, directing you onwards to the peace that could be yours, if only you will do the work to calm your spirit and embrace your soul.

Peace is waiting for you in the silence. Will you join it?

— Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings

Morning Reflection: The Reason You Dance with Your Demons

The Reason You Dance with Your Demons.

We’re a strange species, humans. So much of who we are and what we do is idiosyncratic, inexplicable, indefinable. I’ve never met anyone who didn’t do at least one thing that was self defeating, self sabotaging or just plain self harming. You’d think with all of our vaunted intelligence and awareness we’d have stopped all of that by now.

But we haven’t, and we probably won’t anytime soon.

Because all of us have our demons, and we persist in allowing them to control parts of our existence because we get something out of it. Anytime I am confronted by somebody acting in a way that makes no sense, I step back and force myself to ask one simple but very powerful question…

Why are they doing this?

And there is always, always an answer. The more anomalous the behavior, the more twisted the reasoning, but even crazy people have their reasons, even though they don’t make sense to those of us who aren’t sampling their particular flavor of reality. 

For most of us, those answers are often hidden under years of trauma and emotional avoidance as we have battled to forget the things that gave us the demons in the first place.

But our demons bring us gifts, which is why we let them stay with us.

Maybe your demon is a fear that you are always letting people down, when you aren’t. We’ll call it the demon of ‘over-responsibility’. It probably came from a parental figure who you couldn’t make happy. 

That demon robs you of a sense of fulfillment and peace, but you keep it around because you believe its lies that you can one day be enough if you just get everything right for everyone, and the idea of that feels good to you.

Or maybe it’s the demon that constantly reminds you that you can’t be selfish, or have a life of your own, so you forever look for opportunities to give away more than you can afford. 

Somehow the demon has lied you into a belief that one day you will be ‘perfect’ and ‘holy’ if you give away more than you can do without, and you sadly take a sense of self esteem in your ‘generosity’, when really it’s a pathology that robs you of the things which you have earned.

Or maybe your demon convinces you that your father’s emotional absence was due to your unworthiness, and so you believe the demon’s lies and constantly berate yourself over everything. 

This you do because it helps you to avoid the unpleasant truth that you try to avoid, that your father will never be there for you in the way that you want, and you are never going to feel his acceptance.

Our demons lie in our feelings, and display their dominance in our dedication to their falsehoods.

So if you want to exorcise your demons, you have to start by understanding what it is that their presence in your life brings to you. Because no matter who you are, or what your demon makes you do, there’s a little part of you that allows it to be here because it gives you something.

And once you understand what that is, you can begin to let go of the demon’s hand.

And dance your own dance, and not theirs.

— Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings

Morning Reflection: You repeat what you don’t heal

You repeat what you don’t heal.

We all suffer trauma of one kind or another as a child. Sometimes it’s physical, which is easier to see and treat, but usually it’s emotional, which is invisible to the untrained eye, and more often than not completely unrecognized by the person who suffered it. 

I can’t tell you the number of times I have explained to someone in a coaching session how the trauma that they suffered years ago still controls their actions. At first they usually don’t believe me, but soon enough they’ll utter some phrase of exclamation as they realize that I’m right.

I don’t say that to build myself up, I tell you that because the chances are that we could have the very same conversation.

Because we all struggle to understand how the negative things we experienced earlier in our lives affect us today. In the last 12 hours alone I’ve had two coaching sessions where I’ve had to point out how people are enacting their trauma in a way that is hurting themselves or others. In both cases the person was initially resistant to the concept, but slowly began to see the reality of the pain they were living.

None of us is immune, especially not me.

In the spirit of being honest, I will share that there are things about my life as child that I absolutely hated. I have tried so hard to avoid inflicting those things on my children, and to a significant degree I have been successful, but one thing found its way through.

And now I have to live with the regret of knowing that my children have not been able to avoid everything that hurt me, and that in one way it hurt them.

Because one of my children has grown up feeling like we were financially inferior to those around us.

That may not sound like much, but for me, growing up where and how I did, it was an incredible source of pain and shame. I don’t believe it has been so painful for my son, because there are other things that have at least been good for him that have made the pain of his feelings less, but I still live with the regret of knowing that happened.

And regret is a poison that has very few antidotes.

Which is why I am so passionate an advocate for self awareness, and healing. In my 30+ year journey to understand myself, I have had to reach not just an understanding of, but as far as is possible, a peace with the traumas that have left their scars across my soul. 

I have tried not to repeat them, but instead learn from them and help others in their own journey. I am grateful for those who have trusted me with their realities and their heartaches.

And so I implore you to begin trying to understand who you are, and why you do what you do. Because I’m confident that somewhere in your life is a belief, or a pattern, or a behavior, that is not serving you, and is only there because of something that scarred your soul way back when. 

If you are unaware of it, you will struggle forever against it, but if you become aware of it, understand it, and grow beyond it, you can discover how to change beyond your wildest dreams.

May nothing hold you back, and may you reach the pinnacle of all of your potential.

Thank you for being a part of this journey with me. I really appreciate you.

— Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings

Morning Reflection: “Teach me to let go”

“Teach me to let go”.

How do you reply to that? How do you help someone in the midst of a crisis, who is hurting so badly through no fault of their own, and who has reached out to you for help? 

What words can quiet the soul that is weeping from the totality of pain and suffering that has descended upon it, and how do you light a spark of hope where right now there seems to be only darkness?

Today’s post is an attempt to answer that. 

Because all of us hold on to things that we should have let go of a long time ago. Maybe it’s a relationship that drains us, or a belief that demeans us, or a desire that slowly destroys us. 

Whatever we can’t let go of, it’s because holding onto something that is hurting us is a sign that we are trying to fill a need deep inside of us that is in crisis.

And until you heal the need, you’ll keep reaching out to hold onto that which you really should let go of.

But healing the need is difficult, because rarely do we use language to explain our needs, we just feel them. I’ve written before about how our feelings (generated by our needs) are found in our non-verbal limbic system, but in order to understand the need we have to drag it out of the darkness and into the light of language, so that we may apply reason, and knowledge, and wisdom. 

But putting words to the pain tears us asunder, creating more grief, more pain, more despair.

Until we make peace with it. 

The really hard part to understand is that there is nothing real (physical/corporeal) that is holding you back from moving into a place of peace. Everything that is stopping you from moving forward is coming from deep inside your mind, patterned in thoughts and feelings, but never in something that can’t be changed.

But in order to change it, you have to go through it, rather than avoiding it.

We spend so much emotional energy trying to avoid pain that we prolong the agony we were always going to end up feeling (and usually it’s less painful than we think it is going to be). 

If we had just chosen to accept the pain, and move through it, we could have saved ourselves so much distress and heartache. Please understand, I’m not saying this is easy, because I know it isn’t. Accepting the pain so that we can heal it is one of the hardest things we can ever learn. 

But once you learn it, you’ll carry with you a strength you can only begin to imagine.

To first learn to let go, ask yourself these simple, but oh so difficult questions…

What do I have to give up if I let go of this?

Why is that so painful for me? What need is being threatened?

What can I change to fulfill the need in some other way?

I promise you that the way to peace is found through a deep understanding of yourself, and a willingness to work through the pain that you carry with you. Cleaning out emotional wounds is a difficult and painful process, that takes time, guidance and compassion.

But once you heal, you can let go of everything that hurts you, and become who you were always going to be.

— Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings

Morning Reflection: The Little I Have To Give

The Little I Have To Give.

Do you ever have those days where you feel like you have little or nothing to give? 

I get it a lot. Whether it’s trying to work out what message to share through this work, to trying to help patients in my practice, to being an uncle and brother-in-law, to being a husband, a father, a friend.

Some days, it just feels like whatever I have to offer is so small in comparison to the problems, that I struggle to give anything at all.

Which is precisely the wrong thing to do.

About two years ago I was going through a very difficult time. I had recently, rather suddenly, gone into practice for myself, and I was struggling so hard to get everything together and make it work. 

I felt like I was drowning, and most days I awoke with a terrible nausea and feeling that I just wanted to sit in a corner and weep. This wasn’t how I anticipated my life turning out, and the pressure I felt was enormous. 

That challenge was (and still is) pushing all of my weakness buttons, and as hard as I fought to try and make it work, I constantly felt like I was on the precipice, ready to fall at any time.

And all of my support seemed to have left me.

I’m not blaming them, I know everyone has their own lives and struggles, but sometimes just even knowing that someone cared, that someone was aware of what I was going through, would have made a huge difference. 

I try to reach out to people a lot, because you never know when will be the moment that someone desperately needs that connection to remind them that somebody cares.

Just to know that someone is thinking of you can sometimes be the difference between hope and despair.

I know that, because it happened to me one morning two years ago. On my way to the office, to see a handful of patients, I received a text from a patient at the practice I had recently left. I always knew this patient was an outstanding human being, but this text was so perfect for me that it moved me to tears.

He told me that he had been thinking of me, and hoped that everything was going well, and to remind me that things were going to be bumpy, but that I had this.

The text was less than 4 lines long, but on that difficult, cold, scary morning where I felt like the world was collapsing in on me, those words meant more to me than I could ever have imagined. It helped me realize that there were people who cared, and who believed I could achieve what I was so doubtful of. 

Most of all, it helped me reset my perspective that what I was doing was something hard, and that trials and falls I was experiencing was the nature of what I was doing, not a reflection on me.

A simple text, just someone reaching out, made the world seem kinder, and gave me hope.

I’m sure that the person who reached out didn’t have any idea just how much that text meant to me, he just gave support where he could, how he could, and when he could. His example to me has in turn helped others, as I have tried to reach out and help in any way that I can.

We may not be able to solve everyone’s problems, but just by giving what little we can, by doing whatever small thing we can, it’s possible that we can change the outcome of one day, and by doing, change the outcome of one life.

And each life is precious, and deserving of our help.

— Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings

Morning Reflection: The Language of Limbic

The Language of Limbic.

What are you feeling right now? Please understand that I’m not asking ‘how’ you feel right now, because that’s just an amalgamation of everything that you are feeling. No, I’m asking you to break down what you feel into its component emotions, so that you can try to understand what’s running in the background of your mind. 

It’s kind of a difficult concept to manage but once you get used to it, you can find all sorts of thing happening deep in your soul.

Should I go first?

Right now, I’m running a combination of fear, frustration, determination, hope and a sense of shame. Let me go a little further, so you can see how this all fits together. 

The shame comes from the feeling that I have failed so far in the pursuit of who I think I can be. 

The fear is that I will never achieve what I want to achieve, and the frustration comes because I believe I have the capability to do what I want, yet I have not been able to find the way to manifest it. 

The determination comes from the strengths I have gained in my struggle thus far in life, and the hope is that I can make it all work somehow.

So why is this important? Because when I identify and acknowledge the background language of my mind, I can understand how it affects me.

The Limbic system is the part of our brain that works not in language, but in feelings. Although the higher parts of our brain construct our reality in language, the Limbic system is deeper, darker, and can exert a level of control on our actions that is so subtle that we totally miss it unless we pay close attention.

Because these underlying emotions that are prevalent in my mind can color everything in my life that I experience, if I let them. 

Left uncorrected, they can destroy my relationships, sabotage my business, undermine my confidence and defeat my best efforts before I even get started.

So in order to control them, I first have to speak their language, the language of Limbic.

That way, when my brain starts telling me that I am not good enough, I can understand that my Limbic system is speaking a language of shame. When it tells me I can’t do something, or that my attempt will end in failure, I can understand that my Limbic system is speaking a language of fear. 

When I get caught in the loop of an internal dialogue that shows me my capacities and the imbalance of my achievements, I can understand that my Limbic system is expressing frustration.

And when I understand it, I can talk myself out of it.

I don’t want you to think it’s easy, because it’s not. The Limbic language is pervasive, pernicious and relentless. 

But I can tell you from personal experience that you can teach your Limbic system a different language over time, one that uplifts you, encourages you and empowers you.

Then the shadows flee from your soul, and a new you can appear.

— Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings

Morning Reflection: How does this affect you?

How does this affect you?

Do you have something that just really annoys you? I bet you do. We all have things that just go right to the heart of us and provoke an immediate response that is, as my kids have been taught to say “not a proportional response”. Or, in other words, it just causes you to feel way more annoyed than you really need to be.

Come on, be truthful now, you know you do. :)

Have you ever stopped to ask yourself what’s really going on though? Because somewhere deep under your initial response is a reaction to a sense of violation. 

Maybe you feel like your ‘rights’ are being affected, or maybe it’s the direction of your country, or maybe it’s that someone you don’t even know might suffer as a result of the actions or words of someone you don’t even know!

You see where I’m going with this?

I’ve seen people get annoyed over the funniest things. Not enough fries with their meal, or too many onions. Maybe it’s that someone who shows up late to everything, when really that person’s attendance really doesn’t affect you at all, but just their lackadaisical attitude just offends your sense of wright (spelling deliberately incorrect) and wrong in the world. 

Or maybe it’s just that you like things the way they are, and you don’t like change.

Or maybe you’re just not being truthful with yourself.
Because if something provokes you greater than it really should, the chances are that you are reacting to something disconnected from the current event, but not yet laid to rest in your soul. 

I’m talking about a past trauma or experience where something wasn’t right, and you’ve been secretly carrying that ever since, waiting for the moment where you could bring it back to the surface and feel outraged and angry all over again.

And your previous feelings are riding piggyback over your current ones, looking for a way to get out.

That’s why it’s so important to learn to find peace within ourselves. Have you ever met that person who is perpetually angry with the world, or always ready to put themselves down? 

They’re just suffering from intense emotions that are finding their way out any which way they can. If you think it’s exhausting to be around them, just forget yourself for a moment, and imagine what it’s like to be them.

For some people, being themselves is their own version of the special hell.

So the next time you find yourself over-reacting, take a step back, and try to understand what is really going on in your heart and mind, and see if you answer the question I started today’s piece with. 

Once you practice this, you’ll find within you a new serenity as you react less, and act more. Then you’ll start to wonder about everybody around you…

And then the fun really begins. :)

— Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings

Morning Reflection: The Experience of You

The Experience of You.

Many years ago, I was ‘dumped’ by a young woman who I was very much ‘in love’ with. We had discussed possibly getting married, and although we never made anything official, we were of the age where things could have gone that way very easily. 

When I finally came to the understanding that she was seeing someone else, I was devastated, and for some time after that she still plagued my thoughts and feelings.

And it didn’t have to be that way at all.

Because I was still very much ‘in the experience’ of life, rather than understanding that life was an experience that was happening to me. If that sounds difficult to understand, let me try to explain it in a way that might make sense.

Because this is a huge principle that you need to understand in order to move forward.

There were two things happening at that moment that were not absolutely linked. One was the experience of ‘being dumped’, and the other was the meaning I was taking from ‘the experience of being dumped’. 

The two are very different, yet for most people, these are intertwined events that are inseparable until they have had a little practice in the art of ‘non-identifying’.

Which, put very simply, is the art of accepting the experience without accepting any definition of you.

Because I was as yet unaware that the two could be separated, I took the breakup very hard, accepting without question the meaning that her breaking up with me was a sign of ‘my lack of value, or acceptability’. 

Of course, no-one likes to have their dreams of a perfect future wrecked, but because I was identifying through the events that were occurring, the breakup was significantly more intense than it had to be.

Had I not identified through the breakup, then the experience would have happened to me, but not been ‘about me’.

I know it sounds like a semantic difference, but it’s really not. I can tell you that I was identifying through the break up because at the time I entered into the relationship with the her I had a poorly defined sense of self, and even less of a concept of self worth. 

I was identifying through the relationship because it helped me feel good about myself, and that made it all the worse for me when it didn’t work out.

The less I ‘need’ something from an experience, the easier it is for me not to identify with it.

And that’s really the key of living peacefully… to have made peace with your soul and to live life without ‘needing’ to take anything from the experience, knowing that you are enough without anything happening to you or because of you. 

When you reach that moment, you’ll realize that everything that happens to you is not a definition of your value, but an experience to be en’joy’ed.

And then you will find peace beyond your deepest understanding.

— Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings

Morning Reflection: Universe

Universe.

I hope at least once in your life, you have been able to get away from the noise and chaos of the city, and find yourself out in the middle of nowhere as the sun sets, and the night awakens. 

If you were, I hope you were able to look upwards and experience an overwhelming sense of wonder at the indescribable majesty of the stars in the sky.

And realized that what you can see is nothing.

The size of the universe is beyond our comprehension. There’s just no way for us to experience the depth and scope of the realm in which we live in a way that does it justice. 

We can speak in distances, in years of light travel, in numbers of planets, moons, stars and nebulae. It doesn’t matter how we try, there’s never going to be a way for us to explain it to ourselves. We are the inhabitants of the infinite.

And the infinite defies a perception in our imagination.

Yet if we change our perspective, and focus inwards, we find that we are giants beyond understanding. The further you focus down, into the sub atomic and the quantum realms, you realize that we are immense and eternal. 

The closer we stare into the heart of matter and life, we find that we understand less and less of what makes us ‘real’.

Whatever being ‘real’ means.

To an atom, we are the universe, while to our universe, we are smaller than an atom. We stand in the middle of two possibilities that we are unable to imagine, and we find ourselves lost as we try to fathom our place between two realities that defy our basic comprehension. 

It’s easy to feel out of place, when you don’t know where that place really is.

Yet we don’t need to understand the universe or the atomic realm to marvel at their beauty and complexity. One look into the heavens on a starry night is enough to fill your soul with wonder and delight, while one look deep into the heart of matter is sufficient to instill within you a deep sense of gratitude for the blessing of existence, and the miracle of awareness that we share.

Our very being makes no sense, and yet it makes every sense in the world.

So the next time you find yourself feeling lost and overwhelmed, please understand that that’s ok. We don’t really know where we are, and it’s hard to discover when we are. The universe doesn’t give us direction, or answers. Those are for us to find, and to discover the questions behind them.

Just take a breath, and realize that you are you, you are here, and you are now.

That’s all that you can know for sure, and even that is up for debate :)

— Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings

Morning Reflection: The First Day

The First Day.

However our world came to be, I hope we can all agree that it’s amazing. Sometimes I like to imagine that I was there at the very first morning when everything was working properly. 

When all of the component pieces had come together in a singularity of beauty, and for one shining moment there was a quiet, calm sense of perfection.

Can you imagine how that must have been?

To see all the trees in their splendor, full of green leaves and standing tall. To see mountains in their eternal glory, some capped with a covering of snow, and others still reflecting the rays of the sun in magnificence. To see the oceans relentlessly pounding the shore in an endless cacophony of wave upon wave. Hearing their power, feeling their movement, sensing the timelessness of it all.

Sharing that one perfect moment with all of nature.

Seeing the wide variety of animals on the earth, each with their own sense of place and power. To watch with wonder at the movement of large groups as much as the individuals. 

To see the majesty and grandeur of the millions of different species of life intertwined in their dependent and interdependent ecospheres, filling the world with wonder, and joy.

When I imagine this moment, I find my sense of now being washed away by a feeling of eternity.

And I find myself strangely at peace; able to step back from the cares and worries of everyday life to see with different eyes the passing of my days, and the blessings I have been privileged to receive. 

Finding myself at the moment of the First Day suffuses my soul with an overwhelming sense of gratitude and a fervent desire to share that feeling with all around me.

Because in that moment, time is one, as are we.

And I think that’s really what the feeling of the First Day is for me. A wonderfully welcome sense of peace and connection with all that was, all that now is, and all that will be in the futures of tomorrow and forever. 

When I feel connected to everything and everyone, the small problems and issues of life are viewed in their proper perspective, as small inconsistencies in the midst of a wonderful experience.

Because this life is a wondrous blessing, and a miracle.

Today, I invite you to the First Day of the rest of your life. I implore you to take a few moments and realize the incomparable abundance of good things upon this good earth. 

Take in a deep breath, and find within yourself a connection and a gratitude for the day you have in front of you. If you can, meditate for a few minutes upon the reality of the reality in which you live.

And find within yourself that sense of the timeless beauty that is all around you.

And be at peace with you.

— Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings

Morning Reflection: The Many Iterations of You

The Many Iterations of You.

My wife has been married to many different men. When she was 30, she was married to this young guy from another country who was kind of an idiot, and really kind of arrogant. 

He thought he knew how the world worked, and had all these ideas about how life should be. Turns out, he was kind of wrong, about a lot of things. He had a lot of learning to do.

And the lessons came fast.

Just a few years later, she was married to a man who was kind of broken. He was struggling to work through his own trauma, both of recent and distant origin, and was discovering that he needed a lot of help, although he wasn’t willing to ask for it. She patiently waited for him to work through his issues, and tried to help where he would allow her.

Eventually he asked for help, and began to change.

Several years later she was married to a man who was stuck. This man had exchanged freedom and sanity for an imagined security, and had found that he could not escape the demons of his past as easily as he thought he could. 

Unable to move forward because of the beliefs that held him in his own private purgatory, she waited patiently, again helping where she could.

Until the moment was right, and she helped him fly.

Now she’s married to a man who is trying. He’s come a long way from where he was when she first married him 23 years ago, yet he still brings with him challenges and frustrations. But hopefully he’s also learned a few things along the rough and broken journey, and he’s trying to use those to help her and their family, as well as those he has met along the way.

She’s been more patient that he has deserved, but that’s kind of her way.

The reflection here today is that we all change as we travel through our own highway of days. Sometimes that change is the result of persistent personal growth and improvement, and other times it’s a response to the many lessons delivered unto us by life. 

For some, change occurs quickly, and for others, the change takes a life time.

But the process of change is so very important.

My goal is to constantly change until I find a version of me that I can live with, and who is at peace with himself. That definition of peace is always changing, but it also gives me the freedom to change into the person who I feel I should be, not just the person who I currently am. We each define ourselves as much by our intentions as we do by our inadequacies. 

The process is just as important as the progress.

So if you struggle with who you are today, or feel like you need to make a few changes here and there, please know that life gives you the freedom to choose the next iteration of you, even if it’s only in how you react to all that you find in the world. The greatest changes you make will always be the ones deep inside your heart and your mind.

Just decide who you will be, and work on becoming you all over again.

— Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings

Morning Reflection: The nightmares you won’t face

The nightmares you won’t face.

What are you running from? You might tell me there’s nothing, but I’m going to guess that there is. You might not even be aware of it, but somewhere deep in the dark corners of your mind, I’m confident that there is a thought, a fear, or a feeling that you struggle to experience. So instead of working through it, you shy away from it.

And it silently controls your life.

We all have some kind of trauma in our past. People think that it has to be something terrible, or life threateningly bad to ‘qualify’ as a trauma, but that’s not how it works. 

For me, the definition of trauma is “any experience that creates a negative emotional state that you can’t process, and that generates a maladaptive response cycle in the future”. Do you have something like this – I’m sure you do.

Because we’ve lived too long with the idea that we just have to “get over it”.

But no one tells us how. People just bury their feelings deep inside, and move forward, unaware of the ways that their mind will find to avoid revisiting the wound that has not healed over. 

Sometimes it can show up as anxiety, or depression, or an obsessive compulsion. Often, these traumas occur so early in our pre-verbal lives that we struggle to even remember the events that triggered the traumas, yet we live with the emotional scars long into our adult years.

Until we find a way to access, process and release the pain that occurred so many years ago.

And that’s so much harder than it sounds, because the pain is usually buried so deep that you can’t even see it, and when you get near it, the feelings of fear and loathing can overwhelm you into running anywhere but towards that which hurts you. 

In my work as a coach, I often take people into those dark corners, uncovering the feelings that scare them to their core. I never cease to be amazed at how resistant the human mind can be in its attempts to avoid the darkness, or the lightness of being they find when they have accessed, processed and released the pain that has held them for so long.

It’s never easy, but it is so worth it.

Because once you see how your defensive emotional routines have littered your past with destruction, you have the opportunity to change who you are going forwards. 

Small differences in the way that you react, the decisions that you make and the chances that you take pay out in incredible new emotions of joy, peace, happiness, fulfillment and purpose. The pain of living afraid is transformed into the excitement of living in a world of passionate possibility.

It all starts with a desire to change, and a decision to grow.

— Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings

Morning Reflection: Away is never enough

Away is never enough.

A good friend of mine once sold his company for a significant amount of money. After many years of working himself to the bone, he was in position where he would never have to work a day in his life again. 

He vowed to spend the rest of his life as a world traveler, enjoying the sights and sounds of different cultures and different countries.

And it lasted for a few short months.

Soon he was back, creating a business that he feels very passionate about, looking to change lives for the better again. He discovered a secret that others before have found, and once this resonates within your soul, it will change not only how you spend your days, but what you choose to focus on in the quiet moments of your soul.

The secret is simple: Away is NEVER enough, you have to have something you are moving towards.

If you want to make powerful changes in your life, the secret is in actually having both. Something you are running from, but also something you are running to. 

When I lost over 140lbs in 18 months, it began as a combination of running from the terrible health and potential life ending circumstances I had created for myself, but also running towards the things that I saw as possible if I reached the end goal of looking and feeling the way that I wanted. 

And what I was running to kept driving me onwards, pushing me harder to achieve the goals that I set.

But sometimes, what we are running to may frighten us almost as much as that which we are running from. 

If our dreams are bigger than we feel comfortable with (which they should always be), we may become scared of the possibility of failure, and find ourselves stuck in a possibility paralysis, where we find action more terrifying than inaction. 

In this state, we allow our fears to override our desires, and we experience that terrible sensation of being ‘stuck’.

We become unwilling to break through the terror that we have created in our own minds, missing out on all the possibilities for meaning, growth and happiness out of a desperate desire to avoid a sense of failure, which is really a fear of not being worthy of being loved, and of ending up alone.

Have you ever considered how the words ‘sacred’ and ‘scared’ are almost exactly the same?

If you are looking to make any kind of a change in your life, I invite you to consider why you really want this change, and to become very clear on the things that you think you will get out of it. Then focus on those just as hard on that as you do the painful things that are making you desire to change in the first place. 

The more that you become focused on the happiness you will receive from doing, not just the peace you seek from not being where you are, you will find within you a wellspring of strength that will carry you into the land of dreams, and the home of your joy.

Focus forwards, move onwards, dream upwards.

Peace is found in progress, not procrastination.

— Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings

Morning Reflection: The Similarities In Our Struggles

The Similarities In Our Struggles.

The funny thing about being human is that we seem to struggle in silence with the same problems that affect each of us, yet rarely do we open up to one another about how we feel. 

We suffer in secrecy, living out the answers to the questions that we are often too afraid to ask, and even more afraid to have answered. 

When we finally open up and share, we discover that all of our concerns come down to the same few problems that we all experience. And yet we feel like we are alone, and somehow less than each other, because we have our doubts, our worries and our fears.

So today, in the spirit of hopefully showing you that you are not alone, I would share some of my fears and struggles, and see if they sound familiar to you. 

I pray you will not judge me too harshly.

I struggle with the fear that I am not a good person. Although I have spent so much time working through awareness and trauma recovery, I am still plagued with unkind thoughts towards others. 

Thankfully I’ve learned to stop myself before I say something unkind (well, most of the time) but I struggle to reconcile the good I find within me against the bad that seems ever present and ever potent.

I know I have made changes, but I wonder if they have gone deep enough.

I struggle with questions of reality and eternity. The more I study and learn, the less I am sure of my place in the universe. I find myself experiencing frustration with those who claim to ‘know’ the answers, because at the heart of all their vaunted structures are the unproven, unknowable mysteries that defy logic and reason. 

As I try to keep an open mind, I find less upon which I can be sure, and more and more that seems to be beyond my understanding.

At times I feel very alone and lost in a universe that mocks my understanding while it forces my acceptance of its abundant mystery.

I struggle to be sure that I am a good husband and father. The longer I live, the more I see of things that I could have done better, started earlier, or missed out on completely because I allowed my fears to rule where reason was unwelcome. 

I see the struggles my family endures as a result of my weakness and failings, and have come to understand the poison of regret in the litany of missed opportunities that colors the history of my days upon this world.

Time is an indiscriminate destroyer.

I find so many of these root struggles in the lives of those who have entrusted their health to me as a Doctor, or their futures to me as a Coach. I realize that my struggles are in no way unique, although their expression in my life might be. 

The truth of our common humanity is found not in our genetics, but in our grappling with the problems passed down by our ancestors, and on to our posterity.

So if you are struggling today, please know that it is not your perfections that connect you to each of us, but rather your weaknesses, your fears and your struggles.

You are not alone. You are one of all of us.

— Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings

Morning Reflection: At Peace with the Conflict

At Peace with the Conflict.

I saw somebody the other day with whom I have a difficult history. To say that this person has had a huge impact in my life is no understatement, and we parted on terms that were not altogether peaceful. 

That’s not usually how I like to leave things, but as Mick Jagger once said, “you can’t always get what you want”, and in this case, there was never going to be a peaceful way to resolve our differences. 

That person will never agree with my point of view, and I will never agree with theirs.

This was the first time that we had interacted in at least a couple of years. The meeting was not planned, but occurred in the course of business. And while it was not unpleasant, it did not unfold in the way that I would have hoped for. 

I knew that I was hoping too much for it to be a perfect outcome, and it was certainly better than it could have been, but nevertheless it was less than it could have been.

And for that, I was saddened.

For a long time after we had parted, I would find myself having dialogues in my head with this person, desperately trying to find a way to explain my point of view in a way that would allow the other person to finally understand the situation. 

It was very frustrating to find myself spending so much emotional and mental energy on a cause that I knew to be worthless, but I felt it was a signal that my emotional self was struggling to reconcile a truth that the logical side of me already knew.

Because I always try to leave a situation balanced, and I think it’s something I can usually achieve. But that was not the case this time, and I was struggling with that emotionally.

Yet after our brief meeting was over, I felt a strange sense of lightness come over me. I realized that I had moved on emotionally. Although the other person felt it necessary to try to bring up the past, I had no desire or need to. I felt a sadness at seeing that this was still something that bothered them, and I felt a degree of pity.

So later that night, after I had explained the events of the day to my family, my youngest son asked a wonderfully insightful question that guided me into a newer understanding. His one simple question rocked me to my core….“So did you get any closure from it?” 

I stopped, and allowed myself the time to work through my reactions until I came to an answer that I felt was real.

“I have made peace with the fact that there will always be a conflict between us”.

And that, for me, was incredibly freeing. My past self would ruminate over the meeting for days, trying to find some way for it all to work out, some explanation that would have soothed both sides of the disagreement, and considered myself a failure when no such explanation could be found.

But not this time.

Sometimes, it is just never going to work out, and when you find yourself in that situation, it’s ok to be ok with walking away. 

Some people will just never see it from your point of view, and that’s ok too.

You have a right to have peace in your soul, despite being unable to affect it in others.

— Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings

Morning Reflection: Blank Page

Blank Page.

And you awoke. Maybe there was a moment of disorientation, where the real world of your dreams clashed with the mirror world of your reality; or maybe your eyes snapped open as you fell into a perfect understanding of who, where, when and why you were. 

It doesn’t really matter how your day started, just that it did. Is it another chance to live a life that you hoped for, or another ride through a nightmare that you can believe you’ve found yourself in?

In truth, sometimes it’s both.

Whatever the circumstances, whatever the opportunities or the pitfalls, you were given today as a blank page. Is it a chance to start anew, or to finish strong? Is this the day where you revel in your triumph, or the day when defeat tries to claim you as it’s victim? 

No one really knows where today will go, because the choices before you are potential portals to an infinite number of timelines where the outcome of a billion futures hang on one moment of decision.

Your next second, minute or hour could be the difference that splits the universe asunder.

But what masterpiece will you write with your sentience?

Do you have what it takes to change the world, or are you trying to stay hidden from all that is before you? Is today the epoch of your opus, or merely another step forward into the apex of your abilities? 

Will you rise one more time than you fall, choosing to believe in the dreams that haunt you as they drive you forward into that never defined tomorrow, or is today the day that you default on what you owe yourself and quit?

The truth is, it’s all ahead of you.

But you have to reach out and accept it, taking it with all the energy or your heart and pushing forward through all that you have to endure. Because no-one gets a life without suffering or darkness, but the choice is always yours to make. 

That’s what being human is really about; making those decisions that define us, and living with the fallout of all that comes with it. 

And getting up the next day.

So wherever in the world you find yourself, and in whatever state of joy or suffering, know that the next day of your life is a tremendous gift, an outrageous opportunity, and a blessing of inestimable worth. 

There are so many things you could do today, and some of them will change your world for the better. If you are tempted to play small, hide from yourself and avoid making a choice that chooses to ennoble the magnificent reality of all that you are, know that that is a choice also, and one you will eventually, inevitably regret.

Today is before you, in all its wonder.

And I beg you to write your masterpiece today with all the love and kindness you have in your heart. Today you have it within you to lift up the fallen, comfort the cold, soften the hard-hearted, embrace the unloveable and heal the wounded soul. This day, this gift, these choices, your moment.

All of it is waiting for you to write on the blank page of today.

Write well my friend. I believe in you.

— Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings

Morning Reflection: Solitary

Solitary.

As human beings, one of our six human needs is a deep desire for connection. Even those who feel that they are introverts desire some form of connection, although it’s usually more controlled, less intimate, less frequent. 

Many of us live with a desire for greater meaning in our relationships, a greater sense of depth and connection, and yet one thing keeps us from finding the authentic friendships that bring us so much growth and joy.

That one thing, is a sense that we are ‘not good enough’.

Out of our fear of the judgment and ridicule of a few, we hide ourselves away from the many who would accept us. In doing so, we actually create an environment that encourages our doubts of self worth. 

We judge ourselves by an artificial standard of everyone else’s supposed perfection, and in doing so we elevate those around us, while deprecating ourselves. So we hide away more of ourselves, retreating into a shell of the person we used to be.

And we withdraw from the very thing that can help us.

Because the more we connect with others, the faster we realize that they, like us, struggle. They have their strengths and weaknesses, their confidences and their fears. They have made mistakes, big and small, that have come to define their lives in ways that are eternal. Like us they probably have regrets, and things of which they are ashamed. Like us, they probably keep these things to themselves.

Until they find someone with whom they feel comfortable opening up.

The reason why authentic connection feels so good is because it shines a light into the darkness of doubt in our soul, revealing the lies that we tell ourselves. Sometimes all it takes is a good conversation with an honest friend to realize that we are not so different from those around us. 

While it might frighten you at first, the more you open up with someone who you trust, the more you will come to understand a powerful truth.

To be human is to struggle, to have doubts, to have failures, to have regrets, to fear loss, to fear judgment and to be afraid.

But you’re never going to understand that until you reach out, and find those friendships. Until you open up and share what it is inside of you, you’re never going to feel loved and accepted, because you’re always going to fear that there is another level of you that is unacceptable, unworthy and unlovable.

It’s one of those Zen puzzles of life; that to find acceptance you must risk rejection. To find comfort, you will probably need to risk being uncomfortable, and to find joy, you need to be willing to risk sadness.

But when you find the truth of who you are reflected in the relationships you enjoy...... 

You’ll find the risk was worth it.

— Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings

Morning Reflection: Sidewinder

Sidewinder.

You know that I try to be honest with you in this work. The last three days have been pretty tough. On Friday afternoon we heard that a friend of ours was in the hospital after having a really bad stroke. 

It came as a shock, especially since she is younger than we are. Somehow that makes it worse, and I guess it’s because it makes you realize that it could happen to any of us.

None of us like to be aware of our mortality.

Later that afternoon I learned that the young daughter of a cousin of mine has been diagnosed with an aggressive and fast-moving brain tumor. My heart ached for my cousin and her husband, who face the terrible possibility that no parent should have to bear. 

I hate the feeling of helplessness that we experience when something like this happens. We wish we could help, but there’s nothing we can do.

Holly remarked on Friday afternoon that these things usually come in threes. 

So when I received a text on Sunday morning telling me that a dear woman who has always been a second mother to Holly had suffered a severe stroke late last week, I dreaded letting her know. 

I was at a continuing education seminar, and so I knew I wouldn’t be able to hold Holly while she cried. Thankfully she was able to be with her Mom and her sister, and they were able to support and hold one another.

Sometimes life can be so cruel.

I don’t share this with you for sympathy, or to bring you down. There are many things in life that are beautiful, wonderful and a blessing. So many good things happen each day that we become complacent in our appreciation, and find the gratitude that we could feel somehow lacking. 

We all have challenges, and yet we all have so much that is good in the world. But so often it takes a shock to awaken us to the magnitude of how fortunate we are.

The title of this post is a reflection on the truth that the universe can hit us out of nowhere. 

No matter how strong we are, life can hit us hard and fast. The ordinary reality of today can appear like a fairy tale after the news of tomorrow, and yet our challenge is to maintain our focus on all the good that we can see and experience. 

And not lose ourselves in the pain and sorrow that befalls all of us, at some time, in some way.

I believe that life is to be lived. Sometimes in spite of all that befalls us and sometimes because of it. Although we can be knocked down, I believe we owe it to everyone who we can influence to get back up, and keep trying. 

We have to be the light for ourselves and everyone around us. 

Because when the dark times come, and they do come, we have to be there to lighten each others’ burdens, and shine our own light into the darkness.

— Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings

Morning Reflection: What Do You Think You See

What Do You Think You See.

I hate to break it to you, but there’s no such ‘thing’ as a color. I know that sounds crazy, but what you perceive as color is just photons of light tuned to a certain wavelength. 

That car in the ‘color’ you like – the surface is covered in substance that changes the wavelength of photons from a light source. Those photons impact onto the retina in the back of your eyes and the impulse from that cell is carried through your optic nerve.

Your brain interprets the impulses, and creates the concept of color.

Sound a little nuts – try this one. Those words you think you hear – they’re actually vibrations that occur in the air, and impact your tympanic membrane (ear-drum), which are turned into vibrations that move small hair-like cells in your ear, and then the impulses from those are carried along the vestibulocochlear nerve into your brain.

Where your brain interprets the impulses, and creates the concept of sound.

Are you seeing the pattern here? Everything that you think you see and hear, and feel ,smell and touch, are all interpretations that your brain performs to try to make sense of this crazy universe into which we were born. Most of the time, the brain gets the interpretation correct, and occasionally the interpretation gets kind of messed up.

It’s rare, but it can happen.

But when it comes to the meanings we interpret from the things that we experience, well…those get misinterpreted all the time. If you’ve ever heard two people describing the same accident, it can be almost laughable to see how their stories don’t match up. Their brains interpreted the situation very differently, and in doing so, came up with completely different meanings.

And the meanings we take from life are the things that control our sense of experience.

But by far the biggest cause of misinterpretation comes from our unresolved trauma, and our unmet human needs. 

Have you ever known someone who just seemed to take everything you said as an insult or an attack? That person very likely has a significant deficit in their need for significance and connection, so their brain interprets everything it can as a way to make them a victim (because being a victim requires nothing on their part). 

Also, since you were doing something ‘hurtful’ to them (even though you really weren’t) it helps their need for connection, because when you have a desperate need, you usually start by filling it in a maladaptive way. 

So the two of you are connected, because you noticed them enough to be mean to them. I know it sounds crazy but this really happens.

To them, you really did these things, because a brain that is trying fill desperate needs becomes less and less self aware, until it acts without thinking, following an autopilot program that begins to destroy the very relationships it is trying to preserve and grow. 

The deeper the need, the more it will distort your perception of all that you experience.

All of us interpret reality in our own way. The goal of self awareness and self healing is to remove the barriers to you experiencing the miracle of life just as it is.

So how are you interpreting this?

— Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings

Morning Reflection: The Background State of Being

The Background State of Being

It just feels different, sitting here. It’s a weekday morning, and I’ve been blessed with an extra hour before I have to leave. The house is quiet, and I am aware, quite suddenly, that the background state of being for me is one of a gentle waiting, with a side of “getting away with something”. 

As I explore this feeling more deeply, I realize that although the conditions I find myself in are very similar to an early Sunday morning, the emotional background state that I am experiencing is quite different.

And it comes from the voices in my head that tell me what I ‘should’ be doing.

Because somewhere deep in the corner of my mind is a voice that cries out, saying that this is a ‘work day’ and therefore I should be ‘working’. I should be being ‘productive’ and ‘behaving like an adult’. 

Being self-employed means I have some control over my schedule, and yet I seem to be enslaved by the expectations of my subconscious, rather than being able to freely enjoy this gift of an extra hour.

Because “getting away with it” also comes with a side of ‘guilt’.

If this were a Sunday morning, I would be able to enjoy this time without the insistent nagging sensation that I should be ‘doing something’. Instead, I would bask in the joy of a peaceful time of reflection and introspection, made richer in the feeling that it is cold outside, and I am blessed to be inside where it’s warm and dry.

But this workday morning seems to be tainted, and I realize that this ‘background state of being’ is not something I have been aware of until now. 

And yet I realize how deeply these things control me.

There is a huge part of my psyche that can never let me rest, because I am not yet ‘where I am supposed to be’. In my life, in my fitness, in my finances, in my impact upon the lives of those around me. This continual background state of ‘not being enough’ haunts my days, and brings dark dreams in the night.

It never lets me rest.

But when I try to understand where this comes from, I am saddened by the realization that it comes not from my highest aspirations, but from my darkest fears of never being worthy of love, acceptance and kindness. Thus I set for myself impossible things to achieve, all in the subconscious belief that only in achievement will I ever be ‘enough'.

Which I ‘know’ is wrong, but unfortunately it ‘feels’ right.

The disconnect between "knowing' and 'feeling' is for me a signal that I need to go deeper. The understanding of why is rarely the answer, rather it is a signpost along the highway of the next journey through my soul, and a starter pistol that beckons me forward into my subconscious, finding the hidden traumas that created such a controlling belief.

If I would seek peace, then I must become aware. If I would become aware, I must go deeper.

— Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings