Morning Reflection: The Struggle is Real

The Struggle is Real.

Life is hard. I get that compared to some most of us have it amazingly easy, but compared to some most of us have it pretty difficult. We tend to look at other people’s lives and see this one dimensional picture of either suffering or joy, when the truth is never that simple. 

If you think someone doesn’t have problems, my guess is that you don’t know them well enough. No one gets out of struggle. It’s always there if you look for it.

So if it’s a universal truth, why do we take a sense of personal value from our struggles? I once read a book on running a small business (which I do) and was amazed when the author explained that finding it tough going didn’t mean you were failing, it meant that you were running a small business. 

The actual act is going to be hard, the level of difficulty just tells you whether you have mastered it or not yet. But even at the level of mastery… IT IS STILL GOING TO BE HARD.

So there’s no need to have your struggles be some judgment on your value as a person.

Which was kind of news to me, because I always felt (and sometimes still feel) like my struggles were a sign that I was, once again, screwing something up, because I was a big fat failure. 

So instead of trying to learn the lessons inherent in a situation, I instead took a massive sense of self worth on whether something was easier or harder.

I think this is why most of us don’t live at our potential, because we perceive failure as a judgment, rather than an unavoidable part of life.

It’s true that sometimes the struggle is a result of our own making. I’m kind of in the middle of one of those circumstances right now, and I hate it, knowing that I could be doing something else, somewhere else, if not for the many weaknesses and deficits that adorn my soul. 

In one aspect, what comes so easy to others is for me a physically nauseating, emotionally taxing chore that fills me full of dread.

And my weakness creates so much struggle, that I become lost in the maelstrom of the madness of self judgment.

But when I learn to stop judging myself, the magic begins.

The struggle becomes an opportunity to learn, to grow, to change, and to overcome. When it’s not about me, then it’s about just getting it done, and moving onto the next challenge.

And believe me, there will always be a next challenge. I once heard it said that the only people who didn’t have problems were dead people, and it’s kind of true. No matter who you are, or where you are in life, you’ve probably got at least one struggle that you are facing.

So if you are struggling today, please know that it doesn’t make you a bad person, or less of a person, it actually makes you the one thing that we all are.

Human.

Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings

Morning Reflection: Butterfly

Butterfly.

When she was little, she was told she was beautiful, which was true, because she was. But over time, if people tell you the same one thing over and over again, and it’s the only thing that you think has any value, you’ll start to believe that that one thing is the only value you have. 

So she listened when people told her she was beautiful, and ignored people when they said anything else.

Even though she had so much more to offer.

After she was grown, the person who should have been the one to teach her that she had so much more value than her looks took a different path, and taught her that she had no value whatsoever. 

In her heartbreak and loss she believed that person, and began to feel like she was no-one at all. So she withdrew from the world, and surrounded herself with an emotional chrysalis.

Hiding from everyone, especially from herself.

Once you identify yourself a certain way, the world has a tendency to only see you that one way. People come to expect your behaviors, and they get comfortable with the way that you are. 

It’s not their fault, or a sign of bad intentions on their part, it’s just human nature, but it can lead to some difficulties along the way when people forget the purpose of a chrysalis.

Because a chrysalis is really a crucible of change. Inside a chrysalis an amazing transformation takes place, where a caterpillar completely changes its nature, becoming something quite different.

And inside of her own chrysalis, a wonderful change was taking place inside of her.

Because through all of the struggles, the heartaches, the lonely late nights, the fears of never being enough and the day to day worries of how to survive the changes that she was going through, her own marvelous transformation was taking place. 

The little girl who believed she only had value in beauty began to realize that she was her own person, and that she liked that person very much.

And then it became time to open the chrysalis, and step into the world.

As she did, there were those who loved her who worried for her, which was only natural and right. For the change in her was profound, and all of us struggle with change in our own way. 

But bravely she continued to flourish, finding her wings, finding herself, and ultimately discovering the truths of her own soul. And finally it came time to spread her wings once more, and see who she truly had become.

And to her great surprise, she found that she was still beautiful.

But no longer was that as important, for she had come to see that the greatest beauty that she possessed were the stunning facets of a soul that had endured hardship without bitterness, loss without fear, loneliness without cruelty and hopelessness without despair. 

She realized, in that moment, that her beauty was greater within than without, and that she had something to offer the world.

So she spread her wings and took flight, and it was a beautiful thing to see.

For Pamela. Ever the butterfly.

Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings

Morning Reflection: Filter

Filter.

Truthfully, I’m scared of them. As someone who is a little color vision deficient (I have issues seeing some shades of colors) I have been watching with interest the evolution of glasses that help people with color deficiencies see better. 

I keep seeing these videos of grizzled older guys (the ones least likely to show emotion) breaking down and sobbing when they try on these glasses and see for the first time all that they have been missing. 

And I’m afraid to try them for myself.

Partly because I’m afraid of that sudden rush of emotion, because it seems pretty intense, and partly because I’m afraid of how much I’ll realize I have been missing all these years. 

As a father who has an incredibly artistically talented son, I’m sure there are levels of beauty to his work that I have missed because I don’t see colors the way he does. 

So I’m scared to try these glasses, but if I never change my filter (how I see the world) I will forever miss out on what is all around me.

And just like there are filters for our vision, we also have many filters in the way that we perceive the world in both emotional and philosophical ways. 

These filters are usually very strong beliefs about how the world works, the nature of right and wrong, but they can also be driven out of our deep seated needs and any deficiencies thereof. 

These deficiencies can create some of the most powerful distortions that I have even seen. They can create monsters out of ordinary people.

Have you ever met that person who finds everything to be an insult against them? They may be acting from a need to feel significant, and so filter reality so that everything is done against them, so they are always the center of attention. 

Conversely, there are people who are outrageously optimistic; not because they are balanced in their core, but because they are afraid to ever contemplate the possibility of things going wrong, so they ignore it right up until it happens.

And then they underplay the seriousness of the situation.

Most of us are unaware of the filters that we use to screen this reality, because they are so instinctive to us in our day to day lives that we never to stop to challenge them. 

Instead, we just accept these truths as self evident, and continue to process everything that happens through them in the blink of an eye. But never questioning the way we see the world leads to a far more dangerous kind of deficiency of vision than the one I started talking about.

Never questioning what we think means never becoming aware of the truth of our soul.

History is replete with examples of single minded people who never stopped to think if what they were doing was really the right thing. Instead, they went forth out of hatred and desire to slaughter millions in their search for (and desperate need of) a reality that fit their thinking, rather than change their thinking to fit reality.

Self awareness and self peace through acceptance is the only antidote I know for the suffering of individuals, nations, races and the world.

May we start our journey into ourselves anew every day, and may we share the peace we find with each other.

Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings

Morning Reflection: I Want To Believe

I Want To Believe.

If you ever watched the show “The X-Files”, chances are you saw a poster in the small office that was shared by Fox Mulder & Dana Scully. The picture featured a UFO with a caption underneath. 

It stated simply “I Want To Believe”. And while I don’t know where I stand on the concept of little green men in flying saucers dropping by to hang out and watch us get on with our lives, I do know this much.

What we believe is very often determined by what we want.

I had a wonderful conversation with one of my favorite patients this evening. We share somewhat differing views on the concept of an afterlife, and what that would look like, and what we would do there. 

As we gave freely of our opinions, it became very clear to me that our wants (and I mean our deeper psychological wants, which are really expressions of our non-critical needs) were coloring our thoughts and hopes.

We all do it, even when we are aware of it.

And it doesn’t have to be in the concept of spirituality. If you look at the realm and conflict of politics, you’ll find the very same expressions of ‘belief’ occurring, just in a more directed and focused way. 

Maybe one person favors a more regimented society because what they really want is the absence of chaos, which is an anathema to their soul, while another person favors a much freer society with less rules and restrictions, because what they secretly want in their deepest heart is to be themselves without the risk of not being accepted.

Those may sound like simplifications, and maybe they are for some, but for others it’s the absolute truth.

It especially shows up in the values that we hold dear. A person who values a certain characteristic may do so out of a deep desire not to be seen as someone who acts of believes a certain way, or their aspiration for people to be treated a certain way. 

In this, their ‘belief’ becomes the very manifestation of their desire, be it from a place of darkness, or a beacon of light.

And if we are not aware of our reasons, our ‘wants’ can drive our beliefs into a paradox of suffering.

Because if you look around at your world, there are so many things that fall into a concept of belief more than a absolution of knowledge. Outside of the ‘hard sciences’, most everything falls into a pit of possibility rather than a crucible of certainty.

Even this work is an act of belief, coming from the idea that I could be of help in this world, and that people are happier both individually and as a society with a heightened self awareness and a greater sense of internal peace. Yet the very awareness that I desire for my soul suggests that maybe this work is just because I want to feel like I have made a difference.

There are always more questions.

If I can offer you one thought (or belief, depending upon how you look at it) to think about today, I would ask you to consider any beliefs you have that may be impacting another in a negative way, and see where those beliefs (wants) are coming from. 

It may be, as you consider and become more aware of yourself, that you can feel differently about something by understanding the reason that you believe it, and in so doing, find a greater pathway to peace within you and around you.

May we find a greater sense of peace and harmony as we do this work together.

Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings

Morning Reflection: Don’t “Start With Why”

Don’t “Start With Why”.

That probably goes against everything that you’ve been hearing lately. There’s even an author and speaker who’s made a lot of money on the concept, and I think he’s a really good guy, but missing a step.

It’s not that his advice isn’t good, but blindly rushing out to follow your ‘Why’ without understanding it can be a sure way to find unhappiness and a loss of motivation.

First you must heal your Why before you follow it.

‘How can my Why be sick?’ you ask, and I’ll grant you, it’s a strange concept, but just hang in for a moment, and I think you’ll understand what I mean. 

All of us are a product of many different things; our time (the generations in which we live), our upbringing (how much or how little our parents imprinted their beliefs onto our psyche), our needs (the way your personality is wired in your brain) and most especially our traumas (the experiences of our lives that have left us with wounds on our souls).

And our Why is often the combination of these as well.

Imagine a woman who doesn’t really want to have children, yet the time and the faith that she is born into impresses upon her that her road to happiness is found through the bearing and rearing of children. 

Left unhealed, her Why may be corrupted to believing that she needs to have children, despite the inner whisperings of her soul. So she gives up her career, and finds a growing sense of discontentment and unhappiness, because she was not following her true Why.

And if you think I’ve made that up, believe me, there are many more where that came from, and a lot that are worse.

So how do you start the process of healing your Why? It begins by understanding the truths of what motivates us to do anything. If I were to ask you to name your 5 biggest goals, could you do that, and more importantly, could you tell me ‘Why’ it’s your goal? 

What do you hope to achieve from achieving this goal; what emotional states are you looking to arrive at; and what filter of reality translation are you going to use to get you there?

I know, that’s a lot to take in isn’t it? 🙂

But there’s nothing more important in your life than to make sure that the ‘Why’ behind the goals you are seeking is truly, completely and incontrovertibly yours, and not infected with the desires of those around you, nor corrupted by the traumas that have beset you. 

In saying that, I don’t intend to judge or assign blame to anyone. I honestly believe that the majority of people are good, kind, and honest at heart, even though they may be acting in a manner pathological to others because of the wound that they carry within them.

The chances are, they are carrying a Why that is not healthy, for them, nor the people they come into contact with.

So today, I invite you to begin the process of trying to understand your Why, and delving deep into your soul to find the truths that matter to you. I truly believe that the more you come to understand and heal yourself, the greater your happiness will be.

Once your Why is whole, you can follow it with all your heart.

Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings

Morning Reflection: For I am Willing to be Wrong

For I am Willing to be Wrong.

Do you ever feel that being right is a burden? In our quest for absolute certainty, which is really our desire to avoid the pain of being wrong, we hold on to certain truths with a steadfast grip that will likely be there when we are dead. 

Sometimes we hold onto our judgments with equal passion, without ever stopping to ask if the desire to be right is overriding our basic human requirement to be kind.

I know I have been guilty of this many times.

I have seen good friends struggle so hard to be right that they are willing to defy logic, common sense and even their innate compassion for others. It’s never a fun thing to watch, and it’s even worse when you see that behavior in yourself. 

It takes a measure of integrity in your heart to stand in the midst of the opinions of others, and utter a single statement that gives you so much flexibility.

“I am willing to be wrong”.

I’ve tried to incorporate this into my soul recently, and I’ve been very surprised by the latitude of thought and the inherent sense of freedom that I find in this attitude. 

As I have removed from me the requirement to ‘always be right’ I am open to possibilities that once were beyond my understanding and experience. By removing the need to be right, I am left to explore the secrets of the universe.

And what I find is amazing.

Being willing to be wrong insulates me against the opinions and judgments of others. Once I accept the possibility of my fallibility, the voices in my head (not those kind of voices, well at least I hope not) that once warned me of the pain of being wrong are silenced or reduced to desperate whispers of the potential outcomes of my exploration.

Outcomes which exist only in the possible, not in the actual.

Once you remove the stigma of failure from your reasoning, suddenly avenues of possibility are judged not on their ability to destroy, but on the potential price that may be required for a lesson that may well be worth learning. 

No experience is truly wasted unless you cannot learn from it, and I have yet to find such an experience. For the heart that is open, and the mind that is seeking, will always find a lesson to be learned.

You just have to believe in yourself, and face the day with an attitude of self approval deep within you. 

For once you have accepted the truths of your soul, and found a sense of identity outside of your own abilities, you will come to realize that your value is not in your anxious striving for an imaginary perfection, but in your willingness to place curiosity over concern, humility over hate, love over loss and wonder over worry. 

In the end, you will come to understand that the value that you seek was always there inside you, just waiting to be born anew.

Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings

Morning Reflection: The Energy of A Non-Choice

The Energy of A Non-Choice.

I got stood up. No, not in the date kind of a way; in the ‘I got up early and drove into my office to see a patient who didn’t show’ kind of a way. 

The fact that it was a Sunday morning wasn’t lost on me, nor was the fact that I drove 30 minutes each way to get there. Nor was I unaware that this wasn’t the first time she had failed to show for an appointment.

And at the moment I realized she would not be coming, I had a choice. The good thing was that I had already chosen.

See, the choice was how to feel about it. Back in my youth, before I had done the work that I have completed so far, I would have become angry at the ‘waste of my time’, and probably taken her failure to show as a personal insult to myself. 

Then I would have gotten angry (because anger is always a secondary emotion) and spent the rest of the day being annoyed about it.

What a message I would have been sending to the universe that way?

I can honestly tell you that her failure to show didn’t bother me at all, because my ‘choice’ of how to react was in some ways really no choice at all. I didn’t feel a need to be angry because I didn’t feel insulted. 

The situation wasn’t about me at all. I had done what I have promised to do, which is to be available to serve my patients in whatever way I can. I showed up, and was ready to serve.

The rest of it wasn’t about me at all.

A little while after I left the office, I received a very kind text from the patient. She used very derogatory language about herself, and offered many apologies. I told her that none was necessary, and that I didn’t want her to talk about herself that way. 

I told her that being a single mom is the hardest thing I can ever imagine facing, and that her oversleeping wasn’t a sign of her being a bad person, it was a sign of the love that she shows her children by working so hard for them.

I hope she believed me. I’m guessing she didn’t, because she is so hard on herself.

Later that day, I received a call from a patient who needed to come in urgently, and then another patient who was hurting and wondered if I was around. I honestly don’t believe that is a coincidence. 

I’ve been in practice 14 years now, and I can tell you, hand over my heart in honesty, that there is an energy to the universe that is cognizant of the energy we put out there.

Had I been angry about the earlier patient, I doubt I would have seen the other two in the afternoon.

My challenge for you today is to try to be aware of the energy you are sending out into the universe, and see if you find that the universe reciprocates what you send it. 

For me, I have seen time and time again the power of intention, and of a focus on kindness. The more I am able to be focused on serving in integrity, the more chances the universe gives me to serve and be blessed.

Sometimes it requires us to work on ourselves first, so that we can be in alignment with our intentions in a way that will manifest our kindness and our dedication. 

That’s the hard work, and believe me, I still have so very far to go in my journey. The further I go, the further I realize I have to go.

But that’s why we are here.

Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings

Morning Reflection: Flight

Flight.

So I finally got to fly. After 3 rescheduled appointments due to weather and sudden scheduling conflicts, I finally got to take the discovery flight I wrote about a few weeks back. And as I expected, I was really nervous, but I had a great time. For me, this flight was really about one simple question, one powerful moment.

Could I break through the fear and find peace in the midst of terror.

I didn’t always get nervous when flying. I used to love it, but a flight out of Los Angeles going unto London changed all that in 1996. We hit some pretty brutal turbulence going over Denver, and for one brief hour I honestly thought I was going to die in a plane crash. 

That hour is still seared into my memory, especially the moment where I think I saw a flight attendant cross herself as she sat down.

And so my fear of flying was born, and I figured it would be with me forever.

But about four years ago, I began to feel this indescribable pull towards flight. I have spent so many hours learning about it, understanding it, and desiring it. 

As I learned more, my fears have been reduced but not eliminated, because anytime you leave the ground there is a risk that is always there. But you can’t run from your fears; you either face them and overcome them, or you allow them to control your life.

Which my fears have done, for far too long.

In 2017 I decided to face part of my fear, and go skydiving. It was an incredible experience; one that I’m probably going to repeat in a month or so. And last Friday, I went further into my fear than I have ever done, and actually piloted a small plane. 

Yes, there was a ‘real pilot’ sitting right next to me, helping me when I needed it, but I was there, in that tiny plane, with my hands and feet on the controls.

And for most of the flight, I was really, really scared.

But there was one moment, cruising at around 7,900 feet, where I felt that moment of peace that I was hoping would be there. A feeling of being at one with the world, and at peace with my life. I don’t get many of those. I found one while Skydiving, and I found one last Friday. 

It didn’t last long, just a few minutes until we began our descent, but for those few glorious minutes, I felt an intense feeling of gratitude and love for everything in the world.

It is true that the greatest blessings in the world are on the other side of fear.

Because once you break through fear, that energy that you put into fear is transformed into courage. Then you take that courage, and you do something else that scares you. 

And then you do something else, and something else, and something else. You keep going until you have gone beyond the fears of the everyday, and find the truth of who you are in the courage that you carry with you.

Imagine what you could do, and what you could accomplish, if you had cast off your fears and were truly able to live as who you are. Imagine the changes you could make in the world. 

Imagine the joy you could find in your life.

And imagine the peace you could feel in your heart.

Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings

Morning Reflection: Laughter

Laughter.

I’ve always been fascinated with the universal traits of humanity. Things that are timeless, that cross the boundaries of culture, race, religion and gender. These are the things that truly define our humanity, because these are the things that are most human. 

I’ve never known anybody who didn’t cry, and I’ve also never known anybody who didn’t laugh.

Hopefully, we laugh a lot more than we cry.

It’s been kind of a tough week in our house. Nothing earth shattering, nothing catastrophic, but it’s amazing how sometimes the weight of the simple every day can drag you down and leave you bruised, battered, broken and bleeding on the figurative highway of life. 

But in the midst of what has been a long and tiring week, I heard a sound last night that stopped me, almost made me want to cry, and filled me with a profound sense of relief.

She was laughing.

I’m probably going to get into trouble for this part, but my wife has two kinds of laughter. There’s the normal everyday laughter at something she finds funny, and then there’s something that truly gets her going, something that takes her out of the realm of the normal and into a mode of laughter that is punctuated by helplessly flapping her hands and snorting as she laughs. 

I wish I could get it on video because it is so hilariously funny.

Often times it’s because of something that she feels terrible about laughing at after, but in the moment she just loses all control and is often unable to regain her composure for several minutes. 

A couple of times she has almost turned purple because she was laughing so hard that she couldn’t breathe, and I was mentally reviewing my CPR training thinking that I might have to help her bring her back from the other side.

Just hearing her laugh was the most wonderful medicine to my soul.

It’s almost like a GPS for me. When I feel lost, and honestly don’t know which way I’m going, (which happens way more than I would like to admit) the sound of her laughter tells me that maybe, just maybe, I might be on the right track. 

Pretty much all of my life goals circle around the idea of trying to make her happy, and every moment of laughter gives me hope that I might be succeeding.

And in a week that was full of pressure, struggles, exhaustion and frustration, a single moment of laughter was the greatest sound I could hear.

Today I’m grateful for the gift of laughter, and especially grateful for the chance to hear my sweet wife laugh until she flaps her hands and snorts. It’s probably not going to happen for a while after she reads this post, but eventually she will forgive me. She’s had a lot of practice that. :-)

Love you sweetheart. You are the light that guides me home.

Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings

Morning Reflection: Life in every breath

Life in every breath.

The title of today’s post comes from one of my favorite movies, The Last Samurai. While it’s a beautiful movie with incredible cinematography and amazing action choreography, what really stands out to me is the way that the ordinary daily life of the samurai is a thing of beauty. 

Devoid of grand Festival, they found a way to infuse every action with a sense of purpose.

Being present in every moment, they experienced the intensity of life in every breath.

And we have moved so far away from that now. 

Speed, novelty, the next thing, faster, better, larger, more expensive, the best. These are the mantra that destroys now in the technological age in which we live. 

We have sacrificed the sincere moment for the breathtaking novelty of next, and we never stop to fully appreciate the simple beauty of the everyday moments which populate our lives.

Because really, we live in an amazing age.

Never in the realm of human history have we enjoyed such technology, nor such peace. Despite what the media (both professional and social) would have you believe, we are safer now than ever. We can travel further, faster and in greater comfort. 

We can access information in a few seconds that only 50 years ago would have taken us weeks. And we can share that information to anybody across the world in a heartbeat.

And yet we are uneasy; incapable of experiencing now.

Meaning in life doesn’t only have to be reserved for the grand moments that matter. If we so desire we can find meaning in the most mundane task. The preparation of a meal, the cleaning of a room, the repair of a broken car. 

All of these can be performed with a heightened sense of purpose and a focus on perfection in the task. It merely requires a focus on this moment, rather than the next.

Rather than wasting time mindlessly, you can mindfully reverence every second of your existence.

In the movie I referenced earlier there is a line where a wise man states “you could spend your entire life looking for the perfect blossom, and it would not be a wasted life.” Later, a moment before his death, he looks into the sky and realizes that every blossom is perfect. 

How timeless that wisdom. 

How many experiences in your life have you been distracted away from gratitude and experience of the moment by a supposed imperfection that did not matter? 

How many moments of your life have been lost chasing the new, the next, the never-ending cascade of continual novelty, when in reality everything you needed to find joy and happiness was right there in front of you.

Waste not your moments, because they are the intimate currency of the time of your life. Focus on now, and find a surprising sense of joy in purpose.

May your soul find peace today, and always.

Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings

Morning Reflection: Why is sorry so hard?

Why is sorry so hard?

I hate apologizing. There, I said it. Tough to admit, and even tougher to share with you all. But I try to be honest in this work, so hopefully you can learn from my mistakes and failings, of which there are many. 

I try to learn from them too, but sometimes the lessons are really hard, and I find myself dropping back into my old safeguards of self pity, anger and frustration.

None of which do me any good at all.

So I try to live in a way that minimizes the times I have to say I’m sorry. I haven’t lost my temper in 35 years. I try to speak kindly to everyone, and to see their side in any disagreements that arise, seeking to find a peace that we can both move forward with. 

I’m in no way perfect, but I hope that I have made improvements to myself during the journey of my years.

So when I do make a mistake, it’s usually something that I’ve been unaware of, and it’s usually something pretty profoundly terrible, that has built up over time.

Which is where I find myself right now. 

I’m fighting right now to accept a truth that someone has shared with me, and it’s hard, because it forces me to realize that I haven’t acted in the way that I could have. It wasn’t that I did something horribly intentional, I think that would have been easier. No this was something that I failed to see, because of that failure I therefore failed to act.

I think the ‘sins of omission’ are harder to live with, because they can often look like indifference, which is the most painful of emotions to treat someone with.

Which was never my intention, but I can understand how it looked that way. I think sometimes I lose sight of the everyday in my struggles to find myself, to find peace, to share it and to embody it. 

But I have to be careful that I don’t use that as a shield to hide behind when a painful emotion arises because I have not lived in accordance with my highest principles. 

So why is saying “sorry” so hard for me?

Because I think admitting failure brings back so many hard things for me. Feelings of inadequacy as a child, as a teenager, as a young man, as a husband, as a father, as a friend. Admitting that I have erred open the floodgates of feelings that I try to live with, but somehow never quite manage to find a balance with.

But just because it hurts isn’t a reason to avoid it, so I have to go and say I’m sorry.

And then begin the process of change to show that my apology is real. Because that’s really how we know if we are sorry, we take action to try to make it right. It doesn’t mean we won’t make more mistakes, or even repeat the mistake, but I’ve found that it is easier to accept an apology when I can see that someone is taking concrete steps to change. 

And it’s honestly easier to apologize if I know I am trying to do something to make it right.

Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings

Morning Reflection: You might not agree, but you can understand

You might not agree, but you can understand.

How do we ever find peace? There are some times when I get discouraged at the conflicts around me. 

So many people who just can’t seem to find a way around their disagreements, because neither can find it in their heart to reach beyond the boundaries of their own interests, and allow that the other person may have an equally valid point of view.

And so they hurt each other, when they could try to find their way to peace.

Now please understand me here, I am fully aware that there are people in the world with whom you cannot find a balance, and I’m not talking about them. You know who they are, and they are to be pitied, but avoided. 

One of my favorite mantras is that “you can’t set yourself on fire to keep somebody else warm’, and there are some people who will just let you burn yourself to death, and it will never be enough.

I’m talking here about people who are normally reasonable, but who can’t seem to find a way to peace.

I’ve been trying to broker a peace between two people for a while now. It’s not that they are fighting, that would almost be better, but they are just not talking about something that is burdening their relationship. 

Neither one is ‘at fault’; they are both goodhearted people, but they have found themselves in opposition over a situation that is causing them both pain.

Though neither intends it for themselves or for the other.

The sad part is that neither of them seem ready to initiate the process of peacemaking, both waiting for the other to reach out. 

One because they feel deep inside that the other reaching out would be a sign of their depth of caring, and the other because they do not see a pathway through the pain and sadness that they feel would result from a discussion.

So neither of them starts the conversation, and the discord grows louder in the silence of their fears.

In truth, I know that this is a situation that is never going to be ‘all better’ for either of them, but that doesn’t mean that we can’t find a balance for the two of them to exist in. 

Both of them need to understand that you don’t have to have agreement, or even the absence of pain, to find peace in a relationship. 

You just have to have a willingness to find compassion for the other person, even if you are never to find common ground on the subject at hand.

Compassion doesn’t have to mean agreement, but it can mean that there is love in the presence of disagreement.
If you find yourself in a place of division with another, I ask you to see if you can at least understand why they feel the way they do. 

You do not have to agree with their point of view, but if you can find it in your heart to reach compassion for how they feel, you may be able to find ways to balance the disagreement through caring conversations that draw you closer to each other.

We are never going to agree one hundred percent of the time, but we can be united in our desire to love in spite of our differences.

Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings

Morning Reflection: How can I make you feel safe?

How can I make you feel safe?

Do you remember back to your childhood? Were there ever days where you laid on the grass and stared up into a beautiful bright blue sky with fluffy clouds and felt safe, like you could share your truth with people and the world would be okay? 

Maybe to that one special friend who you knew would not judge you; someone with whom you could share your soul.

There’s something beautiful in those moments, something sacred, something fleeting.

Because as we grow, we generally tend to learn to hide parts of ourselves away. Especially if you’re trying to survive a difficult childhood, where you are exposed to things and situations that no child should have to contemplate. 

But the longer we hide our truth from the world, the greater the burdens that we carry, and the deeper we bury our truth.

Because we are afraid of the reactions and responses of others.

Sharing the truth of yourself can be very difficult. None of us like to feel vulnerable, but the truth is that feeling vulnerable is a sign that we do not feel “safe” in the situation in which we find ourselves. 

In some way, we associate sharing our truth with pain, and so we lock our truth deep away. Usually it’s not physical pain that we fear, although that can happen, but most of the time it’s the fear of judgment, rejection or shame.

Emotional pain is so much more damaging than physical pain.

Most of the time we don’t attach a sense of our self-worth to physical pain, because although it hurts at the time, it doesn’t scar soul in the same way. 

Emotional pain often carries with it a huge negative judgment upon ourselves that left untreated will poison our happiness, dimming the brightness of our soul and decreasing our power to be a light unto others.

But when you find that person who makes you feel safe, who makes you feel that you can say anything, your soul just flares with joy, and the light shines from you ever so brightly.

Because then we can begin to draw the poison from the wound in your soul. When we share our truth with another and are accepted without judgment, finding only love and kindness, we can begin to understand ourselves better, and make peace with the person we find there.

And in finding peace in your soul, you can help others feel safe in their truth.

Part of my goal within this work is to hopefully be a place of safety for you. Even though we may not talk one with another, I hope that you can feel within this work a sense of acceptance, a sense of love and a sense of peace. 

Maybe for one fleeting moment you and I can connect through these words, and allow you to discard the distractions of deception, and come to realize the truth of the beauty of your soul and the grandeur and wonder of the light within you.

Today I want to know that I’m here for you. If you need to talk, please feel free to reach out.

I just want to make you feel safe so that you can grow into the person you have always wanted to be.

Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings

Morning Reflection: The struggle is real

The struggle is real.

One of the greatest illusions that we fall prey to is also one of the most insidious. I say that, because it robs so many people of the truth of their lives, and leaves them questioning themselves, their surroundings and the very nature of life itself. 

Sometimes they will even question their very worth as a human being, as a soul, just because they misunderstand one very simple fact of life.

Everyone suffers, everyone has it hard.

‘But wait’ you say, eager to point out where I am wrong…. ‘What about <inset name here>? They seem to have it really easy’. To which I’ll reply ‘how little do you know them’. Because honestly, I’ve never met anyone who didn’t have problems. 

From the millionaire who struggles with crushing self esteem issues to the beautiful woman who is afraid that she will never be realized for who she is, not what she looks like.

We all have problems.

Someone once commented on this work, and said how wonderful my life must be because I seem to have it all figured out. I wondered if they had ever read anything I’ve written. 

Because trust me, most of my experience, and whatever little wisdom I may have obtained, has come through some really hard things, and yet when I look around me, I also realize that I have had it very, very easy compared to many.

I have yet to find anyone who has made it through without problems and struggles.

And that’s really the whole point of today’s piece, to help you understand that the struggles you face are not a sign of your weakness, your unworthiness or even your uncleanness (if you think of it in that way).

The struggles you face are a sign of something far more profound, and far more inspiring than anything that you could ever imagine.

It’s a sign that you are human.

Could some of your problems be the result of your failures… of course they could be. Some of mine are. I’m facing a huge problem right now, one of absolutely immense proportions, that is a result of one of my failures. 

But the truth is that my ‘failure’ didn’t occur in a vacuum of perfection that indicates something of negative judgment against me. This ‘failure’ occurred as the result of a long series of unfortunate incidents, choices made in ignorance, and responses to trauma that was never of my choosing.

Had I ever known the outcome of the choices I made so long ago, I would never be where I am today.

But in life, we don’t get to know all the answers up front.

All we can do is make the best choice we can in the moment that we have to make it, and then live with the consequences. That’s where the struggle comes in, because sometimes we choose the wrong path, and we have to walk the road that we chose in a moment of imperfect judgment. 

We struggle to live, either with the outcome of a decision, or with the effects of the impersonal nature of a very determined universe.

The point is, we all struggle.

So today, I invite you to cast off your feelings of inadequacy because you struggle, and take all that emotional energy and use it to fight harder against the trials that beset you. 

Know that the difficulty you face is not a reflection on who you are as a person, but who are as a species.

We’re all messed up, some just hide it better than others.

Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings

Morning Reflection: The principles of peace

The principles of peace.

How would you define peace? It’s kind of a tough one, because each of us has a slightly different understanding of the feeling, and our own definition of how we get there. 

But the similarities are greater than the differences, and so I thought I would share my principles for peace, in the hopes that it might help you as you walk your own journey.

It starts with one principle... Solitude.

I don’t mean being alone, although that is definitely a part of this principle. For me, solitude means a level of self acceptance and balance. It’s that state where you have no need for anyone else. 

If you’ve read my work, you’ll probably have heard me talk about the 6 human needs, and how they define and control our actions.

Solitude is the state of balance in your needs, so that you are ‘self-referential’; meaning that you don’t need anyone else to be at peace.

That sound like a hard thing to achieve, and make no mistake, it is, except that the principle behind it is easier than you could possibly imagine. 

All it requires is forgiveness, acceptance, knowledge and dedication to something other than yourself.

Forgiveness: learning how to forgive yourself for your mistakes and weaknesses. The deeper you learn about yourself, and how you have been conditioned in life, the more you come to understand your mistakes through the filter of a distorted need, or a response to trauma. 

You can learn to forgive yourself, and cast off the burdens of shame, guilt and feelings of inadequacy. In time, you’ll learn to stop judging yourself, and those around you.

Acceptance: coming to a knowledge of who you really are. This begins with the process of analyzing your strengths and weaknesses, your traumas and ideation of self. 

Moving further, you realize that none of these are actually you at all, just states of being that your consciousness, the awareness that you call you, is currently experiencing. As your identity becomes awareness, rather than expression, the definitions of the outside world fall away.

Dedication to something other than yourself: this is the adoption of purpose as identity, rather than the ideas of self that you gave away in acceptance. 

When you become a part of something greater than yourself, you find your peace through identity of the principle that you espouse (can you see the word spouse in that word – you become married to a higher purpose). When you become a principle, then your need for identity is sufficient, because you find all the significance and connection you need there.

I know that sounds like a lot, and it is, but once you grasp the concept of a self referential peace, then everything else falls away. 

You exist in your current relationships being grateful for whatever you receive, but needing nothing, and giving of yourself freely. You encounter every situation taking nothing, fearing nothing, but serving at the highest level of your aspirations and desires.

True peace is calm and serenity in the presence of solitude. 

I pray you can find your way there, and that I may be of help along your journey.

Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings

Morning Reflection: Peacemaker

Peacemaker.

What’s your role in life? I ask, because I’m honestly curious. I think so many of us spend our lives trying to figure out what we are supposed to do with our time here on this good earth. 

Sure, you can spend your day in the pursuit of things that make you happy, but after a while you’ll come to the realization that ‘things’ are never enough.

That if you want a true sense of purpose, you have to create an alignment of what you are good at with how you can truly serve in the world.

There is a Japanese concept called ‘Ikigai’ that explains this perfectly. Ikigai is the alignment of what you love doing, what you are good at, what the world needs, and what you can make money at. 

When you find that thing, it’s like the universe unlocks it’s secrets, and the world around you shifts into an alignment of power and possibility.

My Ikigai seems to be the role of peacemaker.

It seems strange, and somehow ironic, that someone who grew up in a house that had more than its fair share of arguments should find a love of bringing people together. As a child I would try time after time to get my mother and father to stop fighting. 

One time I even went as far as to smash a glass in my hand, hoping that the sight of blood coming from my palm might be enough to stop them fighting outside our house, and come back inside.

It wasn’t completely successful, but I’ve learned a lot since then.

Now, I find a deep sense of joy and purpose in helping people find peace inside their own soul, and in facilitating a conversation between two people who have come upon a point of contention that they cannot overcome by themselves. 

The more proficient I become, the greater I see a need for this skill in the world.

Yet for all I can do in the cause of peace, I am powerless without people who desire it.

Because in any conflict, there must be a desire for peace in all of those who are party to the contention. If each person comes willingly, with a deep desire to understand and a strong passion for peace, then the process becomes one of conversation, compassion and cooperation. 

If they come with a desire to be proven right, and to force the acquiescence of the other, then the process becomes infinitely more complicated, as we focus on healing hearts and soothing the souls. 

That’s a more difficult proposition, but it can be done, and can be infinitely sweeter when it occurs.

If we would seek to enjoy our time here in this world, then there can be no greater cause than peace, and no greater reward than the renewal of love and friendship between those who are now at war.

May you find peace this day, and always.

And I wonder…. What’s you Ikigai?

Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings

Morning Reflection: I am the luckiest of men

I am the luckiest of men.

It’s been a staple of late night comedians for many, many years. The one joke that always gets a laugh, and never falls flat. When you get right down to it, it’s never actually funny, because it highlights the disunity of families, and the difficulty that people have finding peace in complex relationships. 

But as long as there have been people, comedians have been targeting the one person who never seems to get any respect.

Their mother-in-law.

I honestly think that most of the time (note that I said most, not all) it’s more a reflection on the person who is making the joke rather than the woman who is being referenced. 

I can’t imagine it’s easy seeing your child married to someone who may not treat them the way that you think they should, especially when you gave birth to that child, and sacrificed as much as you could give in their upbringing.

I’m sure my mother-in-law had her concerns when I married into the family. I know some of my wife’s sisters did. :) 

But for all of her concerns, I can testify to you truthfully that my mother-in-law has become one of my very best friends. 

I wish you could meet her, and come to love her in the way that I do. She’s been a part of my life for over 24 years now, and I can’t express in words just how amazing she is.

And not just in her greatest moments, but in her darkest.

I have seen her survive things in life that I’m not sure I would have made it through. Her strength, her resilience in terms of her goodness and her determination are beyond inspiring. 

I have seen her hit with bombs over these years; painful experiences that would have crushed most people, and yet she has stood strong and carried on through it all.

She’s even learned to put up with me. :)

I have come to cherish the times that she and I talk. We come from so very different worlds, such diverse backgrounds that sometimes I feel like I am once again an alien (I’m an immigrant, so I was once an alien, albeit a friendly one) when we talk. 

We see things from such different perspectives, that on some of our most basic comprehensions of reality we stand in stark contrast. I am sure she wonders what her daughter did in marrying me.

Yet never have I felt anything but love and acceptance from her.

So today, I wish to pay tribute to an amazing woman, who I am so proud and humbled to call my friend. I won’t use her name, I’ll simply call her Mom, like I always do. 

We talked for last night for hours, and though I am sure she wishes she could understand me, I am awed and amazed at the patience and compassion she extends to me. I’m so grateful for her presence in my life. 

Every day, every conversation is a wonder…

and I am truly blessed.

(P.S. She loves sunflowers, so today's picture is just for her)

Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings

Morning Reflection: Blind Though I Could See

Blind Though I Could See.

What do you see when you close your eyes? A long time ago, I wrote about how I could see my vision when I closed my eyes, and it guided me and gave meaning to my words and my actions. 

Yet for a while now, my vision has been clouded, difficult to see and even more difficult to follow. I’ve struggled to understand the most simple reference of where I am, let alone where I am going.

And my lack of a clear vision has shown up in all aspects of my life.

Yet in the confusion and the turmoil of the last few months of my life, where many things I had taken for granted have changed beyond recognition, I had not emotionally realized that my vision was crumbling around me. 

I was so busy looking at myself, and all the areas in which I was failing, that I failed to stop and evaluate myself in the way I help others.

Sometimes we have to get back to the basics, to our foundation, and start from the bottom all over again.

And in doing so, I realized that not only had my vision become stale, because I had failed to update it for the things that had changed in my life, but that my focus had become splintered and scattered. 

I was letting too many small things, individual hurts and emotional wounds, grow out of proportion and cloud my judgment.

Although I had sight, I was blind as to the direction I needed to move in.

Once my vision was lost, so went my motivation, and I was left to using willpower to give me the strength to keep going, which is never a good idea. Our willpower has limits, and eventually, no matter how hard we try, there is never enough willpower to make up for a lack of vision. 

The small details start to get lost, and before you know it, you’re adrift in an endless sea of possibilities, wondering how you ended up wherever this is.

So it falls to me now to find a new vision, a better direction, a clearer understanding.

Which, as you can probably well imagine, is a lot harder than it sounds. How do you find the time, let alone the clarity, to restructure your future when you are so busy trying to keep your head above water in the now? 

Where, while juggling the roles of husband, father, son-in-law, brother-in-law, uncle, Doctor, business owner, teacher, entrepreneur, coach and writer of a daily Facebook page, do I find the time to discover inspiration from the infinite future of all possibilities?

Simple answer – I make time. 

Maybe it’s getting up earlier, and spending time alone with the birds in our garden as the suns rises. Maybe it’s taking our crazy 8 month old puppy out for more walks, and leaving the digital world behind so I can listen to the quiet whisperings from my mind. 

Maybe it’s seeking out places that inspire me, and listening to the words of mentors who bring peace and clarity to my soul. 

Maybe it’s in the conversations with good friends, who see in me things I cannot see in myself.

Where do you find your vision?

Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings

Morning Reflection: Paying the Price for Each Other’s Trauma

Paying the Price for Each Other’s Trauma.

There’s a strange thing that happens when you marry someone. It’s not really talked about in the run up to the big day, because everyone is focused on the positives, the hopes, the dreams, the wishes. 

Yet each partner in the marriage brings along a silent gift, an unwrapped mystery, that their significant other will spend the rest of their relationship paying for.

Their own trauma.

Because no matter how good of a person we are, we all bring our baggage into our relationships. Maybe it’s an inability to truly talk about how you feel, because you were taught as a child that you didn’t matter. 

Maybe it’s a soul crushing insecurity and inability to trust, because you were once cheated on, and made to feel so insignificant. Or maybe it’s an inability to open up intimately because you were taught that it was wrong, dirty and sinful.

Whatever you bring, your partner will pay for it, with their suffering, with their pain.

None of us are exempt. 

Holly and I have a fun story that I came into our marriage with 2 suitcases, while she came with a U-Haul. It’s not too far from the truth, because when I left England to emigrate to America and marry Holly I literally condensed everything I owned into 2 large suitcases that weighed in just under the maximum allowable limit. Everything else in my life was discarded, or so I thought.

In truth, I was bringing an ocean liner full of baggage with me, one that I was woefully unaware of.

And over the years of our life together, Holly has had to pay the price for the baggage I brought with me. Thankfully, none of it has been a deal breaker, partly because she has incredible patience with me, and partly because I think she could see that I have never stopped trying to learn about myself, and change the parts of me that have been detrimental to our life together.

She has never blamed me for my weaknesses, although they are many.

But there’s something incredibly painful in realizing that your partner, the person you want to do everything for and give everything to, has suffered because of your imperfections and inadequacies. 

That’s part of what drives me onward in my journey to overcome the many obstacles from my past that have prevented me from becoming the person I desperately desire to be.

Emotional trauma in all its forms has one truth running through it – that healing takes awareness and it definitely takes time.

Understanding and helping someone through their trauma takes patience, kindness, a willingness to be honest and a desire to serve. It is harder when their unhealed trauma affects us, and causes us pain, but it is still possible to find within yourself a wellspring of compassion and caring to pour over the wounds that your partner has not yet healed.

Because the greatest healing occurs not in a vacuum of communication, but in a connection of hearts, healing and helping each other.

Until we are both whole, together.

Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings

Morning Reflection: Why You Shouldn’t Ask for Forgiveness

Why You Shouldn’t Ask for Forgiveness.

Several years ago, a person who I knew did something to me that was pretty terrible. I tried to show compassion for something they were going through, and they turned around and treated me like garbage, in front of someone else. 

It wasn’t really a surprise, because this person had a proven track record of treating people badly, but it still annoyed me intensely.

I felt like my compassion was being thrown back in my face, and at the time I was not far enough along on my journey to be able to get past that.

So I walked away from our interaction. I didn’t say anything, I didn’t do anything. I just walked off. 

As was the person’s modus operandi, I received a phone message a little while later that contained that person’s standard type of apology. Not the first time I had heard it, so I knew what to expect. I honestly think it was sincerely meant.

But when you’ve heard an apology a few times, it kind of gets old.

The next time we met, the person apologized again, and then asked me straight out if I would forgive them. I was stunned by the almost demanding nature of their request. In my attempt to be honest, I informed the person that I wasn’t able to do that yet, but that in time I expected to be able to move past our most recent interaction.

But that wasn’t enough for them.

For the rest of that day, every chance that the person got to remind me that I hadn’t forgiven them yet was taken. It was almost as though they felt that their apology instantly placed me in a position where my forgiveness HAD to be given, and I was in the wrong by not instantly absolving them of any guilt. 

That was when I realized a truth that has stayed with me ever since.

No sincere apology ever includes a request for forgiveness.

Because if you are really sorry, an apology is about what is due to the other person, and in seeing what you can do to make amends. That’s what being sorry means. You recognize that you have treated someone badly, and you admit that to them, and show you are sorry by the actions you take to repair the damage that you have caused.

The second you ask for their forgiveness, it stops being about the person that you wronged, and it goes back to being all about you. 

Which, when you think about it, is exactly what asking for forgiveness is really all about. You are asking for someone to absolve you of something that you did, so you can feel better about yourself. 

I means that all you are focusing on is you.

Which will probably end up with you needing to apologize again sometime soon.

Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings