Morning Reflection: The Deafening Sound Of What’s Missing

The Deafening Sound Of What’s Missing.

They sit across from me, and it’s hard to hear them. They’ve become so accustomed to it, so acclimated to the horrific roar that they don’t even notice it anymore.

It’s become their new normal, burned into their souls over a lifetime of day after day acquiescence to the small losses, the hurts and sadness, until they can’t remember what it felt like to live and breathe joy.

In spite of whatever problems they think they have, whatever particular wound of the day that they want to talk about, the truth is more terrible than they want to admit, or even have the perspective to see and hear.

Because when you’ve become accustomed to the sound of the warning siren, it no longer means anything to you anymore.

And the truth is, what you can’t hear can hurt you.

Because what I don’t see between them is affection, warmth, kindness and closeness. Their body language screams that these are two people, no longer one, who have at some point have drifted towards opposite edges of their particular highway, moving towards the same terminus without the simpatico required to make the journey worthwhile.

They both seem to want to find each other again, but they don’t seem to know how.

Being alive doesn’t mean that you’re living, it just means that you’re here. Breath without life, a terrible form of hell.

Neither of them seem to be hearing it though. They sit there, seemingly desperate to tell me why they are right and the other is wrong.

Surface concerns patching over the gaping hole at the core of them, trying to find a small sense of significance to stem the hurt they feel at the loss of the other. They’re both damaged, bleeding from their souls in a never ending hemorrhage of hope and happiness, love and laughter.

In truth, I think they both hear it, but they’re so afraid to talk about it, and that’s what’s killing them.

Because over the years, they’ve tried to pour kindness into each other, partially from a desire to not hurt a wounded soul that they love so deeply, and partially because they’ve always been taught that their needs didn’t matter.

From their words, I can tell that she feels like she has always been a secondary concern to him trying to deal with his trauma, and he feels like he is not longer loved and wanted because she is so scarred from hers.

It’s like a tango for two, based on loss, sadness, fear and longing.

And the soundtrack for this dance is the cascade of tears they cry silently, while each is desperate to hear the sound of what they need from the other.

I can see that each of them in their own way is trying, but their own wounds are drowning out that signals that they are trying to understand from each other. So they sit, together but apart, silent but screaming.

Trying to understand what they’ve lost, because they’re desperate to find it again.

— Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings

Morning Reflection: The Fallacy of the Perfect Teacher

Unless you’ve hidden under a rock for the last 40 years, you probably know who Yoda is. In the Star Wars universe, Yoda is a Jedi master, full of wisdom, knowledge and truth.

He’s held up as the epitome of all that is good, kind, benevolent and wonderful. In the fictional reality of Star Wars, there’s a place for the perfect, the un-blemished, the all-knowing.

Yet I’m here to tell you that sometimes, Yoda got it wrong – dead wrong!

Because he failed to see the potential for Anakin Skywalker to go completely off the rails, killing without mercy and destroying the Jedi as a force for good. He failed to identify Palpatine as a Sith Lord, until the evidence was so powerful everyone could see it.

And worst of all, Yoda sometimes taught concepts that have caused pain and suffering to people in our world.

Because he once taught, “Do, or do not, there is no try”.

Which is total garbage, yet I can’t tell you the number of times that people have quoted that to me in a business setting, or in an attempt to be ‘motivational’. In the real world, trying is how we get to doing, but in the middle there may be a lot of trying and failing, before you eventually get to doing.

It’s not that the principle of what he was trying to communicate was wrong, rather that the application of that truth needs to be specified, and Yoda didn’t do it.

And people have doubled down on that, believing that there was no such thing as trying, only achieving. So when things went wrong after they tried, they believed that they were somehow doing something wrong, and they stopped trying, when in reality the trying WAS the way to get to doing/achieving, but there was going to be a lot of ‘not achieving’ along the way.

As good as he was, as profound as he could be, Yoda was still trying his best, and sometimes screwing it up.

Which IS how it works in the real world. In my work as a Coach, I’ve been privileged to help people in ways that have made their lives immeasurably better, and yet I’m one of the most flawed people I know.

In turn, I have been helped by people who have bequeathed unto me their knowledge, their wisdom, and their kindness, and yet if I examine their lives closely, I can see that areas in which they struggle, and fail.

And yet they still have incredible value to give to the world.

The teachers among us are always going to have their flaws, their weaknesses, their issues and their failings. They will still struggle to find their way, and live their path, in just the same ways that we will.

They may be further along on their journey, but they, like you and I, are still trying to walk a pathway day after day wherein they try to balance self with the world, principle with pragmatism and survival with compassion.

Those are they who are daily trying, and sometimes not ‘doing’.

And they have lessons to teach.

— Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings

Morning Reflection: The Sacrament of Self Responsibility

The Sacrament of Self Responsibility.

It’s that time of year, well, of two years actually, where the old blends with the new, and people make resolutions that they full intend to keep, only blow through most of them within a few days.

Been there, done that, and also made some that I kept. Yet of all the changes people make, there is one that will redefine every other choice that you can make.

It’s when you choose to be responsible to yourself.

‘What does that mean’ you ask, and you’re right to do so. Because what is said in those few words encompasses the secret to progressing further in your journey than you can possibly imagine.

Assuming responsibility to yourself for yourself means that you move into a mindset where you understand that you, and you alone, are responsible for your life.

Whenever, however, and with whomever you started.

It means that moment where you stop gazing at the outside world with a mixture of jealousy and frustration, anger and fear, and you instead go inward.

Leaving judgment by the wayside, and expectations at the door, you enter into a world far different than the one you left so very few moments ago. Instead of complaining, there is courage. Instead of self pity, there is self resolution.

Instead of expecting anyone else to help, you resolve deep in your soul that you will do whatever it takes to become the person you know you deserve to be.

And don’t get me wrong, I know it’s NOT easy. I spent way too many years of my life being filled with a sense of being owed something, a feeling that I had not been given a fair hand of cards.

And sure, if I looked around and only saw people who started at a difference place in the world, I could convince myself that I was owed something, that the universe was holding something back.

Which is two fallacies in one – that anyone owed me anything, and that comparison was ever going to bring me peace.

The only person I need to compare myself to is the me that I truly want to be.

And that’s hard, because when you accept full responsibility for your life, you’re doing away with all of the judgments that you’ve designed to uplift you, and to fortify your sense of significance in a universe that doesn’t care.

When you become fully responsible for yourself, that’s the moment when you understand that where you started, and even where you are, pale in comparison to where you want to be.

Knowing that you alone are the navigator at the helm of your soul.

Yes there are people who are cruel, but that doesn’t reduce your responsibility to yourself. Yes, there are situations that are hard, but that doesn’t reduce your responsibility to yourself.

Yes, the universe can be brutal, life can be so unfair, people can treat you like dirt, you may have found yourself in a difficult childhood, or been treated terribly by those who should have been better to you or a million and one other things that you could waste your time complaining about.

But that doesn't reduce your responsibility to yourself.

Because no one ever changed their life for the better by complaining, or by expecting someone else to pick up their load. In the end, in the cold, dark, miserable and lonely end, it’s always going to be about you. It always was, it always will be.

And until you accept the responsibility for yourself, you’re never going to progress into the person you have always wanted to be.

So this decade, this year, this month, this week, this day, this hour, this minute & this second, commit to making the one change that will make all the other changes possible.

Commit to the sacrament of the responsibility for yourself, and then get to work.

Who’ll knows where you’ll end up, but you know it won’t be here.

And it will be better.

— Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings

Morning Reflection: Fireplace and Falling Snow

I love the quiet of a Sunday morning, especially when I’m the first one up, which happens almost every weekend since our family could never be described as ‘morning people’.

It was cold in the family room, and so I turned on our gas fireplace. Bewitched by the entrancing flames, I sat quietly, watching the gentle snow falling outside while I comforted myself in the warm air that came towards me.

It was one of those moments that was perfect.

As it has a tendency to do, my mind drifted in time, seeing in vision the people who first came to this land, imagining their struggles against the never-ending cold. Not for them was the convenience of gas and electric, nor insulation and walls.

They came by foot, by horseback, by wagon. They came with fortitude and strength, sometimes out of desire and other times out of desperation.

How cold and brutal their world looks to me.

Yet when I cast my mind into the future, I see a child looking back at me through a history course, marveling at how we managed to survive as a one-planet species, who had not yet developed star-drive technology, not conquered the diseases that are, for her, a thing of the distant past.

What would that child in the never-present tomorrow think of the chance to sit quietly, warming herself against the cold?

Assuming there is cold, on the planet on which she lives.

And I wonder if that person in the past, or the child in the future, found any different pathways to happiness than the ones we seek. Sitting there, warm and safe, I could have found happiness in the moment, had I trained myself to do so.

The person of the past would look at my life as blessed beyond measure, while the girl in the future could look at me as a primitive savage.

Yet for all of their visions, would they understand the simple truth that resounded to me strongly this morning?

That happiness, in its truest form, is a choice that we make every moment. Although I am blessed to have an incredible wife, two amazing children, and a wonderful if eternally hungry dog, I struggle finding happiness in moments of peace like the one I found myself in this morning.

This is not new, nor is it surprising to me, but there are times when I wish I could be fully immersed in the moment, and forget both the past and the future.

And just be here, now.

If you, like me, struggle with being present in your moments of peace, I encourage you to sit quietly, day after day, and try to listen to the deep quiet voice inside you that speaks from a place of fear and desire, from both your past and your future.

The longer you listen, the greater will become your skill at listening, and the deeper you’ll be able to go.

Because the answers you seek are deep inside of you, if only we will have ears to hear, and hearts willing to understand. Peace can be found in any moment, either by being fully present, or by quieting the voices that would draw your peace away.

By whichever path you choose, may you find your own way to peace.

And find joy therein.

— Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings

Morning Reflection: Wherever You Are in The World

My wife and I sat quietly in front of our ornament tree on the evening of the 24th. I call it an ornament tree because this year we had two trees.

One is our long serving artificial tree, with branches just perfectly placed to display some of our eclectic, quirky ornaments, and the other a real tree with just white LED lights and stars on it. The difference between the two is significant, and yet both are beautiful.

Just like all of us.

I love the Christmas season, because as a people, we seem to focus on giving rather than getting, serving rather than receiving. For one small part of the year, we seem to ascend to the better angels of our nature, and become the people that we aspire to be.

We are less prone to anger, more likely to embrace. We share our love more freely, with a greater openness and sincerity.

Kindness becomes our watchword, and love our first resort.

And it’s beautiful. As Holly and I snuggled up in front of our tree, her emotions were very much at the surface. That evening we’d attended a religious service, and she found herself moved beyond words as the pastor welded the words of his scriptures with the teachings of Mr. Rogers, proving to us all that kindness is not the province of any religion, and that goodness can be found in all neighborhoods.

She wept openly, and I held her.

Over this past year, we’ve undergone some changes as a family, a business, a marriage, and as friends. It’s been a tough year, and yet through it all her heart has become more open, her love more pure and kind.

I’ve seen her weep with frustration at the struggles of others where she has felt powerless to help, and I’ve seen her give of herself in ways that I’ve never seen before.

It’s been a humbling privilege to share my life with her this year even more than ever.

As her vision has become less encumbered with judgment and sadness, she has taught me so many different lessons. From a woman who didn’t love dogs, she now donates to the animal shelter and would adopt them all if she could.

As someone who struggles with the depths of her feelings, she now cries more openly, loves more deeply gives more kindly.

As her heart has opened, so has her vision of the world.

As we sat there, in front of our tree, she snuggled tightly into me, and whispered softly “we are so blessed”. I listened to her talk about the good things she sees in the world, and in our lives, and I was touched beyond words.

In the years we have been married she has taught me so many things, and yet her first Christmas gift to me this year was one of helping me see things through her eyes, in her mind, within her soul.

And it was beautiful.

Wherever you are in the world today, however difficult your trials, I hope the words I have written this last year have helped you to see things just a little bit differently, and struggle just a little bit less.

For as my wife’s emotions testified on the evening before Christmas day, there is an incredible goodness in the world, and it’s there for us if we can but look for it with a different heart and a kinder soul.

As a people, we are good. As a world, it is beautiful.

As a life, it is incredible.

Whoever and wherever you are, please know that I am grateful for your presence in my life, and I wish you the best in this season and the year to come. I will do my best to serve you, and find new ways to help you.

— Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings

Morning Reflection--Healing: The Desire to Run and Hide

Healing: The Desire to Run and Hide.

I made a new friend this week. She initially found this work through an acquaintance, and then our paths crossed in another online universe and we became friends. She’s somebody who I am in awe of, both because of her professional achievements as well as her honesty and openness as a human being.

And although I’m excited to engage in a new friendship, I find myself facing (yet again) the same feelings that have pursued me for so long now.

A deep and profound desire to run and hide.

I know where it comes from. I also know that since I began this new phase of my journey a couple of months ago, I’ve been experiencing that desire at a level that has surprised me, and so I’ve cut myself off from many people who mean a lot to me.

Partially because I’ve needed time and space to focus on the things I need to do, but also because I have a deeper sense of shame and sorrow now, seeing all that I truly am as if for the first time.

And I don’t want anyone to see me the way I see myself.

Which I know at a logical level is not how they see me, but at an emotional level, that’s the way I feel. I’m caught between this strange collision of a desire to hide from the world, and a desire to take my place in it to do what I feel I can do to help.

I am coming to understand that I have gifts that allow me to help others in a way that is meaningful and profound, but to do so means I have to allow myself to be seen by many more people than I currently am.

Which make me really uncomfortable.

So why I am open to a new friendship when I’m doing just about everything I can to avoid others? Partly it’s because this new friend is someone who I think will understand me, and partly because I get the strangest instinct that she will, in some way completely unknown to her, be good for me.

Sometimes you find people who will, just by virtue of being themselves, show unto you a part of your path that you never understood before. It’s not that you require anything of them, rather that the example of who they are breathes life into a part of you that was waiting.

And since I’m trying to trust my gut more, and live more authentically, I’m going to venture into this new friendship against my desire to hide from the world.

Because it’s only by doing that things ever change for the better. Our universe is proof that everything left untouched devolves into chaos, and so no matter how much we might want to avoid something, there are just some things that you’re eventually going to end up having to do if you ever want to experience a sense of peace in your life.

So instead of saying ‘it’s go time’, I’m realizing that it’s ‘do time’.

Part of healing is rest, part of healing is reflecting, part of healing is silence…. But a huge part of healing is doing the things that will take you from where you are now, and help you find that place where your healing will lead you.

A place that is better than the one you healed from, a place where you can be the person you know you can be. A place where you can give out of the abundance of the lessons you have learned.

So in order to find my way there, I have to be visible both to the people I need to touch, and also the people who will guide me just by being themselves.

I sense that my journey will require both, and neither opportunity will show up unless I do.

— Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings

Morning Reflection--Healing: Fence Posts

Healing: Fence Posts.

We drove a lot of miles this weekend on our run to the mountains. Through city and forest, prairie and mountain there was a lot to look at. In a journey of 120 miles, there’s rivers and roads, boulders and bridges.

More trees than you could ever chop down, and more hills and valleys you could ever hike. Yet one constant running through each caught my eye, and made me realize that I’m getting somewhere on this journey.

Fence posts, and lots of fences.

Because boundaries have always been, and continue to be, something that I struggle with. I don’t know why I grew up feeling responsible for the world, but that overwhelming feeling of needing to help everyone has caused me to sacrifice my own interests and desires in an attempt to feel like I was doing what I was born to do.

It also caused me to worry more about the feelings of others more than I should.

So over the last couple of months I’ve been laying down some psychological fences, and a lot of fence-posts. Some of these are to keep others out, and some of them are very definitely to keep parts of myself within.

After so many years learning about myself, I’ve come to understand that there are facets of my mind that still need to mature a little more before I can unleash them on the world.

But setting up fences has not come easy.

It’s caused me to walk away from people who incite me to care too much. It’s forced me to suspend coaching with people who have come to mean so much to me.

I know it’s caused annoyance and frustration in those who took my kindness for granted, and my assistance as an eternal right. And while it’s been really hard to know that some people have been hurt by my process…

I’m learning to be ok with that.

Not that I enjoy causing hurt or discomfort to anyone, quite the opposite. In my day job as a Chiropractor, I often have to adjust people knowing that it’s going to be sore now, so that it will feel better later, and I still hate that part of what I do.

But the further I walk through this process, the deeper in my soul I descend, the more I realize that I have to look first after me, and then my immediate family, the three people who mean more to me than I can ever say.

Everyone else is essentially expendable.

And prior to this process, the part of me that cared for everyone would have overridden that focus, and screamed about how the world needed me, about how people needed me, and how I owed it to them to be there. I would have struggled against an overwhelming guilt and obligation to care more for others than they would ever care about me.

A philosophy that leads to melancholy and madness.

So it’s not that I don’t care about people, because I do, and it’s not that I won’t be available to help, because I will. It’s just that I’m doing it with a greater balance of focus, and stronger understanding of where my energies should be expended.

My focus has to be on healing myself, and caring for the people who have proven that they are here for me, those who reach out not out of need, but out of friendship, out of love, and a desire to help.

Once I thought I could tend to the universe. Now I have only a garden.

But it will grow.

— Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings

Morning Reflection--Healing: Balancing the Old with the New

Healing: Balancing the Old with the New.

It’s a strange thing, to reach back into the past of your mind, and try to bring forward those things that should have matured and changed, but didn’t because they were “trauma-locked” by events beyond your control and understanding.

One part of your mind, the part that feels ancient and weary, is trying to control the other side of your brain, wherein lives an angry 15 year-old teenager, or a frustrated 5 year old, desperate to scream in pain and despair.

To tell you the truth, it’s tiring, being on this emotional rollercoaster.

And while I can see that it’s vitally important that the process go forward, I must admit to having days where I’m so weary of trying to find a balance between these two very disparate aspects of my soul.

Because in truth, I need the child inside of me to grow up, and to do so soon, because some of the skills that I need are locked away in there with him.

Which makes functioning as an adult a little tricky sometimes.

The child portions of my soul control some very important parts of growing up, like facing responsibilities, maintaining good boundaries, self discipline and proper self care. Do you ever find yourself struggling with those aspects – I know I do, and I know what a drain it can be on my life and my family. Of the many facets of my soul that I question, these are some of the hardest.

Because these weaknesses, born of wounds from so long ago, create more wounds going forward, making it harder to heal. One of the greatest truths I ever discovered was that it’s really hard to heal on an emotional battlefield.

Healing takes time, peace, kindness, and a significant absence of judgment, especially when that judgment is coming from yourself.

Which means you have to learn to think about yourself outside of your failings.

To some of us, that’s a real challenge. Trained from childhood by the voices that we heard outside us, that eventually became real inside of us, we judge ourselves with a lack of mercy that we would apply to no-one else.

Yet while we hold ourselves in the stricture of shame, and the restriction of hatred, we are never going to be able to stand the pains that growth and progress exacts from our souls.

And so we become unbalanced, as the old and the new conflict in their desire for growth against the fear of change.

Sometimes it feels like I am being torn apart, as I face my weaknesses day after day. Trying to find the balance of forgiveness for that which I am not, against that which I desire to be.

I think all of us have these juxtapositions in our souls to some degree, yet I cannot find rest within my heart, as much as I crave and require it.

For although I feel that there is progress, it is painfully slow, and I don’t have that much time to spare anymore.

Have you ever felt this way, like you are trying to both mature the parts that were held back while meeting the demands of the aged weary soul that hungers for peace and quiet in a time of neither. If so, I’m curious as to how you achieved it, and still managed to live with yourself.

Because it’s even harder than I thought it would be.

— Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings

Morning Reflection--Healing: Hearing with Love and Not Fear

Healing: Hearing with Love and Not Fear.

I am constantly amazed that my wife puts up with me. Over the last 23 years, she’s had to deal with so much because of my weaknesses, flaws and idiosyncrasies. There isn’t a day that goes by that in some way I don’t make life harder for her.

It’s never been intentional, and I think she realizes that, but just because something isn’t malicious doesn’t necessarily mean that it isn’t malignant.

And there are days when I think it gets really old.

Maybe it’s my crazy diet, which makes it hard for her to show love through service (if my wife loves you, she cooks/bakes for you), or maybe it’s my incredibly powerful A.D.D. that makes me a nightmare to keep on track in the office, and forces her to have to remind me incessantly about getting things done.

Or maybe it’s the way that I get locked into an idea, where my A.D.D. reverses itself into a pathological hyperfocus that makes me blind to things that I really need to see.

But there’s something far worse about living with me, and I know it drives her crazy.

Because of the fears in my heart about my self-worth, and struggling to understand every day why she would want to be with me, I overanalyze everything.

If that doesn’t sound too bad to you, just imagine that every word, every action and every reaction that you express is being evaluated and slotted into a profile that allows me to understand you probably deeper than you understand yourself.

Sound ok so far – because if it does, I can assure you that it isn’t.

Of course, my ability to read people can really help, even in our day to day interactions, but there are times when my fears drown out the things that she is really trying to say, and that can inhibit closeness in our relationship in a way that is difficult to live with.

In every romantic relationship, every pairing of two souls trying to make it through this crazy universe, there is an element of listening to each other.

It could be about your day, or your frustrations, or your fears, or just the usual struggles we all have of trying to find our way in a world that makes little to no sense.

And for all of my considerable skills, I often struggle to listen to her without hearing the sound of my fears.

Because when she expresses her frustrations, I hear that I am not making her happy. When she is tired, I hear that she is working too hard, because I am not successful enough.

When she stresses about money, I hear that I have not yet provided for my family in the way that I feel I should. When she is weary from the everyday insanity of life, I hear that I have not yet done enough to look after her.

And because of the way I read every gesture, she never has the chance to be herself without knowing how it will resonate within me.

Which has to be exhausting.

So I’m trying to focus more on how I can be a better husband for her, in spite of my fears, my failings and my shortcomings. I try to listen to her, and not react with my usual distancing and quietness.

I try to be there when she needs to vent, and to ask her the questions that will give her the space to talk freely, openly and honestly about the emotions deep in her heart, so that she might be heard over the sound of my fears.

And heard without someone trying to make suggestions about what could be done to change things.

Which is the ultimate respect I can give her, allowing her to be and to express herself without judgment, without analysis, and without reaction.

Because when I focus on loving her more than on fearing for myself…. Well, I think that is the way she deserves to be treated.

So I’m working on it, even though I fail many, many times.

— Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings

Morning Reflection--Healing: The Flow of the River

Healing: The Flow of the River

Sometimes it feels like I’m floating in a river of time and consequence. On occasion, the river is moving slowly; there’s time to admire the scenery, and float quietly and gently through the turns and twists.

In other times, it feels the river is rushing, pounding and driving me towards a waterfall I can barely see, and even less comprehend.

And it feels like I’m being forced into a future I do not want.

But the river is relentless. The current is made of biology and psychology, nature and nurture, wisdom and foolishness, certainty and fear, liberally sprinkled with time, and the ever present elusiveness of questions.

Just when I feel like I’ve gotten my head above water, and am learning to balance in the currents, the flow changes, the river twists, and again I find myself underwater, struggling to breathe in a torrent of doubt, despair and desire.

I know where I want to go, but the river makes it so hard to move sometimes.

So I find myself fighting every day to stay afloat, and to battle against where the default wants to take me, into something ordinary and mundane, trapping me into a life of dullness and drudgery, boredom and banality.

Mistakes made in the past weighing heavily on me, trying to force my future into a futile farce of faked happiness and forced smiles.

For I am scared of where the river wishes to take me, but the only way to change direction, and swim upstream, is to force myself to stand strong against the current.

In standing, each step fighting, forcing my life into a different aspect of the flow, carrying me into different waters, changing the directions at each fork in the river, toward different outcomes, greater possibilities, and a deeper sense of peace.

And while I don’t yet have an exact vision of what it will look like, I cannot help but chase a different future in the present.

Because I know where a failure to change will lead me, and that place fills me full of terror. For I have seen in vision the future that awaits me if I do not become the person who stands against the flow, and that future is full of regret, and bitterness and loss.

The river is an indiscriminate killer of hope, and joy and dreams.

All you can do is stand against the current, and battle it with everything that you’ve got.

Which is why you need to be determined and disciplined in your desires for a different shore to end up on. For each rapid in the river is a chance to improve, each fork a possibility for change, each waterfall a chance to move faster or fall into oblivion, each peaceful waterway a chance to weep or take strength.

Each moment brings the opportunity to fight or to fail.

The longer I spend in this river, allowing it to determine my direction, is to court sadness and loss, hopelessness and fear.

And even though the current is swift, the twists and turns treacherous, and the force of the water strong, I am not without strength, and wisdom, and weapons.

If I wish to heal myself, I have to choose my path in the river, and use everything I have to determine my own path, away from where time and the flow of the world wishes to take me.

For I have seen that trap, and I will not live it.

I choose another way, another path, another mission.

And my choice is my own.

— Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings

Morning Reflection--Healing: Are You Enough for Yourself?

Healing: Are You Enough for Yourself?

It’s a strange question isn’t it. I ask it because we seem to spend so much of our time worrying if we are enough for someone or something, and we always seem to give the power of the final judgment on ourselves over to somebody else.

As though they have the ability to tell us something that should be obvious to ourselves, yet for some reason we will not listen.

Is it because we don’t want to answer the question?

We are never really going to find peace in this life unless we ask the question, and then act upon the answer that we receive from ourselves. I think this may be the most important question we can ever ask ourselves, as the answer determines how we carry ourselves in the world, and especially how we act in our relationships with others.

And yet we are never taught how to ask, nor how to answer.

So since we don’t know how to ask ourselves, we trust in the opinions of others, which is how we lose our sense of ourselves.

Over the last 6 weeks or so, as I’ve pulled back from so many things in my life so that I might have the emotional quietude in which to hear, I’ve been struggling with these questions of life.

If I were to die tomorrow, would I feel like I had done enough to be happy? If I could not lose, would I be doing the same things as I am right now? What would I do if I knew I only had a fixed amount of time left? Who would I talk to, and what would I say?

And ultimately, am I really living the life I want to?

If you’re like me in any way, these are not easy questions to answer, for none of the answers bring a sense of peace. Do I feel like I have done enough to be happy – not in the least. I feel like I have only just begun to see a possible happiness in the future.

Of course, there’s a part of me that begs the question about why I can’t just be happy right now, but I know that answer, and it’s a long one.

Because knowing a truth in your mind is not the equivalent of carrying it in your soul.

If I could not lose, would I be doing the same things – absolutely not. If I honestly knew that I couldn’t fail, I’d be coaching full time, day after day.

It brings me the most peace, joy, contentment and understanding, yet right now making that jump would be financial suicide, so I have to find a way to mange where I am at, until the day arrives when I can make the changes to do what I honestly feel is my gift, my calling, my mission and my joy.

I pray that day comes sooner than I can imagine.

And who would I talk to, and what would I say? That’s a hard one for me, because there are constant conversations in my head that are unfinished with people in my life. Some of those would probably bring me joy, and other conversations are not likely to end as well.

Yet I realize that if I am to gain a sense of personal congruency and authenticity, which is really what this whole healing process is about, than I need to either cut those conversations loose, or get down to the business of making them happen.

Which is at the same time exciting and terrifying.

Because this process of healing that I began 6 weeks ago is both of those, in equal measure. It’s about getting real, and realizing that if I were never to progress from where I am now, I would be miserable in my older age.

It’s about finally getting enough quiet in my head, and being able to decode the discord and disquiet that dominate my thoughts, so that I can understand what I need to do next.

And most of all, this process is about pushing myself to face all of the fears and falsehoods that have held me back for so long. It’s amazing how many of the lies we tell ourselves appear as truths, and how far off of our personal course we can find ourselves when we lose the signals from our soul.

Because each wound unhealed is another voice in the multitude that seeks to carry our attention away from the truths of who we want to be.

And I am so very tired of not being happy with who I am.

— Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings

Morning Reflection--Healing: That’s Not Truly Who I Am

Healing: That’s Not Truly Who I Am.

In this journey of helping myself to heal, I’m having to dig really deep into the core of one of my biggest faults. It’s something that has affected me deeply, but also those around me have been victims to it as well.

It’s defined part of our lives, and I’ve been afraid that I’ll spend the rest of my days trying to dig myself out of the hole it’s created.

And for the longest time, I feared that it would rule my life forever.

Because although I’ve been able to make a little headway, it’s not been anywhere near enough, and deep in my soul I have had the mistaken belief that this particular fault was a part of me. But this afternoon (Wednesday), I experienced at a deeper level a truth of something that I have written about before.

That the only true part of ‘us’ is our awareness. Everything else is hardware (biology) or software (psychology).

And while the two are often intermingled, neither of them are the true sense of self. In trying to understand this fault, I realized that what seemed to be inevitably joined to my soul was nothing more than an emotional virus that had been uploaded into my psyche by life, by experiences, and by the generations and society into which I was born.

Essentially, I realized that this facet of my soul is not of me, but of something else.

Which means its removal is in fact possible, and desirable. What seems like a simple realization struck me with an incredible amount of force.

I felt a shift in my very core, as though something that was desperately hanging into me lost its grip for a moment, and when it tried to hold onto me again, its strength was a great deal weaker.

And it’s scared, because know I know it is not an essential, irrevocable part of me, but something I can give up, and remove, without changing the core of who I am.

When something you thought defined you turns out to be something that impedes you, and demeans you, then you become aware that you can let it go without sustaining a moral injury to your core.

Allowing you the freedom to become the person you were always capable of being.

Because there’s nothing more destructive, more divisive and more demeaning than holding into a pathological way of behaving, believing it to be moral and ‘good’, when in fact it is destroying you and those around you.

When you honestly believe that sacrificing yourself day after day for the good of others is right, you’ll know an intense pain and heartache as you suffer and bleed in the depths of your supposed virtue.

And the conflict of your ‘self’ and your supposed virtue will burn you up inside.

But when you finally see that your supposed ‘good’ is wrong, and that the belief is not a part of you but merely an expression of your consciousness, then you can begin to lay down that behavior, and instead become a completely different person in that facet of your soul.

Because there is nothing good, or noble, or moral, about burning yourself down to keep others warm. Yes, we can serve, and yes we can give.

But to exist in a state of behavior that does not balance the exchange of energy and emotion between you is not moral, it is malignant.

And it’s wrong.

So today, I begin anew the struggle against this fault that has existed within me for so long, but now the battle will be different. For I am not fighting with ‘me’, but merely a malignant psychology that can be discarded. I don’t have to sacrifice my soul to overcome this, I just have to exist outside of it.

Knowing that the true me, the consciousness that is aware of me, is all that I have to be. Everything else is a manifestation, or an expression, and can be changed without damage to the core.

I just take the behavior, and lay it down.

It never was a part of me, it just looked like it for a long while.

— Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings

Morning Reflection--Healing: The Definitions of Who I Am (How Do You Walk in the World)

Healing: The Definitions of Who I Am (How Do You Walk in the World)

I think everyone who knows us has a different definition of who we are. To my patients, I am their Doctor; one with a definitely unique bedside manner.

I listen as much as I treat, and they share with me things that they feel safe talking about, hopefully understanding that they will be accepted without judgment, and that I will attempt to answer any questions they bring to me with honesty, respect and kindness.

Yet their definition does not define me.

To my friends, I hope I am someone they think of with fondness. While I am sometimes a difficult friend to have, because I’m not very good at small talk or conversations that have no substance, I hope to them I am someone who is helpful, kind, funny and genuine, and that they know I am here for them in any way I can be.

But again, their definitions do not define me.

To my extended family, I think I am a curiosity, bordering on an enigma. To those who see me closer, I think in some ways I defy definition, especially recently.

Through this process of change, this journey deeper into my soul, I believe they are trying to understand those changes in me so that they might understand the new person within their family.

Yet even their redefinitions do not define me.

And within my immediate family, within the blessing of my wife and my children, I believe I can exist without definition. For the love they extend to me does not require me to act, rather simply to be.

In their love I find the space I need to discover the truths within me, and in their goodness I find the reflections of the person I am becoming.

But even their lack of a definition does not define me.

For that choice, that decision, is ultimately mine alone to make, or to even choose not to make. I find myself accepting an ever increasing desire to exist without a definition of myself, so that I am free to ‘be’ in each experience, without needing a rule to guide me.

Trusting the deeper instincts within the moment, always screening them against the principles that resonate inside of me.

So that I might flow through the world in harmony with that which I believe to be goodness, kindness and sincerity.

For often we cling to a sense of identity, that it might shield us against a supposed onslaught of insult and infamy from the world. Yet it is our attachment to a definition that creates within us turmoil and pain, for only when we believe we are something can we experience a sense of loss when that definition is changed, or taken from us.

If we exist as an awareness in the moment, without definition other than “I am”, we will always be exactly who we need to be in that time and in that place.

So as I work through this change, this movement of my soul, I find myself trying to shed my need to be something, other than an expression of the principles which I feel are important: love, kindness, goodness, benevolence, patience, hope and sincerity.

Although I have roles within the world into which I pour my soul, that of Doctor, of friend, of family, of father and of husband, I hope to carry with me those principles and live according to their precepts.

For in the end, who I am, is really who I chose to be.

And in that, I am trying to chose wisely.

— Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings

Morning Reflection--Healing: Hunting the Signal

Healing: Hunting the Signal.

The strange thing about changing who you are, becoming somebody different and new, is that nothing seems quite the same as it did beforehand.

You find yourself grateful for things you took for granted, and at the same time you can see clearer than ever how some things were never going to be good for you, even though you hung on to them for far too long.

And some things you have to give up, even though it hurts so much that you want to scream.

But in the midst of this process, this growth, this regeneration, I’ve been seeking for something that was always ephemeral in the first place; a sense of where I was going. It’s so hard to describe what it feels like, but for the longest time I’ve had this sense of where I wanted to end up.

Not necessarily a geographical location, but more of sense of what I would feel like when I had arrived where I was supposed to be.

And I would get glimpses of it in the strangest of places.

Maybe it was in the bustle of a crowded airport terminal, seeing families united again in joy and happiness. Maybe it was seeing a sunset, and hoping one day to feel a sense of ease and peace at the end of a day well done.

Maybe it was in a piece of music as I drove down the highway, that suggested a sense of completeness and alignment.

Wherever and whenever it would occur, I would get this emotion of synchronicity, and I could see the steps before me, and know that I was going the right way.

But now, forcing myself through this crucible, where every part of my life is being restructured, reconfigured and reinterpreted, I find that I am hunting a different signal.

Strangely, even though my mind is quieter than ever now, I find myself struggling harder to hear that signal, and it’s showing up in the oddest places.

Beckoning me down a path that attracts me, and yet terrifies me at the same time.

For now the signal is hidden in the pain and suffering of others. When I see the cruelties of life, I sense an implacable resolve to bring balance and light. Where I see the anguish, I sense solutions to be implemented.

Where I see sadness, loneliness, longing and tears, I sense the way forward. Balancing both my light and shadow, my dreams and fears.

For I fear the place where the signal is leading, but I know I must go there, and soon.

Because the gifts that I have of communication, understanding and compassion are not ones that can bless me, unless I am using them to bless the lives of others. I don’t claim to ‘know’ everything, far from it, but I know that the time is soon coming when I have to take everything that is in me, and follow the signal wherever it leads.

So I’m trying to hear the signal clearer than ever, blocking out everything from my life that distracts me in any way. Maybe I’ll fall flat on my face, be ridiculed, misunderstood and even hated. Maybe I'll lose whatever sense of self and dignity I have in the process.

So be it.

Because if you truly believe, deep down in your soul, that you have something to offer of good in this world, then I believe that you have to stand up and share that as hard as you can.

Sure it might be scary, and it might demand more of you than you’ve ever known, but in the end, if you never try to make a difference, then you’re no different than the ones who started all the pain in the first place.

At some point in your life, you have to disregard what it’s going to cost you, deep in your soul, and just do the things that you feel are right. Sometimes you have to follow that signal into the middle of the dark, and shine your light so brightly, so that you can be a beacon unto others.

At some point you just have to follow your signal.

Because the signal is there, and I am going to follow it, wherever it leads.

— Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings

Morning Reflection--Healing: Are You Alive?

Healing: Are You Alive?

Obviously from a basic physiological viewpoint, if you’re not alive, then I’ve somehow managed to attract attention from the afterlife (and if so, hit me up on Facebook, I’d love to hear from you).

But assuming that you’re one of the still breathing, I’d like to pose that same question with a slightly different context.

Do you feel alive?

Because having a pulse, a heartbeat, a blood pressure and a somewhat functioning nervous system isn’t enough. Feeling alive is a sense of joy, of hope, of optimism, and of happiness.

And while I feel like I’ve experienced those at some points in my life, I have to admit that there have been a lot of times when the majority of those have been in short supply.

Because I’ve been living with a lot of negative feelings.

As part of my journey into wherever I’m going, I’ve been trying to understand the genesis of many of these emotions, and I’ve started to recognize that there are some things I’ve felt that began as a result of things that happened to me, and other feelings that are a result of how I was ‘programmed’ to feel about me.

And I want to explain the difference, because I hope it can help you.

As a result of some events that occurred in my formative years, I have a terrible ‘perfection complex’, where I feel like I have to do things really, really well (if not perfectly) in order to have any worth.

While this sounds like a recipe for always becoming better, it’s actually the perfect recipe for creating avoidance, fear and anxiety, and a pretty bad case of ‘analysis paralysis’.

But then those emotions (the result of the events) cause more events, and more emotions.

Because there have been times in my life when I could have just ‘gone for it’ on something, and didn’t, and lived with the regret.

There have been many times when I have started or tried something, and ended up stopping early, not seeing it through, because the fear of not doing it perfectly was so bad that I just ignored it when I could have made it work.

So as a result of actions (inactions really) that were driven by originating emotions, I then felt a second set of emotions, based on anger, self hatred, and disgust.

All of which kind of fill up your emotional radar, until there’s really no space left for a sense of joy, or optimism, or hope. There’s just a sense of dying a little more each day, realizing that every moment going by was another one lost to a sense of sadness, to futility and to failure.

You feel bad about yourself, and feel worse because of what you think that means about yourself.

It’s a vicious cycle that keeps going around and around, until you figure out a way to stop it.

Which is what I’m working on right now. I didn’t expect it to be easy, but wow, I didn’t realize it was going to be this hard. I am making progress, but there are days when I wonder if I’m ever going to get to where I want to be, and find this thing that I’m searching for, this wonderful sense of amazement, of laughter, of hope, of gratitude, and of joy.

I want to feel what it feels to feel alive again.

Because I have people in my life who I stand in awe of, in the way that they express their joy of life. I hate to admit this, but when I see someone who is truly alive in happiness, there’s a big part of me that struggles against a very strong feeling of jealousy. I know that’s not a great response, but hey, I’m trying to be truly honest here.

Because honesty, especially self honesty, is needed now more than ever.

Along with large helpings of forgiveness, of acceptance, of love, and of change.

You see, the people who seem to be the happiest, the most alive and the most vibrant, all seem to be people who have mastered the art of forgiving themselves, of accepting themselves, of loving themselves, and of changing themselves.

So on my journey towards a feeling of being alive, I’m trying to give myself the gift of all of those.

Because I really want to feel joy again. I really, really do.

— Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings

Morning Reflection--Healing: The Right to Be

Healing: The Right to Be.

What do you hear in the silence of your soul? I ask, because a significant part of the journey I am now on involves learning to listen to myself at a much deeper level than ever before.

So much of my life up until now has been spent in avoidance, which has looked a lot like caring so much for other people. Yes, I have truly cared (sometimes too much) but if I’m honest, which I’m trying to be, I can realize that part of my ‘caring’ has been a way to avoid listening to what my soul has been screaming at me for so long.

Trying to tell me that something has been missing in the core of me.

Once I realized that I needed to dedicate myself to this journey, I scaled back a lot of things in my life. I wrote the ‘Sabbatical’ post, telling you what was happening to me, and why I was going to be stopping or decreasing the frequency of my posts.

I told coaching clients that I could not support them at the current time, and I have deliberately distanced myself from some people who incite me to care in ways that are sometimes painful for me.

And after removing a lot of distractions, I’m getting down the task at hand, which is listening to the screaming in my soul.

Which sounds a lot easier than it really is, because most of the time, our soul just speaks in emotions that don’t have a lot of explanation behind them. We simply feel things, but don’t necessarily have a great understanding of why, and so we struggle to tease out the meaning.

After all, sadness is an indication of loss, but is that of purpose, of significance, of connection? Anger is the same – it is a secondary emotion that rarely explains itself.

So in all of my listening and writing over the past couple of weeks, I’ve begun to create a shape, or a form, as an explanation for what my soul has been trying to tell me, and it’s been a startling realization to understand that what is missing is something very profound, and considerably problematic.

Because the part I’m missing is “The Right to Be”.

I know that sounds crazy, but please bear with me while I try to explain it. As I’ve made no secret of, I grew up in a home where there was a lot of chaos, and a significant lack of emotional support.

One of the downsides of that type of a home life is that you never have a safe platform to explore who you are, and people can come out of those types of upbringings feeling like the problems were some fault of theirs.

That probably makes no sense unless you’ve been there, but I’ve spoken to so many people who came from a dysfunctional or broken home, who at some point in their childhood created the understanding that the problems were somehow related to who they were.

Maybe if they got better grades, their parents wouldn’t fight so much, or if they were just a better son or daughter, their emotionally unavailable parent would love them more.

So you grow up believing that you are the cause of a lot of the problems in the world, and that you need to become somebody else in order to make that right.

And you lose the right to just be the person who you really were born to be.

Which for me manifests as a constant sense that I can’t live my life for myself, that I always have to be serving someone else. In practice, I struggle to charge for what I do, because I have this deep underlying sense that I should be serving them for free to make up for who I am.

If I find myself with free time, I wrestle with the concept that it’s ok to just do something for myself. Even now, as I write this in the privacy of my office at home, there’s a desire to phrase the words just the right way, so that I might touch the heart of someone who reads this, and help them feel less pain, more peace, and a greater sense of joy.

Because doing something just for me is wrong.

Which sounds very noble, but it’s really incredibly destructive. A child who for whatever reason (and there are many) never gets the emotional and psychological freedom to find out the truths of who they are can live a life that rings hollow, never fully finding a sense of completeness or peace.

It’s like no matter what you do, or who you become in your attempt to right the scales of your life, you’re never going to find that sense of authenticity, or emotional congruency, until you find the answers to your own questions, and become the person who is right for you.

Which means you have to accept that you have a right to become that person, that despite the opinions of others or yourself…. you simply have a Right to Be.

Which can feel incredibly wrong, selfish and terrifying.

But I’m trying to find a sense of peace through this journey, and to do so, I realize that I have to have a right to be me, and to find the sense of who that really is. Not bound by Dogma, or of the opinions of others.

Not even bound by this incessant desire to care so hard that I might balance the scales in opposition to my supposed inadequacies.

But to discover the person who I really am, in the absence of everything and everyone else.

Which for me is such a hard thing to do. I stare with jealousy at those who have a confident congruency in their soul, and I struggle to not care too much for those who are so very important to me.

Withdrawing from the world to walk alone for a while is my way of trying to find the person inside of me, without falling prey to the weaknesses of the thoughts and feelings I carry within.

So I ask you patience while I seem to be gone for a while, because I’m trying to find the right to Be, and the right Me.

The pathway I am walking is a lonely one, but the journey is more necessary that you can possibly imagine.

— Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings

Morning Reflection--Healing: The Foundation Run

Healing: The Foundation Run.

If you want to understand a person, try to discover what their personality is built on. For some, it’s a bedrock of feeling of being loved, accepted, cherished and wanted. This generally produces people who are happy, successful, and at peace with themselves.

For others, it’s precariously perched on an unstable tripod of longing, loathing and loss, and produces a person who struggles to feel happiness, thinks poorly of themselves, and has a hard time finding their place or some peace in this world.

The soil doesn’t determine the type of tree, but it sure makes a difference to how it grows.

But accessing the foundation of a person is not easy. Sure, there are fast ways to do it, with sleep deprivation and a focused encounter, a careful cocktail of chemicals or an incredibly powerful feeling of fear, but none of those are kind, respectful or easy to manage the fallout from.

If you really want to get to the depths of someone’s soul in a way that helps rather than hurts, then your best chance is a little process I like to call ‘The Foundation Run’.

But buckle up buttercup– because this one gets real, really fast.

There’s just a few things you need, and like any good meal, your outcome is only going to be as good as your ingredients. You start with a huge spoonful of desire, because unless the person wants to do this, and really understands a deep personal need to get this done, they’re never going to give you access to the core.

But if they really want to change, then you’re ready for your second ingredient.

A guide you can trust.

Because running the core of a broken foundation is tricky, and it’s sure as hell going to hurt someone, if not both of you. If you don’t have a guide who knows how to fly this particular brand of trouble, the chances are that you’ll crash and burn.

But in the hands of someone who drives compassion with wisdom, and kindness with knowledge, you can start the run into someone’s very own heart of darkness.

Which means all you need now is time, and a safe place to scream.

The questions start the process, lightly touching the exterior, gently probing to see the reactions, focusing on the breathing, the tone, the wording of the answers, and the micro-expressions of the body and face.

Modulating intensity with intrigue, you enter the soul, the questions coming faster now, from odd angles, tangential shifts designed to confront from strange angles, succeeding in stealth where strength could never get through.

And the closer you get to the core, the greater the resistance, and the harder and more painful the answers become.

This is where you turn up the wisdom, melding intuition with intention, guiding the person past the wasteland of unknowing, and running right into the defenses of fear, pain and rejection, as their inbuilt desire to avoid the agony of all that is buried inside of them tries to shut them down, and shut you out.

And in that moment, when they’re hurting and lost, feeling their past rather than understanding it, struggling against the tears, the heartache, the loss and the cruel reality of all they have suffered, you execute the final dance of the run.

You challenge the meaning of all that is holding them in pain, help them to see it differently, and in doing so, let it go.

If you’ve done it right, then they’ll likely feel an intense pain that rocks them to their core. It’s like you’re pulling out a splinter that has been lodged in their heart for as long as they can remember.

They may cry, they may scream, and they might even throw up. This is the real pain that they have been suppressing for so long that they feel like a part of their soul is being torn away. This is primal, terrifying and horrific.

This is the soul naked to the universe; broken, bleeding and screaming for the pain to go away.

Which is when you need some pretty powerful people skills, and the ability to hold them in compassion with the absolute and complete absence of any kind of judgment.

People heal when they are accepted, and do not have to alter who they are or what they feel for fear of the opinions or emotions of others. When you can accept another in their entirety of their soul, you can be a light helping to guide them out of the darkness.

And it can be a long journey back.

Because even when you’ve opened the wound in their soul, and hopefully cleaned it with love and acceptance, it still takes a long time for them to heal, learning new patterns of behavior and understanding.

This is when you are needed to most, to hold them in the times when they still struggle to grow and become the person they always wanted to be.

But if the run was done correctly, the rest is just a matter of time and tears.

What are you hiding in your foundation?

— Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings

Morning Reflection--Healing: Balancing the Sword.

Healing: Balancing the Sword.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve been fascinated with the sight and sounds of the forging of metal.

Something deep within me is moved by the red hot light from the piece being worked, the sparks and sounds of each hammer blow, and the incredible creations that can come from the repeated heating and pressure applied to a single piece of metal, creating form and function where once there was none.

And I am not unmindful of the way that this mirrors our lives.

Because I kind of feel like I’m in a forge right now. As I move through this healing process, I feel like I am taking new hits from the hammer every day, and every time I feel like things are cooling down for a moment, someone somewhere turns up the heat again, albeit in a different way.

I am trying to keep my focus on the benefits from the process, not on the feelings and struggles I experience along the way.

So I try to imagine myself as the sword in the furnace.

Because the purpose of heating steel in the furnace is to bring to the surface the impurities inherent in the metal. Then, with repeated strikes over and over again, those impurities are struck from the metal, leaving the remaining core purer, stronger, more flexible, and more prepared for the purpose for which the sword is being made.

And this is hardest part of the work.

For no matter how skilled the craftsman, even the greatest cannot produce a work of art with steel that contains too many impurities. So the time is spent, hour after hour, heating until those impurities are revealed, very much like the truths I am facing now as I travel further into my past, deeper into my soul.

As the pressure on me increases, the weaknesses and damaged portions of my foundation rise to the surface, so that I may examine them, understand them, and finally dispose of them.

And although this process is far from easy, or painless, I am beginning to find a sense of gratitude for the lessons along the way.

Because once the steel is refined, then the master craftsman begins to shape the sword, finding within each blade the point of balance and weight, so that the sword can be held and wielded in perfect alignment.

Then, after a process that has stressed the metal in the blade, and strengthened it, shaped it and prepared it, the final part of the process is revealed.

The sharpening of the blade.

For although the blade may be strong, balanced and aligned, the sword is nothing without its edge. In some ways, my very soul is being sharpened, focused and brought into symmetry. I see this as a providence, for the desires I have to go beyond where I am cannot come to pass without a significant change of who I am.

And so I choose to accept this process, and pass within the forge, that I regenerate into the person I most desire to be.
But there is one extra lesson through this journey, and while I sense its necessity, I am saddened by its reality.

I am mindful that the sword is an instrument to cut, and that sometimes, progress means deciding to cut away that which no longer serves you.

For the Latin origin of the word ‘decide’ is de (off) and caedere (cut) to decide is literally to cut off any other way.

To heal from the wounds that beset me, I have to not only cut off the behaviors, fears, false self beliefs and childish notions of how the universe should be, but I also have to cut away some of the relationships in my life that do not uplift me, support me, or that no longer bring joy to me.

And while the loss of these things will hurt me, I have to believe that my future will be brighter through my time and my decisions in the forge that I am currently in.

For now, I am focusing on finding a balance in the sword of my soul.

That I might come through this process more perfectly, and find on the other side a better me .

— Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings

Morning Reflection--Healing: Open

Healing: Open

As I’ve moved into this new phase of my life, trying to go as deep as I can to heal the wounds from my past, I’ve come to the realization that part of the acceptance of healing is to allow yourself to be more open with the people around you.

Not that you have to suddenly start telling your life story to strangers, but that you will deepen your relationships with the significant people in your life if you share the truth of how you are really feeling.

Which isn’t something that comes naturally or easily to me.

Growing up in a home where chaos was a constant, and certainty was in short supply, you get really good at hiding how you feel.

Because somewhere in your early growing years, you come to the realization that not everyone understands or experiences these feelings, and the last thing you want to do as a kid is stand out for being different, because as you know, children aren’t necessarily the most understanding.

So you learn to blend in by lying about who you are, and how you feel.

And like any skill, if you do it long enough, you get really good at it. The more you hide away, the further away from others you feel, even though you’re in the same room, the same family, the same lives.

If you practice this long enough, you even start becoming a stranger to yourself, lost in a sea of suppression, shutting out the feelings, becoming numb, nobody, no-one.

But eventually it catches up with you.

Because we need those real, honest and deep human relationships to allow us to buffer the cruel reality of the world in which we live, and honesty is the key to authenticity and depth in a relationship.

Being truthful about how we feel, rather than acting like everything is ok, is one of the ways you make those bonds stronger, although it feels so foreign, so alien and so unnatural to me.

Opening up is hard, because you fear the reactions of those to whom you lay yourself bare.

Which isn’t a reflection on them – far from it. But the lessons you learn as a child, and carry with you as an adult, are really hard to overcome. In a home where you don’t feel safe to share how you really feel, for fear of the repercussions, you just keep it all inside.

But if home is the place where you’re supposed to be able to be yourself without fear yet you can’t, and you don’t show the world outside because of the ridicule you expect….

You never get a chance to be yourself anywhere.

So now I’m trying to learn how to open up and share the truth of how I feel. Not that I exactly lied previously, but I would have shaded my answers, avoiding extremes to avoid attention. I’m struggling to open up about fears, dreams, doubts and failings.

Thankfully, Holly is patient, and understanding, and is probably well on her way to a degree in dysfunctional psychology. She’s even started using some of my coaching techniques on me…

And you can imagine just how much I’m enjoying that :)

But I’m finding that the more open I am with her, the more authentic and honest our relationship feels, which is amazing given that we are pretty close to each other anyway.

I think it’s been eye opening to her, and yet has clicked some puzzle pieces into place so that she understands me emotionally in a way where previously she could understand logically, but had no emotional frame of reference.

She has held me when I’ve need it, listened when I’ve talked and covered me in compassion. I don’t deserve her, but here she is, and I’m so grateful for her.

So today, I invite you to try to find a deeper connection with the important people in your life by being truly honest about how you feel. The harder it is to share the real you, the more worthwhile you’ll find the process.

Because the deeper your foundations of friendship and love, the greater the peace and happiness you’ll find.

Which is what we’re all here for in the end.

— Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings

Morning Reflection--Healing: Acceptance

Healing: Acceptance

As I try to take my first faltering steps on this new pathway, I’m realizing that there are many things that I need to change about the way I live. Which, if you could see what feels like a train wreck of a life, is probably a good thing.

There are so many fundamental things misaligned in my soul that need to be corrected that ‘change’ should really be my best friend right now.

But when you come from a place of chaos, change is usually last thing you want to happen.

Because for me, in my emotional linkages, change usually heralds in chaos, which is then closely followed by pain. Change for me represents something uncertain, which I immediately think is going to end up in something bad or negative, because as a child that was usually the case.

So I fight against change way more than I should. But there’s one thing I’ve fought even harder.

The acceptance that there are things wrong with me, and that I need to be honest about that.

Because it’s one thing to understand logically that you have areas of your soul that aren’t fully formed or working properly, but it’s another thing entirely to actually accept and be open about it.

Coming from the background that I did, I’ve tried for so long to fight against the reality of the scars that it left upon me, trying to convince myself and everyone around me that I was ok.

When in reality, I wasn’t and I’m not.

Which is really hard to admit. We live in a world that is so obsessed with perfection as a way to find worthiness (significance) that we have a hard time admitting to ourselves that sometimes it’s the very people who have walked in the dark who can become the strongest carriers of the light.

If I have any skill in working with people, it’s because I’ve experienced things that allow me to see them without judgment, without condemnation, and without disdain or disrespect.

And yet it’s the acceptance which I give freely unto others that I struggle to apply to myself.

But I realize I am not alone in that. I have people in my life who are wonderful people, yet they only see themselves as flawed. They struggle with their sense of worth as well, because we as a society do a terrible job of being open about our struggles.

From our social media highlight reel to our movies and television, we lie, distort and deceive, portraying perfection as the pinnacle, and failure as the fall.

Making it hard for people to accept themselves, and be open enough to accept the love and friendship of others.

Because when we are not open about our failings, and instead hide them deep inside of us, we remove ourselves from being able to be sure that we are loved.

If we hide our flaws deep within, we become convinced that people only love us for that which they see, and that they would not love us if we only revealed the truth of who we are.

We believe their love is conditional, when it may not be.

So as I work through this new journey deeper into my soul, I find that I need to be honest about who I am, and the struggles and fears that I face.

If I have been able to do any good in this work so far, I think it has come from being able to help people realize that we are all imperfect, we all struggle, we all fall, and sometimes we all need help.

And when you find someone who is ready to be honest about that, it helps us be a little more accepting of ourselves.

So I’m trying to be more honest about the way that I think and feel, knowing that it’s not always going to be pretty, or feel good. But I’m hoping in the honesty that I can be not only a light unto others, but a beacon unto myself.

So that I can finally accept all that is inside of me, and make progress on my journey towards making myself better, and finding peace.

— Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings