Morning Reflection #584: What You Are If You Are Not

What if I told you that letting go was the fastest way to gain. What if I told you that that which you hold is often that which holds you back.

What if you could unlearn all that you have learned that is not so. What if you could awaken tomorrow morning knowing that up until now you only slept in your life.

What if you could discover the truth of all that is by burying all that you no longer need.

I know, it sounds like I’ve been watching far too many B-list martial arts movies.

But truthfully, the greatest things that hold us back in life are often the beliefs that we have about something that we are unwilling or currently unable to let go of. We often have so many ideas around our identity and who we wish to be, who we strive to be. I have seen people struggle time after time because they are unwilling to let go of an identity which they have spent so long creating, that they cannot understand or see a future in which they are not that persona.

So they invest so much of their time and energy into desperately trying to be that which they are not.

And why do they do that? It’s because they can’t imagine what they will be, or how they will survive, if they give up an identity that they have spent years crafting, and one which defines so much of their life. We become so comfortable in the skin that we have grown over ourselves that we are unable to realize that without this persona, this identity, this carefully crafted opinion of who we think we are, we are in fact enough just being ourselves.

But letting go and giving up is very scary.

A friend of mine recently approached me and asked me how I made a very difficult decision recently, one that changed my life in a very significant way. As we talked, I could see that my friend was struggling deeply. They had recently come to understand something about that was going to change the very core of how they defined themselves.

And I could tell that letting go of the person they believe they were was terrifying.

Which, let’s be honest, is really terrifying. Suppose I told you that you were going to wake up tomorrow morning and realize that a significant portion of the way you have lived your life was based on a lie. That kind of betrayal, that kind of shift of the very nature of your understanding of reality doesn’t come easy. It makes you question everything and sometimes everyone.

But the longer we study, the more we realize that the only things we have to give up are the things that are not really true.

Yet we fear that, because we often believe that without “that which makes us… us” we will be less than. The loss of a lie doesn’t make us less, it actually makes us more. The more that we understand who we really are, the more we are able to move through the world from a place of peace and calm. The less lies we believe about ourselves, the more truly we understand who we really are.

And truly, being you, is enough.

Sure your bank account may be less than somebody else’s, and your car may be a few years older. Your house may be smaller, and you may not have the “perfect relationships” you believe that they have.

In my world, if you have the desire to be kind, and the honesty, courage and determination to know yourself, you are far more successful and far more “wealthy” than those who build their lives on a lie, and reinforce their beliefs of themselves with rumor, speculation and arrogance.

I’m here to tell you today that you at your core, without all of the trappings of the world in which we live, are enough.

The more you can let go of your need to be, the more you will find peace in who you truly are.

— Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings

Morning Reflection # 583: Why Your Grief Turns to Guilt.

At the moment someone passes, those who care about them are on their own journey. It may be their first step after sudden and shocking news, or they may have begun walking on that pathway the moment a diagnosis was made. No matter when or where the journey starts, that moment of passing cements their presence on the highway of grief, and at that point there’s no way to leave it.

And that highway can be very lonely sometimes.

Yet sometimes, in the midst of that devastating combination of loss and longing, we take a detour onto a different kind of path. It’s an emotion that most of us have some familiarity with, and it seems to show up in the strangest of places, most of the time where it has no need to be. Somehow its presence is both comforting and painful at the same time, and it took me a long to figure out why.

Because why would feeling guilty ‘feel good’?

In my life as both a healthcare practitioner and a coach, I get to meet and talk to a lot of people. Sometimes at their best, but more often at a time when they are struggling, and I’ve seen how people can find refuge from what they feel by changing grief into guilt.

Often they are unaware of what they have done, unable to recognize why the change happened, and they are almost always undeserving of the pain they inflict upon themselves.

I have tried to understand why this is so, and I recently had a conversation that allowed me to figure it out. I think people choose guilt because it’s easier than grief.

True grief is something that we hate because it’s an emotion of helplessness, and helplessness is not a feeling that any of us enjoy. Almost 24 years ago I stood helpless in a neonatal intensive care unit where my son, just a few hours old, was being treated for a congenital heart condition that was doing its best to kill him. I was utterly, completely and unbelievably helpless… and I still struggle with the aftereffects of that feeling today.

I’ve listened to people weep through their helplessness at the loss of a relationship, the loss of a loved one, or the loss of a dream in the face of a changing situation. I’ve seen just how devastating and painful the sense of helplessness can be.

And sometimes the pain of helplessness from grief makes us look for any emotion so that we can feel something different.

Because like I said earlier, grief is an emotion that hurts us partly because there is no action to be taken. Grief kicks in where there is nothing else than can be done, and our inability to act leaves us powerless and painful. The pain we feel is instinctive, biological, inherent and often overwhelming so much that we might feel like we are going to die

In the face of overwhelming grief, we pivot to feeling guilt, because guilt always comes with it the understanding that we can do something different in the future.

And guilt also gives a sense that we are responsible in some part for what we are feeling, which allows us to feel that there is some balance in what otherwise can feel like a cold, uncaring universe.

The person who grieves not spending time with a loved one has the solace of knowing that they can spend more time with those around them, so they can avoid the intensity of the pain they feel right now. The person who grieves an angry last word with a now lost partner can take a sense of change by determining to treat people better, kinder and more gently.

So by the combination of giving us a sense of ‘rightness’ in the universe (I am guilty so I deserve to feel this way) and a concept of how to avoid feeling this way in the future, we transform our grief and helplessness in loss into guilt,

This makes the suffering easier, because suffering without cause disturbs our sense of certainty in the universe, but if we suffer because we deserve it… well, we can live with that, because that gives is a sense that there is order in the chaos; sense in the midst of that which often makes no sense at all.

The ability to act gives us hope against the helplessness of grief, and it helps us avoid the very thing that we actually need to do in order to feel better.

Guilt allows us to avoid feeling grief, and prevents us from feeling it until it runs it’s course.

I’ve met many people who have bandaged over the wound of grief with guilt, and who have never allowed that grief to fully be healed. Instead they take comfort in feeling bad about themselves, so that they can in some way hold onto those who have passed or moved on by committing to being different in the future.

And their guilt prevents them from truly finding peace in their future.

If that’s you, please know that your guilt is not serving you. Although it might be helping you get through today, I’m here to tell you that it’s poisoning your tomorrow. My wish for you is to give yourself the kindness that I’m sure you give others, and try to let your sense of guilt go. Yes it will hurt in the moment, but allowing yourself to grieve and heal will lift the weight of so many tomorrows.

May you find peace, and know that you are good.

— Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings

Morning Reflection #582: Echoes

In the town where I grew up in, there’s a church that was built around the early 1400’s. It’s not a very spectacular building, other than the fact that it’s held up to over 600 years of rain, hail, sleet, snow and, because it’s in England, occasionally sunlight.

That it still stands is a testament to the skills of its builders, and for me, there’s something very comforting about a building that old, that resilient, that timeless.

I feel like it connects us through time with those who have gone before.

But what’s even more impressive is going inside, and just sitting quietly. The older I get, the more I find silence to be inspiring; like I can hear the passing of time, and the accumulated knowledge of the human race trying to whisper to me its secrets.

Sitting in a building that old, especially one that was constructed for the very purpose of facilitating connection with a sense of something greater than ourselves, gives a sense of perspective not just of time, but also of our lives and the living out of our days.

In a building such as this, time itself seems an echo.

Sitting in that place, with stone, wood and glass that is so much older than I am, it’s easy to find myself drifting through reflection and emotion. Almost like I could connect with the dreams, desires, wishes, and struggles of the people who have sat in that place before me.

Some, many years ago, may have struggled to keep warm, while some less than a century ago would have struggled to avoid the bombs falling from the sky.

Somehow, the echoes of their problems live on in our lives, just with a different flavor of sadness, a different echo of madness.

Yet I think their dreams are also echoed in all of us, through both our biology and our societies. And, if there is such a thing, maybe somehow in our souls. At our core, the desires of most of us are pretty much the same.

We wish to love and feel loved, we wish for safety and the feeling of security, and we wish to feel a part of something that gives us a sense of meaning to the passing of our days.

I think sometimes we wish to feel ourselves as a part of the echo of humanity.

I had the chance recently to feel some of that echo myself, as my wife, my oldest son and myself went to watch a movie together. It was the sequel to a movie released almost 40 years ago; a movie that was for my wife and I an iconic capture of our adolescence, and the aspirations, hopes and feelings of a certain moment in time.

And watching my son love the sequel in the same way that we loved the original, I realized that my son was experiencing his own echo of the lives that we had lived, and the life that we had given to him.

Which made me wonder about all the echoes we have left with him in his soul, and to reflect on the echoes left in us from our parents, and the world in which we came to be. The more I ponder and reflect, the greater becomes my understanding that none of us are a singular sound outside of the orchestral grandeur that is the lasting note of humanity, both beautiful and discordant, both majestic and full of misery.

Every single one of us is in some way a reflection and an echo of all that has gone before, and the lives and years that will go on after us will reflect in some way that which we choose to do and be today.

May the echo of humanity be one of kindness and love, and may you feel of that daily and always.

— Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings

Morning Reflection #581: The Sooner You Get to Yourself.

If you ask the sculptor, they’ll tell you that statue was always there; that underneath the rough and unhewn stone was the finished product waiting to come to life.

Before starting the David, you can bet that Michelangelo could see it in his head. He breathed life into the work with every strike of the hammer on the chisel, eventually arriving at the final and finished masterpiece that was as breathtaking in its magnitude as it was in its detail.

Peace came for Michelangelo when the David reached its final form.

As I’ve watched my two children grow, I’ve been granted the monumental responsibility of shaping some of their form as well. Thankfully, by some instinct that I still struggle to define, I started off my role as a father with a desire to give them as much control as I could over their own growth and their own direction. Why is that important you ask… well, it’s because of this.

I truly believe that people who have the space to find out who they really are experience the greatest amount of happiness, and cause the least amount of problems.

Yet even under the best of parenting, we still find our image of ourselves shaped by the unavoidable trauma of being human. While still young we are affected by buffetings and realities of life. It might be bullying at school or the disapproval of a parent at home. It might be a birth into a culture that immediately defined a pathway for you that didn’t really resonate with who you were underneath.

Maybe it was an all consuming desire for something that turned out to be not what you really wanted.

There are so many ways for us to lose connection with who we really are, and to think that we are someone who we are not. Worst of all is when we feel a need to ‘be’ something that doesn’t feel congruent with who we actually are. This leads to a life of sadness, frustration, regret and mourning, as nothing you do feels like enough, and no success will truly compensate for that ever present feeling that nothing is as it should be.

Because unless it is authentic to you… it’s just going to feel wrong.

But let’s face it, it’s hard to come to a full knowledge of who we really are. I was 47 years old before I finally began to understand what I want to do with my life. It was a long hard road to get there, and I’ve made so many mistakes that I struggle every day with regret, and the fear that I will not be able to make right what sometimes feels so very, very wrong.

I honestly wish I had had the space to ‘discover myself’ as a child, or as a young adult.

But discovering yourself truly takes time and the space to try things to see what resonates, and that requires safety, and someone who can teach you how to realize what really resonates with you deep in your soul. I think we often do kids a terrible disservice by telling them who they are, and guiding them into the ways that will make us feel like we are ‘good parents’.

This leads to adults doing what they think they should do, rather than what would actually bring them joy.

Over the last four and a half years of writing this work, I’ve come to understand myself in new and surprisingly wonderful ways, and I’m trying to live according to who I really am, not who others would have me be. I’ve changed so much of my philosophy and understanding, and I can tell you that getting in touch with who I really am has provided a greater sense of peace and happiness than anything I have known before.

And I truly wish that for you as well.

The journey is not easy, but every layer of mistaken identity that I remove helps me to find a greater depth of peace, appreciation and wonder. I desire more to understand rather to be understood, and I find myself marveling at the smallest of things that I previously took for granted.

May you find a way to get to the truth of who you really are. It might shock you, and it might test you, but there is nothing greater that you can do for yourself than to find a way to release all your traumas and fears, and embrace your truest self in all your wonder.

It will change you, uplift you and embrace you in a peace that will surpass your understanding.

May you also find joy.

— Dr. Alan Barnes
maddrbmusings

Morning Reflection #580: Tectonic.

I remember my first earthquake very vividly. I was sitting at work, talking with my co-workers, when the world felt ‘weird’ for a moment. Having never experienced an earthquake before, all I could tell was that things were shaking, and it was nice to see that the people around me (seasoned Californians) were not freaking out. As soon as one of them identified the sensation, I could relax and really ‘feel’ what was happening. Thankfully it was a relatively mild one, which left no damage, and was just a good topic for conversation.

But the feeling that something very deep below me was shifting was a sensation I’ve never forgotten.

We all like to feel that our foundation is solid, that it doesn’t shift too much. The more sure we are of where we are standing, the more likely we are to make changes, take risks and see things from a balanced perspective. When we are young, our foundation tends to be very specific; based on our families, and the very small world that we inhabit. As we grow older, our foundation can deepen with our philosophy or beliefs, our relationships, and our choices.

And as we age, shifts in our foundation become less frequent, but can often be more powerful.

Instead of the small and gentle shifts that usually occur as a child grows, adult foundational shifts can often be what I describe as soul-quakes… a tectonic shift in the way we feel about the universe, our partner, our beliefs in the nature of the universe. It may be the loss of a career, the death of a loved one, learning of a deep and long lasting betrayal, or the sudden realization of a truth that is as self evident as it monumental.

Sometimes your soul-quakes are a result of the outside world, and sometimes they are from the inside world, far away in the dark corners of your soul.

A soul-quake can be profoundly painful or majestically moving. It can be both the end of a dream or the beginning of a period of enlightenment. In my years of working with different people, I have come to understand that tectonic movements within our soul are rarely without some form of pain. This can be from the loss of something, or from something we have given up, or the realization that a movement is necessary even though it will be accompanied by some pain.

The older you get, the harder it becomes to change your foundation.

But as we get older, the changes that we need tend to be tectonic. They are not the small course corrections found in childhood or young adulthood that require a small course correction. No, the older you get, the more force is required to make the changes that will lead us to the deeper truths that our very souls are crying for.

Very often, the tectonic shifts of our further years are about losing something that we thought was a part of ourselves, so that we might find more clearly the very nature of life as we wish it to be.

And that loss can be as painful as it can be profound.

As I grow older, I still find occasions of wonder and surprise, as a part of life sharpens into focus when once it was blurred in the background, and I see that there are changes that I wish to make, and yet sometimes I falter in the moment, fearful of what the next way point on the journey of my life could entail.

Because like an earthquake that occurs under our feet, a tectonic shift in our soul can be both destructive and creative, both painful and powerful. Sometimes it is the result of something that has been under pressure for so long finally breaking free, and when that energy is released, the very ground beneath our soul can move and find new balance.

Settling into a pathway that is better for us, and one that may lead us to joy.

— Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings

Morning Reflection #579: What is the purpose of life?

I know. It’s a Monday morning and I’m dropping this kind of a reflection on you when realistically we’ve both got things to get done, places to be, and the last thing we have time for is a long deep conversation about life.

So why do I bother you this morning with a question that we could spend hours around a fire in the woods discussing?

Because I honestly believe that your time is valuable, and the longer you spend without a purpose in your life, the more you are wasting it.

I’ve found myself really trying to go deeper over the last 2 weeks, trying to become more ‘organic’ in my soul. This weekend my sweet wife and I got away to our favorite ‘hideout’ in the mountains. There’s a hotel we love, with a room that we have stayed in so many times that it feels like coming home whenever we get there.

The room has become ‘ours’, and there’s a sense of peace and calm in it that we rarely find elsewhere.

Usually when we get away for the weekend I have a plan of what to think about, what to write about and how to ‘use’ the time most effectively, and yet this weekend was different. I came with no specific purpose or target, other than to allow my mind the space to go where it wanted, to let it wander and see where it ended up… which actually looks like this:

Right now it’s 8:15am on Saturday April 23, 2022, and I’m pondering the reason for existence, and how to find a deep sense of meaning for my life.

Maybe you’ve already got this figured out, and if so, congratulations. Maybe your answer has to do with a belief in some form of higher order consciousness (deity), or maybe you’ve arrived at a conclusion that life is to be experienced and enjoyed as loudly and as extremely as possible.

Maybe, just maybe, your answer has less to do with trying to ‘figure things out’ and more to do with just keeping yourself busy so you don’t have to think about these things.

Or maybe you ask yourself the same questions.

I’m sure some of you reading this will immediately want to share your answers, and while I appreciate the sentiment behind your intention, I am fast becoming of the opinion that answers from others will never replace the deep sense of congruency that answers from within ourselves will produce.

The longer I live, the more I believe that the only answers that really matter are the ones that you have pulled out of your soul, not those which have been fed to you by others.

Which is why I try to focus on the currency of questions rather than the payment of answers.

I think it’s a rather fascinating form of self indulgence to believe that any answer that I have will be right for you. There’s no greater feeding of the ego to imagine a world full of people believing and behaving just how you think that they should. I know because in my younger days I felt that, believed that, and found that it leaves no space for anyone to be themselves. I shudder to think of how I was back then.

I think there’s no greater respect that I can pay you than to give you the space to find out who you are and what works for you, and to trust that you can find those answers for yourself. My role is to offer questions and queries along the way, left in such a manner that you can either engage with me or not.

Because we’re all on our own journey, and if I am to respect you, then I have to respect your freedom to choose for yourself what your purpose is.

If you have found your purpose and it brings you peace, I am happy for you. If you are searching for your purpose, I hope that you find it. If I may be of any assistance, I hope I can help you.

May you find peace and purpose, today and always.

— Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings

Morning Reflection #578: The Day I Stopped Being Someone Else

Sometimes you need a little kick to start the day, so as we pulled into the gas station my sweet wife jumped out to get some orange juice and a donut. I usually sit in the car, waiting and observing. Both of us are prolific people watchers, reading and writing stories in our heads to share with each other, so the chance to sit and watch the flow of humanity in and out of a gas station is something that I enjoy.

Except today I wasn’t watching anyone, except myself

In my last piece for this work I wrote about transitions and changes, and in my experience change is rarely a process without some friction and difficulty. The greatest changes in my life have usually come from places of pain and frustration; the birth of the new finding its chrysalis in the difficulty of the old. This transition in my life is no different, as I seek to do, to become, to find.

And most of the time it feels like I’m trying to ‘be’ someone that I’m not yet.

Many of us who grew up in difficult childhoods learned the value of masks and personalities. I remember going to school in my teenage years and wearing the mask of someone who was doing ok, when inside I just wanted to scream. I learned to not engage with my father when he came home from the pub, so I would adopt the personality of someone quiet, never allowing anger or frustration to show.

You live with these masks and personas long enough, and you start to forget who you are without them.

Worst of all, you begin to feel like the ‘person without the mask or the persona’ isn’t enough, or is somehow bad. So you find yourself always trying to ‘be’ someone other than yourself, always feeling that you need to be more, and becoming frustrated when trying to be something ‘more’ seems to never be ‘enough’.

At 51 years old, the idea that I need to be someone ‘more’ is getting pretty damn old.

So as I sat ruminating about trying to ‘be’ the next version of myself, I experienced a deep sense of weariness and a certain level of repulsion. No matter how many times I've tried to ‘be’ something, it never seems to work out, and I find myself stuck in the same patterns time after time. I asked myself if anything would be different, and who could I become this time.

It all seemed to be the same old patterns, with the same inevitable, predictable, and useless results.

And right at that moment, that other voice in my head, the one who shows up after I’ve worried, gnawed at and pushed and pushed and pushed at a problem for so damn long… that voice floored me with a simple, profound, powerful and altogether revolutionary suggestion that at once terrified me, and yet made so much sense that I sat quietly in shock.

“Instead of trying to be someone who you aren’t, try for once being who you actually are”.

Which to be honest is a little terrifying. When you’ve spent so much of your life trying to be anyone other than who you really are, the idea of allowing myself just to be ‘me’ isn’t something that feels comfortable. One of the holdover scars from my childhood is a deep sensation of being ‘less than’ and somehow ‘apart’ from most of humanity. When nothing you do is ever enough to feel safe and loved as a child, the message you take to heart is that who you are is never going to ‘be’ good enough, so you struggle to become something more.

And you bury the who that is you under a million moments of trying to be anything but.

But the truth is, I’m tired of trying to be the best I can be; the kindest, the wisest, the person who never takes a moment for himself, and yet the prospect of trying to find a balance between the other side of me and the person who I’ve tried to be is daunting. When you feel like you’re not enough, it makes some kind of twisted sense to bury any trace of yourself under as much goodness as you can find.

‘Sacrifice’ they call it… the price you pay for all that isn’t good enough.

But the measure of a sacrifice is not of what you give, but of how much it costs you, and sometimes that measurement can never be understood by anyone but yourself. Living with a lack of authenticity comes at a price, and part of that price is sometimes losing what it is that makes you different, capable and valuable.

And sometimes, what you really lose is the belief that you are worthy of anything at all.

So I’m going to try something different, in being more myself, and less of who I think I should be. I won’t lie to you, that’s kind of a balance that I don’t feel super comfortable with, but I have recently been convinced that authentic me, with all of his flaws and failings, might actually do more good in the world than hiding myself away, as I have been.

So for better or worse, I think I need to let myself be me for a while, and see what happens.

I guess this might be interesting.

— Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings

Morning Reflection # 577: Transition.

Back in the middle of last year, I felt like I was done writing for a while. For the first 2 years of this work I was writing 5 days a week, and while it was sometimes hard, it was very therapeutic for me. Then after a confluence of events in October of 2019 I cut back on the frequency of pieces, and somewhere in the middle of last year my desire to write had left me.

I hadn’t stopped learning, changing, coaching and growing, but I didn’t feel the urge to share in the way that I had done before.

I think part of that might have been burnout from everything that we have experienced with the pandemic, and part of it was a desire to just focus on being able to change without necessarily sharing that with others. I’ve found that sometimes I lose the power of an experience because I’m too busy figuring out how to share the lesson I’ve learned.

I also understand that ‘figuring out how to teach the lesson’ can become a form of dissociation… a way of not experiencing the full emotions of a situation by distracting myself from what I am actually feeling.

Yet over the months since I last wrote, I have started a number of pieces, not knowing what I was going to do with them, but wanting to explore thoughts, and see where my mind would lead me. All the while feeling like there was something moving, shifting, changing somewhere deep within me. It was fleeting, like something forever caught in the periphery of your vision, so the moment you try to focus on it, it moves out of your view.

Until it comes clearly into picture.

Over Christmas I started watching some Youtube videos of people who were living very simplified lives. One is a young Russian guy who goes into the woods and builds log houses to live in on the weekends. This led to the videos of a 23 year old yoga teacher living in a tiny house in the middle of nowhere, and finally led to a 30 something woman who lives in a small cottage in a rural area of Washington.

She documents her simple, timeless, beautiful, classical life.

And over the last few weeks I've realized I am becoming drawn to that life way more powerfully than I was originally aware of. I think she caught me with her incredible cinematography, her beautiful choice of simple accompanying music, and the quiet grace and kindness with which she carries herself. But once I had moved past admiring the sheer perfection of her craft in making videos, I discovered the deeper truth that was driving my attention.

I wanted the simplicity of her life.

And while I understand (and she is very clear to explain) that her videos do not reflect the difficult moments of her life, I am in awe of the decisions she has made to allow herself to live in such peace and simplicity. She reads and creates art that she sells online, as well as making beautiful timeless videos that have created over 800,000 subscribers on Youtube (with many more to come I expect).

And I realize that I have some difficult decisions to make if I am to transition to that kind of lifestyle.

I’ve actually been working on the concepts of a huge change for a while now. Slowly putting pieces together, formulating ideas and concepts. Although I could ‘start at any time’, I’m trying to work through my fears and worries about what would be a pretty significant alteration in the way that I coach, and seeking a much larger audience for the change I want to make in the world.

Because honestly… it scares me.

Back in 2017, this work began as a form of self therapy, and a way to share what I had learned. It became something more when people were commenting, and telling me how my words had helped them, and in some cases changed their lives. While I’ve been comfortable coaching people for longer than I have been writing, the idea that my work could have a broader appeal was sometimes a little overwhelming.

But I also realize that in order to make the change that I want to be in the world, I have to take a deep breath and ‘do something’.

And there are many days when I struggle to believe that I have anything ‘worth sharing’.

I think we all have times where we wonder if we have any value, and I think that comes double when you start actually ‘putting yourself out there’. I find myself worrying about how other people will respond, and how it could change our lives if things go the way I want them to. I realize I am struggling against my ‘British Roots’ when I feel the conflict inside of me of the voices from generations past, telling me to ‘stay in my place; not to get ideas above my station’.

Madonna once wrote that in moving to England she didn’t realize that she was ‘moving to a country where ambition was frowned upon’.

But I know that in order to become who I wish to be, I need to move beyond who I am right now, and sometimes that can feel like a very strange journey.

—Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings

Morning Reflection #576: The Lesson Of The Man With The Tears

He sat there, crying profusely. Age was irrelevant, because the emotion he was feeling was universal. No matter the reason, humans cry the same all over the world.

Give someone enough of a sensation of loss, of pain and of sadness, and the results are pretty similar. You watch them burn emotionally, and quench the fire in their eyes with water of their own making.

And this guy was burning hard.

The man across the desk was trying to help him, but he was ill equipped. With little training, other than that which he had picked up ‘on the job’, he attempted to offer what comfort he could to the younger man crying in front of him.

Although his heart was in the right place, his intentions were not backed up by the wisdom or the understanding he needed to try to help the weeping man to find some peace.

He was unable to see the truth beneath the tears.

Crying seemed to be the only thing the younger man could do, yet the magnitude of his emotion seemed disproportionate to the event he’d just experienced.

Sure, being dumped by someone you care about hurts, but it shouldn’t cause that much pain, unless the wound you see on the surface is masking the real one deeper below, the one the younger man didn’t even realize he had.

Because when the pain seems all too normal, you don’t know you’ve been cut, and that you’re bleeding.

And believe me, there’s many different ways this life can cut you. From abuse to abandonment, from fear to a terrifying understanding. In the eyes of those who cannot imagine the wound below, all you see is someone reacting way more than they should to something that should never have hurt that much.

It’s easy to disregard their suffering, or to fail to appreciate the damage that has already been done.

And you can’t help heal what you don’t see, and will never understand.

Because understanding helps to bridge the gap between what appears to be, and what is actually happening. Sure, the younger man was hurting because the person who he loved had essentially told him she didn’t feel the same way, and that caused pain by decreasing his sense of connection, but it was his lack of a sense of connection, of self worth and of value that was really the cause of his suffering.

Because when you have only one source of feeling connected in your life, taking that away burns to your core, and hurts in a way that nothing else can.

What the younger man needed was someone who could understand how his lack of a safe place in his home, and a fractured emotional connection to his family, could leave him with a terrible sense of himself.

When you feel like you aren’t worth much at all, the loss of an intimate relationship hits way harder than it normally would, and burns for a lot longer than it should.

So despite the older man’s attempt to help, the younger man’s soul was burning.

Thankfully in time, the fire lessened, and the tears had less reasons to flow. Another relationship would come to help reduce the void that was open in his soul, and over time, knowledge and wisdom would begin to help him see what was missing.

Learning to understanding himself would open up avenues of healing, and over time, he would find his way to some kind of peace.

Hard fought, harder won, and still even harder to keep.

It’s very easy to judge someone else’s reactions to the things in life that have hurt them, but it’s a far better thing to give them space to feel their pain, comfort to know that they are not alone, and to try to find someone who understands enough to be able to help.

It would have a made a great difference when I was the young man who was crying, although through that experience, I am able to help others, and for that I am truly grateful.

— Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings

Morning Reflection # 575: Drift

.Do you ever get the feeling that you are a very small fish in a very big pond? Have you ever thought to yourself that no matter how much you do, you’re still going to be caught up in whatever is happening around you, and that no matter how hard you try, the flow of the world will wash over you, and take you where it wants to?

If you’ve ever felt that way, I understand, because there are times when I feel that way too.

Welcome to the Drift.

This is one of the harder things I teach people, because Drift can be a little bit scary. Most human beings live happier when they have a higher degree of certain than uncertainty, because it gives them a sense of control, of safety, and of being confident that they can avoid painful events in the future.

Depending upon how you are wired (or have rewired yourself to be) your tendency to crave certainty and be averse to uncertainty is a powerful force that can keep you up at night, or make you run all day.

And yet, for all that you do, the Drift can just take over and change the flow of your life.

Because we are all stuck in the same river. Sometimes it’s the actions of those in whom we have placed out trust and our confidence, and sometimes it’s the person in the lane next to you on the freeway who thinks that sending their text is more important than your safety. Maybe it’s your boss, your partner, your lover or your friend.

Drift is everything that’s outside of our control that can still impact and change our lives.

And there’s soooo much of it. Over the last year, we’ve all been subjected to one of the biggest drifts many of us have faced in our lifetimes. As the pandemic has changed things all over the world, there isn’t a single one of us who hasn’t been affected in some way.

From our personal health to that of loved ones, from economic turmoil to the disagreements of friends and families.

The drift has taken us places that we’ve never wanted to be.

And it’s been hard to deal with sometimes. The uncertainty can drive you crazy, and the apparent unfairness and callousness of the universe can make you wonder about what is coming next.

Depending upon how you relate to uncertainty, this last year and beyond could have sent you into a deep funk, or have given you the opportunity to try life in a different frame of mind.

Because the truth is that although we can’t control the drift, we can prepare for and change how we react when it takes us down a new river of life.

And it starts with realizing how little you actually control anyway.

If you sit down and figure out what in your life you can directly control, what is within your ability to influence, and what is completely outside of your sphere of control or influence (meaning you can’t do anything at all to change it) then you suddenly realize that the few things you can control, or influence, are the things you’ve probably paid less attention to than you could have.

Step one in getting better with the Drift, is changing your focus, and applying your energy to that which is not contained in the drift.

Next time we’ll talk about learning to unlearn your need for control. Because to really become comfortable with the concept of the Drift, you have to take away the fear of it.

And learn to trust in yourself.

— Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings

Morning Reflection #574: The Dance between Desperation and Desire

.There was a time in my life, long ago, where I admired and was somewhat in awe of people who managed to ‘achieve’ so much.

Sure, most of the time it was in a financial or a material sense, but mostly I respected their ability to push through, to stay on target, and to not lose their focus. Those who could ‘make things happen’, and ‘get things done’.

Little did I know that sometimes ‘driven’ is a camouflage for damaged and distressed.

Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against people who are focused on what they can achieve, far from it. The problem is when that drive for action is propelled by something painful, because that’s when other people start to pay the price when things go wrong.

The person who ‘has’ to do something (driven by pain/desperation) responds very differently to the person who ‘wants’ to do something (driven by desire, but will be ok if things don’t work out).

If your ‘need’ (desperation) to have something happen over-rides your internal guidelines as to how you should act, you’ll find yourself burning down the relationships around you, sometimes to the point where they cannot be rebuilt.

And you finding yourself living with the consequences.

I’ve been working with a coaching client recently who struggles with this in relationship to their own children. They are caught between the desire to be a really good parent, and the desperation of how they act when their children are not making things easy on them.

Anyone who has ever had children knows just how far your children can push you.

My client raises their voice, and becomes significantly frustrated. That’s all that happens, but for my client this is a violation of the way that they would like to talk to their child.

When you’ve been yelled at as a child, the last thing you want to do is treat your children that way.

So in working with my client, we’re trying to dig deeper and find the desperation that is driving their actions.

As is often the case, we’re finding that my client has deep seated ‘needs’ to avoid certain feelings, such as being a failure, being seen to be not enough, and trying to be ‘perfect’ so that they can finally get the recognition from a parent that was unintentionally withheld during childhood.

Because those who came before are often the victims of their childhood too.

As we become more self aware, we begin to walk into the shadows of our subconscious, and find the wounds that we are desperately trying to heal.

Left untreated, they darken our days and whisper poison to our souls in the night. They leave us unable to feel like we can rest, and cause us to act and react in ways that are not in harmony with our highest selves, leaving a trail of broken hearts and damaged souls in our wake.

And humanity has seen far too much of this in our time.

So the next time you feel yourself being driven in some part of your life (or even paralyzed, because some are ‘driven’ to do nothing by their need to avoid the calamitous chaos of chance), I would invite you to try to understand where the impetus for your action is coming from.

If it truly is a desire, not driven by a need, then you’ll be able to take the chances and weather the outcomes without anger, frustration or fury.

If not, then you probably have some self understanding to do.

And I’ll be here when you’re ready.

— Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings

Morning Reflection #573: I Actually Managed to Shut Up

If you know me at all, you’d probably agree that communication is both my ‘super-power’ and sometimes my curse. I still remember being 8 or 9 years old and my teacher telling me in front of the class that I was ‘blessed with verbal diarrhea’.

I can acutely recall the feeling of sadness as she said that, and of all the interactions I had with that teacher over the school year, that one stands out.

She taught me to feel ashamed of what I bring to the world.

40+ years later, I’m still coming to terms with those feelings, and discovering my voice as I find my way through whatever it is I’m doing here.

Part of me still feels very uncomfortable with the idea that I have something of value to share, but as I am closing in on 600 pieces of work, I think I’m slowly finding some peace with the concept that what I do can be of worth to others.

Saying that publicly is hard, yet sharing my ideas one on one is all too easy.

In the last 48 hours I've had two conversations that turned into opportunities to help someone. In the easier of the two, a surprise comment by the other person blossomed into a chance to share a principle that may significantly change their life.

As I sensed that they were ready to receive a suggestion, I spoke from my heart, sharing not only my own history, but how our stories intersected and overlapped. Their surprised created a space in which to share, and I could tell that what I offered was gratefully received.

I wish I could say I have always had that much sensitivity, but in my defense, I am trying to learn it.

And the other conversation was where it finally came together. As a different friend shared some deep and personal feelings, there were two occasions when I saw an opening in which to share a principle that I believe could have significantly changed their outlook.

Had they been receptive in the moment, I think something amazing could have occurred.

But had I tried to share, I think I would have probably upset them.

So I did what I have struggled to do in the past. At both points, where the compassionate coach inside of me wanted to share a suggestion, I didn’t. What I actually said was “I’m going to keep my mouth shut”, and smiled at them.

I think they could tell that it was hard for me, but I also think they were grateful that I extended unto them the space to be, without me trying to share, or control, or teach.

One of the hardest things to do is allow people the space to hurt, until they are ready not to.

I could tell that she realized I was paying her the compliment of really ‘seeing her’ and allowing her to exist in the world without the need to be ‘fixed’ or ‘helped’. Of all the messages I sent that day, I think that might have been the most powerful.

I might have helped her with a principle and a suggestion, but not as powerfully as validating who she is by respecting where she is at right now.

Out of a foundation of respect and compassion, a pathway may emerge. Or not. May it be as my friend wishes.

After that encounter was over, my sweet wife gently expressed her admiration for the way I had been able to really show restraint and respect, and to not talk when I wanted to.

She has sat quietly many times while I’ve helped someone in the moment, not pre-planned or scheduled, and she knows how much joy and meaning can come from those moments for all concerned.

But this was not the time for me to talk, but to listen, and validate someone’s right to be in their own space without the opinion of someone else, no matter how kindly it would have been meant.

So I’m learning to talk less, and listen more.

Good communication occurs in a place where both parties feel respected, and enough.

— Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings

Morning Reflection #572: The Time Between Birth and Death

It’s a gift, when you think about it. Whether you want to say it’s from a higher order consciousness (deity) or the random alignment of particles after an explosion of truly epic proportions, the fact that right now you are reading these words really defies understanding.

YOU are HERE, NOW, in this moment, experiencing life.

But how you choose to look at it, and experience it, is up to you.

And it really is a choice. Sure, there are things that make it difficult sometimes, but in most situations, there are things we can do to make something better. Maybe it’s reaching out to a family member, even though we feel they should be reaching out to us.

Maybe it’s doing the things we need to do to sleep better and feel better, rather than constantly being tired and having no energy.

Maybe it’s having the conversations that scare us, even though they are hard.

In my life, I've come across a few individuals who have taken upon themselves true responsibility for their experience of existence.

These are the people who never seem to complain, never waste a moment in negativity, but instead push forward, exploring options, taking chances and accepting both failure and success as the outcome of opportunity.

Rarely, if ever, will you find these people gossiping about others, or wallowing in self pity.

Because they have reached the understanding that just by being alive, they’ve essentially won the ‘universal lottery’. I read once that the probability of becoming a human being is 400 trillion to one.

The fact that you are alive, and able to comprehend the meaning of the words you see on the screen in front of you is a mathematical absurdity, a unfathomable insanity.

And yet there are those who choose to waste their existence by not living a life they are happy with.

As someone who used to be wrapped up in self pity, waiting for the universe to ‘make things right and make up for the past’ I can tell you that I wasted so much time being trapped in a hell of my own creation.

Sure, some things had happened to me that had not happened to others, but rather than take ownership of my experience I essentially sat at the side of the road of life and sulked, rather than walking towards a better future.

Please don’t be the way I was. There’s nothing for you there except frustration, regret and sadness.

I once heard it said that the reason they say that hell is ‘infinite’ is because no matter how bad it is, someone can always make it worse by complaining.

Yes life can be hard, and yes people can be terrible, but in the end, choosing to focus on those things is the surest way I know to make things worse. The gift of sentience, of awareness, is truly the ability to decide where to spend our attention.

Have you ever thought of your attention as a currency, or a resource?

Although we are always going to be subject to the situation around us, if we choose to focus on what we can do, rather than what we can’t, we will almost always have options and opportunities in front of us.

Taking action is the way that we invest our ability in the cause of that which excites us, and brings meaning to our lives.

It’s all a choice really, and one we are faced with every minute, every day.

Please understand, I’m not here saying life is easy, and I’m not saying there aren’t times of struggle or pain. What I am saying is the in the end, how you choose to view this wonderful gift of lift will determine whether you live it to the full, or allow it to pass you by.

Your life, your choice, your eternity.

Make it a good one. You’ll be glad that you did.

— Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings

Morning Reflection #571: The Need of Certainty is the Addiction of Meaning

I knew I shouldn’t have tried to adjust my watch strap while sitting in my office at work. At home I have a proper watch sizing tool which would have made it so much easier, and probably taken a lot less time.

But undaunted, I grabbed a small screwdriver (although not small enough) and bent a paperclip and went about resizing the watchband.

I’m kind of handy like that, even when it’s not in my best interest.

In my attempt to resize the watchband, I managed to somehow disassemble the sizing pin, lose the spring inside the pin, lose the head of the pin and had to spend 15 minutes searching for those pieces and finally getting my watch back together.

When it finally clicked shut, I had the sensation that I had “accomplished something”, and it meant that I was going to have a good rest of the day.

And then I caught myself in my addiction.

As humans we like to see patterns in the universe. It gives us a sense of certainty, a way to predict the future.

For those of us who had childhoods with not much of certainty and way too much uncertainty, we have this tendency to like to see patterns in the universe, because it gives us a sense of control, a sense of being able to avoid pain, and even a sense of there being some order to the universe.

And that sense comforts us, and just reinforces our addiction.

In truth, fixing my watch band meant nothing for the rest of the day. Yes I was going to be happier, and that might account for a change in how I showed up, but realistically, this small accomplishment was not going to dramatically alter the plans the universe had for me today.

This was just my desire for certainty, or even just the hope of certainty, drawing me into finding meaning.

Which is a pretty human thing to do.

We like meaning. It can give us a sense of power or a sense of ‘rightness’. Meaning suggests to us that the time that we spend here on this earth has value, and that we ‘matter’.

As someone who often wondered if they mattered as a child (which speaks to significance), I tend to look for meaning as a way to feel better about myself.

I think most of us do that from time to time.

But an addiction to meaning can make the everyday struggles of life take on new meanings. I learned of a study that showed that children who had a greater connection to extended family (and had listened to their stories) had a tendency to view life’s struggles as just a part of life. In contrast, children who did not have strong connections to elderly relatives often saw their struggles as a reflection of their own inadequacies, or unworthiness.

The problems were essentially the same, but the meanings the children took from them were radically (and life changingly) different.

Taking this a step further, if you believe a certain thing (like you’re a bad person and deserve bad things) then you’ll find a meaning to support whatever you believe. If you give in to the addiction of finding meaning in everything, then you’ll learn to see what you want to support what you believe.

Instead of allowing reality to be, you’ll bend it to be what you want.

As someone who craves certainty, I have to constantly guard against drawing meaning where it doesn’t need to be. In doing so, I can learn to allow the universe to just unfold in the moment, finding joy, wonder and excitement in existence, rather than needing an outcome to fit my beliefs and needs.

The less needs you have, the more you see things as they really are.

— Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings

Morning Reflection #570: Loving the Unlovable

There was a time in my life where I think I was pretty unlovable. In my middle and later teenage years, I was a hot mess. Angry, arrogant and abrasive. A mouth that could reduce people to tears, and a mind that was screaming internally, and I didn’t realize that wasn’t normal.

After all, when something has been with you for as long as you can remember, it seems like it should always be there.

Not a recipe for someone who’s easy to get along with.

If you were to tell any of my high school teachers that I went back to get a Doctorate, I think every single one of them would have rolled their eyes in disbelief. After all I was the kid who literally decided not to show up for 6 weeks…the last two weeks of the school year, and the first 4 of the next.

I was too busy playing snooker or pool, or doing whatever else I could find to give me some sense of peace, and mostly being away from everyone and everything.

I’m not sure how my Mom and Dad put up with me.

It would have been really easy to write me off at that time, and believe I was never going to ‘be anything’ other than a nightmare. I know there were teachers at school who tolerated me, and yet there were a couple that still believed in me. They would try what they could to help, and even then, I wasn’t exactly grateful.

And for a long time, the older me couldn’t forgive the younger me for being…me.

I think all of us in our lives at some point have someone who we find it hard to love. Maybe it’s ourselves, maybe it’s our partners, or maybe it’s a grandchild who doesn’t live their life by our rules, and our expectations.

Maybe it’s someone at work, or a client, or a relative who just seems to push all of your buttons in worst way possible.

When you find that person, they may turn out to be a chance for you to learn more about yourself.

Because when we find someone who we struggle to feel kindness towards (unless they are deliberately hurting you) it’s usually because in some way they violate what we expect from them.

I've written before about how expectations destroy experiences, and in nowhere is this more noticeable than in the relationships we have with each other.

Expectations are poison to compassion.

I know that a younger version of who I am today was very angry with the much younger me who blew a lot of opportunities in high school. I can tell you that the me who is here today has learned to love both the much younger me, and the somewhat younger me who struggled to love himself and the self who came before.

When I realized that both of them were just living their trauma, and trying to find their way out of their darkness and into some semblance of light, I found that I could extend to them the love that both of them were desperately seeking.

Once you love yourself, and have accepted the nature of your humanity, you’ll find it easier to see past the flaws of others, and find respect, admiration and love for the humanity and the divinity within them.

Yes they may live in a way that you don’t understand, but the more you find compassion for yourself, the less you will need them to live to your expectations, and can appreciate the spark within them that you don’t understand, but may come to truly appreciate.

The less you are able to tolerate those who are different from you, the more you will benefit from doing some work on you.

I can’t tell you that it’s easy, because it really isn’t, but I can tell you that the more you find peace within yourself, the more you will find peace within the world.

Even with those who you currently struggle to love.

— Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings

Morning Reflection #569: The Truth of Time as Space

How good are you at ‘holding space’ for someone?

I know it’s kind of a vague term, but in the context I’m talking about, ‘holding space’ for someone means your ability to disconnect all of your wants, needs, judgments and values from your interactions with them, and allowing the person in front of you to express themselves, or be themselves, without fear of your judgment, your opinions, and sometimes even your advice.

I’m a point on my journey where withholding judgment is often easier than withholding advice.

I often use the term ‘journey’ to describe the process of personal development, which is really personal growth, and yet the funny thing is that ‘growth’ really comes in the form of becoming smaller in your needs, your wants, your definitions.

The further you are on your journey, the less you need to have, knowing that you are more than enough just being able to be.

So how far are you on your journey?

It’s tough to answer isn’t it? Earlier in my journey, I would try to come up with some idea of a percentage of improvement or growth, and yet with each new iteration of my soul, I realize that there is more and more to change, and the ‘percentage’ of my progress seemed to be less after each significant period of growth.

It felt like I couldn’t win, until I realized that I didn’t have to.

I just had to be me.

“But wait a minute” you say…. “That sounds like a contradiction. You’re saying that you just have to be yourself, and yet you’re also saying that you’re on a journey of change, from who you are into who you are going to be. That makes no sense to me”… and you’d be right, and yet also completely wrong.

The reality is that being me, and changing me, is all just one state of being me.

It’s very possible on your journey of changing and yet being who you are that you can become frustrated by what seems to be a lack of progress. Maybe it’s a habit that you can’t seem to shake, or an emotional pattern that you seem unable to break.

It’s very easy to become irritated by the day to day struggle of trying to find your way through your process, and forget that the act of changing is the nature of growth.

You just need to remember that giving yourself time is really a way of giving yourself space.

And maybe that’s a difficult concept for you in yourself. I wrote last week about giving yourself grace, which is really just forgiveness for times when you felt like you weren’t enough, but giving yourself space is really about accepting yourself in the absence of your needs, your judgments, your want and your fears.

And also about giving yourself time.

Because the truth is that all of us will pass from this life into whatever comes next with things left undone, and parts of our souls that will still be limited by what it means to be human.

Yet that does not diminish the worth or the divinity within us, but rather it allows us to understand that imperfection is a part of all of us, and that being imperfect, we are all still being enough.

And enough is a perfect place to be, or to start.

— Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings

Morning Reflection #568: Find a Place that Heals You

It’s early morning here, and it’s cold. This weekend we rented a lake house for a couple of days in the Pacific Northwest. The house is old, like built in 1924 old, and the primary method of heating it is a wood burning stove with a fan that really makes some noise.

Waking up this morning to the delights of a cold house and the task of heating it by starting a fire really made me grateful for the comforts of home.

Yet although it was freezing, it was not unpleasant.

It’s very early in the season, so it’s pretty quiet around us. Right now there is a persistent drizzle of rain, which is kind of a staple of life here, but it means that the landscape is green, and the pine trees are verdant.

The water on the lake responds to the wind with ripples rather than waves, and there’s this sense of quiet serenity that seems to pervade every breath, every moment.

The stillness is a wonderful backdrop against which to feel.

I’m becoming more and more convinced that the pace of our everyday lives is reaching a level of toxicity that we will not realize for some time, and when we do it will almost be too late.

I think the reason that mindfulness is becoming a movement is because people are realizing that the real purpose of life is to experience the universe in a way that allows us to find meaning in it.

And right now we just don’t have time for that.

Because we’re onto the next thing, the new thing, the 7 tips to a flatter stomach, the car that will make you feel like you’re good enough, or the bigger home that will somehow magically make all your problems disappear.

Even for kids, it’s softball or football, baseball or basketball, gymnastics and cheer. So many things scheduled for them that they don’t have enough to find out about themselves.

The data on suicide among children shows us that we are going the wrong way.

Sitting here, right now, with few distractions, and even less responsibilities on my soul today, I was just able to see a duck come in for a graceful landing onto the lake.

Although it knows nothing of the aerodynamics of flight, nor the principles of gravity and hydrodynamics, the duck was able to execute a beautiful pinpoint landing, and settled into a calm relaxed posture, floating gently, seemingly undisturbed by all of its surroundings.

A duck, it seems, is far more connected to the universe than we appear to be.

And I think that’s what really this whole weekend is about for me. The chance to connect with myself, and see what’s really going on deep within my soul. A chance to slow down, and find meaning in the moments, rather than rushing headlong into a cacophony of choices each one ‘newer’ than the past.

A place that is remote enough to allow me to disconnect from the daily drama of the world, and realize that slower and smoother allows me time to find the meanings that make life ‘meaningful’.

The great psychiatrist Victor Frankl wrote a book called ‘Man’s Search for Meaning’, which explains how we can find meaning even in the worst of times, and how meaning gives us a pathway to walk in life that transforms our days from just existing, to really living a life that is satisfying and full.

I truly believe that the richness of life is not found in the balance of your bank account, but in the moments of meaning accumulated deep down in your soul.

So today, I implore you to find somewhere that helps you find a sense of connection and meaning with yourself, and begin to follow the whisperings of your soul that desire to guide you to where the true sense of happiness lives for you.

When you find that place, be it a lake house, a beach, a park or an ocean, spend more time there, and just listen to those whisperings.

May you find peace and happiness all your days, in whatever way you can.

— Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings

Morning Reflection #567: The Gift of Grace to Self

Would you tell me about your biggest mistakes?

Given that most of the people who follow this work are 30 and over, I’m guessing that in all of our accumulated lives we’ve done something that stands out as supremely dumb, and which we would like to reverse if it was at all possible. I wonder what your mistakes are…?

Don’t worry, you don’t have to share.

While I’m sure some of yours are humorous, I’m guessing there’s been at least one or two that you look back upon with a significant sadness. Probably something that affected somebody else, or that changed your life in such a way that things would never be the same.

Maybe it’s an opportunity that you didn’t take, or a risk that you took that turned out to be the absolute worst thing.

Maybe it was something that you said in a moment where the filter between your brain and your mouth shut down and took a hiatus, and you found yourself saying something that you realized was bad, and would give anything to take back.

Welcome to humanity, which while beautiful, can sometimes be very difficult.

I made a mistake many years ago, and then kept making the same mistake for almost a decade. During that time I came to loathe myself, and went through some of the darkest times of my life.

Now, several years after that was over, I find myself working through those negative self opinions, and trying to make peace with the concept that I was doing the best that I could at the time.

‘ Working through’ is kind of synonym for ‘struggling with’.

But the interesting thing that I have become aware of as a coach and that I teach and share, is that sometimes I really don’t give myself enough credit for how I struggled with the things that I carried.

The more I work through my own journey, and make changes in my life as well as others, I come to a greater understanding of all that I was burdened with in the times that I made so many mistakes.

And somehow, someway, that’s making it easier to give myself grace for the times that I feel like I didn’t do enough.

I think I speak for many of us when I say that sometimes the hardest person to forgive is yourself. Sure other people have caused me problems, yet I can see in their lives how the things they’ve been through have caused them to act in ways that they probably weren’t proud of, and I find it easier to extend grace unto them than myself.

And I’ve realized that a good portion of that is ego.

When I look back in my past at the times when I think I could’ve carried more, worked harder, been smarter, that’s just my ego whispering to me that I’m better, smarter, more resilient, stronger.

When I’m able to let go of my need to be those things, I find I’m able to be more compassionate with myself, and to give myself the benefit of grace, and forgive myself for the things I’ve done wrong.

How many times have you been hard on yourself because you thought you should have been able to handle something, or known better, or had more willpower?

Sometimes the biggest burdens in the world are the ones that we have no idea we are carrying because they feel normal, and they’ve been there so long that we only notice them when they’re gone.

When I look into my past I realize that there were so many times when I could have fallen and I didn’t, so many times when I could’ve quit and I kept going.

Strangely enough, it’s only when I let go of my ego, the need to be “everything” that I’m able to finally realize just how strong I have been, just how much I was able to carry.

It’s only by letting go of what I wanted to see that I was able to actually glimpse of vision of what I have accomplished.

Funny isn’t it, that all I had to do was stop looking for something and start seeing what actually was.

Please try this for yourself, because I really would like you to extend grace unto yourself, so you might really see just how amazing you are.

— Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings

Morning Reflection #566: The Happiness Conundrum

Are you happy? I know that sounds like a deep question, but the longer I live, the more I think it is the most important question we can ask of ourselves and others.

When two people meet, the chances are that they will ask a lot of questions of each other, such as where they live, what they do for work, the size of their family etc…

And walk away having no idea of the other person is happy or not.

We spend so much of our lives chasing what we think will ‘make us happy’. Sure, if someone suddenly gifted me a large amount of money right now I might be happy for a while, but if you look at the history of people who suddenly come into money, their outcomes are not necessarily as wonderful or as long lasting as you might think.

Sometimes money solves the day to day problems, leaving people more time to be aware of how unhappy they are deep down in their souls.

So some people try to find happiness by being with a certain other person. Sure, the newness of the next relationship triggers different chemicals in our brains, but over time those chemicals fade, and the relationship that was insanely passionate, fun and wild turns into the same type of problem as the one the person was trying to escape.

While family can bring joy for some, it can also bring heartache & sadness for other.

And so some people try to find happiness in the things that they own. From a Lamborghini to a yacht, from a massive house to a private plane, history is replete with people who tried to buy their way into happiness, and ended up just having a nicer location in which to cry their tears.

No matter the location you choose, you’re always carrying the same piece of real estate with you.

The one in your head, your heart, your soul.

I hate the phrase ‘Happiness is a choice’, because it seems too trite, and too easy. If you’ve followed this work, you’ll know that I am a fan of better questions rather than simple statements designed to make someone feel superior.

A statement determines a path, whereas a question opens all pathways as possibilities.

So I would rather say “Could happiness right now be an option?”.

Because sometimes happiness might be a real struggle, and having some well meaning person say to you that ‘happiness is a choice’ is just about the last thing you want to hear, because they are essentially saying ‘you can choose to be happy, but you’re not’.

Inviting someone to ‘consider if happiness could be an option right now’ offers them the freedom to determine their own answer, and hopefully will prompt some deeper and more fulfilling questions, while at the same time giving them the ability to say ‘no’ if they feel like it without judgment or pressure.

Allowing people to choose their own reality, rather than substituting your own is the very act of ‘holding space’ for someone.

People who have space feel a sense of worth, but people who are told to think/feel a certain way are essentially being told that they are wrong, or unable to figure things out for themselves.

In my work as a coach, I spend a lot of time trying to help people find their own authentic life & voice, often helping them to discard the paradigms and practices that were given to them by circumstances, well meaning people, and the ever present pressure of society at large.

When they allow those ideas to fall away, and take the time to go deep within and find who they really are, and what truly resonates with them, then they find a wellspring of creativity, contentment and peace within their souls.

When you live an authentic life, you’ll actually find authentic happiness.

Which is all any of us are really looking for.

(In case you're wondering, yes this is my beloved dog Cocoa. She wishes you a wonderful day, and wonders if you have any treats.)

— Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings

Morning Reflection #565: Don’t Get Lost In Your Head

I married the most amazing woman. In almost 25 years of marriage, she has been my partner, my advocate, my cheerleader, my guide and my strength.

To say that she has saved me from myself would not be an understatement. In both my personal and professional life she has been a voice of calm, of comfort and of wisdom.

So when she tells me something in ‘the tone’ (which is full of concern and caution) I tend to listen.

Yesterday, as she was walking out of our office at work to go home and look after our sweet but somewhat crazy dog, she touched her hand on my shoulder, and said in a gentle voice ‘Don’t get lost in your head’.

She has this incredibly succinct way sometimes of saying the most wonderful things in a very few words.

She knows that sometimes my head can be a difficult place to be.

As you can probably guess from reading this work, I’m terrible at small talk. Even as a child, I was never very good at ‘making conversation’.

As a 12 year old walking to school, I would have debates in my head about fair rates of taxation, time as it relates to the nature of the universe and how to organize a family, a town, a county and a country.

As you can probably guess, I didn’t get invited to a lot of parties.

Holly (my wife) even tells with some joy about the time we were out with our children getting lunch, and she realized that although I was seated at the table with them, my thoughts were not on the salad in front of me.

As she questioned me, she was bemused to find that I was trying to approximate a theoretical synaptic regression rate if we could ever overcome the neural cell reproduction inhibition.

Thankfully, she didn’t take my lack of attention personally.

But she also knows, as a result of some very deep and sometimes difficult conversations, that my head can also be a painful place to be.

Memories from childhood, moments lost in the past, fears, concerns, anger, frustration, hopelessness and sadness are all very present in my soul, and there are days when I get lost wondering down those paths too.

The result is not uplifting, and it can be a very difficult place to be.

So when she tells me to not get lost in my head, her concern is very real.

I wrote a 3 years ago about how my light creates my darkness, and when I get lost in my own head, I try to remember that some of the shadows are I see in my soul are the byproduct of the light that I carry.

A mind that is constantly scanning the future, lost in the possibility of all that could be, can often find itself worrying about something which might never be actually real.

Sometimes, my tendency to lose myself in time stops me from being anchored in what is real right now, in front of me.

So I try to practice mindfulness, and what I have come to call ‘present-ism’. When I am successful in seducing myself into what is right before me, and occurring to me now, I find I can deal with ‘what is’ a little easier than ‘what might be’.

In a world that has become so congested with uncertainty about our futures, being ‘here and now’ might just be the antidote to a lot of the things that are worrying us today.

‘Sufficient for today is the worry thereof’

So in my attempt to listen to my sweet wife’s wisdom, I am trying to let go of the future with it’s possibilities, and the past with its regrets, and just find myself focused on what is right now, and what I would like the future to be.

Because it’s far too easy to find myself wandering out of now, and into a place where I can’t act, where I find fear and frustration.

Now is the only place where I can use my skills, now is the only truth and honestly I can find.

Here and now, find what is real for you.

And act accordingly.

— Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings