Morning Reflection: Surviving the fractured path

Surviving the fractured path.

It’s amazing how we seem to have an idea about how the future is supposed to be. Or about our life should turn out, or what we should do for a living, or how we should make our impact in the world, or what kind of car we should drive, or how many kids we should or shouldn’t have etc. 

There’s an old saying attributed to Einstein which goes something like this: “If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans”.

Because rarely does life work out the way that we expect.

And sometimes that realization occurs early in life and often as we grow older. When somehow or other we find ourselves in the place and time that we never quite imagined we would be. 

A place where some things don’t add up, and are probably never going to, and we realize that something that we thought very important is not going to turn out the we really want it to.

The Golden Path which led to our house of dreams is fractured, and we realize that what we were hoping for is unlikely to materialize.

Surviving the reality of the fractured path is not easy, but it can be done. It starts by analyzing what you’ve really lost, which is usually your hope for a certain feeling. Anything we want in life is not about the thing, but about how we think acquiring or receiving or achieving this thing will make us feel. 

To move beyond the fracture, you have to ask yourself why only that thing could bring you what you want to feel? 
Because the chances are that you could feel that way about something else or someone else if you decided to.

And this is where the pushback begins :-) 

Time after time I hear from people that they have to have a certain thing or be a certain thing in order to feel good about themselves, or feel like they belong, or feel like they are worthy, or feel like they like they are enough. People seem to believe that feelings are dependent upon a certain formula, and that only those specific ingredients will do.

It’s always fun to watch them when they find out that the truth is not quite what appears to be.

Because there are many avenues to arrive at a certain feeling. Things don’t have to be a specific way for us to experience a certain emotion, we can learn to view reality in such a way that we can find the feelings that we desire in the events that are occurring. It’s not easy, and it takes some practice, but it can be done.

Once you understand that reality is far more subjective than you have ever imagined, you will realize that there never really was a path that you had to follow. 

There was simply your misunderstanding about how to get to where you wanted to feel.

— Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings

Morning Reflection: Soulcussion

Soulcussion

Sometimes it’s one big hit, sometimes it’s a conglomeration of things, either in a short space of time or even over long period of time. 

If you read this work, the chances are you’ve lived long enough to have received a Soulcussion, which is like a concussion for your soul instead of your brain. It can be just as dangerous, and the effects can last the rest of your life.

But it is often overlooked, as there is no diagnostic imaging for the soul.

So what does it take; what kind of things are required to create a change so profound that your entire reality, your entire persona can change. Maybe it’s a divorce, followed by a life-changing diagnosis. 

Maybe it’s the loss of your financial stability combined with the loss of the best friend and of some of your own independence. It’s usually different for each person, but the results can be exactly the same.

You find yourself questioning everything you ever knew.

Maybe after a period of reflection you stay within the paradigm of your life as it was prior to the hit, or maybe you find yourself in a different reality, with different feelings, different beliefs, different ideals. 

Only you know just how hard you have been hit, and only you can truly understand the damage to your soul that has been wrought by a universe that sometimes seems to care less than you could have ever imagined.

And you find yourself sitting quietly, wondering where you go from here.

If you are one of those people who are still struggling with the impact of a Soulcussion, I share with you my compassion, my sympathies and my concern for you. I don’t know your particular personal situation, but I do know what it’s like to feel like the world has caved in. I’m so sorry you’re there. I wish I could just hold you allow you to feel loved and cared for.

Because the worst thing about a soul is that we usually end up feeling alone.

I would also like to offer you the concept of hope. I’m not going to regale you with stories of miraculous changes or try to convince you that things can go back to normal. In my experience they can’t, and they don’t. 

But in all of my work in coaching and healing, I never fail to be amazed at the resilience, the courage and the strength of people who have survived unbelievable pain and trauma.

And somehow found a way to smile.

So whoever you are, and whatever you’re going through, please know that there are people who care. Treat yourself kindly, and give yourself permission to care for yourself when you need to. There is no shame in asking for help or in telling others that you simply need to focus on yourself for a while. All of us have had times and have fallen, broken and afraid.

All of us have needed a light in our personal darkness.

Today I offer you my light, and whatever wisdom I have gathered. I pray that I may be of help to you in your times of trial and in your moments of reflection. 

May you find peace and hope in these words, and may your light so shine again.

— Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings

Morning Reflection: The dichotomy of self awareness

The dichotomy of self awareness.

Who are you? I know it’s a strange question to ask, but a lot of the work that I do in coaching and helping people with their problems really comes down to introducing them to the truth of themselves. 

What makes self-awareness so difficult is that we usually require input from others so that we can see the things that are hidden from ourselves; often the very behaviors and beliefs that are causing us problems.

Because there are many things about ourselves that we are blind to.

We don’t see them because they are so natural to us that we don’t even question such a belief or behavior. I was in a meeting many years ago where a man in authority over me tried to offer guidance in a situation, but because I was over-sensitive I took his statement to be a personal attack. 

He actually stopped the meeting and looked at me and gently said “I’m not attacking you, I’m trying to help you”.
And I realized that I was reacting not to what he said, but to my interpretation of what I was hearing.

It’s been many years since that meeting, and I hope I have come to understand many more things about myself and the reasons that I react the way I do. Although understanding is never enough, it’s a good place to start because it gives us a direction to move in, and hopefully allows us to change our behaviors along the way. 

Yet to understand the deepest truths, we have to become very observant.

Both to who we are, and to how others react to us. 

Not all actions that hurt us are intended to do so, but it may be the way we are interpreting that action based on our wants and our wounds. The way that others treat us can become a road map to truths about ourselves, if we are willing to follow the truths to the ultimate reality of where they lead. 

This is often a very valuable exercise, especially when people are treating us in a way that surprises or hurts us. 
Because then you can read not only the reasons for their actions, but your reactions to their actions. 

Which takes a lot of practice, but is so incredibly revealing. 

The more you come to understand why other people act the way they do, you also realize that you probably act that way for the very same reasons. Do it long enough, and you’ll discover that the core of our problems are very similar. 

Yes, there may be a different twist to your problem instead of mine, but they usually come back to the same root causes.

But you’ll never know that until you learn to see yourself in others, and see others in yourself.

So today, I challenge you to consider the actions of those who have played a significant role in your life, for good or bad, and see if you can understand what lead to those behaviors. 

Was it a desire to serve, or a need to destroy? Did they desire a greater sense of connection, or were they possessed by a desire for revenge.

Come to understand your friends and your ‘enemies’ better, and you will see yourself in all of them. 

And begin treat them as you would treat yourself.

— Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings

Morning Reflection: Just Start Talking

Just Start Talking.

The thing that sets us apart from every other species, our ability to communicate, is often one of the first casualties in a conflict. 

Whether due to misunderstanding, or a painful truth learned at a difficult time in life, it’s unfortunately very natural to withdraw and pull away from people when we feel like we’ve been hurt, or that we have somehow inadvertently hurt others.

And not talking is the very worst thing you can do.

Because pulling away, or not talking, creates a vacuum that breeds misinterpretation, misinformation, mistrust and sometimes misery. I can’t tell you the number of times I have worked with people to try to get them to discuss a painful subject with another for whom they care deeply. 

Very often they know they need to have the conversation, but they are afraid of the truths they will discover, the pain they will feel and most frequently, terribly afraid of being misunderstood and creating further heartache and pain.

Yet by not talking, they are only postponing the problem and allowing it to grow.

Sometimes we delay those discussions because we honestly don’t know how we feel, or we don’t trust ourselves to be able to clearly communicate what it is we want to say, or trust ourselves to respond in a kind and generous manner to the other person. 

One of the hardest skills I still struggle to learn is being able to create a safe environment for somebody to be honest with me without emotionally reacting and making it difficult for them to explain their truths to me.

Experience in coaching has taught me that I am not alone in this.

Many times I have been privileged to be present in a communication between two people whose miscommunications and very different life experiences have led them to a misunderstanding that threatens their relationship. 

It is a very humbling thrill to assist people in breaking through their barriers and finding common ground, common truth and of renewal of affection. It’s all possible, it just takes time, patience, kindness and a desire to connect.

If you find yourself not talking to people with whom you wish a greater intimacy, a closer bond or a deeper relationship, then I would challenge you to ask yourself what it is that you are really afraid of? In my experience, rarely are the truths discovered in conversation worse than those present only in our imagination.

So please, start talking. 

Talk to your friends, talk to your family and talk to those with whom you desire a greater understanding. Seek first to understand before you seek to be understood, and ask open-ended questions that foster compassionate conversations, rather than judgmental edicts that drive others away.

In the end, the quality of our relationships is directly proportional to the depth and duration of our conversations.

So start asking questions, and see where it leads you. :-)

— Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings

Morning Reflection: Time and a quiet place to heal

Time and a quiet place to heal.

Eventually, you come to a point in your life where you realize you have to change. The really big changes are often started as a result of something painful and difficult arriving on your emotional doorstep, and you experience a moment of understanding that you can’t go on being the person that you currently are. But the thought of changing scares you…

Because to change is to heal, and to heal…is going to hurt.

All of us have experienced trauma, and we spend so much of our lives trying to avoid that feeling again that we warp and distort our lives and our passions in order to escape what we were always going to have to face. But when the moment arrives, and it’s time to start the healing, most of us have no idea where to begin.

It’s not like they ever taught us this in school.

So to start, I want you to understand that emotional healing, just like physical healing, takes time. Even when someone has an emotional breakthrough, they usually have to work through many patterns of learned avoidance behavior that will come back time after time to sabotage and undermine their progress.

Healing is very rarely a single moment in time, but a continuum stretching out over your life.

So the first component of healing is patience.

But once you have the time, then you need the peace in your soul to be able to unlock the feelings that you don’t want to face. It’s going to be hard, and sometimes it can be made easier by the presence of a good friend or a trusted guide who can help you traverse the hidden paths of your soul, carrying their light into your darkness, and allowing the beauty and wonder of the true you to come forth.

But even with a guide, you are still going to have to struggle through the process.

Which means you are going to have to face fear, pain, loss, loneliness and heartache. It’s to accept things that you find hard to understand, and to learn new patterns of behavior that will feel alien and uncomfortable. 

You may have to remove people from your life when you desperately want to hold onto them, and you will have to learn to give up some expectations.

And none of those things are easy.

Which is why it takes time, and a quiet place to heal. But what I’ve found is that often the only quiet you need is a space inside of your mind. Carved out through meditation, and lit with compassion for yourself, you can discover your own universe of the soul, and within that timeless and infinite place begin the process of healing all the pains you carry within you.

The more you heal your soul, the greater capacity you will discover to heal yourself. 

Until you are free, and then the fun really begins.

— Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings

Morning Reflection: Holding Fire in the palm of your hand

Holding Fire in the palm of your hand.

There’s a very old trick that I was shown a long time ago. It starts with the paper from a tea-bag. Carefully folded into a tube, it becomes a lesson in the conversion of energy; however upon reflection, it yields a lesson far deeper and more meaningful. But like all lessons, it starts with a spark, or in this case, a burning flame.

Because you are going to hold fire in the palm of your hand.

You start by molding the paper into a tube, and placing it upright into the palm of your hand. Then you light the top of the tube with a flame, and you watch as the flame descends through the tube, moving nearer and nearer to your palm. 

There’s a second where you consider how it will feel if the flame touches you, and you shake for a moment, afraid of the pain that you feel is coming.

But it never reaches your hand.

Because as the fire reaches a certain point, the heat of the flame causes convection, an upward force that lifts the paper out of your hand before the heat reaches you. What once appears to be a certain experience of pain instead changes to a moment of wonder, as your fears are turned into fascination by a force that you can’t see, but can nevertheless feel.

And you realize that you were never going to get hurt, as long as you could allow the flame to leave you.

Which is where the second lesson comes in. Because in this experiment, there was only ever one way that you were going to experience pain, and that was if you held onto the paper and refused to let it go. 

As long as you accepted the possibility, without holding onto it, you were going to be ok. But in life, we often hold onto things that cause us pain, when we really didn’t have to.

All we had to do was let it go, and it wouldn’t have hurt us.

Yet so many times we can’t let something go, because we have the mistaken belief that in some way, that thing defines us. So we hold onto a belief, or an action, or sometimes even a person, way longer than we ever should have done, and we suffer the pain and agony of emotionally holding fire in the palm of our hands, when we never had to.

We could just let go at any time.

So today, I would challenge you to look at something in your life that is causing you pain, and ask yourself if you are holding tightly onto something that you don’t have to? 

It might seem like you don’t have a choice, but in almost every situation that I have come across in my work, there is a belief we can change, or an understanding that someone can reach, that will allow us to let go of the things which currently hurt us.

It may be scary, but letting go is often the least painful option. 

While it may sting for a moment, I promise you that letting go of the things which hurt you will bring you a peace and a freedom that will surprise and astound you. 

You don’t have to hold the pain a moment longer than you want to.

— Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings

Morning Reflection: Beginning Eternal

Beginning Eternal.

I’ll never know enough. No matter how long I live, or how hard I study a subject, the truth is I will always feel like a beginner. And I like it that way. It’s actually the best thing for me, because it stops me from thinking I know everything, and that’s a really good thing. 

Knowing everything is the point where you stop learning, and you lose humility. So I call it the law of Beginning Eternal – knowing that you are always a beginner. I hope it keeps me humble.

Because humility can prevent a multitude of problems.

Humility in certain things is for me a struggle, and it’s all because of my demons. I grew up in the British equivalent of welfare housing. My family was never financially secure, and it was pretty obvious to me that we were the ‘poorest house’ on the street. I remember walking home with a friend from school one day, and he asked me ‘why is your family poor?’ I know that he didn’t mean it in a way that was derogatory or cruel, he was just asking a simple question.

But if I’m honest, even today, that still hurts. 

To add to my struggles, I was the fat kid on the block. Even at a young age, food was my comfort drug of choice, and I used it hard. Being overweight as a teenager is never easy, and it just further pushed me away from feeling good about myself. The only thing that I felt I had to base any self esteem on was the one thing I had going for me.

I believed my mind was superior (you have to have something to feel special about right, when nothing else does?). That was the only thing I had to hold on to, and it served me as a child, but like most childhood patterns, we tend to have a hard time letting go. Unfortunately, this one is no exception.

So recently, when I was in a meeting, I had to fight to restrain my ego. The man who was presenting is a good man, and he has a formal education in the subject he was presenting on. 

Yet all through his presentation, there was my ego, explaining in the recesses of my mind how he could have done it better, how it could have been more impactful, how the presentation could have changed lives if it were done a different way.

Ego, ego, ego.

Thankfully, I have learned enough about myself that I know where my demons want to take me, and practicing the law of ‘Beginning Eternal’ helps me to keep my mouth closed when it wants to open up. 

Because the truth is, we are always beginning. 

The ideas I had in my 20’s that seemed so good to me then now appear to be the fantasies of a young man trying to find himself in the world. Then, as now, I was still only ‘beginning’ to learn. I wonder what 65 year old me will think of the words that I wrote today. Hopefully, he’ll chuckle and laugh this off as ‘youthful inexperience’. Who knows.

But what I have learned is that by retaining the mind of a beginner, I am open to new ideas, new possibilities and most importantly, a sense of humility.

Humility has become my life preserver, and boy do I need one.

— Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings

Morning Reflection: A grumpy day in the neighborhood!

A grumpy day in the neighborhood!

Wow, was I a bear on Wednesday morning! In full disclosure, I’ve never been a morning person. I have gotten better at getting up at 5:45 every morning to wake my son up, and some mornings are easier than others, but Wednesday morning was one of those days where I just wasn’t feeling it. 

I just wanted to go back to bed, and tell the world (somewhat impolitely) to go away and leave me alone.

It was one of those days where being kind and compassionate was going to take a lot more self control than normal!

It probably wasn’t helped by the fact that I only got about 5 hours of sleep the night before. I wish I could lie to you and tell you that’s an abnormality, but in all honesty it happens way more than it should. 

Over the years I’ve developed a pretty high tolerance for being chronically tired, and I tend to abuse that ability way more than is good for me. I know that long term it’s really not healthy, but I struggle getting to bed early in the evenings.

Which isn’t an excuse, but it sort of is an explanation.

But the real reason I was grumpy had nothing to do with the amount of sleep I didn’t get, or the circumstances of how I awoke. For me, feeling grumpy comes down to one simple explanation that forces me to grow as a person, while at the same time reminding me of how lucky I really am. Because in my world, being grumpy occurs when I have lost my sense of focus…

And instead of being grateful, I am wallowing in self pity.

Because if I decide to focus on all the things that make me feel like life is hard, that’s all I’m going to see. Yes, my life has some hardships, but it also has an incredible assortment of wonderful things going on as well. 

I am blessed with a wife whose patience with my many weaknesses is downright legendary. How she puts up with me I really don’t know.

But I’m very grateful that she does.

I have two wonderful sons who both teach me through their examples every day, and I have good friends, a home, a business that is growing, and recently a silver lab puppy who brings an indescribable amount of joy and happiness to me. 

I am healthy, and I have possibilities before me that have the potential to radically change my world for the better.

But on Wednesday morning, I wasn’t focused on that at all.

Nope. Wednesday morning as I awoke, I was firmly planted in a sense of self pity, and just wallowing in it. Thankfully it didn’t last as long as it could have, but I still realize that it shouldn’t have been there at all.

Because being grumpy isn’t about being happy, it’s about trying to set yourself up as the victim to avoid something that you just don’t like. Gratitude, on the other hand, doesn’t require us to do anything other than pay attention to what we really have, and how good we really have it.

So today, if you are feeling grumpy, I ask you to choose grateful instead.

It’s a lot more fun, and makes you a lot more fun to be around.

— Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings

Morning Reflection: And then you were gone

And then you were gone.

Yesterday was a strange day in Facebook world. I’m still not quite sure what caused all the trouble, but for most of the day it was difficult to get Facebook to load properly, and more than once I tried to comment on something, and found that I couldn’t upload what I had typed. 

Late in the afternoon, I was struck by the realization that I might not be able to schedule a post to go out for the next day (now this morning).

And I felt really lost for a moment.

To be honest, I kind of panicked for a second or two. What if this work was lost, what if the problem disconnected all the people who have liked this page, what if I never got to interact with some of you on messenger or over a video chat again? 

There’s an old song from the 80’s titled “You don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone”, and that’s kind of how it felt.

Because suddenly I was faced with the understanding that I could ‘lose’ all of you, and that thought made me incredibly sad.

When I started this work, I had no idea how it would change me. Not only have I been able to examine my thoughts, and formulate the concepts that have been a silent part of my life for so many years, but I have been so touched my the comments and kindness of the people who take the time to like and comment on the posts. 

Some of you have become very important people in my life, even if you don’t know it.

Because I cherish the time, energy and wisdom that you share in contributing to the ongoing evolution of this process, whatever it may be, or wherever it may be going.

The more I come to learn about you through your comments and messages, the more I realize I am not alone on this journey of uncovering who I am, and where my place is in the universe. Some of you astound me with your ability to fight through trials that would have left me broken and weeping on the roadside of life.

Some of you inspire me with your words, helping me to see through your eyes and gain a perspective that might never have occurred to me. Some of you have progressed along the journey further than I feel I have, and you reach back out of your generosity and share just the right words, at the right time. 

Many a time I have felt lifted up by your simple, heartfelt comments of gratitude, giving me a sense that there is a purpose far beyond my own in this work.

I guess what I am trying to say is that I am so very, deeply and profoundly grateful to have the opportunity to connect with you within this work, and outside of it.

Seeing Facebook’s problems today have made me realize just how important you all are to me, and how this work has evolved into a purpose I could hardly have imagined. I’m going to take some time to think about where this is going, and put in place options so that we can connect in different ways, and possibly through different mediums. 

I think Facebook will always be the home platform of this work, but I need to look beyond that, and see how I can serve you better, and connect with you more deeply and profoundly.

For today, in this moment, please know that I am so very grateful for your presence in my life. However you choose to express yourself through this work, by reading, liking, commenting or sharing, please know that you are so very important to me. Your examples lift me, and your kindness comforts me.

May we continue together through this journey, and find joy together.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

You mean the world to me.

— Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings

Morning Reflection: Rising Above Nature

Rising Above Nature.

We all come into this world with our own mixture of light and darkness. For some, there is a clear line of demarcation that defines their duality, and for others there is a very large gray area that allows for a certain moral flexibility. 

The only thing that’s certain through all of our delineations is the knowledge that we can draw from either side of our personality at any time, and that some people make no distinction either way.

It’s our awareness that creates our morality.

But how well do you exercise your awareness, and just as importantly, when do you use it? I have worked with some people whose awareness of the damage that they caused was incredibly limited, and only took effect long after their actions and words had caused irreparable harm to another. 

Others I have known are always aware, constantly watching their actions, checking every word and trying to treat others with as much kindness as possible.

Yet all, and I mean all, of us have our days where instead of rising to the pinnacle of our principles, we fall into the failure of our nature.

Maybe it’s not that big of a fall by the standards of the world, or of those around us, but the strong person is the one who keeps their own judgments as to the necessity of decency, kindness and virtue. 

In a world that seems to venerate the material and vilify the spiritual, there is a constant struggle for principle over popularity, decency over denigration, humanity over hedonism and calm over cacophony.

And by our actions every day, we choose our pathway through the principles we follow.

It may be said that the struggle over our innate nature is comprised of our decisions to eschew darkness in our choices, and most importantly in our thoughts that lead to our actions. This is a difficult pathway, requiring a deep self awareness and a willingness to let go of the needs that drive our innermost thoughts and desires, forsaking that which enlivens us for that which ennobles us. 

Even then, not out of a wish for a greater appreciation by others, but a greater surrender to the principles that inspire us, believing in our hearts that the choice is right in and of itself, rather than right for us.

For inasmuch as our nature is to be selfish, the pinnacle of our potential is to arrive at selflessness. That is not a refutation of the material, but rather the lack of the need of the consciousness to identify as a self at all.

And just being.

In one of those strange twists of understanding, we realize that in order to rise above our nature, we just need to cease being who we believe we are, and instead experience each moment without reference to our ego, merely choosing what is right, over what is right for us.

And in renouncing the nature of our birth, we arrive at the nature of our soul.

— Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings

Morning Reflection: The Crisis of Purpose

The Crisis of Purpose.

If you’ve been paying attention to the world, you’ll realize that things are changing, and the pace of change is accelerating. Things which 30 years ago would have been considered impossible are now commonplace, and the things that we see on the horizon now are coming towards us faster than you can possibly imagine.

Technology is transforming our experience, and soon, our existence.

Because as we move further into the world of artificial intelligence and robotics, we are soon going to arrive at a time where people do not have to work to survive. When that happens, and people have even more free time, we’re going to have to start answering the big questions, the ones we have been struggling with since the dawn of time.

Why are we here, and more importantly, what should we do while we are here?

Many people have tried to answer these questions over the years. For some, it’s a belief in deity. For some, it’s a faith in a never ending experience, reincarnating time after time in an eternal quest for enlightenment. 

For some, it’s a theory of nothingness after this, while others admit to not knowing, and are comfortable with the questions. The truth is, no one really knows for anyone else.

But our purpose is to find it out for ourselves.

And coming soon, we’re going to have more time to answer those questions, and people will be clamoring for the answers that resonate with themselves. We’re also going to have time to know ourselves better, and to start learning to communicate and live with each other in ways that are more harmonious, less confrontational and that lean a great deal more towards kindness.

But our purpose is still going to be paramount. 

Imagine a generation of people who cannot identify themselves through what they do for a living. Can you see how big of a change that is going to be? Think also of the children who will grow up without the goal of ‘becoming’ their profession or their vocation. How will they spend their time, find their purpose, accept responsibility and find meaning through struggle?

The answers are going to be individual for each of us, yet the common strain will reverberate throughout humanity.

The call will go out for those who can provide answers, a sense of meaning, a light in the darkness of too much free time and not enough purpose. The people we need in the future are those who have made peace with themselves, found a sense of purpose and are actively following it.

Because those who have their own light, can be a light for others.

If you’ve been following this work for a while, or even if you’re new to this (whatever this is, because I don’t yet know myself) I’m guessing you are the kind of person who is going to be needed greatly in the future. 

Not that we have the answers, but that we can offer a kind heart and a safe place for people to search out their own meaning and purpose.

We are the guides of meaning, and the prophets of purpose. I don’t know if we are up to it, but in truth, I don’t know if anyone else is either. To quote a line from one of my favorite movies..

”Sometimes it’s the people no one imagines anything of who do the things that no one can imagine”.

Will you help?

— Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings

Morning Reflection: Dream Crazy

Dream Crazy.

I start a journey tomorrow. One I’ve been building to for some time now. I have no idea how I’m going to make this work; from a time standpoint, from a money standpoint, from a life standpoint. 

There are so many things that are stacked against this that it’s crazy to even think about it, let alone start out moving towards my goal.

But the sky is calling, and I’m drawn to answer it.

I start tomorrow by booking what’s known as a discovery flight. In the not too distant future, I’ll climb into a small aircraft with an instructor, and we’ll take off together. The point of a discovery flight is to see if you like flying in a small aircraft. 

For me, that flight is kind of irrelevant, because I’m going to get my pilot’s license even if I’m terrified on that flight, but it’s the best way to start out, so I’m going to do it.

Because I want to fly my own plane someday.

If you knew how crazy that sounds given where I am at, you’d probably try to sit me down and convince me that I need to be more realistic, more grounded, less ambitious, less insane. I’d let you finish talking, but your words would be falling on stony ground. 

Partly because I know that if I die without achieving this goal I would regret it, but also because I truly, madly and deeply believe that if you’re not moving towards something that passionately draws you, you are just waiting out your days to die.

And life is so very, very short if you do that.

It’s too easy to fall victim to the belief that the impossible can’t come true. There are days when I believe it as well, but then my spirit rises up, and tells me that I haven’t gone through everything I’ve gone through without a reason, and that my journey is far from over. The destination is always moving from me, but I think the journey is just as exhilarating as the destination.

So I believe, in spite of all that seeks to show me otherwise.

Maybe that belief is a sign of insanity, or maybe it’s my brain’s way of finding a meaning out of the chaos that is our everyday struggle against the cruelty of the universe. Who knows, and I don’t care. 

We all spend way too much of our lives trying to make sense of everything, rather than just enjoying the ride, and getting as much out of life as we can. Whatever you love, whatever you dream, as long as it’s in line with good principles, you have to go after it. If you don’t, you’ll die a little more each day.

And I don’t want that for you.

Only the biggest dreams, the ones that beckon you on while filling you with doubt are the dreams that have the power to move you beyond the you who is now, and transform you into the you who was always meant to be.

Maybe you’ll reach your goals, or maybe you won’t. The only way to know is to try, and see where your striving takes you. This reality responds to your intention, 

Come fly the universe with me, and let’s see where we find ourselves.

— Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings

Morning Reflection: The only way to get there is to start here

The only way to get there is to start here.

What do you need to know to get moving? If you’re like me, you want to see the entire road before you, know every turn, anticipate every problem, plan every solution and try to be one hundred percent sure of each possible moment. 

The more I know about the pathway beyond, the more comfortable I feel about the experience. It sounds like I’m being thorough right, trying my hardest, doing my best?

And yet it’s really what’s holding me (and possibly you) back.

Because the greatest things in life are the things that you are NEVER one hundred percent ready for. When I left my birth country of England to start a new life in America, I had only a concept of a direction for my life, and it’s turned out very differently than I expected. 

When Holly and I were married, we had no idea how everything was going to work. When we made the decision to start a family, we were completely oblivious to how that was going to turn out.

We just set sail for our destination, and started to move.

Which is easier when you’re starting out. The less you have to lose, the easier it is to gamble a little on the fickle winds of fate, and to move forward with confidence. 

But little by little, as we gain more of a ‘life’ and we lose more and more of our ‘time’, it becomes more daunting to take those big steps out into the universe. We prefer to stay safe, warm, hidden and protected.

And if we are not careful, we hibernate into infirmity.

We lose some of the spark of life that provided us with so much passion and energy when were younger. Instead, we settle for security when we could be progressing through a realm of passionate possibilities. 

We give up all that we could experience for the imagined safety of a minimal endurance, and set our feet to standing, when we could be running.

All because we are afraid.

It has been written that doubt kills more dreams than failure ever will, and it’s true. If we struggle with the unknown (which is really just the possibility of failure) and allow our fears to persuade us into paralysis, we miss out on the very spark of life that gives us meaning, that of facing the unknown. 

The very best inside of us often requires a challenge to come forth, and we’re never going to find out how good we are until we set ourselves to walking on the uncharted pathway.

Trusting ourselves that we can deal with whatever comes our way.

So today, I offer you these words as a plea for you to embrace the journeys that you want to start upon, but have been holding back out of a fear of not knowing every step. You will never know everything that you need to know, but you can discover along the way the things you really need, and can discard those you really don’t.

This journey is not for the faint of heart, but for the faithful of courage, for it is the pathway to excitement, adventure and fulfillment.

So what are you waiting for? The only way to get there is to start here.

— Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings

Morning Reflection: The gift of the freedom to feel

The gift of the freedom to feel.

We’ve been married over 22 years now. Like all marriages, we’ve had our good times, and our tough times. Days when everything went perfectly, and others where it seemed that nothing could go right. Through all of this, we’ve tried to maintain a kindness with each other, never resorting to petty vindictiveness or deliberate insults. In 22 years, we’ve never tried to hurt each other.

Yet I realize I have hurt her, by holding something back.

Anger isn’t something my wife handles easily. She might get frustrated quicker than others, but honestly being angry and allowing herself to feel it, and even more to express it, is not a skill that she has mastered. 

She’s more likely to hold it in for a long time, and then it comes out in what she calls the ‘ugly cry’, where she’s more likely to be angry with herself for being angry than she is at someone else, especially me.

But part of the reason she struggles is because I don’t make it easy for her to be angry.

Please understand, it’s not that I don’t give her reasons to be angry, far from it. I have more than my fair share of flaws, and they affect her on a daily basis. But because she is my world, and because of some patterns learned in my childhood, her being angry with me is so painful that I tend to close down, and emotionally separate myself from her.

I know it’s a defense mechanism, but it’s not fair to her.

Because there are things that she should be angry about, and things that she needs to tell me about. To make it worse, after 22 years of marriage and because I am kind of a gifted and skilled reader of people, she realizes that even being angry (without expressing it) is hard on me, and so she tries very hard to suppress the natural feelings of frustration that occur in any marriage.

I can’t imagine how hard it is for her being married to me.

So I’m trying to be better about giving her the emotional freedom to be frustrated and angry, without me closing up emotionally. I realize that it will be better for our marriage in the long run if she is free to express her emotions in the way that she wants, without having to constantly worry about how I am going to react to her. 

Of course, it would be better if I could reduce the number of things that frustrate her, and I’m definitely trying to do that. :) 

But for now, the greatest gift I can give her is the freedom to be herself, and to express her thoughts and feelings in the way that she needs to. 

Yes it might be hard for me to hear, but given that I’ve never known her to deliberately try to hurt me, I think I will probably learn more from her moments of anger than she can ever understand.

The greatest gifts we can ever give someone is the freedom to truly be who they are, and feel the way that they feel.

— Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings

Morning Reflection: Learning to live in silence

Learning to live in silence.

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

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

For we do not take time to rest in silence.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

— Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings

Morning Reflection: The Reason You Dance with Your Demons

The Reason You Dance with Your Demons.

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

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

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

Why are they doing this?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And dance your own dance, and not theirs.

— Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings

Morning Reflection: You repeat what you don’t heal

You repeat what you don’t heal.

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

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

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

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

None of us is immune, especially not me.

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

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

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

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

And regret is a poison that has very few antidotes.

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

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

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

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

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

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

— Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings

Morning Reflection: “Teach me to let go”

“Teach me to let go”.

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

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

Today’s post is an attempt to answer that. 

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

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

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

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

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

Until we make peace with it. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

— Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings

Morning Reflection: The Little I Have To Give

The Little I Have To Give.

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

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

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

Which is precisely the wrong thing to do.

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

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

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

And all of my support seemed to have left me.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

— Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings

Morning Reflection: The Language of Limbic

The Language of Limbic.

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

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

Should I go first?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

— Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings