Morning Reflection: Do Something

Do Something.

I had a meeting online yesterday morning with a group of friends. These are all wonderful women, courageous, talented and kind. For some reason, they tolerate the presence of a lone male in their party.

I’m not sure if I’m there for comic relief, or as some outreach project for the talented-but-stuck-segment of the population, but for a while now they’ve allowed me to tag along on their journey.

Because other than gender, there’s something very different about me from the rest of this group.

They are all pursuing their dreams. One, who is the leader/guru of this little band, has had an incredible year. She has taken a huge step of courage and has changed her and her family’s lives forever by taking her business way further than it has ever gone before.

It’s not hyperbole to say that things will never be the same for her now. She’s an incredible example to me, and has been kind and generous with both her time, and her wisdom.

And while I’m so happy for her, I won’t lie and say that her courage makes me feel a little less happy with myself.

Because for the past few weeks I’ve been quietly planning for my next project, which has really become my dream. If this works out, not only will I be changing lives for the better, but I’ll be moving into a space where I feel all of my talents, desires and beliefs converge into a single frame.

It not only holds the potential to change my future, but even re-frame past events and change the meaning of so many things that have happened.

By now, you’d think I should be running toward this at full speed.

And I wish I could tell you that I am, but I’m not. Instead I’m over-thinking it, allowing my fears for possible failure to cloud out any hope I could have of succeeding. If that only affected me, that would be one thing, but this is affecting my family (both immediate and extended) and also the people who I believe I can help with this new work/project/dream.

So as you can probably guess, this isn’t something I’m happy about at all.

Sitting here, admitting to you in words that I’m scared of the possibilities is not easy to do. It’s kind of humbling, and a little disheartening, but as I try to be honest here, this is about as real as it gets right now. I’m not moving forward on something that could be a dream opportunity for me, my family and others, all because of one thing.

I’m terrified of it.

Both of the possibility of failure, and the possible outcome of success. Scared of what others will say, and how others could be affected by what I’m going to try to do.

I’m anxious about how I might feel if this doesn’t work out, especially since this makes more sense than just about anything else I’ve ever imagined, but I’m also filled with fear at the possibility that I might never try, and be filled with regret.

Have you ever experienced something like this, and if so, how did you work through it?

And so I’ve decided that I’m just going to try to do something. I’m going to pick a small step, and take it. Because in the end, I think the very worst thing I could do would be to do nothing, and allow more time to pass by without trying to make a difference. It may well hurt, and it may at some point cost me a great deal of my pride.

But there’s one thing it won’t cost me.

It won’t cost me my self-respect. The only way that will be taken from me is if I do nothing. Then I’ll have to live with the poison of regret, and the possibility that I could have made an incredible difference in the lives of others, but didn’t because I was too worried about feeling bad for a little while.

Of all the possibilities out there, not helping when I could is the one that scares me the most.

Because I’ve been on the other end of that equation, and I didn’t enjoy being there.

So today, I’m going to follow the examples of these wonderful women who I’m honored to call friends, and I’m going to do something to advance me in the cause of my dreams. I’m going to jump out of this safe little nest that I’ve built out of my fears, and take that first step into the future and see what happens.

I may fall flat on my face, but who know, I may even fly.

— Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings

Morning Reflection: Until You Find Your Voice, You’re Never Going to Feel Heard

Until You Find Your Voice, You’re Never Going to Feel Heard.

Standing up for yourself can be kind of tough sometimes. I have a good friend who was raised in a house where dissent, of any kind, was essentially forbidden.

The worst thing you could do was say “No” to someone in ‘authority’, and heaven forbid expressing an opinion that was counter to the one your parents gave you.

And while her home seemed happy, it was just that no one felt comfortable speaking up.

Many years ago I heard a saying that has stuck with me until today…. ‘Real boats rock’. That means that when you see something that appears to be perfect, you’re either not looking hard enough, or someone is hiding something harder than you are looking. Real families have dissent, and they learn how to work through it.

But my friend felt like she was unable to have a voice of her own, and this carried into her adult years,

And so she discovers herself, at the wonderful age of 37, trying to find her voice in life, in love, and in her own family. It’s always hard to learn things later in life than we were supposed to learn them.

Normally the teenage years are the time where you forge your own identity, and learn how to deal with disagreement and conflict through discussion and compassion, but if that timeline is missed, then you carry some very difficult habits with you into adulthood.

And so my friend came to me for help, because she was tired of feeling like she was never heard.

It wasn’t that her family wasn’t trying to listen to her, but when you’ve spent 34 out of 37 years of your life learning that you can’t express yourself fully, you have a tendency to imply rather than express, and get frustrated when others don’t understand why you are feeling the way you do.

If you’ve never felt safe saying what you really want to, you find yourself saying the things you think others want you to.

Do that long enough, and hard enough, and you’ll feel like you have no voice at all.

As we discussed her situation, I realized that she was going to have to push herself through an emotional wall, and do something very hard for her. As we talked, I gently brought her to a point in the conversation where she was frustrated, and very close to tears. In that moment of vulnerability, I gently opened her to the truth of the situation that she didn’t want to hear.

“Until you find your voice, you’re never going to feel heard”.

She looked at me for a moment with resentment, and then her glare softened. She knew I wasn’t trying to hurt her, and because I’ve been able to help her with things in the past, she was willing to listen to the words instead of ignoring them. Even better, she took them to heart, and went away and did something very difficult for her.

She expressed herself fully in a difficult conversation.

It actually went really well. Because she felt heard, she was also able to listen to the other person’s point of view, rather than hearing only the echoes of the words she wanted to say, but had been unable to.

The two of them came closer as a result of their conversation, and both felt uplifted by the experience.

And it started with one woman finding the courage to express what she truly felt.

— Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings

Morning Reflection: Silencing the Soliloquy of Shame

Silencing the Soliloquy of Shame

I’m guessing somewhere back in your past, there’s something you’d like to forget.

One of those moments where your actions didn’t live up to your ideals, and where the outcome of your weaknesses left a scar upon your memory that you’ve been trying to either avoid or get rid of ever since. If you have one of those, don’t worry, you’re not alone.

Because for some reason, shame seems to be the epidemic of choice for humanity.

Which is sad because most of the time the things we carry shame over are simply acts of being human, born out of fear and loss, rather than a sincere desire to do the wrong thing.

Most, and I mean a very high percentage of people ‘most’, are good people who had a moment where they were either not aware of the full story, or were so lost in their emotions that they weren’t able to withstand their desire to act.

So they were either shamed, or they shamed themselves.

And as psycho-emotional poisons go, shame is just about the worst. Shame makes us avoid understanding, and it stops us from progressing further in ourselves.

The person who has been taught to feel shame is one who has accepted a lie that denigrates their self worth, and very often will control their ability to allow themselves to find forgiveness.

Worst of all, the more shame we feel, the more we are likely to spread it around.

It’s been said that misery loves company, and it takes a pretty strong person to accept negative judgments on themselves while offering acceptance, forgiveness, understanding and love to someone else.

Usually the further into self dislike we stray, the harsher becomes our judgments of the outside world, until we are caught up in a tidal wave of loathing, both for ourselves, and for everyone else.

And then we’ll feel shame about how badly we treat others.

So let’s try to reverse that cycle today. As I wrote about forgiving yourself yesterday, today I want to help you lift a sense of shame off of your shoulders, and it begins by understanding that you are a flawed human being, not a failed human being, and that your value comes from being not doing and from existing rather than excelling.

The actions you may have performed in a moment of weakness or misunderstanding are no more a judgment on your soul than are the moments where you lived up to the best of your intentions.

The person you are, the conscious entity of awareness that can grow, learn love and feel is so valuable that the expressions of consciousness that you call your actions are not what define you.

A priceless violin does not lose its value if handled by a novice, nor if played incorrectly by a master who is having a bad day. The value is in its ability to make music, however that sounds.

And you are so much more than a violin, no matter how priceless it is.

To silence the soliloquy of shame, I invite you to sit quietly, and picture yourself as a little child. Allow your thoughts to fill with compassion, as you see that child trying to make its way in the world.

Watch it fail and fall, stand and succeed.

Does the child lose its value each time it falls – of course not. As your heart skips a beat with each unsuccessful attempt to walk, allow love to flow from you, flooding over the child and healing its wounds, quieting its cries, and calming its tears.

And now step outside of yourself, and do the same for you.

Watch yourself in the actions that shame you, and recognize that your intentions were either good, or were driven by fears of pain and loss.

Realize that even in the moments that you weren’t trying your best, your good intentions were still there, but were drowned out by the excess of emotions pulling you the other way. The flood of your fears, drowning out your inner voice is an experience, is a moment, and is not a statement of your value.

And express to yourself the same compassion as you did for the child, for your consciousness is not less valuable now that it was then.

I invite you to practice this exercise as often as you can. The more love and compassion you can learn to generate for the child you were, the more you will come to realize that you are still that child, in that you can learn and grow.

The more you can silence the soliloquy of shame, the lighter you will feel, and the greater light you will have to share with all of those around you.

If you need absolution, you have it. If you struggle with self forgiveness, I can help you find it.

Go, be, do, and love yourself as you love the others around you. Lay down your shame, as it does not serve you, and only when you serve yourself can you truly serve others.

— Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings

Morning Reflection: For My Part in This, I Am Sorry

For My Part in This, I Am Sorry.

I’ve been realizing lately that I have owed someone an apology. I hate it when that happens.

I try to live in such a way that I minimize the number of people I have to apologize to, because I try to live my life based on good principles and a fervent desire to treat others with kindness, compassion and integrity.

Nevertheless, from time to time, I find myself in a position where I need to say sorry for something.

And it turns out this person has been waiting for a long time, much longer than I had realized.

It wasn’t necessarily someone who I thought needed an apology though. It’s funny how you can be around someone for years, and yet be blind to the way things affect them, and when I finally faced the fact that I owed this person an apology, I found myself incredibly reluctant to offer one.

This apology was going to hurt more than they usually do.

Because while this apology was hopefully going to make someone feel better, it was also going to make that same person feel worse.

And I hate receiving apologies almost as much as I hate giving them.

The person that I owed an apology to was myself. If that sounds a little crazy, maybe it is, but in order to realize that I was due an apology I had to first go through the step of realizing that I had played a part in some times in my life that had been pretty difficult.

Before I had always fallen back on the story that sure, I had put myself in places and situations where people could treat me badly, but I always had an explanation for why I had allowed the unjust treatment to continue. In essence, I always had a psychological fallback to absolve myself of the responsibility I could have taken in the situation.

The upside of that was that it allowed me to focus on and blame others who did have their share of responsibility for their actions, but in blaming them, I could essentially offload my responsibility onto them, and thus avoid acknowledgement of my own problems.

It’s incredible how hard our brains will work to find a way to avoid accepting our own share of blame for the problems in our lives.

But I have advanced to a point where I can now see that I was a player in my own problems.

Which means that I owed myself an apology for the things I allowed myself to experience when I COULD have done something different and changed the situation.

It’s a tough thing to accept, the full responsibility for all that you could have done, but didn’t do, but I honestly don’t believe that there is any other way to really advance into happiness than to fully see yourself for you who you.

Because only then can you accept the fullness of yourself, and find peace within that acceptance.

So quietly, gently and honestly, I apologized to myself. It only took a few words, and yet I felt a significant change occur within me.

Because in some strange way I was able to extend to myself forgiveness, while at the same time growing with the acceptance of full responsibility for all that I can do and change in my life. I felt like a weight had been removed in one way, and a lighter one returned in its place.

And I felt like I had grown a little in my journey.

Not that I’m anywhere near where I’m supposed to be. I still have so much work to do, so many lessons to learn, and a multitude of things to get done.

But I can’t help but think that accepting responsibility, receiving an apology and granting forgiveness are going to help me along that pathway.

May we all find forgiveness within ourselves for ourselves, and lighten our steps along our way.

— Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings

Morning Reflection: The Energetic Handcuffs of Hate

The Energetic Handcuffs of Hate.

There’s an age old teaching, that’s been around for so long because it’s true. “That which you focus on you will see, and in some cases manifest.” As someone who has been trying now for several years to unburden myself of a hatred, I can tell you from personal experience that nothing good comes from harboring those kinds of feelings for anyone, or anything.

It doesn’t serve you, or progress you, in any way.

In fact, hatred might be the single most dangerous emotion we can hold within ourselves. I’ve never experienced those kinds of feelings without also entertaining a sense of superiority (I’m better then the person that I hate) or a sense of moral standing (I would never have behaved in that way).

Yet if you live long enough, and keep your eyes open wide enough, you’ll eventually find yourself doing things that surprise you, and put you at risk for your own condemnation.

And even worse, you’re spending an incredible amount of energy focusing on that which you do not like.

Which, if you have ever understood anything about the way intention shapes the universe, is a terrible thing to focus on. The longer you spend your time focused on someone who you don’t like, the more of your attention you are actually giving them, and the more power you give them.

Please think about this for a moment – every second you give to someone in hatred is a second that they have taken from you, and will never give back.

And we all know that time is the ultimate currency, because once you’ve spent it, you will never, ever, have it returned unto you.

So instead of wasting valuable intention, time and emotional energy, I suggest that we try to move beyond the negative feelings that we carry.

I know that is easier said than done, but I would like to share with you some thoughts today about how it might be achieved. It begins with a difficult question, one that requires self honesty and self acceptance.

What am I getting from this feeling of hatred?

Before I go further, please understand that I know there are people in the world who have done despicable things, and I do not mean in any way to excuse them, nor ask you to try to rationalize what they did.

This is about helping you let go of that which does not heal you, and allow you to move beyond those feelings into a place of lighter feelings.

So to get back to my question – why does hate ‘feel good’?

We hate because it justifies us, swelling our sense of self, which increases our feeling of significance, one of our human needs. Our need to feel significant is a sign that we do not feel significant in ourselves, and hatred is not going to help you move into a place where you realize that you were significant the moment you were born.

But sometimes, we struggle to get there, so we need to find an avenue to significance that doesn’t involve our superiority to another, but instead, our progression in spite of ourselves.

If you would loosen the handcuffs of hatred to which you are bound, you need to find ways to feel better about yourself, so that you feel less of a need to feel better than others. To do this, you need to do things that you believe are significant, and go beyond the limitations that you have set for yourself.

When I skydived from 13,000 feet, I felt a greater peace because I had gone beyond what I thought I was capable of. My sense of significance increased, and yet I felt a greater love for others, and a stronger desire to serve and heal where I can.

And while you’re busy doing those things, you’ll have less time for hatred. As you focus on doing good around you, you’ll find that hatred can eventually turn into pity.

Hatred dehumanizes, while love uplifts; both those who hate, and the object of their hatred thereof.

— Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings

Morning Reflection: Why Am I Doing This?

Why Am I Doing This?

Every few weeks, I ask myself the same question. When I’m sitting there late at night, (in this case 10:45pm) and the words just won’t come. It’s not for lack of ideas, or potential titles, because right now I probably have 30 working titles at any one time, but on some nights the words don’t flow, and I can’t seem to find a thread of what I’m supposed to say.

And if you put a few of those nights together, it can get discouraging.

When I started this work almost 2 years ago, I began it more as a therapy for myself. I was in a tough place emotionally, trying to work through some of my biggest weaknesses.

Afraid, lost, and with no seeming direction to go in. The first ever reflection I wrote was about Kintsugi, the Japanese art of taking something that is broken, and in the act of repairing it making it more valuable, more beautiful.

Which resonated so much, because I felt so broken at the time.

Over the last 22 months, I haven’t kept an index, and I’ve very rarely re-read anything I’ve written. At first the work was essentially for myself, but then people started to comment on the posts. It seemed as though I was able to give people a little inspiration, a way to think differently, or just a moment where they could look at their lives from a perspective other than the one they were used to.

The work started to make a difference.

And somewhere along the way, it felt like the work became the writer, and I was just the person typing out the words. I had gone from writing what I wanted, to writing what each piece wanted to be known as. I get that that probably sounds crazy, because it does to me, but I have no other way to explain it. The work took over, and it became not about me, but about the people I was touching.

In short, it became about you.

Which is why, on the nights when I just can’t find the words, I sit and type until I find what I’m supposed to write about that night, and publish in the morning, Not because I necessarily want to, because sometimes I’m up until 2am trying to find the words and all I want to do is sleep.

Not because I think it’s going to change the world, because after 500 pieces, the world still seems as crazy as ever, if not worse.

I do it because you are important, you matter to me.

I get that I might not know you. That’s kind of irrelevant to me. I get that some days you might scroll past the post, and not read it. That’s your choice, and I completely honor and respect that.

I’m not unaware that sometimes I write things that are difficult to understand, or that may challenge the world view of someone who is reading. I make no apologies, other than to explain that I never try to upset anyone.

I write because I hope that if someone is experiencing a moment of darkness, where the world seems a cruel and heartless place, that they might know that there is at least one soul, one small light in the darkness, who cares for them when it might seem that no-one else does. He might not be there in person, but the words of the work will be there in the morning.

And maybe one day, they’ll make the difference when everything is on the line.

Today I want to give you my thanks, and deep heartfelt gratitude for your acknowledgement and support of this work. I want you to know that I write this for you, because in all of the madness, insanity, cruelty and darkness that seems to be ever present in the time in which we live, I want you to know that you matter. That you have value. That the world is a better place with you in it.

Which is why I try to respond to every comment, and why I still sit here when the rest of the world has the luxury to sleep and dream.

My dreams are in the letters, the words, the sentences, the paragraphs, the pieces and the work.

My dreams, like this work, are for you.

— Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings

Morning Reflection: A Million Possible Nows

A Million Possible Nows.

The moment you are reading this could have happened so differently. You could have scrolled on by, ignoring the words and the picture. You could have decided to take the day off Facebook.

You could even have been born in a country where English wasn’t a language you learned, and so you never got to read whatever this strange guy on the internet writes about.

Your life could have turned out so differently.

There are so many different possibilities that could actually be occurring right now that calculating the odds of this exact moment, this Now, happening in this precise way at this exact time takes way more math capability that I have, or would ever want. Yet every moment you have ever arrived at has had three very particular components.

Choice, intention, and chance.

You could say that it’s not your choice be here, but that would be wrong. Sure your alternatives might be much worse, so that this was the obvious choice (although not one you necessarily wanted) but there was a choice involved.

I chose my wife (best decision of my life) and she chose me (she’s normally very rational, so don’t judge her by that one).

Our intention was to live happily ever after.

And then chance showed up. Yet even in the midst of the chaos and confusion that is this crazy universe that we live in, there have still been choices that have led to the NOW in which I am writing this work.

Some of those choices have been good ones, some I’m still trying to learn from.

But of all the possibilities that exist, this is the one I find myself in.

And when you understand that there are a million possible Nows that could be occurring, you realize that some of them may not be as pleasant as the Now that is now.

Because there are some Nows that could be filled with sorrow and pain, and while I have no desire to live through them, I can learn from the possibility of them, so that I might more fully appreciate the Now that I am currently living in.

When you consider all the possible Nows, this one becomes amazing.

I am fully aware that there could be a Now in the future where my wife is no longer here, so I cherish her presence in my life today, and hope never to take her for granted, although I’m sure I do. I am also aware that there is a Now where my health is not as it now is, and so I try to maintain the health I am blessed with.

I could go on and on, but I think you get my point.

When you understand how fragile and amazing Now actually is, it will change that way you think about your life.

You’ll make better choices, knowing that you have the capacity to influence, if not determine, the Nows that you’ll experience later. You’ll feel stronger, knowing that the Now you are currently experiencing could be very much worse, and you’ll treat the Now that is now with the respect it deserves.

Because all we have is Now, and you are living it, deciding it, changing it, and feeling it.

Now is everything, and you can do so much with it.

Are you ready? You can start any time, but I would recommend Now.

— Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings

Morning Reflection: Forgetting Who You Are For a While

Forgetting Who You Are For a While.

My guess is that you are a good person. Might I be wrong…sure, but I always approach people as though they are good, and I’m usually right.

Yet when I talk to people, especially helping them through a problem, they can’t help but bring up to me all the reasons why they don’t think that they are a good person. Some people have such a list that you’d be amazed at the things they share.

We seem to have an epidemic of people feeling bad about themselves.

Which is a very sad thing, because it causes people so much heartache and misdirected energy. It makes them accept treatment from others that is detrimental to their mental and sometimes physical health.

It stops them from going for their goals, and settling for a life less than they could live. And sometimes, it causes them to act in ways that are not in keeping with who they really are.

It’s like they’ve forgotten the goodness of their nature for a while.

We all do this occasionally. It’s usually out of fear, or anger (which is just active fear) or sadness (which is just passive fear). When people experience these negative emotional states, it’s easy to act out in ways that aren’t our best.

When things are going great, we often see the best side of people, they person they always wish they could be.

But some people haven’t just forgotten who they are – they’ve never had a clear understanding of it in the first place.

Take a kid who was always told by a parent that they were bad. When we’re young, we don’t have a great filter that says ‘my parent is acting out of fear, and they really don’t mean what they’re saying’.

Instead, we seem to take the voices that they direct towards us gospel truth, and fit our opinion of ourselves around their words, accepting a definition that is probably incorrect.

Since that kid believes they are a bad person, it’s easier to do bad things.

So if I were to ask you about you, what would you tell me? If we’re sitting quietly, just you and me around a campfire, what ‘truths’ would you share from your heart?

Would you tell me the honest truth of your soul that you’re too afraid to believe – the one where you’re actually a wonderful person who occasionally forgets that, or would you try to convince me that you are somehow bad, wrong and unworthy?

Only you know what you would say, but I wonder if it would be the truth, rather than what you believe?

Because so many people have forgotten, or never understood, the goodness of their souls. My belief, and it’s a pretty strong belief at that, is that if you are reading this work, if my writings resonate with your soul, then you are a good person.

Imperfect – definitely. Struggling – probably. Trying – more than likely.

Just like all of us.

Today I want you to recognize and accept the goodness of your nature. Forget the things that others may have told you, and release from yourself the deepest darkest lies that you hold on to. It’s been said that we are more afraid of our light than our darkness, and so we often choose to smother that light under a blanket of lies, desperately trying to keep the truths of our souls undercover, undeclared, unknown and unexpressed.

Please, don’t do that anymore.

This world needs you, more than ever. We need the peacemakers. We need the carers. We need the honest in heart who are ready to stand and declare that we are better than we have been described, and we need those who can be a light unto others, giving them hope in the darkness.

Today, please make a play for peace in this world.

And start by remembering who you really are.

— Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings

Morning Reflection: Becoming the Center of Your Own Universe

Becoming the Center of Your Own Universe.

Isn’t it funny how many of us reading that have a negative reaction to it? If you read that, and thought that I was giving people permission to be selfish and cruel, you’re probably not alone.

Because somewhere in our collective social history, we’ve been taught that being focused on yourself is somehow wrong, and will lead to you becoming a bad person.

Which I think is totally wrong.

In my experience, more damage is done to the human race by teaching people that they shouldn’t focus on themselves; forcing people to live lives that they wouldn’t have chosen, relationships that aren’t serving them, and careers that do not inspire them.

The dogma behind the idea of sacrifice as an honorable way to live is destructive and cruel, but it’s been around for generations.

So today, I’m giving you permission to stop living for others, and focus on yourself for a while.

But even then, it’s probably not what you think. Focusing on yourself doesn’t mean living without reference to others, or neglecting those around you. Focusing on yourself means looking after the very basic needs of your health and your soul, and then serving others from a place of gratitude and abundance, rather than out fear that you can’t focus on your own soul.

Realizing that you have a primary duty to yourself, and so does everyone else.

When we become self-focused, and truly embrace the notion and extend it to others, then our view of the world changes. We serve with a different heart, knowing that we are giving by choice, not out of some fear of being a bad person if we don’t.

Likewise, if we are the recipient of service from someone else, then our gratitude increases as we come to understand that the gift of their service was motivated by love, not by guilt.

And when we never ask another to live for us, we give them the gift of finding the truth of who they really are.

I am blessed to have people like this in my life. People who are balanced in the checkbook of their soul and who radiate truth, love, kindness and compassion. They are honest with me, because their desire for my happiness overrides their fear of any reaction I might have to their truthfulness.

They are generous with their time, because they live their lives in such a way that they can give of their time freely and easily, knowing that they will take whatever portion of their time they need for themselves.

And they are the safest to be around, because being focused on themselves means they need nothing from others.

Once you focus on yourself, and do the work on your soul to make yourself happy, then you become the very best version of yourself.

Free to love, knowing that you can survive any heartbreak, free to give, knowing that you will always look after yourself to have enough, and free to share the truths of your soul without fear of repercussion or remorse.

So focus on and take care of you, and then spread your joy into the world.

We need more people like you.

— Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings

Morning Reflection: The Depth of Your Emotional Blocks

The Depth of Your Emotional Blocks.

Have you ever had something in your head that just wouldn’t let you do what you needed to do. No matter how hard you tried, you just couldn’t seem to find the emotional energy to accomplish whatever it was that you knew really needed to get done.

No words could explain it, no feeling seemed to describe it, but you knew in your heart that something, somehow, someway was stopping you.

Welcome to the wonderful world of emotional blocks.

They can be terrible, and they can be tough. They’re usually a result of some kind of trauma in your past, even though you don’t necessarily see it as such.

At a point in your life, you learned to associate a particular kind of pain to whatever it is that you need or want to do, but it didn’t necessarily occur in your conscious/aware mind. It happened deep in the dark recesses where you made a connection, and now your brain gives you that uneasy feeling every time this action comes up.

We all have them, so please know you’re not alone.

I have two very specific ones that I’m working through right now. One I have had for many, many years, and the other is fairly recent. The first is so deep that actually trying to break through it creates within me a powerful feeling of distress, while the other actually makes me physically nauseous.

The funny thing is I can tell you how each of these came to be, but knowing it is just not enough.

And here’s where my theory of depth/intensity comes in.

Because both of these blocks were created out of intense emotion. The first was pretty much a single incident in my life, which was very intense, at an emotional level that was probably 8/10, where 0 is calm and 10 is very painful. An event occurred, and I took a very specific meaning from it.

The second occurred at a 3-4/10 but frequently over a long period of time (many years). Both of these built up huge emotional intensity/depth, and so trying to deconstruct these blocks while I’m calm is not going to work.

You have to reach the block through the emotion, which is where the fun begins.

I do this with coaching clients in one of four ways. The fastest and most direct is to blow it apart with an intense emotional experience equal in intensity to the original event. As you can guess, that can get painful, so we avoid that as much as possible, but sometimes it can happen.

The second is the chisel, where you slowly chip away a little at a time, as if you were breaking a chocolate bar into tiny pieces and eating it a little at a time. You get there, but it can take a long time.

My preferred methods are much more fun.

Of the two, the ‘meaning twist’ is far more elegant. This is where we play with the meaning, twisting it inside and around your moral code, until not breaking through the block becomes a violation of your most intrinsic ethical rules.

Sure this takes some serious manipulation, but I tell you, when it works, it’s incredible to see how sudden people can break through when it’s the only way to stay a good person in their mind.

The last one is what I call ‘a case of compulsion’.

We all have wants, and we all have desires. Setting up a significant desire to break through an emotional block is like watching a child ask a thousand times for an ice cream.

Once the desire becomes a compulsion, you’ll see the person blow through the block like the child ignoring the ‘No’ until it gets what it wants. If you’ve ever seen this happen you know what I mean – they’re relentless.

So whatever your emotional block, please know that there is almost always a way through it.

Sure it might be deep, and it really might be painful to go through, but with enough patience and the right kind of guidance, you’ll be amazed at what you can accomplish.

Because what your mind has learned it can change.

And sometimes, change is your very best friend in the world.

— Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings

Morning Reflection: What Do You Really Want?

What Do You Really Want?

Seriously for a moment, if I were to ask you in a quiet sincere question what you actually wanted, would you be able to tell me? I’m not talking in generalities, but getting really specific.

Most people struggle to define their desires in any kind of detailed way, and instead fall back on a few vague words to describe what they want out of life, and then look at me to see if the answer that they have given me is enough…

And I know then that we have some work to do.

Conversely, there are some people who know exactly what they want, and have not only a detailed, specific and precise image in their minds of what they want, but also have a plan to make it happen.

Yet what might surprise you is that both those with a clear idea and those with almost no idea at all are both on the same journey, and can arrive at their destination at the same time.

Because what they really want is only a few thoughts away.

When you get right down to it, what everyone really wants is to be happy. While that word can have different applications to different people, I’ve never talked to anyone who disagreed with that concept after a few minutes of discussion.

Yet the big difference is how we find happiness, and some of the crazy things we think we need to become happy.

Let me share an example from someone I know really well.

If you ask him what he wants, he can tell you very clearly that he wants a house in a certain mountain location, and another on the ocean, and he wants a plane to fly between the two. While that might sound crazy to you, it’s actually not as insane as it sounds, especially if this person were to overcome some of his issues and really dig deep with the talents he has been given.

But if you ask him why that would make him happy, the discussion changes from things to feelings.

If he’s being totally honest, he’ll tell you that part of the reason is that he loves both locations and the peace he feels there, and he loves the feeling of flying because of the joy he feels rushing over the land, seeing it from a different point of view.

But if you go really deep with him, he’ll probably admit to you that achieving this goal that seems so audacious will give him a sense of accomplishment, of achievement, and of worthiness.

Because he feels like he has to achieve something crazy to be good enough to be loved, and being loved is a part of his recipe for happiness.

And that’s where the crazy starts, but also where the magic begins.

All of us have our own recipe for what it will take for us to be happy. For some it’s a quiet home, for others they want a mansion. Some want a sports car that shows off their ability to earn and spend, while others want a car that just gets them from A to B.

Somewhere in our lives, we created this recipe to convince ourselves that we need to do, or be, or achieve a certain thing, and that will bring us happiness.

And our definition of the recipe is the description of our despair.

Because there are people who have next to nothing, and haven’t achieved very much at all, and yet are happy. There are also those who have achieved incredible things, purchased amazing houses and cars, and yet are still stuck in the throes of sadness, depression and despair.

I have found that your recipe for happiness is very much affected by the trauma that has traversed your soul, and your desires to heal the parts of you that do not feel whole.

But that healing can be achieved without needing anything, other than the ability to let go, and the trust that you will be ok if you do.

We live in an amazing world, where every day, every breath, is a blessing. When we can let go of all the justifications and hurts, all the imagined slights and needs, and just focus on the incredible life we have within us and around us, we can realize a sense of gratitude and happiness for the smallest things, the little moments, and the quietest sounds.

We can find happiness within, and spread joy without.

We just have to let go and see.

— Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings

Morning Reflection: Taking the Trauma out of Your Triggers

Taking the Trauma out of Your Triggers.

You know the feeling all too well. It could be a person, it could be a noise or a smell. Perhaps it’s a song that you played for someone who meant a lot to you, or a movie you watched together far too many times.

It might even be a ridiculous television program that your kids watched that sends you into a rage, where suddenly beheading a purple dinosaur seems like the most natural and sensible thing in the world. :)

Whatever it is, it sets off an emotion in you that you just have a hard time controlling.

The intensity of your reaction could be mild, or it could be severe. You could find yourself recoiling away from the situation, or engaging with it, bringing with you harsh words, and unkind thoughts.

However it moves you, the truth is that an external stimulus has activated something in you that changes your emotional state, and you probably don’t know why.

So today, were going to go a little deeper, and see if we can help take some of the trauma out of your triggers.

It starts by asking yourself what is the most obvious emotion you are feeling. Is it fear, anger or sadness, or maybe love, joy or surprise? That can take some time, because sometimes it’s a mixture, and sometimes it’s so powerfully one by itself.

But eventually you’ll be able to reach a point where you can identify the major component, which begins your journey into the next level.

Figuring out what is really going on.

Because if it’s fear, it’s probably because one of your six human needs is being threatened. Maybe the trigger makes you feel powerless (loss of certainty) or that you are going to lose a significant relationship in your life (loss of connection).

Maybe something is going to happen that could make you lose your social standing in the eyes of people you care about, (which would be a loss of both connection and significance/value).

Any of those can also create the other of the covering emotions – which is anger.

Once you’ve identified what’s really going on, it’s time to ask yourself why you are holding onto that emotion, and usually it’s because of one of two things. Either it justifies you (increases your sense of significance) or it reassures you (increases your sense of certainty). And once you clearly see why you’re holding onto it, the next step is usually the hardest thing to do.

To begin the act of letting go.

Because the further you go into your journey, you’ll soon come to realize that most of the emotions we hold onto are those that we really never needed in the first place, but we adopted them to cover up pain, and the result of trauma and loss.

The anger that we feel can be lessened as we find the truth of ourselves in the silent reaches of our hearts. The fear that we feel can be reduced as we learn to look through the threat and understand the infinite capacity of our mind and our souls.

And eventually, the things that trigger us can be changed into that which rarely bothers us at all.

— Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings

Morning Reflection: Storyteller

Storyteller.

I rolled out of bed at 5:30 yesterday morning, and got hit with a dose of reality. The night before, I’d written a piece for this work that I was really happy with. I felt like it was one of the better ones I’ve written, and I found a picture that I felt really captured the spirit of the piece.

I grabbed my phone to see if it was resonating with people, hoping that I had managed to touch or inspire sometime to have a better day.

And the post only had 1 reaction. 1 like.

And to be honest, for a moment, I was pretty bummed out. Although I try not to write for myself, there’s times when I feel particularly attached to a piece.

It’s kind of like putting your child out into the world, to see if other people love that little person as much as you do. It can be hard to realize that sometimes what meant a lot to you didn’t mean as much to others.

So I felt a little sad, and then the storytelling started.

You know the storyteller don’t you? It’s that little voice in your head that gives you a narrative for everything that happens in your life. Although it was still early, the Storyteller had gotten up with me, and immediately began telling me that this was a bad day, that my instincts were useless, that I can’t write, and that I should just give up and not try to write anything anymore.

If you let them, your own personal little Storyteller can really screw up your day.

But that morning, so dark outside that the room was only lit by my phone, and so early that everyone in the house (including the dog) had the good sense to be asleep, I remembered that I can tell stories as well.

I remembered that sometimes my Storyteller lies to me, and that although he’s trying to protect me, I should really take what he says with a grain of salt.

So I started my own story.

Which started with me being ok with the fact that right then, this piece wasn’t getting resonating with people in the way that I hoped.

My story also had in it the part where I came to the understanding that I had written a post that will do better as a paid boosted post to a slightly different audience than I am usually reaching out to.

My story was about how this was a useful experience that I was learning from, rather than a story of my weakness, my foolishness and my failure.

I decided that I liked my story better.

Everything that happens to us gets fitted into some kind of a story in our heads. The question becomes which kind of story. The Storyteller will usually tell us one to protect us from risk, to prevent the possibility of pain in the future, and to keep us carefully enclosed in our own, warm little zone of comfort.

But if we’re smart, we’ll write our own stories.

Full of daring and risk, of failure and success, of heartbreak and happiness, of loss and of love. Stories that lift us up to be the person we have dreamed of being, rather than the person we’re afraid of becoming.

Stories that define our desires, and detail our dreams.

Every life is made up of stories, and in the end, your life is one big story.

Make it a great one, so that in the future when someone tells your story, you’ll give others the gift of surprise and wonder.

— Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings

Morning Reflection: The Damaging Danger of your Denigrating Self Belief

The Damaging Danger of your Denigrating Self Belief.

Are you a good person? If you hesitated to answer that don’t worry, because when I ask people this question, a quick answer is rarely a good sign. The people who answer yes rapidly are either incredibly far along in their personal journey, or completely full of themselves (hint – it’s very rarely the first).

Most of us take a moment before answering this question, and then try to express our opinion of ourselves in a way that’s nuanced, and kind of jumps around the issue without giving a definitive answer.

Because having an opinion of whether we are good or bad is a very difficult thing.

In the last week I’ve talked to two people who have pretty terrible views of themselves. One is older, one is younger, and yet they both labor under the opinion that they are somehow flawed as a person, and beyond hope.

When you ask them to explain why they are such a bad person, both of them parade a litany of events and actions that are supposed to define their character as the worst version of themselves they can be.

And both of them are hopelessly and completely wrong.

The examples they held up to me, one speaking with eyes full of tears and the other in a voice choked up and breaking, were not examples of evil, cruel and heartless people who had done terrible things. They were symptoms of a much wider problem, one that affects just about every person I’ve ever met, listened to, talked with or helped.

They were simply, truly, and honestly…human.

The things they judged themselves for were things that occur every single day. Their actions were precipitated by the four horsemen of bad choices: pain, loss, heartache and fear. Their supposed horrible deeds were the result of trying to make themselves feel whole, in a world that lies to us that such a thing truly exists.

We are all, in one way or another, flawed and broken. That’s what it means to be human.

But it’s easier to have a solid black and white opinion, than to try to find a balanced view of ourselves. Balance takes a constant emotional energy; balance requires thought; and balance requires that we accept our flaws along with our better qualities.

So to preserve our mental energy in a universe full of grays, we opt to make our decisions in black and white.

So they both choose to believe the worst of themselves, and try to live with a negative self image, all the time hating themselves for their supposed evil.

And it’s all built on lies. Lies that they listen to, believing them to be truth. Lies that sound like the truth because they see through filters of their own believing. Lies that they could throw off at any time if only they were willing to face a painful truth, and walk through that fire to a different tomorrow. Instead, then restrict themselves to the dark, and are afraid to step out into the light.

All the while slowly destroying themselves day after day.

Because if you live with lies long enough, you wrap yourself in a shroud of self loathing. You’ll deny yourself good things out of the belief that it shouldn’t happen to you.

You’ll carry such a load that eventually you’ll fall and crack under the weight of so much worthlessness that you can’t carry on. And eventually, you’ll end up broken, beaten and believing that you had it coming all along.

Which is never how it was meant to be.

So if you are stumbling under the weight of so much self-negativity, I plead with you today to lay it down. That which you have done, or that which you believe you have done, is more than likely a result of unresolved pain and emotional pressure that pushed you beyond what you were able to bear.

We’ve all been there, we’ve all suffered, and we’ve all had our moments where we were broken.

That doesn’t make you bad. It simply makes you human.

And being human is the greatest value in the world.

— Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings

Morning Reflection: Giving Yourself Permission to Soar

Giving Yourself Permission to Soar.

Do you ever get scared of what you can do? I don’t mean that in a bad sense, because we all have the shadows in our souls that can imagine the things that no one should imagine.

I’m talking about when you realize that you are good at something, in a way that would really go somewhere and lead you to the land of your dreams.

My guess is that you have felt that a few times in your life, because we all have something we are good at.

But so many of us never act on our particular level of ability. That’s what makes people who do things stand out from the crowd, because so many of us know what we could do, understand what we could be great at, but we hold ourselves back because the possibility of becoming something more than we currently feel can be too scary.

We often fear going for it more than we believe in the success we could have.

And I’ve been trying to understand recently just where that reluctance comes from, because I suffer with it just as much as everyone else seems to. In examining my own feelings, and trying to go deeper into my soul, I’ve come to understand that there are several fears involved in my holding back, and I figured I’d share them to see if somehow you it might help you.

Because we are as similar in our fears as we are in our dreams, but we rarely talk about our fears at a deep personal level, out of a desire not to be seen as broken or weak.

So the first fear that’s stopping me is the fear of failing, and how others will think of me. Over the years the opinions of others has come to mean less to me, but I still have a long way to go on my journey, so the fear of others laughing at my failings is a concern.

Funnily enough, the more I try things, the less the opinions of others bother me, because I’m slowly learning that success is trying more than it is accomplishing.

But the opinion of others still plays a part.

The second fear is that in trying something and not ‘succeeding’ at it means that I may have to realize that I am not as good at something as I thought.

Even though I try to understand that I have value as a human being rather than as someone who has accomplished something, there’s still the risk that my sense of self will be diminished if I have to face the reality that an avenue of achievement that I thought open to me in fact never was, because I wasn’t good enough at something.

And until I try, I never have to find out the answer to that question.

But perhaps the greatest fear to overcome is the fear of how big something I try could become. It has been written before that “it is our light, not our darkness, that we fear” and I think there’s a great truth to that for all of us.

Whenever I’m talking with someone, and they’re telling me their dreams, there’s this moment where you see them dream and then get scared of how big their dream could become. I recognize their emotion, because I see it so much in myself.

The fear of all that we could be is often the greatest thing that holds us back.

So today, I’d like to ask you to accept your fears for a moment, hold onto them, and then set them aside for a day or two and go to work on your dreams.

Because nothing is going to feel worse than a dream that you never went for, or a skill that you never tried.

And the last thing I want for you to feel is regret.

— Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings

Morning Reflection: Whispering in the Language of my Demons

Whispering in the Language of my Demons.

How well do you know yourself? I ask, because the answer is more important to your happiness and success than just about anything else. Do you know your strengths, and do you know your weaknesses? Most importantly, do you know the demons that can drive you to distraction and destruction if you let them?

If you don’t, then you should.

I had an experience yesterday where I was able to recognize one of my distraction demons, and head it off before it got me sidetracked. It all began with a book that a patient brought me as a gift.

Just one small book, but the contents were whispering to one of my demons and begging it to come out and play. It wasn’t a bad book, quite the opposite, and for most people it wouldn’t be a problem.

But for me – oh it’s definitely an issue.

Because the book is a series of IQ puzzles – designed in such a way to see how smart your brain is, and then push you to get even smarter. If that doesn’t sound dangerous to you, that’s awesome, because the chances are that you don’t have this particular little demon that I do.

For me, that book represents a chance to do something that feels right, but which in reality is oh so wrong.

It’s a chance to see how good I am, which is exactly a language one of my demons speaks.

If you’ve read this work for any length of time, you know that I struggled as a child with self esteem, coming from a pretty dysfunctional childhood, and that I pretty much based all of my self esteem on the fact that I felt like I was smarter than most people…ok, well if we’re being totally honest here I thought I was the smartest person around. I was a kid – what can I say?

But balancing your whole self esteem based on something like that is not only wrong, it’s dangerous.

If your only value comes from being smart, what happens when you come across somebody smarter? If your only value comes from being stronger, what happens when you come across somebody stronger. If it’s money, there’s almost always somebody with more; if it’s beauty, that fades.

Truthfully, any time you decide that your value decides on a comparison with someone else, you’ve already lost, and you’ll continue to lose every single time, because you’re incorporating a lie into your truth, and that never works out well for anybody. Your value comes from somewhere quite different, and nobody else is involved.

You have value because you exist. That’s it. Anyone tells you anything different, they’re probably trying to sell you something.

So today, I decided that I wasn’t going to let this particular demon win. Oh I’ll still enjoy the book, but I’m going to read it, and work on the problems, simply for the love of learning, and the joy of figuring things out.

If, while I’m reading it, I get caught up in my ego demon, I’ll just gently set the book down, until I am humble enough to pick it up again.

I’ve learned how my demons whisper to me, and sometimes, just sometimes, I’m smart enough to stop listening when they do.

— Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings

Morning Reflection: Tempus Fugit (Time Flies)

Tempus Fugit (Time Flies).

I’m feeling kind of old this week. Partially because I spent most of the weekend installing laminate flooring, which means my knees and my back are hating me right now, and partially because I have a birthday this week.

Let’s just say that I am somewhere north of 35, and somewhere south of 55. It has been said that age is just a number, and that’s true, but lately I’m remembering another wonderful piece of wisdom that I heard about growing older.

It’s not the age of the car, it’s the mileage that counts.

And today, I’m feeling like I’ve done a lot of miles, both physically and spiritually/emotionally. I’ve probably more than my fair share of late nights and long days over the years. I’ve done at least my fair amount of crazy/difficult life experiences.

From our first child having open-heart surgery at 6 days old to spending almost 10 years in a pretty brutal work environment, I think I’ve had some definite seasoning on my soul.

Yet all of that seems to fade into the background right now.

Because I’m really coming to understand that what is behind me is just the foundation for what is in front of me, and I’m starting to feel the ticking of the clock a little louder right now.

As the years seem to pass by a little faster, I’m getting less and less patient with myself. There are things I need to do, dreams I need to live, lives I need to touch and lessons I need to share.

And none of it’s going to happen unless I start doing things.

Before me are so many possibilities that I sometimes lose my focus between them. I know the direction that I want to go in, but life seems determined to try to pull me off course. From concerns on the global scale, to problems in the family world, there’s always something that seems to need my attention and my energy, at a time where I feel like I have less and less of both of those to give.

It’s too easy to see another month go by without having set my foot on the path I know I have to walk.

So as another year goes by, one more trip around the sun finds me trying to become smarter in the way that I use my days, more focused on the moments that are mine.

I’m saying no more often to things that don’t support my vision of the future, and trying to say yes to the things that scare me, even though I know they are the right things to do.

I guess I’m trying to be mature – whatever that may mean.

Because although the future seems to stretch out just as far in front of me as behind me, there is no guarantee that the road ahead will be as long as the one I have already traveled.

I realize I am in the fulcrum, the tipping point, the moment where everything has to balance in order for things to work out right, for me to arrive at that point in the future where I can rest from my labors, feeling that the work has been well done.

And maybe, finally, discover a little sense of peace.

For now, I just know that it’s time to double down on kindness, gratitude, focus and compassion. I think if I go where those lead me, wherever I end up will be somewhere worth having traveled to.

I invite you to join me on that journey, and to see where we arrive together.

— Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings

Morning Reflection: How About We Turn Around?

[Morning Reflection]

How About We Turn Around?

It was like we were thinking the same thing. She turned her face towards mine, and I could see the concern in her eyes. I was feeling it as well, but I wasn’t as fast thinking through the situation as she was.

That happens a lot actually. Although my wife will freely admit to have a somewhat prickly exterior sometimes, it covers a heart that often cares too much, which can cause her to hurt if she’s not careful.

On Saturday night, she was hurting.

We’d just come out of a family dinner at a restaurant, and were just about to get into our car, when a woman came around the side of another car, pretty suddenly, like she almost appeared out of nowhere.

She carried a sign, was saying something in a language I didn’t understand, and she had a young girl with her. I was too busy reacting to her seemingly sudden arrival to emotionally be open, but I could read the sign well enough.
It said that she had lost her job, and needed money for food and rent.

I wish I could tell you that I helped her right then, but I didn’t.

She was walking pretty fast, and she seemed to go right on by, as though she wasn’t expecting anything. Between trying to process what she said and trying to process the suddenness of her arrival, I’m sad to say that I let her go by without doing anything to help.

As it happened, I didn’t have any money on me at the time, and rather than stopping and thinking it through, I took the wrong way out, and got in our car and we drove away.

But I’m glad to say that we didn’t get very far.

As we pulled out of the parking lot, I was already feeling sad about my choice in the moment. I try to help whenever I can, and I feel like I had let that poor woman down, and not lived up to the ideals I try to live by. As we drove along the road, I heard the words of one of my mentors come into my mind, and it made me realize what I had to do.

My mentor had said, “If somebody asks, and I can give, I give”.

As I was struggling through the emotion of the moment, trying to decide how best to correct my mistake, my dear sweet wife turned to me and said “I just can’t get that woman out of my mind, I wish there was something we could do to help her”. I could see how much it was bothering her, as tears were welling up in her eyes. So I offered these words to her, quietly and gently….

“How about we turn around?”

She immediately agreed, and started looking through her purse. As we pulled back into that parking lot, our eyes scanning everywhere we could see, there was a definite sense of fear and uncertainty.

What if we had missed her; what if our moment of inaction and uncertainty had caused us to miss a chance to help someone who seemed to need so much.

And then we saw her sitting on the side of the roadway.

As we drove up, my wife was out of the door almost before I had the car stopped. I don’t know what she said to this woman, but I could tell by her eyes as she got back into the car that she was so moved by the plight of this mother and daughter.

As we drove away, tears were pouring from her eyes, and she turned to me again, and asked “how can we do more…how do we help someone like that?”

All the drive home she was sobbing in the seat next to me.

I held her more than usual on Saturday night, as she talked me of her feelings of helplessness in the face of so much suffering. I didn’t say much, because when she opens her heart the best thing I can do is just let her talk. So I listened as this beautiful soul just wept, and talked, and wept some more.

And finally, she found some small sense of peace, in the knowledge that she had helped where she could.

— Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings

Morning Reflection: The Grace of Time

The Grace of Time.

Do you ever get frustrated with the person you see in the mirror? If you’ve ever tried to change something about yourself, you’ve probably experienced a sense of annoyance and impatience at how long it took to finally realize a different pattern of thoughts or behavior.

Even though you desire to change, it can still take much longer than you want, and be a source of irritation and resentment.

And sometimes, you wonder if it’s worth it.

Because constantly throwing your heart and soul against a problem, only to feel like you are failing, is a difficult endeavor. After trying for so long, it’s very human to feel like you want to give up, and just settle for where you have arrived at, telling yourself that you tried, but you weren’t strong enough.

But often times, the frustration that you feel is really a diversion of the energy you need to accomplish your goal, but you’re spending that energy in the wrong place.

Because you’re not giving yourself the grace of time.

This world has become so fixated on fast that we are losing our sense of time, and the perspective of life. I read an article the other day that stated that waiting 16 seconds is all it takes for some people to become frustrated these days.

With instant answers at our fingertips, and instant food on our plates, it’s no wonder that we’ve begun to crave instant changes in ourselves, and those around us.

Forgetting that change takes time, and grace is the gift of giving yourself time to change.

Everyone who’s ever accomplished some great change, some incredible manifestation, has likely had to overcome themselves, the world and the laws of the universe at large.

Chances are they failed time after time after time, but somehow they didn’t beat themselves down, they used their emotional energy to focus on getting better, and lifting themselves up.

The difference is very small, but like they say, the devil’s in the details.

Because overcoming your problems, especially those inside of you, is more about what you know than who you are. Having a thought or a behavior that you want to change doesn’t mean that you are a bad person, it means that there’s something you haven’t discovered yet, and discovery takes time.

Every attempt at changing can give you exposure to new thoughts, new ideas, and new possibilities.

And every new attempt is another chance to succeed.

It’s been said that necessity is the mother of invention, and I would add that desire is the birthplace of determination. Yesterday I invited you to ‘Dream Harder’, and today I am inviting you to Accept Longer.

Longer means knowing that the change that you want takes time, it takes effort, and sometimes, it takes help. Longer is the gift of more time to try, to overcome, to succeed.

Longer doesn’t judge you as a person, longer doesn’t mock you or put you down. You do that to yourself when you fail to accept longer, and give yourself grace through the gift of time.

Wherever you are at on your journey, and whatever you are trying to change, please know that you have value, and you are enough. Whether you succeeded on your first try, or you just failed on your 1000th attempt, you are still incredible, and are still worthy.

So keep trying. Failure is a part of success, icause t’s the pathway to success, and we all have to walk it, no matter how long it takes.

— Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings

Morning Reflection: Dream Harder

Dream Harder.

What do you want, and how bad do you want it? The first part of that question is usually pretty easy. I could answer you with several different things right now, from the mundane and sensible to the insane and absurd. Give me a few minutes and I can come up with a whole list of things.

The second part of the question is harder to define though, because there’s an element of truth that can be determined outside of the answer I would give you.

Because how bad you want it is really answered in what you are doing about it.

There have been things in my life that I’ve really wanted, and I’ve pursued them with a significant intention. There have been other things that have been something I’ve wanted, but not necessarily enough to dedicate the time, effort and resources to make it happen. Whatever you want in life has a level of dedication required to achieve it.

And sometimes, even though you want something, you might not want it hard enough to make it happen.

Yet.

But all that can change. The fascinating thing about our minds is that we can control what we focus on, and by frequent repetition, and understanding how to drive emotions into your imaginations, you can begin to create within yourself a drive, a hunger, a passion and even an all consuming obsession if you want to.

The more you push yourself to dream, the stronger those dreams can become.

Eventually strong enough to tip you over the edge, and into the realm of action rather than words.

Recently, I talked about finding my purpose. What I want to do is pretty scary, because it’s going to move me out of my comfort zone in a huge way. It will probably open me up to criticism, possibly to ridicule and less likely but perhaps even to anger and hatred. It’s fraught with the potential to stumble and fall, but I’m going to do it anyway.

And I’ve been strengthening my desires, and hardening my resolve.

As I dream and imagine this purpose, I’m allowing it to wash over me, through me and within me. I imagine myself in the midst of it, seeing the changes in my life as I help to change those around me. I see, hear, feel and experience the thrill of making it work, seeing the fruition of the work I’m starting, and the ripples in time I’m going to be leaving.

And I see all those who I plan to benefit and help with the process I’m going to be starting.

Does it sound crazy – quite possibly. I’m protecting the dream right now by telling only a very few people about it, because it’s like a fire that can be put out right now.

Once I’ve begun to build momentum, the goal is to grow that fire stronger and stronger, hotter and hotter, both within me and within the world in which I plan to impact, until it is too powerful to be extinguished, too bright to ever be damped down.

Every day as I meditate, and visualize, I’m pouring greater and greater levels of emotion into my soul, imagining and being grateful for the chance to be of help to others, of joy at seeing lives turn around, and of wonder at seeing those who have been helped grow into the people they were always supposed to be.

Each time I dream, I try to dream harder, brighter, longer and further.

Because in the end, we’ll always know if you truly wanted something by the way you either got it, or burned yourself up trying. No matter how much your voice speaks the words, it’s your actions that testify of the truth and power of your intentions, and that power and truth is negotiated day after day by the dedication of your desire, and the focus of your passion.

If there’s something you want right now, but you haven’t gotten yourself to the point of going for it, I invite you to dream harder by taking your mind into the future, and finding all the reasons you’re going to love it when you’ve gotten there.

Drive yourself crazy with desire, and then release the brakes on your soul.

And move out into the darkness, and make your dream happen.

— Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings