Morning Reflection: The Painful Cost of Wisdom

The Painful Cost of Wisdom

When I was a young child, I was impressed by people who could ‘keep their head when all around them were losing theirs’. Likewise, I found myself fascinated by people who always seemed to be one step ahead of the situation, and who could see ‘the next move, the next concept’.

As a kid who often felt surrounded by chaos, and who most of the time was just trying to survive, there was something magical about someone who seemed to be at the next level of control and understanding.

And I wanted to be just like them.

Maybe it was the lack of strong and calm role models in my life, or maybe it was just that they seemed to offer a quality of life that was outside of my experience. Whichever it was, I wanted so badly to be like them that I would try to learn more about them, try to be like them.

During times of difficulty and stress (which were plentiful growing up) my intention would be to remain cool, calm and controlled, knowing the next play in the game, being the one who could keep it together and make the right moves.

And as I got older, I realized how they came to be that way.

Because those who are cool under fire and collected in the moment, are usually that way because they have been in dangerous and difficult moments. When I would go deeper into the lives of those whom I admired, I found a litany of struggle and hardship, of chaos and regret.

Unless you are one of those preternaturally calm people, the only way to get really good at staying calm during the chaos is to have been in a lot of situations where panic and lack of knowledge were not an option.

Which usually means something bad was going on, and they had to figure out how to respond.

Which kind of describes where we are right now. For many of us, we’re in a situation that we have never faced before, and it’s definitely one where others are ‘losing their heads’. Yet there is wisdom here to be gathered, if we are calm enough to seek it, and recognize it when it becomes apparent.

It’s the wisdom of understanding the beauty of everyday life.

All of us are guilty of having taken the many wondrous blessings of our former life for granted. Sitting in a restaurant or coffee shop with friends, hugging a loved one whom you haven’t seen in a while, or simply enjoying a chance to relax out of doors, watching the world pass by from a mountain or an ocean.

There’s so many things that we have taken as a normal part of life, and failed to realize how blessed we were in that moment.

And now we have a choice as we go forward in our lives.

For some, this ‘return to the new normal’ will be nothing more than a return to that which they believe is their right, their promised allowance from the a universe which owes them so much, and for a while has taken away what is theirs.

Pity be to those who will not see the opportunity to lose their entitlement, and instead take upon them the wisdom of understanding and of gratitude.

For gratitude drives out a multitude of sorrows, as we focus on the bounty of which we partake, expecting nothing as a right, and feeling deep within our souls a thankfulness for each new day, each welcome experience, each blessed breath and moment to be.

Wisdom is often gained under hardship, but it can light the way before us.

If only we will learn the lessons, and let them take sway in our hearts.

— Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrmusings

Morning Reflection: Breaking Point

Breaking Point.

I don’t know if you’ve dared to venture out onto the internet in the last few days, but if you have, I’m guessing you’ve noticed it too.

Social media has always had the ability to twist the truth and inflame the senses, but as we are all coming to terms with terrifying reality of ‘the new normal’, the level of toxicity and outright hostility is growing to levels we haven’t seen before.

And there doesn’t seem to be a way of stopping it.

I’ve tried, believe me. In two specific threads last week, I tried to mitigate the anger and vehement nature of the people involved in the comments.

Trying to find a pathway of peace, I pointed out that there were different ways to interpret what they had seen, and different avenues for moving forward in the problems that we all faced.

I might as well have been standing on the beach, screaming at the tide to stay out.

Believe me, I get that we are all on edge right now. I try to never react unkindly to anything, and always respond in a peaceful and peace promoting way, and right now that is taking so much more emotional energy than it ever has before, which is a really bad things because I feel like I have less and less of that energy every day.

Which I think is true for all of us.

Because the uncertainty, the fear, the restrictions and the reality are piling up on us, and the usual avenues for blowing off steam are not necessarily available to us right now.

For me, it means I can’t drive up to the mountains, and the flight to the coast that we had planned for around now has been put on hold. I’m going stir crazy being stuck in a house with people, and a dog, that I love, and I’m one of the lucky ones who actually gets to go to work because I’m apparently essential.

I think we’re all just trying to hold on, and not lose our minds.

Which also means that now, more than ever before, we need to strive to find peace inside of ourselves when we can’t seek it in any other way. Maybe for you that’s meditation, or prayer, or physical exercise or reading.

Maybe losing your mind in an epic binge-watch of some new series on Netflix is what does it for you. Whatever it is, you probably need to do more of it right now, just so that you can hold on to whatever shred of sanity you happen to have left.

Whatever it takes so that you can treat yourself and those around you with kindness, do that thing.

My wife has a phrase that she repeats often in her own writing. “Be kind, do good. Love is a verb”. I think now, more than ever, we need to be being kind, and doing good.

It won’t necessarily be fun, and it won’t necessarily be easy, but it is so very important right now. Surviving this pandemic is hard enough for all of us together, and it will be impossible if we try to do it apart.

So I would ask you today, to try to be patient with those who annoy you, and with those with whom you disagree. The more we say that we’re sorry, the better chance we have of coming out of this with our relationships and our sanity intact.

There are many casualties in a crisis. Sometimes it’s life, sometimes it’s love, and sometimes it’s the very decency that keeps us together as families, as communities and as a nation.

At a time when we could very well break apart, we need to be pulling together even stronger than before, even when it’s hard, even when it hurts.

I know we are all tired, and I know we all have our problems.

But we can’t let ourselves devolve into hatred. That way only leads to suffering.

And there’s too much of that going on already.

— Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings

Morning Reflection: Feeling Now

Feeling Now.

As I sit here starting this piece, I’m trying to process many different emotional threads. I have a friend who is in the final stages of a courageous battle with Cancer, and it’s not a matter of if, but when.

I know people from all walks of life who are struggling with the ramifications of this pandemic, and on top of that I am trying to be a husband, a father, a small business owner and a friend.

And it’s kind of easy to get lost in the middle of all of that.

Added to that, I feel the desire to write, so that I might in some small way be of comfort and uplift to those of you who follow this work.

With all of that going on, as well as a never ending tsunami of opinion and data on the internet, I‘ve realized that I’ve been using all of these responsibilities to do something that I know is wrong, but which we all fall into every now and then.

I’ve been suppressing my feelings.

Which is something I pretty much have a black belt in at this point in my life. Despite knowing that the emotions you haven’t processed are anchors upon your future happiness and your soul, I seem determined right now to ‘keep on going’ rather than taking the time to let these feelings flow through me.

I know why I do it, and if I’m paying attention I can even realize when I am doing it.

Although I know I shouldn't.

Because eventually, all the things that we don’t deal with show up in a number of ways. It might be through depression or anxiety, anger or rage. It may show up in a physical manifestation, or it might change the way that you experience meaning through your journey in life. However much you try to ignore them, their effect on you is inevitable.

Until you face them, feel them, and free yourself from them.

As someone whose attachment pattern is very much avoidant, suppressing what I feel was such a part of my childhood, that tendency rears its ugly head every time things get stressful.

I have to make a conscious decision to combat it, and the intensity of that decision is directly connected the painfulness of the emotions that I’m trying to avoid. Whenever I find myself avoiding for too long, I know I’m going to be feeling the effects of those feelings one way or another.

So I might as well get it over with now.

Which sometimes feels a lot like being selfish, or being lazy. If I’m smart, it looks a lot like meditation, or long periods of writing.

Sometimes it comes out in a session with the heavy bag that hangs in the garage, when the gloves are pulled on, and the anger comes out to play a little bit. The noise, the sweat and the impact open channels in my soul that allow me to experience what it is I’m really feeling.

But it doesn’t matter what it looks like, only that it happens.

All of us right now are going through an incredible time of uncertainty, and none of us really understand how or when this is going to end. The pressures we’re feeling create emotions, and if we’re not careful, we’ll smother those emotions in a flurry of calories, mindless browsing or endless binge-watching.

None of which help us actually face what we feel.

So today, I invite you to make time in your life to sit quietly, and feel the emotions that are running through your soul.

I know it might be scary, and it very well might hurt, but until we release and experience those emotions, they’re just going to drag us down, and dampen our future.

When instead you may fly forwards, and free.

— Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings

Morning Reflection: Onions Have Layers

Onions Have Layers.

If you’ve ever seen the original Shrek movie, you’ll probably remember the scene where Donkey is trying to understand Shrek’s motives, and can’t see past the simple fact of Shrek being an Ogre.

In his attempt to explain that he’s not just a village-destroying-monster, Shrek attempts to explain to Donkey that Ogres, like onions, have layers.

A fact which bypasses Donkey completely, because he doesn’t have many layers.

I’m been thinking about that recently because human beings, like onions and ogres apparently, have layers. Your own awareness of the different layers of your soul is probably the most valuable piece of knowledge you will ever come to own.

Sometimes we come across those layers as we journey with intention into the deeper parts of ourselves, but usually it’s because life throws us something that peels back the veneer of our supposed ‘normality’ and reveals to us things ‘further in’ that we had no idea where there.

Or behaviors that we thought were firmly in the past.

In this strange time in which we live, where a virus too small to see can bring civilization to a halt, we’re all experiencing pressures and a peeling back of the layers to show what is underneath.

I watched my two sons almost get into an argument last night, which very rarely occurs in our house. I can see how the pressure of confinement is peeling back their layers, as small things that would usually not bother them suddenly annoy them in ways that they did not expect.

But it’s not just restricted to them.

With the pressures of trying to run a small business in this very strange economy, and practice my profession in a way that keeps both my patients and my family safe, I find my own layers coming apart, and have seen in myself some attitudes that I thought I have moved beyond.

In some ways it is disheartening to think that something that I had already taken care of was, in fact, still within me, just awaiting some time and some increased pressure.

Which is essentially what we’re all in – a pressure cooker.

And it would be easier if we knew when the pressure was going to end. Several years ago my wife had to undergo a medical procedure that while only lasting a few seconds, was incredibly painful.

A kind and wonderful nurse counted down for her during the procedure, giving my wife the sense of hope as she realized that this too would pass, and she knew she really had to hold on for a few more seconds.

None of us have that right now. None of us know when this is going to end, or even what that end is going to look like.

So today I would ask you to extend patience and forgiveness to yourself as well as everyone around you. We are all fighting the same battle right now; fear of what we do know, and a greater fear of what we don’t.

Each of us in our own way experiences that terror differently, as we peel back the layers, exposing things which we thought we had dealt with; emotions we thought we had passed.

And it can be really disappointing to realize that we haven’t.

If you find yourself stuck in that frustration, may I offer you the perspective of understanding that this time is actually a powerful opportunity for growth if you can forgive yourself these momentary lapses, and learn from the emotions that you feel.

As I have written before, your reactions to situations are the guideposts to your progression: if only we will learn, if only we will follow.

And sometimes it’s the very reactions that are pulled from you against your will that show you the deeper paths you yet have still to walk.

So treat yourself kindly, and know that all of us in our own way are fighting the same battle. Some days we are winning, some days not so much.

But we are all in this together.

— Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings

Morning Reflection: The Syllable of Shame

The Syllable of Shame.

The English language is a funny thing. The slightest change, and words mean very different things. ‘Message’ and ‘Massage’ have just one letter different between them, yet they mean profoundly different things.

‘Read’ and ‘Read’ both indicate the presence of the written word, but one is in the present, while the other in the past.

As we’ve often heard, ‘words mean things’, and they can change the entire outlook of your thoughts.

Because without language, we’d have nothing to compose our thoughts with. We’d be stuck in a world of emotions run riot, never being able to process anything from our past. Instinct would rule over intellect, and passion would run roughshod over preparation.

Language is the mechanism that propels us forward into our dreams, or keeps us locked in the pathways of our nightmares.

And the difference can be a subtle as a syllable.

I’m starting to think that the most powerful words in our shared English language are often just one syllable long. Love and Hate, Life and Death. Yet the ones I have been meditating over this week have been a little less momentous, and yet they may be more powerful in their ability to move us or hold us right where we stand.

There’s very little difference between ‘could’ and ‘should’.

And yet there’s all the difference in the world. As someone who struggles with feelings of shame, the word ‘should’ holds such power over me.

If you were to listen to the radio station inside of my head, you’d probably hear a thousand different songs, or feelings, all featuring the same word that pushes me down, and makes me feel less than I wish I could be.

I should be this, I should have done that, I should be different, and maybe less fat.

The second the word ‘should’ shows up in a sentence, there’s an immediate sense of judgment, and rarely is it kind or fair. In a world of infinite possibilities, we seem driven by our common desire to inscribe pathways into the future for ourselves and others around us as we load our future with the judgments of ‘should’.

Until we feel overwhelmed and overloaded, full of a sense of shame for the things we feel we haven’t done.

Yet if we change two letters for one, we change the whole meaning of any sentence that we think. By changing a ‘should’ to a ‘could’, suddenly we are freed from the magnitude of expectation, and instead step into a universe for of choice and possibility.

And we also free ourselves from the judgments of shame.

In the years of working with and helping people, I have found that when you can help someone free themselves from the burdens of expectation and shame, their lives will be changed in some unbelievable ways.

For in removing shame, we substitute hope. In removing expectation, we throw open the doorway to choice. In removing judgment, we instead embrace the realms of possibility.

And when you set someone free, you’ll always find wonder at just how high they soar.

— Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings

Morning Reflection: A Dysfunctional Nation of One

A Dysfunctional Nation of One.

As this virus wreaks havoc across the world, the way we are interacting as human beings is changing. We’ve gone from hugs and kisses to nods and waves.

The very physical contact that enhances our communication has been removed, and in its place is the underlying fear of the close presence of others. We’ve become more insular and less outgoing; more apart and less together.

And we need to alter the way we communicate to make up for it.

We’re seeing an increase in the number of people using video communication to interact, and while that can help, if we’re only saying the same things, hiding away the true and authentic parts of ourselves, then we’re never going to really be able to touch each other in the ways that we need to right now.

Because as our reality shifts and changes like it is right now, all of us are challenged in one way or another.

Which can affect some of us more than others.

Because we, as people, need each other. In order for us to balance psychologically and emotionally, we need both the connections that come from physical presence, and the ones that come from authentic sharing or who we are, and what we are experiencing.

In our associations with others, we find a way to shape our minds, and enlighten our souls.

None of us do well in a vacuum of human connection.

I know that for myself, I rely very heavily on my relationship with my wife, who keeps me both grounded and connected.

If we somehow become emotionally distant from each other, which can happen when we are both dealing with our own stresses and fears, I find myself becoming a very dysfunctional nation of one, where I go inward, and suffer what Holly calls ‘being lost inside myself’.

Alone to fight the battles in which I have so very little perspective.

Because that’s really why we need each other. One of my very favorite phrases in coaching is that ‘you can’t read the label on your own jar’, meaning that you can’t see some of the problems inside of yourself because you’re too close to them, you’re ‘living them’, and that inability to see what is obvious to everyone around you is the most valuable insights you can ever receive.

And you can only get them from other people.

Which is why the very core of our emotional health is dependent upon our ability to find ways to connect authentically, kindly, personally and deeply. Right now, we can’t sit around a fire together, or listen to the waves rolling endlessly into the beach together.

We can’t hike into the mountains, nor go for a walk in the woods. Our usual ways of finding ways to connect are not available to us and we need to look for something that works, something that allows us to find a sense of togetherness even while we stand apart.

None of us is an island. We need each other to find our way out of the darkness.

— Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings

Morning Reflection: The Questions that Bind Us

The Questions that Bind Us.

I’ve been watching a new show recently, trying to keep my mind occupied and distracted from everything that’s going on right now.

Yet as often happens when we try to run from our fears, we end up running straight into something that makes us confront them and face them, or at least think a whole lot more about what we’re running from.

And I wondered how it is that in my attempt to avoid, I find the same questions in front of me.

Then it struck me, as I sat there binge-watching a show in an admittedly futile attempt to keep my mind off of the pain and sadness that surrounds us right now, that it’s not that the questions are unique to me.

The questions that we are asking are in a way universal to us as humans, as people, as a thinking consciousness that is aware of time and the universe.

These are the questions that drive us, if we dare to ask them.

It’s almost as though the price of being human is to ask the questions, to ponder and to wonder. Sure, some find refuge and comfort in answers that are given by others, and if that’s you, know that I am happy for you, and yet somewhat jealous.

But in the end, there are always going to be more questions than there are answers, and what really matters are the questions we choose to ask, and the direction those questions take us.

And it’s by asking the questions that we make a meaningful impact in the lives of others.

Because meaning is what we’re all searching for. We’re driven by this insatiable need to find a sense of certainty in everything, so that somehow, someway, all the chaos and uncertainty of living in this temporal universe can fit into some nice understandable box.

If we can draw meaning, and find some pathway through our lives that aligns us with some grand purpose, than it speaks to us that our lives have not been in vain, our experiences have not just been random.

Because in finding a meaning, we somehow find a sense of value, a sense of worth.

Which is, in its own way, the ultimate distraction. If we are dependent upon meaning, then we are still locked into a value based paradigm, where we seek some way to enhance our own sense of being more than ‘just human’, more than ‘just alive’. It's as if we needed some additional adornment to the incredible wonder of consciousness, the majesty of awareness, and the nobility of just being alive.

The questions that bind us together, are also the questions that bind us to the limiting pathways in which we walk.

Now I’m not saying that it isn’t good to ask questions, because it is. I’m not even saying that you shouldn’t try to make your kinder, or gentler, because you can if you wish. I’m not saying here that you can’t have a sense of the nature of reality that aligns you with the deity or the concept of your choice. You can absolutely do all of those things.

As long as you realize that your value doesn’t depend on any of those things.

In my life I have asked many questions, and I hope that I will get to ask many more. But I’m trying to ask the questions without needing to take a sense of value from the answers, so that I might filter the results that come back to me without any intervention or shading from my own needs.

Because in the end, the answers that I choose need to be the ones that I believe are correct, in the absence of any personal bias, prejudice or desire.

Only then, will the questions yield answers that will make sense.

— Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings

Morning Reflection: Look for the Light

Look for the Light.

In times such as these, it’s all too easy to get caught up in the day to day nightmare that surrounds and threatens to overpower us. Each morning the headlines are full of terror, and each evening the numbers are sad.

We are living in a moment in history, and if an examination of our past teaches us anything, it’s that the loudest moments of history are often filled with horror rather than happiness, despair rather than delight.

Sometimes it feels like the darkness is all that there will ever be.

And while that might feel like the truth right now, I don’t think that’s all that we have to look forward to. I have often found that it helps to have people focus on the simple saying of “I am, I am here, I am now” as a way to keep them focused in the present, so that they may keep their perspective and not get caught up in imagining a future full of fear.

But sometimes, being here and now is the last thing you need to see.

In my meditations over the past week or so, I’ve been trying to focus on a point in the future, and bring that into the present so that I might experience the gratitude and the joy of that day which I hope will be. It’s not too far in the future, and it’s not too far out of the realms of possibility.

And it helps to give me hope, in a time where that emotion seems all too fleeting.

Because sometimes, in the darkest of moments where there seems to be no answers, no peace and no sense of justice in the world, hope is the one thing that we have left to cling to, that one feeling that can take us out of the darkness, and back into a world that beckons us into peace, and laughter, and joy.

Sometimes, and especially when there seems to be no pathway forward, the beacon of hope and a belief in a better day are the very things that allow us to do the one thing that otherwise would have seemed hopeless, that one thing that made all the difference in the world.

In the midst of the darkness night, you can go on if you have hope in a beautiful dawn.

As we enter what is about to be a very dark couple of weeks, when you’re going to hear terrible things, and feel powerful emotions, I would beg of you to try to remain focused on whatever light you can.

Whether it be your faith in deity, or your belief in the goodness of humanity, I would ask you to wrap yourself so tightly in it, and hold on with everything that you have.

Because in the end, there is going to be a light.

And when that light comes, we’ll find anew the simple delights of a meal with friends, a hug and a walk. We’ll see stocked shelves in the markets, and be grateful for that which we once took for granted.

As we emerge from a period of darkness, we’ll once again find ourselves in a world very much the way it was before, yet we will see it as if for the first time, and know that it is good.

So please hold on, because the light is coming.

It’s always darkest just before dawn.

— Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings

Morning Reflection: A Reasonable Madness

A Reasonable Madness.

New Years Eve was only 11 weeks and 2 days ago. A new year stood before us, shining with possibility and grandeur. We expected good times, we expected bad times, but what we expected most was that this year was probably going to be different.

A presidential election was sure to bring contention, and while most of us thought the year might be a turbulent one, many of us had no idea of the chaos and darkness that was coming.

If someone had tried to explain it to you, you would have thought they had gone mad.

Because we’re living in the Twilight Zone right now. Business shut, lives shattered, history being engraved upon our hearts and minds. An enemy too small to see, too quick to contain, and too dangerous to be left unanswered.

In the midst of the suffering and sadness, the true story of our nature was being brought to light.

Because we humans practice a reasonable madness day after day.

There are those who see chaos as a time of enrichment, a way to reap from the labors of others. They hoard and they hurt, choosing to separate themselves from their humanity, and profit from the suffering and sadness of those around them.

Their madness is believing that their actions can be hidden in a day where everything is recorded, and where the digital signature of our lives can never be erased.

Their day will come, and their Karma will likely not be kind.

Then there are those who practice a different form of madness, where they risk their lives in the service of others. From a simplistic viewpoint, their madness is caring too much for the lives and well being of others, so much so that they are willing to take upon them the pains they would remove from another.

They give of their time, their health and their sanity to serve, to protect, to give, to love.

Theirs is the madness of greatness, often unappreciated, and rarely championed.

Yes, we humans are a strange species. We walk every day on the razors edge of madness, trying to find reason and understanding in a world that so often defies all logic and comprehension.

In the darkest times, we find those who adopt the nature of their demons, and those who shine out with the light of their inner angels.

And the darker the time, the greater the comparisons become.

Eventually, we know, this darkness will pass. Every day there are angels among us, carrying the burden of those whom they know, and protecting those who they don’t.

In some bright and shining day in the future, we will stand in their presence and thank them for their selfless service in a time when we all wondered if there would ever be light again.

Today, is our day to practice our own reasonable madness.

For never before have we had the chance to lift each other up, when we cannot reach out and touch. Never before have we been so connected in our ability to comfort and console, to strengthen and enlighten. Never has there been such a need, and never has there been such a possibility.

Today, and every day going forward, we get to choose how we write the stories of this pandemic.

Not the greater history, because that will always be written by those who are to come when they look back into the past, but we get to participate in the stories that will reside ever in the hearts of those to whom we reached out a hand, and lifted when there was little strength to rise.

Today is our day. Today is our time. Today is our history.

Take up your pen my friend, and begin writing.

And let’s make this a story worth telling.

— Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings

Morning Reflection: The Turning of the World

The Turning of the World.

How do we even get a perspective on this? In the space of a week here in my adopted country of the USA, we’ve gone from being fairly complacent to being terrified to a level that is unbelievable.

None of us knows what the future holds, and anyone who tells you they do, is probably over confident. Because the truth is, nothing like this ever happened before.

But the situation is not unlike terrible times before.

In my birth country of England, during the years of the Second World War, planes flew over the skies above the town in which I was to be born, and dropped bombs.

Missiles launched from across the seas struck churches, and the population feared everyday an invasion from a cruel enemy who gave no quarter, and showed no mercy.

In those times, death could come in the next evening, where the cover of darkness would allow the planes to fly, and the bombs to fall.

Growing up there as a teenager, I never understood it properly.

The stories of relatives and history seemed so unconnected to the relative safety in which I grew up (and I do mean relative, because despite my childhood not being an easy one, there was very little risk of dying in an explosion come the darkness).

I never truly understood that fear they must have lived through, but I’m starting to really understand how you can feel powerless against an enemy, and how you can struggle to understand how to get through the next day, and the next, and the next.

For we are living through a moment of history, and our choices get to determine how it turns out.

Because no, I can’t design a vaccine or an antibody to fight this virus, but I can through my actions and words lift the souls of those around me.

I don’t know how to keep our water running, nor our power on, but I can check on those who may be struggling, and do the best I can to help them. While my skills in the healthcare world do not lend themselves to triage and respiratory care, I can give advice and comfort to those who struggle with lesser, but still very real problems.

Because in order for us to survive as a nation, and a world, we need to connect, and we need to care.

In those dark and terrible days in England, it was the communities that won. While individuals broke the Nazi code, and brave pilots flew and men stormed the beaches, it was the unsung heroes back home who watched out for each other, who cared when no one else could, and who sat with the scared, the despairing, the alone.

If we are not together, we will not make it through this in the way that we can.

Today, we all have choices. We can succumb to fear, or we can focus on another. We can hoard and isolate, or we can share and uplift. Whoever you are, whatever your circumstance, there is something you can do to make the burdens of another less painful.

Even if it’s just lifting their heart in a time of trouble.

So please, today and every day onwards, please do what you can so that we can all be able to say with honesty that we were there, and we helped another.

Together, we will get through this, and this pale blue dot in the darkness of the universe will shine all the brighter because we pulled together while we were forced to stand apart for just a little while.

— Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings

Morning Reflection: Wave Rider

Wave Rider.

The ocean…vast, unstoppable, relentless. An unforgiving expanse of undulating pressure, destroying all in its path, while simultaneously supporting the life it has bequeathed to all who reside upon, or beside.

To risk the ocean is to place your life in the capricious hands of physics, chemistry and fate, secure in the knowledge that any and all will erase you without mercy or regret.

Yet the ocean is not the soul providence of the waves.

For within our lives, the pattern of waves beat out a rhythm, a signature upon which we are tossed to and fro.

Be it time, be it fate, be it the continual ebb and flow of success and failure, love and hate, kindness and cruelty, joy and sadness, our lives are defined and described by the presence and the pressures of the waves upon which we ride.

And the presence of mind you carry through the flow.

For each crest and trough are but times of expression and education, times of rejoicing and remorse. The surfer who has learned the truth and the tricks of the water can balance on the highest peak, and survive the deepest depth.

In both circumstance, the art of survival is in having the right perspective and the required skills. The ability of the surfer to transition between the two is really the simple art of maintaining balance during the inevitable rise and fall.

Which is the art and the truth of riding all of the different waves in our lives.

For I know in your time there have been great tragedies and equal victories, and some you have borne with equanimity of spirit while others have thrown you who knows where. Both victory and defeat can destroy you, just as you can learn from both.

The ability to maintain your values, your practices and your disciplines during not only the highs and lows, but also during the transitions, is the secret to flourishing at a time when others fail.

And the art of balance is born out of the knowledge and practice of yourself.

For each peak and each trough carry with them the potential to pull you away from who you are, and question who it is you wish to be. From the epitome of the ego in victory, and the darkness of despair in defeat, there is always something that desires to draw your soul, and tempt your temper.

How easy it can be to lose ourselves in the moment, forgetting all that we hold of value, and succumb to the siren song of our greater weakness.

And in doing so, lose our balance and fall.

Within that moment, of falling and failing, we turn our time over to the powers and persuasions of others, allowing the moment to define us instead of our meditations, our intentions, and our greatest deliberations.

With each wave of life, there is the opportunity and choice of whether to stand as the core of our better intentions, or to fall into the weakest of our failings, and become the person we least desire to be.

Each wave, each moment, is a choice only you alone can make.

But if you desire to be a rider of the waves of life and time, you know as surely as do I that the choice is never really made in the moment, but in all the moments and decisions that came before.

For the soul that is tempered and focused, knowing of itself the truth unto itself, is the soul that can balance in this moment, and the next, and the next.

The greater balance you have in your soul, the greater the waves you can ride.

And remain. Riding.

— Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings

Morning Reflection: The Stark Revelation

The Stark Revelation.

If you’ve never seen Robert Downey, Jr.’s depiction of Tony Stark in the Iron Man/Avengers movies, let me explain him in a few words. Billionaire, Genius, Playboy, Philanthropist.

Well…those are Tony’s words, not mine. If I were going to describe Tony Stark, I’d use some rather different ones. Arrogant, insecure (the real root of arrogance), unhappy and angry.

And yet both sets of words describe him perfectly.

Which to me, as a child and a younger man, was unbelievable. I grew up with this belief that if you were going to be someone, or do something that was out of the ordinary, you had to be a certain type of person.

Good, kind, well-behaved, gentle. That if you were anything less than perfect, then things would go wrong, and you would inevitably be found out.

Which, as you can imagine, tended to stop me from trying a lot of things.

Because when all you can see are your faults and your fears, you don’t think you’re capable of doing the things you want to do, and neither do you deserve them. Instead you spend your time believing that you’ll never amount to anything, and that you deserve even less.

You worry about what everybody thinks of you, and you’re sure that someone, someday, will call you out for being less than you really ought to be.

A terrible thing to carry with you.

Yet for some reason, when I saw Mr. Downey’s depiction of the brilliant yet troubled Tony Stark, I began to realize that yet another thing that I thought was wrong. Here was someone who was obviously a genius, yet who had so many flaws.

A man who could be a hero, yet who could also act in a way that was detrimental to himself and others. Neither good nor bad, neither black nor white. A character whose roots and operating space were very much in the gray.

The kind of man who I believed I could be.

Yet there was a deeper lesson that was awaiting me as I watched. For although the character of Tony Stark is a work of fiction, the person of Robert Downey, Jr. is very much not. If you have known anything of his life, there was a time when he was anything but genius, and was everything that looked like trouble.

A drug addict, incarcerated, and on everybody’s list of people to never hire again. It seemed as though all of his faults were in the foreground, and all of his skills were very much in the past.

But he seemed to have still believed in himself.

And he started to climb back out of his nightmares, and find again the passion of his dreams. Although he was troubled, he was learning to become a better man. Although he still had weaknesses, he had found a role to play to his strengths.

Although there were a million reasons for people not to listen to him, the very power of his example and wisdom meant that people couldn’t look away.

And so despite everything that could have held him back, he rose, and became the man he is today. He was able to make the character of Tony Stark so real because of his flaws, and because of his failings.

We all carry beliefs within us; fears that we’re not good enough, or that we can’t do the things that we think we were born to do.

For me, the revelation of Tony Stark was that you don’t have to be perfect to have value, and sometimes, it’s the very flaws and failures that we carry, that allow us to become the very person that other people need us to be.

So today, I offer you the choice of changing your beliefs about yourself, and invite you to take yourself into the light, and see what is possible for you.

Because no one you admire is perfect, and neither are you.

And that doesn’t matter one bit.

— Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings

Morning Reflection: If / Then

If / Then.

She was running in a straight train of emotion, not thought. Her words, driven by fear and modulated by little, were running away from her logical brain; a stream of subconscious pain and sadness overflowing her ability to look at the situation in a way that would serve her.

Trauma driving her thoughts, terror defining her time. She spoke of all that she saw.

And it was straight linear pain.

Seeking a way to help her, I began with teaching her the very basics of logic. A psychological algebra that forms the basis of the way we interact with the temporal nature of an uncontrollable universe.

As she began to break down her fears into statements that we could work with, a pattern emerged that even she, deep in her fears and despair, could understand.

If {event} then {only possible outcome}, and I’ll feel {emotion that terrifies her}.

The system that I taught her is one that allows us to see different outcomes, if only we can practice the emotional balance needed to keep the possibilities in our mind.

At each statement, “If”, “Then” and “I’ll feel”, there are many different potential outcomes, many choices that we might make, but fear clouds our mind to its eye of reason, and we see only one possible outcome, a singular timeline leading to all that we are afraid of.

It’s like a train that hurtles towards the impact, unable to vary from the track it finds itself on.

But the reason we use the word consciousness is because that very thing, our consciousness, our awareness that we can change, allows us to modify our direction, our choice of tracks, if we try hard enough.

It’s not easy, especially if those thoughts are long practiced, or if our terror is so great, but over time, with patience and practice, we can learn to drive our thoughts down different paths.

But it takes a lot of effort.

And right now, my friend needed something to help her in the moment, as well as a mechanism to help her in the future. As I began to carefully change her emotional state, I used language as a scalpel, tone as a swab, kindness as stitches, and wisdom as light.

Talking her down from her terrified state took a while, but by the end of the conversation, she could see a small light at the end of her very dark tunnel.

But it’s a long way off, and there are many steps to tread in between.

Because like the two areas of our brain that think and feel, so there is a need for strategies and skills that both help in the moment, and heal in the long term. What we think can change quickly, but what we feel is deeper and takes either a longer time, or a much more powerful lever.

The level of crisis determines the approach, and the person’s ability to withstand pressure determines the timeline.

The rest is just a matter of technique and kindness.

In the end, the greatest thing I have to offer my friend is the space to feel safe in, so that she might learn the lessons to heal herself in a place that honors her humanity, and defends and uplifts her dignity.

Exposing the wounds so deep in our core is never easy, and the slightest hint of judgment or derision can be enough to shut us down.

So for now, the greatest gift I have to offer is caring.

Sometimes just knowing someone is there is allows us to see the beginning of the journey.

And then we walk.

— Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings

Morning Reflection: Let Go

Let Go.

As she stared at me across the counter, the look on her face was part confusion, part frustration, and yet it was also completely humble.

Even though what I had just told her made ABSOLUTELY no sense to her in the moment, she was nevertheless willing to trust me, and listen to what I had to say. An incredible woman, an amazing inspiration, and gentle enough to accept advice rather than ignore it.

She’s incredible.

Because if I were to tell you her life story, you’d want to walk up to her, give her a hug, and try to make things better for her. She’s one of those people who honestly could complain if she wanted to, yet she’s far too smart for that.

She pushes her way through a difficult and complex life with a smile on her face, and a kind word for everyone around her.

I want to be more like her when I grow up. :)

The advice I was offering wasn’t what she initially wanted to hear. If she had been of a mind to, she could have accused me of trying to make her sound bad (which I wasn’t and she knew it) and become angry, rather than accept that she needed to change. She wouldn’t have been the first person to call me a jerk rather than change the way they were doing things.

But she was ready to grow, and willing to learn.

We were discussing one of her children, and the difficulties of trying to help this particular child who brings some very unique attributes to the table.

As she expressed her loving frustration, it became clear that she was allowing her own needs and desires to overwhelm her, and diverting her desire to help, into a desire to have things work out the way she wanted.

If you’re a parent, you know how easy it is to let that happen.

Because all of us as parents see a part of ourselves in our children, and if they choose to act in a way that does not align with how we think the world should be, there is a terrible temptation to want to influence their behavior, so that things go the way that we think they should, regardless of whether this is what the child actually wants or needs.

I have seen this time after time, and been guilty of it myself.

So my offering of knowledge to my good friend, this woman of incredible character and inspiring strength, was to suggest to her that she do the one thing that she really didn’t want to do.

She had to “Let Go” of her expectations for the situation, and instead allow her child the space to experience the world in the way that was better for them.

Because when we give someone space, we are actually honoring their humanity.

And once we do that, surprising things happen. Within ourselves, we recognize again the truth that we are sovereign entities, not needing the actions of another to have value and dignity.

We extend to another recognition of their right to experience the world in the way that suits them, honoring their consciousness and experience.

By offering a suggestion, rather than dictating a course of action, my friend realized that she could increase the self worth of her child, and also reclaim some of her own, by allowing each other to exist differentiated from each other, yet still inter-connected.

A difference that changes lives time after time.

She texted me later, thanking me for the perspective I had given her. There were many things I wanted to text back; about how wonderful she is, about how her example makes me want to be a better person, about how her strength both astounds me and inspires me, and how her courage moves me.

But I decided to wait until the next time I see her, so I can tell her in person.

Because I want her to understand just how grateful I was to be listened to by someone so wonderful as her.

— Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings

Morning Reflection: Count When it Starts Hurting

Count When it Starts Hurting.

The great boxer Muhammad Ali was known for his incredible physical conditioning, and especially for his speed and flexibility in the ring. One day a reporter asked him how many push-ups he could do, and strangely, Ali couldn’t give him an number.

But he did offer an answer that served to both explain his inability to quote an amount, and his incredible mental attitude that created such a legacy.

He said “I only start counting when it hurts”.

And once it began to hurt enough, he would start counting to see how many he could do this time. Rather than set himself an arbitrary goal that might limit his potential for growth, he walked right up to the line of pain, and then tried to push himself further and further through it.

His willingness to endure discomfort and pain that was voluntary was the definition of a life that went beyond the ordinary…

And became extraordinary.

Because there is always going to be pain that happens to you. Be it the physical pain of an injury, or the emotional pain of the breakup of a close relationship, there’s no way to avoid it. Somehow, someway, something will come along that just hurts. No matter how carefully you live, it will find you, and push you to your very limits. That’s just pain, that’s just life.

But the way you choose to experience suffering will define the future that you resent or enjoy.

Because although pain in inescapable, there are some kinds of pain and discomfort that will save us from a great deal more of the same later, and there are others that are the price of entry into the next level of fulfillment and happiness.

The question is not ‘if’ we will experience pain, rather how and when we choose to confront it.

Because the difference in your willingness to confront and to push through discomfort determines so much about your life that it can’t be understated.

For many years of my life, I was massively overweight. I was unwilling or unable to deal with the everyday discomfort of denying myself the foods that I wanted even though I knew they were no good for me.

In consequence, I suffered both the physical and emotional pain of being overweight, until the even greater pain of being unable to quality for life insurance drove me to face the pains I had been avoiding for so long.

A willingness to experience a small amount of discomfort each day would have prevented a massive amount of it later.

If you look around, you’ll know that what I’m saying is true. Very few people have arrived at peace and happiness by an easy road. Be it the countless hours studying and stressing of the professional with the degree, or the countless failures and risk of the eventual successful entrepreneur, the road to happiness and peace usually goes through some pretty dark and hostile territory.

And if you’re not willing to push yourself through the tough times now, you’ll end up facing even tougher times in the future.

Because the things you won’t face today will come around to stab you in the back later. If you don’t begin now to harden your will, and sharpen your focus, then when the difficult times come, and you know they will, you’ll be unprepared.

When opportunity comes, cloaked in hard work and risk, you’ll avoid it like the plague, because it looks too much like pain and discomfort for you to embrace it.

It’s been said before, but it deserves being repeated again. “Nothing that is worthwhile comes easy”.

But if you’ve trained and disciplined yourself to accept the hardships, and faced them, then what is difficult can seem easier, and what is easier can be simplest of all.

You don’t get to choose all the hardships in your life, you just get to determine how you show up to face them.

So get up, and go to it.

Your future is waiting.

— Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings

Morning Reflection: Chasm

Chasm.

It’s there, deep inside of you. Casting a shadow over everything you think, and everything you do. The more you are aware of it, the better you are able to take control of your journey.

The quality of your life is intimately controlled by the way you are able to cross this chasm, and yet so many people are either unaware that it exists, or unwilling to even try to make the journey to the other side.

And so they live in a perpetual state of chaos.

Because the chasm between your higher brain (cortex) and your lower brain (limbic) is very small in space, but it’s enormous in its ability to determine your destiny.

If you’ve ever seen a two year old in a full on meltdown, you’re witnessing the power of the limbic system to make completely ridiculous choices seem like a normal way to be.

But I’m sure you’ve never acted that way yourself, right? ;)

As a child, we’re totally limbic in our conduct. Someone takes away something we want, and we melt down into a screaming ball of frustration.

Hopefully, somewhere along the way of our younger years, we learn to begin using our cortex to control the limbic system, and changing our behavior so that we don’t act in ways that are inappropriate, unkind or just embarrassing.

Obviously this doesn’t work in all cases.

But the sad part is that most people are unaware of just how much the limbic system still plays a part. Unless you are particularly attuned to the concepts of awareness, most of the time people stop learning to control the limbic system, and stop creating bridges over that chasm, when their life reaches a certain happiness threshold that they can live with.

Until the quality of their life dips below that threshold, they are perfectly content to allow their higher brain to handle as little as possible, and let their limbic system, lower brain, still whisper suggestions and interpretations as it sees fit.

Which is usually protective, and full of negative emotions.

It takes a certain someone to have the courage and the patience to build those bridges. The problem is that the cortex thinks in language, while the limbic screams in emotions.

Learning to express emotion in language is one of the skills I teach people in coaching, and it’s probably one of the hardest things to learn, especially when talking about the negative/protective emotions.

But learning how to decode what you feel is a huge step on your journey to becoming the person of joy and happiness you desire to be.

So the next time you feel yourself moving into a place of negative emotion (anger, frustration, fear, sadness) be aware of that feeling, and encourage yourself to begin writing down the words behind it.

Try to describe the emotion that you are feeling, and then try to explore reasons as to why he might be feeling that way.

The answer might shock you, and it will probably surprise you.

Because in all of my work with clients, I don’t think there has ever been a person who didn’t go through this process and stare at me in wonder, in shock and in surprise when they realize that the fears that they carry as an adult were formed out of the experiences they had as a child.

Back when they were young, they were programmed to feel a certain way by the meaning they took from experience that probably wasn’t what they thought it was going to be.

And so to protect them, their limbic system has been controlling how they feel since the moment that occurred.

Please understand, this is not an easy process, and while it is simple in concept, it is a lifetime in execution. Thirty years into my awareness journey, I’m still learning new things about myself, and sometimes laughing and shaking my head when I realize that I’m acting from an experience that happened so many years ago.

Because the child inside of me is strong, and he is unwilling to let go of the reins easily.

My wish for you today is that your journey to full awareness may bring you the joy, the happiness and the understanding that you seek, and that you are able to share that joy with others around you, so that we may all be peacemakers, and that we may all find a better way to live.

Together.

— Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings

Morning Reflection: In Violation

In Violation.

You’ve got these rules don’t you, although since you’re probably not aware of them on an everyday basis, let’s call them beliefs instead.

They are the structure of your functioning universe, the glue that holds your patterns together, the marshmallow in your rice-krispie treat. Without your beliefs, the whole world falls apart.

So let’s start breaking them.

And I get it, if the thought of that makes you uncomfortable, because it usually does.

We like our nice little ordered world and our subconscious calculations that allow us to make sense of what is otherwise an incomprehensible deluge of experiences that threaten to overwhelm and overload our brains, until the very weight of a billion pieces of data destroy any hope of understanding what is going on.

So we structure our beliefs so that everything makes sense, even when it doesn’t.

Now please understand, I’m not talking about your religious beliefs, because those are your business, and none of mine.

The beliefs I’m talking about here are the “well, that’s how the world works”, and in order to ‘do’ this, I have to first ‘be’ that, or my personal favorite… everybody else thinks that way, so they must be right.

And what’s the one thing they all have in common?

Control. For each belief that we carry about how the ‘world functions’, there’s almost always a part of this belief that holds us in place, where we feel comfortable.

Not convinced yet… I understand. The realization that most of your ‘beliefs’ are simply comfortable walls you’ve erected to avoid confronting something outside is not one that we enjoy coming to.

But growth isn’t about comfort, quite the opposite.

Believing that “I can’t” is most often just a side-step around the truth that you possibly could, but to do so would also risk failure, so you’d rather not.

The belief that “I shouldn’t” is often an appeal to the psychological dogma of those who have come before, rather than a deeply thought out understanding of the present system at hand.

The ways that we limit ourselves are endless.

In case you’re not sure, I’m not talking about breaking the law here, or even going against the rules of a contract, or an established understanding.

The things you need to break through, to violate, are the things you’ve told yourself about yourself that have no basis in fact or reality, and are really just the lies you’ve pasted over your fears so you never had to confront them.

And unless you have absolutely no self awareness at all, you know exactly what I mean.

Because here’s the terrible thing – you’re running out of time. With each passing moment, you’re moving closer to the day where it will be too late to try the things you’ve always wanted to do, but never found the courage to start.

One day, all the little lies that you wrapped yourself in will turn into the shroud that you’ll bury your dreams in. You’ll be there, at their funeral, and you’ll feel the soul crushing scream as the hope that you once had is placed in the cold ground of the past, never to return.

And that day, you’ll know the terrible taste of regret, and you’ll experience it for the rest of your life.

Unless you start breaking the beliefs about yourself that have been holding you back.

— Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings