Morning Reflection: Take a moment to wonder

Take a moment to wonder.

How much time do you set aside each day to marvel at the universe in which we live? When was the last time you drove out onto a dark country road and stared up at the night sky in amazement? Or when was the last time you sat quietly on a beach and listened to the majesty, power and timelessness that is the ocean?

If you are like me, you are probably guilty of taking all of this for granted. We get so caught up in the complications and chaos of life that we forget to appreciate where we are, when we are, and what we have.

You are a wonder of biology. Whether you feel that we are evolved, designed or created, can we just agree that the human body is an incredible organism? No technology even comes close.

Your mind is unfathomable. We can dream, feel, think, talk and adapt in a universe that we barely understand, yet we can create, design, and build in a way that just blows the mind.

We as a species have left the earth and returned safely. In the future, we will colonize other worlds, and plant our footprints and flags on planets that have never known our touch.

We are capable of loving and being loved. Despite heartbreak, fears, loneliness and pain, we push forward in our relationships and understandings. Do we fall sometimes, of course, but we manage to get up again.

If life has worn you down with its weight, I invite you today to view your world through the eyes you used when you were five years old.

Look around you at the technology, the majesty, humanity and nobility that surrounds you.

Look up, look around, and feel again that sense of wonder. This universe, galaxy, and planet; your country, town, home, and yourself. All of them are miracles.

Today, celebrate life, celebrate yourself, and celebrate wonder.

And rise.

-- Dr. Alan Barnes

@maddrbdc

Morning Reflection: Each day, sometimes each hour, brings change.

Each day, sometimes each hour, brings change.

I love spring and fall. While winter and summer have their attractions, for me there is nothing better than a crisp spring or fall morning. In spring, we see life affirming its strength, as new things grow and prepare to make our world a better, brighter and more beautiful place. In fall, we see life affirming its wisdom, as it changes to prepare to endure the harsh winter and begin again in the spring.

In self examination, I realize that I like these two seasons most of all because they represent transition, movement, progression. It is much the same for me in an airport or a train station. The feeling of freedom, newness; a future always beckoning me onwards.

But I also find that I focus too easily on the next, the new or the novelty, and lose my focus of this moment, now, today.

Yet there are also changes that I dislike. A new wrinkle or a new gray hair in my beard. Signs that indicate changes I can’t control.

The truth is that change is a constant, but we only like the changes that we want. We don’t like the changes that in some way threaten our core needs.

The more I come to accept that I cannot control all the changes, the more I am able to focus my energy and intention onto the areas of my life that I can control. The less I allow the small changes to bother me, the less time I spend wasting my emotional energy on activities that do not benefit me.

When time is your currency, focus your wealth, and energy your power, choose to spend them in a deep, determined and disciplined manifestation of all that you CAN change, and spend less time worrying about that which you cannot.

It is said that time is a healer, but it is also your helper.

Spend your time today in pursuit of your greatest you. You won’t regret it.

-- Dr. Alan Barnes

@maddrbdc

Morning Reflection: What would you do after you had all the money in the world?

What would you do after you had all the money in the world?

A very wise man once asked me this question. He said that the key to happiness was deciding what you really wanted to do, and doing that.

He taught me a question that I have asked many other people since first learning of it.

Imagine you had enough money to do whatever you wanted. You had traveled to everywhere you wanted to go, and purchased everything you wanted, and there was still time left over in your life.

What would you spend your time on?

That is your passion, your mission, and your soul.

For me, I realized that helping people was the thing that brings me most joy. Were it possible, I would spend a good portion of each day coaching with people, helping them through their problems, their fears, their heartaches and their lives. It’s what brings me the most joy and happiness, and it’s when my soul feels most alive.

For you the answer is probably different, and that’s ok. The purpose of life is to find your purpose, and then live your life so that you can live your purpose as completely, honestly, truthfully and compassionately as you can.

You have today, but no guarantee of tomorrow.

Purpose. Find it, live it, love it.

Go.

-- Dr. Alan Barnes

@maddrbmusings

Morning Reflection: The difficult dichotomy of Jekyll and Hyde.

The difficult dichotomy of Jekyll and Hyde.

All of us have the capacity for good, and a capacity to act in ways that are more painful and destructive. The truth of our lives is how we navigate the two, the balance that we create.

Why are we sometimes able to be such good, caring, kind and considerate people, only then to act later in a way that is destructive to ourselves and those around us, even those whom we profess to love?

In working with people, I have come to the conclusion that the part of us that acts in ways that are destructive arises out of an imbalance of our needs, and an inability to see into ourselves. As I have written before, the truths of ourselves are often shrouded in pain, which is hard to confront and even harder to control.

And sometimes, they are buried so deep that we are unaware of them, yet they create such a pull on us that we are drawn into emotions and behaviors that are not in alignment with our highest aspirations.

All of us, however far along our journey of enlightenment, need the assistance of others to help us see the truths of ourselves that escape our awareness. While reflection and meditation can help us to learn deep truths about who we are, oftentimes the kind observations of a caring friend can allow us to open new paths of understanding into our deepest soul.

In my own journey, I seek to balance the wounds of my soul with the peace and happiness I find in helping others. The more I serve, the less my soul cries out for its own needs, and I find a peaceful balance that brings me joy, and sets my feet on a pathway of peace.

Balance is the key. I just wish it were easier.

-- Dr. Alan Barnes

@maddrbdc

Morning Reflection: When you can’t explain the pain that you feel.

When you can’t explain the pain that you feel.

Sometimes, there are no words to adequately express the things we feel. How do you describe the agony of losing your first love, of your first significant public embarrassment, or of shame when you realize that you have let yourself down?

How do you describe the overwhelming feeling of happiness when you truly, madly and deeply love another person beyond all understanding?

Language, it seems, is insufficient to fully explain our emotions. Poets craft with words, singers with songs and artists with paint and canvas… but usually we fall short.

Often when I am coaching with someone, we reach a point beyond which they are unable to vocalize their feelings about a certain event in the past or express their fears of what could come in the future. As though the ability to explain has been taken from them, they hesitate, stutter and often fail to even briefly explain the thoughts and feelings that they encounter in their soul.

These are known as mind blocks, but I choose to think of then more as soul barriers. Often the truth behind these barriers is wrapped in pain, and is usually originally experienced in childhood, where our reasoning is limited, and our vulnerability amplifies the intensity of the pain.

Such painful emotions are not coded in language, but in sensations and images. The feeling part of our brain uses no words, but the part of our brain that tries to understand these feelings uses language to make sense of things.

And so the disconnect is born, and we have to painfully drag out these emotions, and examine them through the lens of language, so that we might pick out the falsehoods that accompany these sensations and images, and lay them to rest.

The next time you feel afraid, angry, sad, threatened or any other unwanted emotion, try to explain as clearly as possible why you feel that way. The answers may surprise you.

For practice, try explaining the emotions that the picture accompanying my words evokes. Share your description if you feel so inclined.

This process of explaining emotions is hard, but worthwhile. Unresolved pain creates more barriers to peace than anything else I have encountered.

The journey of self awareness is a long road, but the destination is a place of wonder.

-- Dr. Alan Barnes

@losingtowin120

Morning Reflection: A desire to be seen.

A desire to be seen.

Someone very dear to me once told me that being loved was having someone “notice you, so the passing of your days meant something, and didn’t just disappear into obscurity”. Another dear friend offered the perspective that love was a peaceful haven in the midst of an impersonal and uncaring universe.

I would suggest that love is “how you spend your soul”.

As we celebrate Valentine’s Day today, I would ask you how you are “spending your soul”? Are you waiting, hoping and longing for someone to notice you so that you have someone with whom you can share? Are you meagerly withholding love as a protection to your heart, or as revenge for past deeds and failures.

Love is the strangest emotion, in that the harder you give it, the greater your capacity to feel it grows. Ultimately, love is the most uplifting and purifying emotion, when it arises from a deep and overwhelming concern for the welfare of another.

In its truest form, love moves us to care outside of ourselves, and make the world a better place.

Today, please be aware of those who live without the love that they desire, and share some of your love with them. In spending some of your soul with another, you will find peace, happiness and enlightenment as you transcend your own concerns, and give without taking, and love without losing.

Who are you loving today?

-- Dr. Alan Barnes

@losingtowin120

Morning Reflection: Healing by Serving

Healing by serving.

All of us have injuries to our soul in one form or another. For some, it may be due to a difficult childhood, an abusive spouse, or a sudden and catastrophic loss of a part of our life that can never be recovered.

Others may have wounds that are ‘self-inflicted’, from an unwise choice, a momentary lapse in judgment, or a desire to meet a need that spirals into a history of bad choices leading to broken dreams.

No one escapes pain in this life, and no one gets to live without hardship, difficulty and struggle.

There is rarely a ‘way out’ of these situations, but there is often a way ‘through’.

If we are prepared to live it.

I recently asked a mentor of mine how I could move beyond where I am at in a certain aspect of my life. His answer touched me with a simple truth.

“Try to serve at a higher level’.

When we move from surviving to serving, we move from fear to fearlessness. When we dedicate ourselves to a greater cause than our own comfort, our pain and sadness can often be swallowed up in a servant heart, willing to bear our burden for the sake of others. When the hardships of life are viewed through a prism of hope, we encounter a sublime truth that can elevate our soul beyond its current engagement into a higher evolution.

We learn that often, our suffering is only such because of the way we interpret it. Suffering viewed through selfishness produces pain, while hardship viewed through the hope of helping others lifts us out of ourselves, and into a higher order of living.

Today, I invite you to find lift your heart through service, especially if that service stretches you beyond your current comfort into a greater giving.

Service is the pathway to peace, the decision through your difficulties, and the surest way I know to strengthen your heart to bear hardships with happiness.

Serve where you stand, and soon you will stand higher.

How may I serve you today?

-- Dr. Alan Barnes

@losingtowin120