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: A Sacred Existence

A sacred existence.

Today, I invite you to pause, and reflect. Reflect upon the unbelievable opportunity that you have been given to be alive, now, here.

In the midst of all of life’s trials, tribulations, struggles and strife, there can come an overwhelming joy and happiness, if only you realize where you are.

While our planet, our world, has many occupants, it only has one of you. You are empowered with passion, power, potential and possibility.

If it has been a long time since you felt a sense of wonder at your existence, I invite you to consider that in all of time, in all the worlds, in every facet of reality that makes up this universe, you are here.

While here may be difficult, frightening, painful or lonely, please take a moment to look up and comprehend that our world, this sky, this ball of rock, these majestic oceans, are moving through a universe of unparalleled beauty, magnificence and grace.

And you are a part of it.

Your existence is sacred, because it is happening.

Now.

-- Dr. Alan Barnes

@maddrbdc

Morning Reflection: What are you grateful for?

Now is the enemy of forever.

I’ve been writing about perspective, and how our emotions are affected by it. I’ve also come to understand that time is a perspective, but one that can consume us if we do not control it.

As people try to become more ‘mindful’, they attempt to bring their awareness into their current experience frame, trying to remove all other time references to truly focus only on what is ‘now’.

But in doing so, we risk taking for granted that and those which are now, but may not always be.

As I sit in my office at my home, I am moved to realize that the earth in this location was once free flowing lava, then fields, now houses, and may yet change into a scorched desert or a frozen tundra. If I tie myself into only now, I lose my gratitude references and can lose my sense of wonder at the time in which I find myself.

Likewise, I always try to treat my family from the understanding that they may not always be here, and that at a future time I could mourn their absence. There may yet be a future in which I am without one or all of them, and I try to feel that future in order to keep a clear perspective on the now.

When I maintain this frame of reference, tempore-sensu (latin, time sense), I am filled with gratitude and love for the people around me. I find a more profound sense of purpose and value in each day, realizing how blessed I am to be, here, now.

Maintaining a greater reference of time and location help me to find humility, gratitude, focus and joy. I am hopeful that it allows me to be a better servant.

I exist to serve, because it brings me peace.

What are you grateful for?

-- Dr. Alan Barnes

@maddrbdc

Morning Reflection: Changing my Perspective Changes my Emotion

Changing my perspective changes my emotion.

As I try to control my state, or in other words control my mindset, I have found that losing my perspective is often associated with an increased intensity of unwanted emotions.

Last year’s eclipse was a chance for me to evaluate my perspective. For a brief moment in time, the moon obscuring the sun helped me experience, in a more profound manner, my place in the universe.

So often we allow ourselves to be drawn into this world-bound, time-locked existence where the small seems to be much bigger.

But when I am reminded, like last year, that we are a part of something much larger and more complex than we can comprehend, I find my perspective is changed, and the things which trouble me are reduced in comparison.

In experiencing the eclipse, I felt part of something greater. Strangely, this did not make me feel smaller, but reminded me that I am a component of a much larger whole, and that somehow soothes my soul.

I felt a sense of community with the whole human race, which brought a joy to my soul that few things can match. A friend of mine wrote that the eclipse was for him a ‘spiritual experience’, and I know how he feels.

While the universe can be a difficult place in which to reside, I am comforted by the realization that there is so much more out there than the small things which unbalance me day to day.

Whatever your belief about the origins and ongoing nature of this universe in which we reside, I hope you find strength and perspective when you look up into the sky.

We are a part of something greater than we can possibly imagine.

And that gives us value.

-- Dr. Alan Barnes

@losingtowin120

Stand and deliver – your money or your…time?

Stand and deliver – your money or your…time?

I’m sure that you are thinking to yourself ‘that’s not right’. It’s ‘your money or your life’.

Well, what is your life if it is not your time. If you have no time, you have no life left. Game over. End of the line. Termination.

But which is more valuable to you…your money or your time?

I knew a man once who was very, very frugal with money. Even though he had a personal net worth that most people would consider a fantastic sum of money, he watched every dollar with the intensity of an eagle, streaking down on its prey.

At first I wondered at him, then became frustrated with him, and finally I sought to understand him.

And then I realized that he didn’t see money the way I saw money. He saw every dollar not as it was, but what it could be. Every dollar he had was viewed not in the short term, as something to be spent, but as something for the long term, to be invested.

For him, every dollar was a seed for the future. It wasn’t the $1 or $10 or even $100 that he was worried about losing. It was the $10, $100 or $1000 it was going to become that he was trying to keep.

Now, I’m not suggesting that each of you become so focused on money that you become that way.

But maybe you should look at your time that way.

Money lost can be earned back, but an hour lost can never be reclaimed.

Three and a half years ago I had the chance to meet an icon on the fitness industry, Greg Plitt. A motivational speaker, a gifted athlete and a very determined human being who travelled many places inspiring people to live their lives better.

This picture was taken the day I met him. In it, you see a fit, confident, outgoing and energetic man, clasping hands with a overweight, tired and not very self confident 40 something who looked like he was one happy meal away from a tombstone.

I cried the day Greg Plitt died. A freak accident. A guy I admired, respected and listened to as a source of inspiration, had no more time left. We were all the poorer for it. There didn’t seem to be any justice that he should be dead, and someone like me who wasn’t taking care of his body, his mind or his life, should still be alive.

But he did so much more with his time than I did, and his passing taught me that truth.

There is a saying that time is money, but that’s a lie. Time is much more precious.

Every hour of your life today is a “hour-seed” for your future self. The actions you take, or don’t take, today will change your future, or not.

So please, think about what you are doing today. Look at each hour and decide how you want to invest that hour of your life. Focus on what you want out of your life, and decide how you can spend time today investing for that life. Whether it’s learning a new skill, deepening a relationship, fixing a problem, walking on the treadmill or telling someone “I love you”. Invest your hours today in a way that is meaningful.

And you will know peace.