Morning Reflection: My reactions are my responsibility.

My reactions are my responsibility.

It took me a long time to learn this truth, but my reactions are not reflexes.

A reflex is an action that occurs without conscious thought, like the way we pull our hand away from something hot. A reflex carries no judgment, no decision, no initiation of thought. It just simply occurs.

For the longest time, I thought of my reactions this way. Why…because it made things easier. If my reactions were in fact more of a reflex, then I didn’t have to think about them, didn’t have to control them, wasn’t responsible for how I acted and what I said.

After much thought and meditation, it occurs to me that I thought this way because it allowed me to evade the responsibility of choosing my reactions. It allowed me to act as a child, rather than an adult.

As I have grown through my journey, I have come to realize that my reactions are actually responses, that occur as a result of the way I see and feel about the world. But in truth, the way I see and feel about the world is a representation of my own inadequacies, fears, needs and aspirations.

My reactions are, in truth, a reflection of my perceived place in reality.

Since my reactions affect others, I feel that upon me falls a heavy responsibility, that of making sure that my reactions are congruent with the way that I would like to treat the world.

Where I could choose to react with anger, I hope to react with kindness. Where I could choose to react with fear, I hope I may react with faith. Where I could choose to react from pride, may I instead react with humility.

My reactions are my choices, and it would be wise for me to consider them carefully, and learn from them.

Because the reactions that I don’t ‘think about’ are in fact a roadmap to the deeper nature of my soul.

If I would learn to master my reactions, I must first learn to understand myself.

-- Dr. Alan Barnes

@maddrbdc

Morning Reflection: What does your heart tell you?

What does your heart tell you?

The quality of our life resides in the quality of our choices. When I look back at my life, I find that I have chosen well in some things, and in others, I have chosen in a way that did not support my highest aspirations.

A common thread throughout my poorer choices has been an element of fear. When fear distorts my decisions, I find myself choosing the path that leads to less joy, happiness and satisfaction.

But in trying to understand myself, I have come to a realization that the most serious choices are usually the ones that start with what to think. It has taken me many years to accept the truth that no matter the situation, I have a choice in what to think about it.

One of the truths I have tried to incorporate into my life is that ‘it’s never the event, it’s the meaning we give to it’. In any situation, we actually have a choice as to how we interpret those events.

When my eldest son was born, we discovered a few hours after his birth that he would require open heart surgery to correct a congenital defect that otherwise could kill him.

At the time, I was devastated. A million thoughts went through my head, and honestly, a lot of those were along the lines of “why me, why us, why this”. Those ‘feelings’ were raw emotion expressed out of negative thoughts left unchecked in my heart, and did not serve me.

I spent years, many years, feeling like we had been poorly treated by the universe, and this feeling colored so many of my choices and understandings.

Now, some two decades later, I have reached an understanding that really, we were very lucky. His condition, while serious, was uncomplicated, and he has thrived and is doing very well.

Even though I would rather not have gone through the circumstances of his birth, I can choose to feel gratitude for the positives aspects of his condition, for the wonderful service of the medical teams who kept him alive and made him well, and for the support of family, friends and even strangers who lifted us when we were down, and carried us when we could not carry ourselves.

The hardest truth is that even my feelings are a choice, unless I decide to give up my ability to choose, and just “follow my heart”.

When I started this reflection with “What does your heart tell you”, most people probably thought this was going to be a post about following your heart, but it’s not. Your ‘heart’ is really the sum of all of your needs, wants, desires and dreams, but it’s also the repository for all of your fears, unmet needs, traumas and tears.

Unless you have walked though the deeper truths of your soul, following your heart is often a continuation of the pain and misunderstandings of yesterday, left unchecked and unrestrained so that those feelings can affect and alter your todays and tomorrows.

Follow your heart, but only when you are sure that your heart is full of truth, not error; love not hate; gratitude not selfishness; kindness not chaos.

Balance your heart, and you will live with a greater sense of gratitude and wonder.

And you can know peace.

-- Dr. Alan Barnes

@maddrbdc

Morning Reflection: You only have this moment.

You only have this moment.

In 2017, to celebrate losing 130 pounds, I faced one of my biggest fears and went skydiving. A powerful lesson I learned that day has stuck with me.

Life is fragile, but you have to live it to enjoy it.

When I decided to go skydiving, I knew I would be scared, and yet I did it anyway. I wanted to push myself, to do something so out of character for me that it would change my life forever.

That moment happened at around 10,000 feet. As I sat in a small bumpy plane, I felt a storm of emotions. I was terrified, knowing that in a few minutes I was going to be jumping out of that plane and risking my life in the pursuit of some elusive ideal. With a cold sensation coursing through my veins, it became suddenly real. Very, very real.

I could die here today.

Realistically, I knew it was unlikely. Statistically it was very safe, yet there was still the possibility of it happening, and that small possibility was enough to scare me to a point of terror and make me think about backing out. But then everything changed.

As I looked at the other 3 jumpers in the plane, I realized with a sudden absolute certainty that there was no way I wasn’t jumping, because I was in front of the door, blocking everyone else. If I refused, in all likelihood they would throw me out anyway.

There was no way back – this was happening.

And then it all changed. As my brain encountered the raw, unfiltered truth of what was about to come to pass, I realized that since I couldn’t stop it, there was no point in worrying about it. I couldn’t change the outcome now, all worrying would do was spoil any enjoyment of the moment that I could find.

So I decided to just enjoy it, to live it, to celebrate all the changes in my life that had led me to celebrate the accomplishment of losing so much weight and enjoy the sensation of weightlessness.

And from that moment on, it was an amazing experience. As we tumbled out of the plane and reached a stable position, I felt a glorious, awe inspiring and life affirming feeling of joy, gratitude and celebration.

This was life, and I was living it. Yes it was scary, yes it was tough and yes, it could still go wrong, but I had chosen to face my fears and participate in life in a way that pushed me out of comfort zone and into a new life.

And it was glorious.

Wherever you are today, please live your life. Yes, it may be scary and yes, it could go wrong, but you have today, now, this moment. Live it as fully as you can, embracing all the good you can do in the world, and be the person you were meant to be.

My hope for you today is that you will fully live your life, with gratitude for who you are and with courage to become all that you can yet be.

Live life, feel gratitude and celebrate peace.

And become.

-- Dr. Alan Barnes

@maddrbdc

Morning Reflection: Feeling Powerless

You only fear that over which you have no power.

My oldest son nearly died on his very first day of life. A few hours after I was blessed to help deliver him, a congenital heart defect was trying to kill him.

And there was nothing I could do.

I realized today that I have never overcome that feeling of being powerless.

To this day, I am still haunted by the realization that I could do nothing to help my son. I was at the mercy of others, dependent on someone else to do that which I could not.

I was nearly moved to tears today at the realization that what I fear most is being powerless. Unable to stand against that which assails me, unable to move in the face of an onslaught.

Powerlessness is my fear, the ghost which haunts my peace and troubles my soul in the quiet moments.

Yet in the end, we all face things against which we have no power. It is one of the similarities of the human condition, a reality that should unite us, even though often our fear will divide us.

For some it’s change, for some it’s the loss of something, for others, it’s the knowledge of their own weakness. Although our situations may differ, our experiences of feeling powerless are essentially the same.

In that moment, when we are faced with something we fear, it is important that we don’t stand alone. For while our souls may be separate, our fears and troubles can be a source of unity, strength, courage and conviction.

My hope is that I will be better at reaching out, lifting and helping others. As I struggle with my purpose, I desire to help others. Not for some eternal reward, and not for the praise of men, but simply because I desire to reduce the suffering that is present in the human condition.

Life is often cruel, but we must not be.

From the truth of the man I aspire to be… “Never cruel nor cowardly. Never give up, never give in”.

Kindness.

Always.

Dr. Alan Barnes

@maddrbdc

Morning Reflection: Time to Act

Why am I stuck?

As a new year begins, most people resolve to change something. For me this year, I have set no resolutions. Rather, I seek to go deeper, and understand why I have not done things before.

I seek to understand the areas of my life in which I have not yet manifested the outcomes that I want. There are many of these areas, and I must move into each of them as I try to understand what holds me back.

Mostly it is fear. Fear that I will be laughed at, fear of failing, fear of a loss of sense of purpose, or fear of pain. But these fears are not created in a vacuum. There have been experiences that have created these fears. Experiences that were probably misunderstood, but accepted as truth, and that generated patterns of behavior that I still follow today, even though they are patterned on a falsehood.

I wish to understand why I have chosen to live a life that is not in congruency with my dreams, because these actions have been my choices. If I accept they are choices, I accept that I can chose differently, and create different outcomes. If I accept that they are MY choices, then I also accept the responsibility to change them, and also accept the belief that I can.

There is no place more valuable than the graveyard. In the graveyard we find all the hopes, dreams, ideas and purpose that was never realized during that person’s time on earth.

My wish is that I do not take my dreams into the graveyard. My hope is that I can find a way through my fears, and become the person who I think I was born to be.

It is time to accept, to live and to manifest a different level of purpose.

It is time to act, to move, to believe and to begin.

It is now. I am here. I am beginning.

Dr. Alan Barnes

@maddrbdc