Indignity, Indifference, And The Contemplation Of Freedom

“Man’s greatness consists in his ability to do and the proper application of his powers to things needed to be done.” – Frederick Douglass

Honestly, it’s not something I give much thought to.

The contemplation of freedom.

Like breathing, I guess it’s one of those things I’ve always enjoyed which is probably an underlying reason as to why I simply take it for granted.

On a visit to the city of my birth I made an unscheduled stop to the recently-opened Abolition Row Park in New Bedford. It is a relatively small park with a very big story to tell. Abolition Row Park sits across from two important buildings, both of which have been designated as National Historic Landmarks. Both of these buildings played significant roles as stations in the Underground Railroad sheltering escaped Slaves in a city which was an abolitionist haven. It was here in 1838 that Frederick Douglass was able to secure his freedom.

I cannot do the story of Frederick Douglass justice, not in this short format. His was an extraordinary life, his voice as an orator, writer, publisher, and preacher a significant and powerful voice in the abolitionist movement globally.

One of the most striking elements to be found in Abolition Row Park is a statue of Douglass. It’s not a Continue reading “Indignity, Indifference, And The Contemplation Of Freedom” →

Perhaps Life’s Most Significant Choice?

“Energies are contagious. Choose carefully. Your environment becomes you.”

It’s a Sunday tradition.

Meal prep.

I have a love/hate relationship with cooking. I love to cook, and I hate to clean up after I do. Especially when it takes longer to clean up than to actually eat.

A few years back I discovered meal prep. Each Sunday I’ll make a big batch of something and will pre-portion my creation into four matching containers. Lunch for the week is done. Sure, it’s the same lunch four days in a row, but the convenience outweighs any boredom from eating the same thing all week. It’s just one less thing to have to deal with each day.

The preferred protein is grilled chicken, usually marinated with olive oil, lemon juice, and an improvised combination of spices and herbs sort of just thrown in together. Like with any marinade, the longer the chicken soaks in its surroundings the more it becomes what it is soaking in.

It works for chicken.

It also works for humans.

The world around us acts as sort of a human marinade. What we are surrounded by will influence what we become. It will shape our views, opinions, actions, and possibilities. And the longer we soak in Continue reading “Perhaps Life’s Most Significant Choice?” →

An Emotional Spring Cleaning For The Next Season Of Your Life

It’s an annual ritual. As the seasons change and with warmer weather on the way, the content of my closets will also change. Down from the attic come the bins of the lighter clothing. Heading back into the attic are the heavier clothes needed to get through those colder months.

Swapping out the seasonal clothing allows me the chance to look at each item being unpacked. Does the item still fit? Is it something I actually want to wear again? Is it still in good condition? The items I am going to be putting away for the season undergo the same sort of evaluation.

Spring is a great time to reset and re-evaluate.

Not just when it comes to clothing.

It’s also a great time to look deeper into the emotional things we carry with us which we may have outgrown.

No matter the season, we carry our emotions with us year round. Emotions are important barometers which reflect our inner world. I’ve come to appreciate the ability to notice my emotions. To simply step back and observe exactly how I am feeling in any moment without judging myself for having the emotions that I feel.

I discovered that I, like every human, experience a wide range of emotions. Happy, sad, angry, disappointed, bitter, frustrated. Thoughts of doubt, fear, and unworthiness can often arise as well.

Like my process of evaluating my clothing at the end of each season, I also conduct a similar process with my emotions. A sort of an emotional spring cleaning. Through this filtering out process, I will look deeper into my emotions and see if any of them no l Continue reading “An Emotional Spring Cleaning For The Next Season Of Your Life” →

We Don’t Have To Settle For What We’ve Always Settled For

You can always tell if it’s one of his photos.

My friend Peter Pereira is a photographer. Actually, he is a highly regarded and respected award-winning photojournalist who can tell an entire story within the frame of a single image. Peter’s work appears locally as well as globally in some of the world’s most recognizable media. I’m getting quite good at looking at a photograph and knowing that he was the photographer without needing to read the photo credit.

One of Peter’s greatest gifts is his gift of perspective. While many photographers will shoot at what is right in front of them, Peter will find his own unique vantage point. He positions himself outside of what would be considered the conventional. Above looking down. Below looking up. To the left side. To the right side. He will use components and lines within an image to frame his subject and direct the viewer’s eyes deeper into the photo. By positioning himself in unconventional positions, his work demonstrates the true power of perspective, of being open to seeing things from a different view point.

Perspectives are of great significance. Perspectives are how we choose to see the world, each other, and our own self.

How we choose to see our own self significantly influences everything about our life. Our experiences, our relationships, our expectations, our opportunities.

Everything.

Our sense of self is rarely intentional. It usually just happens as we evolve and grow through life. It will be shaped by our environment and those within it, reinforced and strengthened as experiences and relationships continuously repeat themselves. It’s not something we notice, so it’s not something we tend to question.

But there is great power in questioning who it is you tell yourself you think you are.

We have the ability to see ourself from a different vantage point. To reframe our self image. If we choose to do so. Maybe the Continue reading “We Don’t Have To Settle For What We’ve Always Settled For” →

Maybe It’s Time To Stop Eating Burnt Toast?

“People have a hard time letting go of their suffering. Out of fear of the unknown, they prefer suffering that is familiar.” Thich Nhat Hanh

We really are creatures of habit, aren’t we? Even if those habits are somewhat detrimental to our well being. Even if those habits prevent us from growing more fully into who it is we know we were created to become.

Habits are familiar. They become part of our identity. What is known and accepted comes with it’s own sense of predictability which creates a sense of safety, even if that safety feels uncomfortable and often empty.

But, for some, it’s better than the fear inherent with what’s unknown.

Burnt toast isn’t ideal, but if it’s all you’ve known, it’s just easier to simply settle and keep eating it, even if better options are readily available.

I’ve had my share of life’s burnt toast. Of settling for less than in the presence of abundant alternatives. The acceptance of my Continue reading “Maybe It’s Time To Stop Eating Burnt Toast?” →

A Fully Lived Life Is Much Better

I’m not sure how much I’ve spent on books. I’ve got lots of them. Bookcases full of them. Many inspiring and informative books filled with great insights and ideas. Many of those books I’ve started and, well, not quite finished. Usually because I found yet another book which caught my distracted eye.

Audiobooks and podcasts? Yup, I enjoy plenty of those as well.

Sometimes I feel like a collector of wisdom, a curator of knowledge, especially in the area of personal growth. Like I’m creating a library of incredible knowledge with the power to change the trajectory of my life.

If I actually did more than simply collect and consume information.

Collecting knowledge feels like you’re doing something. Like, you’re making progress, getting yourself prepared to someday Continue reading “A Fully Lived Life Is Much Better” →

Or Will You Be Just Another Year Older?

One year from today is going to happen.

A lot can happen in the next 365 days. Or, nothing can happen in the next 365 days.

Those hopes and dreams, that big idea, the goals and intentions?

The person you tell yourself you want to become?

Not gonna happen on their own.

Time really doesn’t care what you do with it. It doesn’t care about those hopes and dreams and the person you tell yourself you want to become.

One year from today you can be one year closer to living a life more aligned with your purpose and vision. Or you can remain dormant and wonder where the hell the past year went.

One year from today, will you be more than just another year older?

Photo by Kate Williams on Unsplash

Some Saviors Will Never Save You

So there was Rose, floating on top of a door as Jack remained submerged in the frigid waters of the North Atlantic, hanging on until he could hang on no longer.

Titanic. The movie. Many survivors clinging in the darkness to whatever they could find to keep themselves above the freezing water, to keep themselves alive long enough to be rescued.

Survival Mode. Hanging on and hoping to be saved.

It’s a great plan for a shipwreck. But it’s not a great way to live a life.

Life does at times unexpectedly throw us into the water and sometimes the only thing we can do is simply hold on and hope. It can be a matter of our survival, either physically or emotionally.

But how often in life do we continuously cling to uncomfortably familiar doors such as toxic situations, needed outcomes, outdated belief systems, and self-destructive habits, while waiting and hoping for someone or something to come and save us?

Sometimes we stay in survival mode for so long we accept it as part of our identity. And when we accept ourselves as survivalists we abandon our own innate capacity to heal as we find ourselves always in search of a new door, a new outcome, a new savior, someone or something to keep us afloat and to pull us out of the frigid waters of our limitations and fears.

Yet the saviors we continue to attract tend not to be saviors at all. No matter how much we want them to be.

Because no one is coming to save us, to fix us, to keep us afloat.

Our emotional rescue?

That is up to us.

Only You Can Take You To Where You Were Meant To Go

It’s one of my favorite “clarity” rides. Just me, alone in my car, up and out just before dawn, driving in silence. A rare moment of being invisible and unaccountable to anyone else but myself.

Being close to the ocean, this back roads ride takes me to a picturesque harbor in southeastern Massachusetts. It’s always so quiet, and the few people I cross paths with also prefer it that way.

This early in the summer morning the harbor is filled with a great number of sail boats, tied to their moorings, silently bobbing with each gentle wave. They fit perfectly into the idyllic image I have in my head as to what I should expect to find in such a harbor.

I’ve always been somewhat intrigued with man’s ability to harness the unseen forces of nature in order to move himself forward. Especially when harnessing the wind. I know nothing about the mechanics and intricacies of the operation of a sail boat, but there is one universal truth I do know.

Sails only work when they’re open.

On the water.

And in life.

We, in many ways, are like sail boats. We are the vessel that can take us from where we are now to where we tell ourselves we want to be. But only if we are willing to break out of the safe harbor we feel secure in and willing to open our sail fully. Unless our sails are open, the wind is useless. Unless we are receptive and open, the forces of the universe can never be harnessed and propel us forward.

My greatest growth has come from my willingness to untie myself from my emotional mooring and break out of my own safe harbors, harbors often built by thoughts of limitation, unworthiness, and fear. At some point the pain of staying stuck outweighed the pain of moving forward and I began my journey forward, trusting that with open sails I would find the wind to do so.

I’ve always found the wind.

The sailing adventure called my life hasn’t always been smooth. Several times I’ve circled back and other times I’ve felt dead in the water. But the important aspect is that I was in the water, readily committed to moving myself forward, being open and receptive and knowing the forces of the universe would help to get me ever-closer to my destination of becoming more like I was created to become. But only if I was ready.

And I was ready.

The wind always finds the open sails.

What “safe harbors” have you created for yourself which are keeping you from entering the waters of your own life? As you navigate your life, what if you untied yourself from any narratives or stories which have held you back and just headed out and opened your sail fully?

Only you can take you to where it is you know you were meant to go.

The wind will find your open sail, too.

Photo by Vince Veras on Unsplash

The Happiness Contingencies Are Making You Unhappy

“Then I’ll be happy.”

Nervously I stood in front the bathroom scale. Would today be the day? I’d been working to hit my weight goal. This could be the day.

Left foot. Then the right foot. The LED numbers spinning like a slot machine as the scale calculated my weight.

The numbers stopped.

Bingo!

I did it.

And, honestly, it was rather disappointing.

I finally decided (for at least the third time!) that I was going to shed a few pounds. The goal was to shed 40 of them. Through a rather unhealthy process of excessive exercise and excessively limiting total caloric intake, slowly the pounds came off. Over a period of a few months there was a bit less of me each week. And on the day I lost the last of those 40 pounds I was both happy and almost immediately not so happy.

I expected it to feel different.

Expectations have a way of doing that.

Sure, I had hit my goal. But my expectations were more than just hitting a number on the scale. I was expecting this accomplishment to make me happy. Like, acheiving this goal would somehow cure my nagging and ever-present feeling of unhappiness and emptiness. Like, this was supposed to change far more than the size of my jeans. But instead, I was the same unhappy and empty me that I’d always been, now just 40 pounds lighter.

For most of my life I was quite good at creating happiness contingencies. Those “I’ll be happy when…” parameters. Once the goal or a desired outcome was achieved, only then would I allow myself to be happy. The reality, though, even with the goal attained, I never really did allow myself to be happy.

There was still more work to do.

Sure, I won a battle but I still needed to finish the war. No matter how well I performed in my work life or personal life there would be very little space for joy celebrating my success. There was simply more work to do. No time to rest, Peter. No time to be happy. The war continued on.

Maybe you can relate?

“I’ll be happy when…” is ever elusive. Because you never quite get to happy. It’s a never ending cycle. I didn’t enjoy my weight loss progress. Instead of being happy when I lost the first 10 pounds, my focus was on the 30 pounds still to go.

There was still more work to do.

What happiness contingencies do set in your life? What are you waiting for to happen before you’ll allow yourself to be happy?

My journey has taught me that happiness doesn’t need to be contingent upon an outcome. It can simply be a decision to find joy in the process, a decision to celebrate the individual steps of the journey. It doesn’t mean life is always happy, but removing such restrictive parameters on happiness has allowed me to experience far more of it.

Life gives us many reasons to simply celebrate life itself. And when you learn to celebrate the magnificence of your own existence, you’ll allow yourself to find an endless reservoir of things to be happy about right now.

No contingencies need.

I’ll be happy when…

I decide to be.

Photo by Danie Franco on Unsplash

Peter Mis LivingHalfFull.com

Lessons From A Life Unfolding

Category: mindset