inner peace – Page 7 – ramblrWrites.com

Lean Into You.

Based on many stories available to us via mass media, it seems easy to flip the script and change the story of who we are. However, to do this we may need to cut ties that we have depended on all our lives and habits that are easy to spot but hard to break.

What is it about hearing the stories of others that seem to motivate us so much? We usually love to hear the success stories of others, especially when those persons had to overcome some serious challenges. We hear are inspired and feel invincible by those stories. But, it is their story, their triumph and their success. While we celebrate with them, as we should, we cannot remain on their cloud nine to live our lives.

We can never be like anyone else no matter how much we wish we could. There are too many among us who feel that we can be like this person or that person, and so we try to copy what they have done to the T and paste it onto ourselves. We may deny doing that but, when we act the way they act or do the things they do or eat what they eat do the same exercise, use the same hair product and so on, we are not trying to find a formula that works for us, but using one meant for the person we are trying to be like.

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Maybe we need to put a little more effort into leaning into who we are. Imagine all our lives we have been influenced by others. Can we say how much of that influence has shaped us into who we are? I realized that I was good at imitating people and becoming who they expect me to be. At first, when I realized that I was doing this, I did feel like a fraud. I had gotten so good at it that it came naturally. However, when I realized this was a thing I did, I decided to make the effort to change. I started to ask myself all kinds of questions. What did I like and not like? What type of friend did I want and wanted to be? What kind of music did I like? There were many more questions, but the point was that I made the effort to discover things about myself that had nothing to do with trying to impress others. As I made the effort to learn more about myself, I had very little room to worry about who I most wanted to be like, instead I was more concerned about being honest with myself so that I could show up as myself each day to those I interacted with.

But, it is hard to lean into yourself when people only want to see the you they can digest or tolerate. They don’t want to see that you have flaws, because the version of you they have in mind aligns with their snapshot of you. They may not want the movie reels that might reveal your being human instead of an image created or forged for the consumption of others.

There has to be a way out. Often times when we feel trapped, this is the first thought we have. We can also have this thought when we are no longer satisfied with living up to the expectations of others. We then wonder, what can we do? I have found that the best way out is not to seek the answers from anyone outside of yourself. The best way out is simply to trust and into the Almighty and lean more into who you are.

Not Work, Care.

Many famous or successful people will tell you that you have to work hard to achieve your goals, you have to keep burning that mid-night oil; and as one of our past Prime Ministers here in Jamaica once said, she was always, ” working, working, working.” But when I think about it, is working yourself out of relationships, your health and your peace of mind so important and worthwhile?

Many persons have compromised who they are to reach where they want to go and I have to ask, is this real success?

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Some may say I’m asking because I have not achieved their level of success, but,that’s not where I’m coming from. I have seen or heard, in my space and other spaces, of people who re really talented who are not super wealthy or super successful, in term determined by a few, who seem to be happy with their lot in life; who just seem normal. In a world where being normal is seen as basic, their normalcy becomes refreshing. It is those who are always striving, reaching for the star just ahead who seem to now be doing too much, going too far and in the process losing the light that they where born with.

At any cost. That is what some people accept as the way to be successful, which can cause someone to lose sight of what it really means to care about the things that should matter. One of the things that require our attention more than gathering wealth, is to confront the traumas that have given us the urge to seek the applause of the crowd by working long and hard.

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Success is as success does. Before going on this grand adventure, many people do not ask what success will mean in their own lives. So, you get the things you set out to get and then you wonder why you wanted them in the first place. Could it mean that there is something internal that is damaged, that having those things can never fix? If so how much is this need for success driven by destiny or some childhood trauma? I think it’s important and necessary to question why you want to achieve certain things, because if we don’t, we run the risk of having someone else’s mountaintop experience.

Bird in a gilded cage. Whether or not we want to admit it the result of success may not be triumph but a gilded cage – much nicer than the one we were in before – but a cage none-the-less. Thinking that we are working to better our lives and the lives of those we love, can blind us to the true state of our situation and not see that instead of approaching he finish line, we are about to fall over a precipice. Sounds scary, but true. Instead of addressing one problem, the need to get that “bread” can create many more that is harder to fix with the success we may get.

Awareness and care are one and the same. If we really want to get to where we should be, and not where we were never meant to be, then it may be time to question whether we strive from a place of brokenness or if our journey is fueled by the will of the Almighty.

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Stick With It.

When something seems hard to achieve, stick with it because it always brings something good.

We are really good nowadays at giving up too quickly. We sit and think about everything that could go wrong, that has gone wrong and we decide what we want will never happen. We turn our backs, abandoning what might have been for what will never be. Today I felt so tired I thought I would have a panic attack. In the past the thought of having one, would lead to one. However, today I stayed calm and smiled through the anxious moments to survive the day. So, I ended the day feeling happy, energized and contented, even though I had eaten very little and done a lot. I was even surprised how quickly the day seem to have gone by. If I had given in to that feeling and let it win, I would have never known the sense of accomplishment I felt at finishing out the day.

Let us walk with God so that our walk will be filled with only good days. This morning I left out for work in the dark, but I never felt afraid walking through Spanish Town before 6 a.m. in the morning. It never entered my mind to feel fear. To question what was just around the corner. At every turn I did not question what I would find because I had already invited God to walk with me. So, when I was just about to cross the road to continue my walk, I was blown by a car! It was Mr Martin, he picked me up and I reached work the earliest I had ever reached! But I know that with every experience, what we consider good or bad, if we don’t want to, and invite God to walk with us, we will never walk alone.

We are stronger than we think we are. I don’t think we give ourselves enough credit concerning what we can endure. It could be that there are things we think we could never do. It has nothing to do with the fact that we can’t do it, but more so because we don’t want to try, out of fear or indifference.

When we crash, it may seem easier to give up than try to find our way back to the land of the living. However, since we don’t know what we are capable of until we find we have no other choice, let us stick with it till whenever.

Good Days Only.

Now this is a mindset I will work with. No matter what happens, there are no bad days.

I recently came across the expression, “no bad days”, and thought well wouldn’t that be great! However, the more I thought about it, the more I wondered if it’s as simple as deciding to have a positive outlook even when things don’t seem so positive.

Often time we talk about having good days and bad days, however, how we perceive things can determine whether or not our day is good or bad. How we react to the things that happen to us is what really matters, not that things go wrong. In life it is impossible for something not to go wrong, but being upset or even getting nasty about it only makes it worse; it is at this stage that we really have a bad day. We can’t see beyond that one bad moment and think logically through it. Instead we marinate on it and allow ourselves to really have a bad day.

To have a good day, we need to turn our back on the things that can cause us to view life negatively. Instead of dwelling on it and giving it life, we can diminish the power it has to undermine our positive outlook, by not remaining in it. When things do not turn out the way we want them to, maybe it wasn’t suppose to be. So, we need to let go of what we can’t control and do the best we can.

To really see the glass half full, we need to be humble and stay calm in moments where our good days are under attack.

Only Time…

Often times we speak and think of time in negative terms. We often bemoan the fact that time is running out or the fact that it feels as if there is not enough time in the day, to do what we want to get done.

Time reveals all truth – This is a reality that many people fear, based on what they have done in the past. However, if we find ourselves operating under an alternate reality, then it will only be to our benefit when we finally have to face the truth of either who we are and what we have done; or, the truth of who people in our circle truly are. However, this does not have to be something to fear. Having the truth revealed in time may seem horrific in hindsight, but in actuality can liberate someone from the fear of exposure that they carried around like a heavy load.

It has been said that it is better to fail in truth than to succeed by immersing ourselves in lies. Only time can help us to truly understand this truth.

Time heals all wounds – The sense of disappointment we experience can only be treated with time. Sometimes when we are disappointed we do not see the blessing of being in that position until later when we realize that we have been spared from a dire fate.While this adage does not work for every situation, the very least that can happening is that there is a dulling of any disappoint or pain as time advances

Only time will tell what the future holds, only time will give the peace that we seek.

Who Can We Trust?

It is increasingly difficult to answer this question. However, trusting anyone is a risk you will have to take. If you want to form strong and lasting relationships, you have to trust everyone.

No two persons are the same and everyone carries around ideas of what is best for them. Therefore, we cannot think that at all times we can rely on everyone.

I was briefly apart of a discussion about two recent incidents recently, one a murder suicide and the other a murder of a woman. In both instances the men were the perpetrators. In the discussion the question of whether or not you can really know someone came up. Can you really vouch for everyone you trust and do you really know everything about them?

At the end of the day we each have to decide who to trust: just make sure that you are trusting the right person with the right thing and for the right reasons.

I think the greater question too is, what can you trust people with. There are many different things that we value, can we trust everyone with them?

While we cannot trust everyone with everything, we can choose who we trust with what. You need to know enough about someone to determine what you can trust them with. If someone threatens you or abuses you, can you trust with your life? If someone is careless with their possessions, can you trust them with your own? If someone never or hardly ever make time for you until they want something, can you trust them with your friendship? If you try to speak everything into being but never act, can you trust yourself with your dreams?

Not A Pity Party.

I learned from my own experiences that we can so easily be manipulative by appearing pitiful.

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It’s easy to become this way, but it’s a difficult habit to break, especially if your behavior is being encouraged. Being pitiful means that when you make a mistake, you can use those “pitiful eyes” and say “sorry”, and everything is forgiven. However, every action has a reaction and therefore we need to be accountable for all that we do.

Feeling sorry for yourself serves the purpose of allowing you to continue to make excuses for why you seem to be stuck in the same place. Also, why you find it so difficult to make the necessary changes that you need to make. It may seem to be a good thing to be cuddled and pampered all the time, but there comes a time when being cuddled becomes a stifling of all the potential that you have.

It reminds me of how a friend told me he learned to swim. One day his brother grabbed him and threw him in the water and he literally had to sink or swim; and since he is still here I guess he eventually learned how to swim. The point is, if we rely on people to feel sorry for our plight we will forever be victims of circumstances, forever pitied as the little engine that could not.

For some more than others, it’s easy to fall into the “woe -me”- trap and to milk it for all it’s worth. But ultimately we do ourselves a disservice when we accept this narrative, in any form.

Let us all stop making excuses and allowing others to make them for us. Let us be bold enough to be honest with ourselves if no one else will. Bravery is not showing that we are vulnerable, we all are in some way or another. Bravery, is pressing forward and doing what needs to be done, in spite of all our vulnerabilities.

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