Finding peace in the eye of the storm vs. shelter from it.

I recently had a dream about my late father.  In it, I was dealing with the insanity that characterized his last two plus years of his life.  He had gone from walking at the park, to having some trouble walking, to having a lot of trouble walking, to have a walking followed by falling at times.  At first, it was every blue moon, then it became a fairly regular occurrence.  He was living by himself and I helped him as much as my situation allowed, but it got to be ridiculous.  At some point, medical professionals started to note this progression and said that he needed to be in at least assisted living.  Eventually, they all said he needs constant care (or at least to have someone readily available 24/7) to help him.   Over time the level of necessary help became more acute all the time.  (originally posted 9/3/15)

Anyway, on a number of occasions, he went to the hospital after having a fall.   I would meet him there stay with him and then returned him home with me having to leave eventually.  This went on for a while until I realized how absurd the pattern was and it was hammered into my by medical staff.  Yet, my dad kept insisting on going home after each ER visit.  I eventually walked away and let the system take over.  I told the social worker I can't be part of this insanity.  They are under pressure by the insurance company to not let a patient overstay their hospital need.   So, instead of someone being there to take him home, a social worker convinced him to go to a nursing home at that time.  He accepted that initially, but he kept wanting to go home.  That was not going to happen as I could not in good conscience let him be at his house alone for any long stretch of time.   I was in a rut where I stopped seeing him for a while and limited contact with him as he was pressing to "go back home".  I needed to walk away for my mental health rather than let him attempt to bully me into allowing him in an unsafe situation.  Eventually, I got the strength to reconnect, but it was a constant battle.  He'd be fine and then say, "I want to go home" out of nowhere.  As his son and POA, I could not in good conscience facilitate that.  I made it known to family and friends that I wasn't going allow him into an unsafe/unsupervised environment and that I did not want to do them to either.

Anyway, the upshot is this: I was in the storm (of a dad refusing to face reality and being mean or pushy about it at times) and I eventually found the eye of the storm--a safe place.  But, in order to get to that place I had to set aside my feelings of sadness that I would never have the chance to see eye to eye with him.  I had to set aside the fact that it wasn't the happiest point in our relationship.  I had to set aside the feelings of going against what he 'wanted' and had to make choices/push back with what he needed.

Eventually, he got too sick to 'fight'.  The storm ebbed as he got closer to the end and he passed away on May 1st, 2015.  This ended that storm.  The battle had ended for him, but the battle of fighting a delusional parent as he got less able to take care of himself had ended too.

I did what I needed to as a responsible son at the time, but it hurt.  I have finally had a chance to exhale and feel the sadness of losing my dad way before he physically passed.  I finally had  a chance to process the battle with a sick parent who wasn't facing reality.  I did what I needed to cope and now have a chance like after a storm "to assess the damage".  This is healthy I think.

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I've come to some realizations about life's rough storms.

• Sometimes we do what we need to to cope and do not have the vision to see how it affects others and we do not have the vision to see that a given storm is unnecessary.  
• For example, you are with someone controlling, in your codependency, your finding the eye of the storm is doing whatever it takes to make or keep the other 'happy' or at least off your case.  Instead of seeing you could walk away from the storm, you search for an eye.  In the process you walk or push away from others who are a safe distance from the storm.
• It is so much easier to see later that you weren't away from the storm, but instead were in the peace of the eye of the storm.   It's so easy when we are trying to escape the debris to see that we could have found a safer place.  It's so easy to second guess.  It's so easy to say what if or maybe I could have made better choices or handled it better.  But, sometimes we just have to accept that perhaps we aren't used to storms.
• Sometimes we have no choice.  We aren't in a position where we can take shelter from the storm, so what we need to do is find the safest place within the actual storm (the eye).  In other words, there are no great choices, so we have to choose the best of all bad options.
• After the storm has passed and you've had time to survey the damage you have a choice how to view it.
• You could play the role of the victim and say poor me and wallow in the storm. (self-pity)
• You could play the role of the martyr/hero and say no biggie and pretend the storm didn't happen.  (denial)
• You could play the thoughtful one and say that the storm was dangerous and destructive.  I have to find a way to pick up the mess it left and mourn the damage that was done and get to the place where I need to be.  (realist/healthy).  

If you are old enough, life will throw storms your way.  If we open our minds and hearts to the lessons and God's wisdom, we can learn from storms and prepare better for the next ones.  We can find takeaways from the storm and not be stuck in the damage of the storm (self-pity).

We have our roles, see  Main in Motion.  Storms can actually clarify our roles.  We just have to not let ourselves be caught up in the storm itself and be destroyed.

Fear of losing or failure that keeps us in bondage.

When I wrote this on 8/10/15, I was reading an article online about a guy who got fed up with Michael Brown first anniversary protesters  who were blocking the highway on I70 into St. Charles, MO.  He just slowly drove through, carrying a few protesters with him until they were sensible enough to jump off the car and get out of the way.  I said that if a few more people would do that, that traffic would quickly clear.   Regarding that story, one commentator said, "One tried[to push through]. They kicked in his van doors. He made it through. Probably not worth the cost."  Maybe it was, maybe it wasn't?  However, the driver had a conviction in his heart.  He wasn't trying to mow down the protesters.  I sincerely doubt it.  I believe he was like why are you mistreating me, disrespecting my need to go home to my family and take care of my needs at home?  I believe it was a move of disgust.  More or less he was saying, look, you are aiming at the wrong target.  If you do not like policies, do not attack the people who are just trying to earn a living and get by,  Instead protest those who are responsible for deciding/enforcing policies.

My thought was the protesters were purposely creating an injustice to protest what they saw as an injustice.  I thought, you know, the guy who moved through the protesters, whether wise or not, had taken a stand.  He was brave.  He could have just accepted the disrespect of blocking him and his need to get where he was going, but he choose not to.  It got me to thinking that perhaps most people aren't willing to take a chance, accept a risk as they feel like they have 'too much to lose'.

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Most people spend their lives working hard to build up things for ourselves.

• Career
• Savings/Investments
• Property - Auto/Home/Electronics/Other Items
• Family relationships
• Friendships

We remember how long and how much effort it takes to build each of those.  Though we don't like to admit it, we know on a certain level how hard it is to keep what we've build.  They take plenty of time, plenty of nurturing, plenty of devotion.

For most people, there is a time in their life in which one or more of these things are threatened.   We react in what we perceive is the rationale or 'sensible' way to protect that which we have built.  Most of the time, we are probably right.   However, there is a time and a place to let go.

A few examples:

• Letting go of unhealthy relationships that are there out of convenience or just for show.
• Letting go of property you can't maintain.
• Letting go of a job or career which is causing you to sacrifice too much of yourself--up to and including your principles.
• Letting go of a little bit of money to help another in need.
• Letting go of a fear of being criticized/ostracized/harmed for standing up for your principles.

I think there are times in which we are so afraid to lose too much or even everything, that we do not do or say what we need to do.  That is out of fear, we stay silent and don't stand up for what is right.  I haven't conquered fear completely, but I used to live in fear.  Fear of losing everything.  When I did actually lost everything, I realized that I didn't die.  I realized that it was actually freeing.  I was free of the bondage of trying to hold onto everything.  I started speaking my mind more freely.  I started to think outside the box more, I started to consider things more from a point of what is the best or right thing to do vs. what is best for me.

I still have points in which I wish I could be more brave, but it's a process.  It's a process that requires a strengthening and reaffirmation of faith.  It requires us to see things through His eyes, not our own.  I am far from that point and God never expects us to be perfect, but He wants us to strive to be more like he is more Christlike.  I obviously speak of this from a Christian faith, but my brethren of different faith can adapt this same idea to their own I think.

I'm not suggesting that we just recklessly stand up for what is important to us.  Just like you don't take a butcher's knife out to make a make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, you don't make a big stand at the wrong time.  From what I see, it is more of a mindset.  The mindset that when the time is right, you have to be willing to let go and put what is right over what is convenient even when the cost seems prohibitive.

Pain is a gateway...

When we think about pain, we tend to focus on well, the pain of pain.  We focus on it is as an unfair negative in our life.  Something we are better off completely avoiding.  But is it?  I'm not suggesting that we strive to achieve or feel as much pain as possible, but rather we perhaps look at it a different way at times.

These are they ways we think of pain.  These are the ways you might see them in a dictionary definition.

• Physical suffering or distress.
• A distressing sensation in a particular part of the body.
• Mental or emotional suffering or torment.
• Etc.

But really, this is just one side of the pain equation. 

Different ways of looking at pain

• Pain is a sign of progressing
• When we first start working out, we feel a lot of aches and pains.
• To be stronger or faster, we usually have to push through much discomfort.
• Pain reminds us of our humanity.
• If we went through life without pain, without loss, we wouldn't necessarily feel truly alive. 
• Without the lows of pain, we would appreciate the calm, the serene.  We obviously wouldn't be able to measure the good times as easily.
• Without it, we would be robbed of the opportunity to really feel, understand and relate to others.  It is easy to share joy with others as share happy moments.  But often times to truly understand another we have to walk a thousand miles in their shoes.
• Some of my best friends have lost both of their parents and I could say all the comforting words in the world, but until I was in their shoes, I could never relate to them completely.
• In this way, we have the opportunity to give a gift back to others.  Sure we can laugh with others, but it is in the moments we listen to, look into the eyes of others and say, "I hurt and I understand your hurt." that we show them compassion and love.  
•  In my faith, the Father himself sacrificed his only begotten Son in an act of compassion.  A sacrifice which paid a sin debt that we could never have paid ourselves.  Pain was necessary to pay this sin debt. 
• The Father had the pain of loss.
• The Son endured the pain and torment of our sins.

Those who know me know that I have been blessed/cursed with a certain sensitivity.  This is very constructive in understanding others, but I sometimes feel more than I'd like as well.   As the loses have mounted over the past few years, I realize that pain has instead of destroying me, has in a way made me stronger.  It has opened my eyes and heart in a way that nothing else could have.

The Appeal of Addictions and Hangups

You know how sometimes you are just doing a tedious activity--laundry, mowing grass, running, cooking, etc.  You know one that forces time upon you--time to think, time to ponder.   One day, a few months ago, I was in the middle of such a task and had a profound realization.  I was thinking upon the demons that I have faced in my life as well as observing those in family and friends.  A simple question occurred to me: Why do people get stuck in self-destructive patterns, even when they know better?  These are usually referred to addictions or hangups.

Addictions or hangups are often an escape hatch.  Some things we are escaping from:

•  Facing pain of loss
• Death of a loved one
• Breakup 
• Personal security - resulting from physical, sexual, mental abuse, etc.
• Of a job or career.
•  The drudgery of everyday life--the boredom and grind of being.

How do these hangups manifest themselves in a person with such a personality?  More often than not by 'acting out'.  That could be going to the casino and gambling your paycheck away, going to the bar and drinking ceaselessly, using illicit drugs, seeking meaningless casual relationships to help you forget your troubles or some other destructive pattern.  

These episode are often triggered by something.  Sometimes it can be thinking about your troubles listed above.  Sometimes it can be remembering the 'good times' or high we had running away from them.  In 12 step programs they view common triggers to be HALT--Hunger, Anger, Lonely, Tired.

So, say for example, our hangup is alcohol.   What happens?  Something puts us over the edge and we hit the bottle.  For a time we just feel so much better.  The buzz wears off and often we feel worse with a hangover.  Over time this will destroy our body and liver.  We are drinking 'water', but the water is making us more thirsty and is actually destructive to us.  Same thing with gambling.  For a little bit, the high of winning or at least the 'promise' of winning fills our thirsty soul, but at the end of the day, when we are out of money and cannot pay the mortgage or rent, we have destroyed our security.

 

So why do we keep hitting these things, even in the face destruction that they cause us?  In our sober moments, we may see just how much damage our hangups or addictions have cost us, yet they still persist.

So, it occurred to me.  Once a trigger has reeled us in and the addictive behavior has taken hold, it is like water to a thirsty soul.  Our soul is hurting and it demands water to quench it, only the water is our hangup.  Think of it this way, you are dehydrated and you see a glass of water with ice.  Your body screams out to you to drink it.  Only, imagine the same scenario, except that the water has some salt in it.  If you have a deep thirst and have no other sources of water or fluid, you see the salty water, know that it has salt in it, but your heart says, dern it I'm thirsty.  So, you drink it anyway.  For a moment, you might feel a little better, but ultimately, you will become more dehydrated.  

Overcoming hangups and addictions requires a recognition that we are not dying of thirst, that the water that you'd drink is water that would never quench the type of thirst you have anyhow and seeking alternative ways of quenching the thirst.

Man in Motion, Carpe Diem, Lose Yourself, Don't Look Back: what it all means.

It's funny sometimes you turn on the radio and you hear a song that you've heard countless time and it speaks to you in a way that it never has before.  Today--July 9th, 2015, I heard St. Elmo's Fire (Man in Motion) and it got me to want to step outside myself.  It got me a little fired up.  Man in Motion was about the story of Rick Hansen and his world tour on behalf of the disabled.

In the wiki page for him, it is said about him that:
--
In 1980, fellow British Columbian and Canadian athlete Terry Fox, who had lost a leg to bone cancer, undertook the Marathon of Hope, intending to run across Canada from Newfoundland to Vancouver Island to raise awareness for cancer research. He made it from St. John's, Newfoundland, to Thunder Bay, Ontario, before a cancer recurrence forced him to stop, about half of the way through his journey. Inspired by Terry's courage, Hansen decided to undertake a similar journey to prove the potential of people with disabilities and to inspire a more accessible world. But his planned path was far more ambitious: he planned to circle the world in his wheelchair.
--

Back to the memes and sayings--what do all these things have in common:

In all these memes and songs, we are exhorted to reach for a 'higher place' or calling.  But what does that mean when we are underneath the fallen debris and difficulties of life and what is a 'higher place'?

To me, a 'higher place' is the potential we have always had locked inside us, but were blocked from approaching it.  What are the steps to reaching a higher place?

• Recognizing that we aren't where we could or should be.
• It is hard to achieve a greater purpose when you are don't realize or are in denial about where you are relative to your potential.
• I believe that most people know on some level that they can do more than they are doing now.  This self-awareness I believe leads to stress, anxiety and often taking 'self-medicating' steps to deal with it.  For example, if you are the underachiever relative to your group, class or family--your circle--and you know that you are as capable as other in your circle are, it is hard to escape or miss it.  This often leads to taking steps to 'cope' with your perceived underachievement
• Having a mentor, counselor or close friend to relate to and to confer with can help us to visualize goals.

• Wanting to achieve a higher purpose.
• Not everyone wants to or sees the need or benefit of a higher purpose. Sometimes it takes a bad situation or circumstance to wake us up to where we need to go or that we do need to work on a higher purpose.
• “Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them.” ― Henry David Thoreau, Civil Disobedience and Other Essays

• Having or recognizing goal(s).
• In order to reach for higher you have to recognize a suitable or 'reachable' goal(s).
• Sometimes these goals are recognized in early life.  Sometimes they are recognized in later life.  
• Sometimes these goals are not recognized all at once, but rather in steps.   Though we tend to prefer understanding the big picture all at once.
• Effectively this implies long-term goals which house short and medium term goals.
• It's important not to get discouraged when the goal(s) haven't become completely obvious at once.
• This can require us to learn or practice patience.
• Goals can be diverse in nature.
• They can be professional goals.
• They can be personal goals.
• They can be athletic goals.
• They can be intellectual goals.
• They can be spiritual goals (or all goals can have a spiritual element to them).
• They can involve a clear winner.
• They can involve where everyone is a winner (betterment of society).
• They can be goals that focus on bettering oneself.
• They can be goals that focus on bettering lives of others.

• Obstacles to the goal(s)
• Important to recognize them.  If you can't put your finger on what is blocking you, it is hard to remove the blocks.
• All obstacles do not have to be overcome or conquered at once.  As a matter of fact, trying to do that can often lead to discouragement.
• Important to understand the type or nature of the obstacles.
• Unavoidable life circumstances get in the way.
• Death of a family member, job loss, etc.
• These often require time and processing.  It is important to allow yourself a break for these, but not to forget the endgame.
• Unforced errors/poor choices  (purposeful or unintentional)
• Can be demotivating or distracting. 
• We need to recognize that the errors don't define us, UNLESS we allow them to.
• We need to avoid pinning the blame on others for why we are not where we need to be.  We need to recognize our role in this process.
• We need to not let these become an excuse or define us.
• Setbacks
• These are inevitable.
• Once again, they don't need to define us.
• Realization that the status quo is so much easier usually.
• As they say, any goal worth having will not be easy to achieve.
• Often times the status quo takes no effort.
• Anyone can fail, all you have to do is not even try.  Then failure is guaranteed.
• As Imagine Dragons says in It's Time, "The path to heaven runs through miles  of clouded hell right to the top."
• Faith being weak/doubting ourselves.
• We have to recognize that while God rewards those who reward themselves, He won't usually have achievement or success come easy.  
• We have to push on towards are goals, but remember that He is ultimately in control and can help us to move mountains if we ask Him.
• Feelings as if we can't change and/or what difference does it make what we do.
• It is important to recognize this negative self-talk and to replace it with positive self-talk.  Not pie-in-the-sky, delusional or completely unrealistic, but still positive.
• Sometimes we are our own worst enemy.

Achieving a higher purpose is not for the faint and often times requires a lot of sacrifice with little reward (at least at first).  But, it is important to focus on the One that created us in His own image and realize that God doesn't give us more than we can handle.  We just have to do our best and then leave it in His hands.

 

Some journeys are meant to be traveled alone, but with faith they aren't truly alone

I was talking to my fiance last night and she expressed concern for a family member's well-being.  Those who know what I am talking about will know what I mean.  But, to those who don't just say a prayer.

Anyway, unfortunately, life was humming along until 2009.   I'm not saying it was humming along great or that it was problem free--in some ways the problems were hidden.  Anyway, if you'd have told me that next 6 years would be a complete shakeup, yet I'd survive, I'd have thought you were nuts.  But that's just what happened.

It's hard seeing a loved one hurting, especially when it is a situation beyond their control.  Sometimes, we just want to reach in and help them out or point them to an easy solution.  But, sometimes there isn't an easy solution. Sometimes, we just want to find the right words to say, but sometimes there aren't the right words to say.   That's the perspective of the witness to the loved one who is hurting.   It's a helpless feeling...

When we are hurting--whether it is heath issues, the loss of a loved one, the destruction of a marriage, the loss of full-time custody, the loss of our beloved residence, etc--we sometimes wonder when the good times will come back (or if they ever will). Sometimes, like Christ we have to bear our cross and often we have to bear it alone.  We should remember that He bore the weight of world on his shoulders.  He suffered temptations, He suffered pain, He suffered heartache, He suffered a death of the flesh and he at the moment of His greatest suffering, He suffered separation from the Father.  Yet, despite it all, He lives!  

This is not to diminish and say our present suffering is nothing comparatively, but rather to give us hope if the Son endured and came out triumphant, perhaps with the Father's help, we can too.

At the moment of His greatest anguish, His disciples could not be there for Him.  They were weak in the flesh.  They could not stay awake for Him and they were frightened to identify with Him.  In a way, they didn't have what it took to be there for Him.  Often we have those moments too.  We feel alone and we feel that no one in our circle can understand our present suffering.  Perhaps that is true, but knowing, just as there was tomorrow with Jesus during his present suffering, we can rest assured that better days are ahead if we endure.

We may feel like the song below, especially when there is no one there who can truly understand, but if we put our faith in God, He will hope us through the tough times.  It hurts to travel alone, but sometimes it is a necessary self discovery step and if we rely on the Father, we are never really truly alone.

Life's Illusions: Only just a dream.

A number of years ago, an idea popped into my head.   What happens if the life we think we are leading is all part of someone's complex dream?  In other word's, to myself, I feel I am real and self-aware, but what happens if my reality is really just part of someone's dream?  The Matrix sort of dealt with this idea.

I'm sure I wasn't the first one to ponder this thought and I am sure I won't be the last.   But, I digress.

Years later, after a series of setbacks that started with my mom nearly dying, my life as I knew it unraveled: job loss, marriage breakup, death of my closest brother, house on the way to being lost, loss of full-time parenthood, etc.   By this time, my now ex had moved out and cleaned out much/most of the items of value in the house.  A dear friend of mine walked through the house for the first time with me and noted that the house lost it's soul.  I guess in a way, the house was still standing, but the 'home' had died.  As I walked out back and noticed the patio, grill and backyard and started to walk out into the driveway, a strange feeling came over me.  I had the sense that my marriage had been an illusion.  The life I had known it was an illusion.  It wasn't the most healthy marriage from the beginning in hindsight, but sometimes you don't know these things until much later.

No one is perfect, save one.  In that vein, you bring your strengths and weaknesses or flaws and good points into a relationship.  In hindsight, our flaws clashed heavily.  We went in with a fairy tale of how we'd 'survived' dysfunctional in the past and were past that.  What we didn't realize is how mistaken that was.

--

This last year was pretty dramatic in the space of about a year. I had a friend, my mom and my dad die--two being unexpected.  In a certain way, this has seemed surreal to me.  It's like a few years ago I had my full nuclear family, now it is almost cut in half.   I'm still getting used to that.

---

I remember an episode of Married with Children called "Teacher's Pet".  In the episode, poor Bud finally seems to have luck with dating.  He has a date with his substitute teacher and a classmate.  In typical Bundy fashion, this situation crashes.   First he confides in his dad about the dilemma, letting his father know the teacher is 40.   Next day at school he finds out that the substitute teacher ran off with a football player.  The classmate then dumps him as he is thought to be no longer desirable after being dumped by the teacher.   As if it isn't bad enough at that point, his dad alerted the authorities to the inappropriate relationship.  However, the teacher had been replaced by an old woman.   His dad, mistaking the new teacher for the original one, tells her to stay away from his son and rips her telling her the only 40 associated with her was 1840--that being the year she would have been born.   The old woman is then hauled off by the police.  Bud, being humiliated, decides in his mind that this is all a bad dream. He figures that if he drops his pants in front of class it will shock him into waking up.  Unfortunately, it doesn't work that way and bud finds out it isn't a dream much to his further humiliation.

Bud: I know! I'll prove it's a dream. I'll take down my pants and it'll be so embarrassing, I'll wake up.

[Bud lowers his pants to the shock of entire class]

Bud: I'm even dreaming that I ran out of underwear.

Teacher's pet

The Married with Children episode was funny, but it did underscore a larger point.  When faced with a painful reality, we can either face it head on, pretend it isn't so and/or compound it.  Bud, seemed to pretend it wasn't so and compounded it at the same time, not a small feat.

---

Life sometimes hums along merrily for a long time and then boom, it changes.  One day we have the car, job, our health and that of loved one and then in what seems like a short time, a major shift occurs.  It seems surreal.   Immediacy and permanence of the change can make us question was what was before real?  I think the answer is yes and no.   Yes it was, but our perception of it being permanent or unchangeable was an illusion.

Sometimes, we just have to take a deep breath and understand that nothing in this life is forever.  We enjoy the good things when we can, endure the bad thing as they come, mourn the losses when necessary and we hold onto that which never fails.

Psalm 73:25-26New International Version (NIV)

25 Whom have I in heaven but you?
    And earth has nothing I desire besides you.
26 My flesh and my heart may fail,
    but God is the strength of my heart
    and my portion forever.

In the meantime, we I realized a long time ago that for most this life is full of struggles and if we don't have a Higher Power, a greater calling, a Hope, then it can all seem hard to swallow.  This is why sometimes people seek the unhealthy 'highs'.

I guess if I would give advice to my daughter it would be this:

• Live your life with the Hope in Jesus.
• Live a purpose driven life.
• Enjoy the good times, realizing they that they don't always last.
• Be brave and face what life throws you knowing you don't have to face it alone. 
• Be true to yourself. 

Cheers.