The Past

To Stumble Through Life

Posted by James Browning on November 18, 2012
Posted in: Denial, Seeing clearly, The Past. Tagged: , , .

Denial is similar to suppression, in that the person knows what he or she is feeling. In this case, the choice is to insist that the issue and resulting feelings do not exist. This is a very willful response: “I refuse to admit that this is real.” For example there are many people who can’t admit they ever have feelings of resentment toward their parents. Very likely, they have convinced themselves of this. But we all have resented our parents at some time, for real or imagined wrongs. Simple denial can produce very serious problems. Yet it is possible to admit and overcome such resentments. We can discover the source of the emotion, analyze it, learn to forgive our parents, and go on without lives. This simple “denial of reality” can produce serious emotional problems. From “The Enabler: When Helping Harms The Ones You Love” by Angelyn Miller

A man who denies his past
is a man who truly
denies himself a future,
for he refuses to know himself,
and to deny knowledge of oneself
is to stumble through life
as handicapped as the blind mute.
Tobsha Lerner

Behaviors of His Parents

Posted by James Browning on November 16, 2012
Posted in: Controlling, Seeing Myself Clearly, The Past. Tagged: , , .

Often times the dysfunctional man is repeating some of the behaviors of his parents. The behaviors of the codependent started off as defense mechanisms in order to protect him in the environment he was raised in. Unfortunately, when a person escapes from the destructive environment, he is left with a lot of unresolved issues. These issues tend to carry over into his later relationships if he does not resolve them. The symptoms of codependency in men are of a wide variety. They range from having the appearance of being a servant to having the appearance of selfishness and abusiveness. Often times, codependent men have poor communication skills. They are also insecure. They usually have low self-worth. Other codependency symptoms are a little less common among cases. One of the more common symptoms of codependency is controlling behaviors. Codependent people often try to control everything in their lives. http://about-addiction.com/addiction/dual-diagnosis/codependency/codependency-men/

When you are out of control,
someone is ready to take over.
Toba Beta

Short As A Happy Day

Posted by James Browning on October 9, 2012
Posted in: Childhood, Dysfunctional relationships, The Past. Tagged: , , .

Why isn’t there a commandment to “honor thy children” or at least one to “not abuse thy children”? The notion that we must honor our parents causes many people to bury their real feelings and set aside their own needs in order to have a relationship with people they would otherwise not associate with. Parents, like anyone else, need to earn respect and honor, and honoring parents who are negative and abusive is not only impossible but extremely self-abusive. Perhaps, as with anything else, honoring our parents starts with honoring ourselves. For many adult children, honoring themselves means not having anything to do with one or both of their parents. From “Divorcing a Parent” by Beverly Engel

Child, child, love while you can
The voice and the eyes and the soul of a man,
Never fear though it break your heart -
Out of the wound new joy will start…
Child, child, love while you may,
For life is short as a happy day;
Never fear the thing you feel -
Only by love is life made real…
From “Child, Child” by Sara Teasdale

Stuck In the Labyrinth

Posted by James Browning on September 26, 2012
Posted in: The Future, The Past, Understanding. Tagged: , , .

The past doesn’t exist. There is nothing to be sorry for. Today is when we start to live. Look… look at the sea. The sea has no past. It is just there. It will never ask us to explain. The stars, the moon are there to light our way, to shine for us. What do they care what might have happened in the past? They are accompanying us, and are happy with that; can you see them shine? The stars are twinkling in the sky; would they do that if the past mattered?  Illdefonso Falcones

You spend your whole life
stuck in the labyrinth,
thinking how you’ll escape one day,
and how awesome it will be,
and imagining that future keeps you going,
but you never do it.
You just use the future
to escape the present.
John Green

Until the Road Becomes Filled with Curves

Posted by James Browning on August 22, 2012
Posted in: Controlling, Dysfunctional relationships, Seeing Myself Clearly, The Past. Tagged: , , .

For years of my adult life I was the consummate advice giver, whether requested or not. It went hand in hand with my tendency to boss around the woman in my life at the time. Why I thought I always knew what everyone else should do I will never exactly know, except that it’s a defining of characteristic of a codependent. Outwardly I also exhibited what appeared to be great self-control, but it was to a large degree a bogus projection. Control, control, control is the hallmark of men like me suffering with codependency. The behavior comes from believing controlling everyone will keep me from getting hurt. That’s a house of cards that began to fall down eventually when it began to show that I couldn’t control myself. Over time bad habits and behavior spilled out into the light of day to show me as only having been “in control of being out of control”. Like a car doing a hundred, one can only control it until the road becomes filled with curves. Crash!

You cannot control what happens to you,
but you can control your attitude toward
what happens to you, and in that,
you will be mastering change
rather than allowing it to master you.
Brian Tracy

A Self-Protective Bad Habit

Posted by James Browning on August 20, 2012
Posted in: Getting Better, Pain, The Past. Tagged: , , .

I used to get mad way TOO much, far too easily. I wasn’t angry all the time, but embers of past pain needed little to flame into a blaze. My thinking was it was a natural tendency for me from either heredity or environment and not in my control. Clear in memory is being told numerous times I had a bad temper and needed to do something about it. When one is ‘in-control of being out-of-control” such things are impossible to see. What I know now is the vast majority of my anger was very old and just kept recycling up within me over and over. Like a lion with a thorn stuck in its paw, when pressure was applied the pain came and anger followed that was stored within me form a long, long time ago. Once I began to see  my behavior in the present had a lot to do with what was deeply imbedded from my distant past, I was finally able to see and overcome my volatile temperament which was actually a self-protective bad habit.

The more anger towards the past
you carry in your heart,
the less capable you are
of loving in the present.
Barbara De Angelis

The Fearful Past

Posted by James Browning on August 19, 2012
Posted in: Forgiveness, Learning From the Past, The Past. Tagged: , , .

When we think we have been hurt by someone in the past, we build up defenses to protect ourselves from being hurt in the future. So the fearful past causes a fearful future and the past and future become one. We cannot love when we feel fear…. When we release the fearful past and forgive everyone, we will experience total love and oneness with all. Gerald G. Jampolsky

Forgiveness does not change the past,
but it does enlarge the future.
Paul Boese

Half the Cure Is Knowing

Posted by James Browning on August 6, 2012
Posted in: Childhood, Learning From the Past, The Past. Tagged: , , .

Now a few years into codependency recovery it’s clear to see in the past how I was controlled by what was “outside me” to a large degree. That’s ironic since I thought then I was in control. In one of his books Dr. Charles Whitfield calls this way of being as “addiction to looking elsewhere”. It is rooted in childhood. My external focus came about as a means of avoiding pain in my inner world while growing up in an out-of-control dysfunctional family. Then a lot of my thinking was how to avoid upsetting the adults in control of me. What was a survival skill in youth became difficulty as an adult. I was a grown man but still acting like a child, but could not see it since such behavior seemed “normal” to me. Then I never understood why others might say things like “you’re acting like a child”, “quit being a baby” or “you’re acting like you’re six years old”. I get it now and know they were correct. Half the cure is knowing.

Immaturity
is the incapacity
to use one’s intelligence
without the guidance of another.
Immanuel Kant

Being Stung to Death

Posted by James Browning on August 2, 2012
Posted in: Living in "Now", Resentment, The Past. Tagged: , , .

Resentment is nothing more than compulsive attachment to a set of memories. If you peek through the window of the mind factory when you feel resentful, you would see the production line turning out the same emotion-charged memory over and over: “He did that to me in 1983, he did that to me in 1983…” You are dwelling on something that took place in the past – or, more likely, on how you misunderstood that event and reacted to your misunderstanding. When you keep pumping attention into an event this way, even a limp little memory gets blown up into a big balloon of hostility. If you can withdraw your attention, the balloon is deflated. There is nothing more to it. Brooding on memories not only serves no earthly purpose, it can go on until your mind is so filled with balloons that there is no room for the joy of living. From “Conquest of Mind” by Eknath Easwaran

To carry a grudge is like
being stung to death by one bee.
William H. Walton

The Only Prison

Posted by James Browning on July 12, 2012
Posted in: Living in "Now", The Future, The Past. Tagged: , , .

In recent times I have come to realize I am too darn serious much of the time. Of course, I laugh at a good joke, flash a smile and interact with others. However, when left to myself the expression I exhibit is overly solemn, even grim I have been told. Once awareness of being this way began, sorting out why came soon after. Simply, I  get wrapped up in thought, focused inwardly and far too often am “future-tripping” or “wallowing in the past” with little awareness in the present moment. When I allow myself to get caught up in either the “before or after of now” what comes is either some sort of fear or regret to pull me inside myself. I am learning to mentally say “stop doing it” and reset myself to the current moment when I need to and guess what: I am not just happier on the inside but am told I look it on the outside a lot more too!

Self is the only prison
that can ever bind the soul.
Henry Van Dyke