Deep Calleth to Deep

 "Deep calls to deep..." Psalm 42:7

There are many stages and steps after a breakup.  In following mine, I will be saying nothing negative about her for several reasons, but I will be speaking about myself and my thoughts and feelings on breakups and restarts in general.  I was holding off doing so in part because I felt that being MYSELF must have led to this end.  So, doubting myself I withdrew for a while.  However, especially in the past few days, I have begun to realize how dumb that would be.  

It was a lesson I learned many years ago in context of other ended relationships or dating attempts, and I had forgotten it, til now.  Basically, someone's inability to appreciate the actions, manners, and qualities that make you.. you.. is not a reflection on you but on them.  I do not mean that in a negative way.  What I mean is that it only reveals that if they cannot appreciate you for being you, you would feel always like you had to change to be something that they can appreciate, and very likely I am certain that the feeling is true in reverse as relates to them feeling how they have to be for me.  Further, it would lead to both feeling the other is failing to appreciate them, when the other is simply being themselves.

So, there is no reason to hide myself, especially after someone fails to appreciate it.  Why would I change who I am, now... when I am on my own?  I am a deep person.  That's who I have always been.  I write deep blogs, ponder concepts and emotions and life.  I write emotional texts and poems and pick emotional songs.  That's what i do.  Like many of the musicians of the day, I expresss myself in text and texts and more.  I capture beauty in photos. I watch emotional movies and shows and cry at times or celebrate in joy.  I am by nature a deep person, and to limit that and curl up into a shell would be to eliminate ME.

In the LGBTQ communities, they promote pride in being yourself, and I think that is a very good message.  However, it is not limited to their groups, alone.  Everyone should love themselves for being themselves.  It was part of a prior post I did about relationships, in fact... where I said you should love them, love yourself, and love your unity.  I do have to admit upon reflection that I gave up quite a bit of myself in the attempt, because those things were not applicable or good for the union.  But, now, I am going back and reclaiming those things that were lost.

So, love yourself.  I started to say love yourself, til someone else chooses you for you.  But, that doesn't matter and shouldn't change anything.  Love yourself, ETERNALLY.  Others will do what they will do.  The saying is that a person is the sum of the 5 closest people to them, which is why breakups can take adjustment to recenter yourself.  However, if you have a solid love of yourself, then you can be one of the 5, and that will help you carry on and grow, afterwards. 

The Good in This Moment

I saw a meme that I shared, today, that said that if you are only looking at what you lack, then even your past reflections will see absense, only.  Instead, you should look at the good that exists.  I think that is a very good challenge for myself.  There was good in the past...lots of it.  There will be good in the future.. including some of the good of the past.  However, those are other posts.  For this one, I am going to focus, exclusively, on the good that I have in this moment...

 - I am alive, and therefore have hope of a future.

- I am able to see, hear, walk and run, and enjoy other activities of a functional body.

- I have two sources of income at the present moment and until the end of September.  If that remains to be true, I will have over 10 thousand saved up, after paying off debts, as well.

- I have a car that I own, without having

 to make payments.

- I have more books than I can read in several years.

- Even in my current extended stay, I have free cable, a kitchenette, lots of clothes and items that would take several carloads to move; and I plan to relocate to a better residence, soon.

- I have a very nice smartphone and laptop computer.

- I have a very welcoming church with good teachers and many friends.

- I live in a city that has a great variety of activities that I like from baseball to the arts to nice paths to walk to concerts and more.

- I have the ability to have a wonderful connection to my mother, my sister, her kids, and their kids. 

- I can listen to music, every night.

- I have love for myself, hope for the future, and faith in the grace of God and the outcome of effort.

There is much more that I can write, and I will keep reflecting on more examples.  However, I have a good life, that many would only wish to have.  May I be gracious and giving to those without, as I learn to be happy in the moment, even as I continue to strive for more happiness to come.

Know Thyself, Love Thyself

One thing I've been learning for years is how important it is to know yourself.  It is important for several reasons, not the least of which is that you need to understand yourself in order to love yourself.  But, it is also important in things like career goals, seeking and operating in relationships, and more.  There are several ways of understanding yourself, and I will discuss a few with myself as an example.  However, one way that you do NOT understand yourself is feeling you should be like someone else.  Your journey is your journey.  You were made a miracle, whether that be from God or from just the process of living on the planet.  There was a line in the book that I was reading last night that comes to mind.  In Reaper Man by Terry Pratchett, dead but not dead character Poons is trying to understand how cities would develop things to protect themselves, like every animal that develops poisons or spike or other things.  In the book, it says, "Here and now, that's probably me.  Spikey old Windle Poons."  We can become a defense of others by way of our empathy, our history, our convictions, or more.

The first way to know thyself, I touched on in the last blog.  What makes you happy?  Determine what it is that makes you feel joy or peace or love or more.  Often times, this is a process of experimentation.  Don't be scared to take chances to learn about yourself.  Don't be afraid of failure in that process.  It is a much happier path to try something and fail and have the memories of trying than to not try at all.  And, it is important to give others the grace and room to try and fail, as well.  I don't necessarily mean trying people in relationships but allow them to try and change in becoming themselves.  A good analogy is a woman standing at the closet saying... this outfit?  No.. this one?  Ok.   It doesn't change who they are as a person, nor does allowing them to change jobs, ideas, music styles and more.

There are certain personality tests that I would recommend that you try to understand yourself and what you need  When you do determine that, don't ignore it.  Don't say... well... I know I need this and I'm not getting it, but I will just push that down and ignore it.  Trust me, it doesn't stay buried for long.  As an example, I am an INFJ writer.  I needed to add that writer part, because it has been important to me all my life.  Like many of the great writers and poets over history, I express my feelings in words.  I loved the series Dickinson on Apple TV about Emily Dickinson.  She was not well acknowledged in her day, but her reflections on life and love and more would become very important to so many, afterwards.   From my earliest days, I've been a writer, whether it be the school and college newspaper, newsletters I would write and print and distribute on my own, books I have written, and several blogs over time, including this one that is currently influencing over 2k per week.  It is because I need to be communicating my thoughts and feelings in order to develop them.  If I cannot communicate them with someone, it stunts my mental or emotional growth.  Though, I have learned to put curbs on what I say and to whom I say things to protect others in that process.

An INFJ is very rare.. about 1 percent of the population fits into this box.  Rare is not bad.  A diamond is rare.. and valuable.  An INFJ is introverted.  While I need to express out loud, I prefer small setting where I feel secure when I am out and about... also a common quality of writers.  We like to observe and reflect on the world and then write down what we observe is true, but I'm getting ahead of myself.  We are intuitive.    We have developed a sense of how someone can be, based on our experiences.  So, it usually doesn't take long to get a sense of how someone is.  However, there are exceptions to the rule, and it is important to take time to challenge your perceptions, as well. You may not know their whole story, and it can take time to get that understanding.  Someone that is homeless may be bitter upon meeting them.  But, if you get to know their story, it can lend to deeper meaning and new ways to love them.  An INFJ is feeling.  Yes.. 100 percent.  I interpret everything from the perspective of the heart.  Details are less important to me than meaning.  Accuracy is less important than attempts.  In fact, part of my intuitive analysis of someone is very often sizing up how much they care.  If someone is seen to care a lot, they are VERY attractive to me.  However, someone of a different personality type would not necessarily feel the same about it.  I am reminded of a scene in one of the Spiderman incarnations where the girl says, "Don't make promises that you can't keep, Peter."  He replied, "But, those are the best kind."  I've often identified a lot with the Spiderman character.  With great power comes great responsibility is very true.  Finally, an INFJ is judging, though I have got INFP at times for perceiving, as well.  Judging does not mean finding fault in others in this structure.  It means it is important for me to have thought things out, planned things out, and have some type of feeling of stability and direction for my day.  It does not mean that I cannot change things, but a day without a plan is chaos to me.  We also tend to be idealistic, deep thinking, compassionate, and driven by a vision.  However, we also reflect on the past and struggle with doubt, loss, and more, as well.

So, knowing these things about myself, it helps me to love those qualities in myself, even when others do not.  It also helps me to understand what type of person I would be needing in a relationship, as they would need to appreciate or make space for those qualities in msyelf, too.  I forget the source, but there is a quote that says something like if a fish spends its life trying to compare itself to a tree, it will spend its whole like feeling like a failure ... or something like that.  You are good, as you have been made.  It is a gift to the world that you are like you are.  So this week, spend time leaning about yourself and loving yourself for being yourself.  You are worth it. 

Rebuilding the Foundation

What is your foundation?  

I've lived a long life and have experienced a lot of change over the decades.  I won't be going into the details in this post and plan to try to get away from mentioning specific details about others in my posts, particularly because life tends to change, so much. However,  my life has generally had a lot of changes in it.  So, while I have many different types of experiences and things I have learned over my life (see my updated About Me page), one thing that has been very true in almost every year of my life is my ability to bounce back from being broken down.. sometimes down to almost nothing.  I guess you could say I took the book of Job and made it a lifestyle.  But, going through all of that, I have learned many things that are important in rebuilding your foundation that might be useful to others.

1.  Aside from God, your foundation is YOU.  I'd even wager that even God would have you make your foundation be yourself, as he knows that you must develop that perspective.  Your foundation is not your friends.  I have, over my life, had SO many friends that came and went, either from my moving, their moving, people getting married, political differences, and much more.  Your foundation is not your church, though church is important.  Again, I've been in many churches.  Some are only there for you when you are doing things for them, though there are very good exceptions I have seen.  Your foundation is not your romantic partner.  Again, those do not always remain, and people are always changing.  Your foundation is not your work or your industry.  I've been at so many jobs, where you work so hard for them that you are facing great stress, only to have them move on to another worker to use and forget you, after you have left.  After all is said and done at the end of your life, you have you sitting there.  As you look back, you will be struck with the question... did I do enough to love myself in this life, or did I just give it all away.  Loving others IS important, but loving yourself was the first presumption Jesus gave, when He gave the love commands, 

2.  Your foundation are the bits and pieces of things that make you happy.  There was a famous author that told people to follow their bliss, as a means of finding out what they should do.  This was not a path to seeking a life of pleasure and avoiding responsibility, because often what you desire comes with work.  But, you should not be following the desires of others as a guidepost to your own life.  What do YOU like to do, music you like to hear, things at which you like to see, shows you like to watch, books you like to read, hobbies, sports, etc.  What moments in your life do you feel... ahhh, I'm in heaven, right now.  Those things are signs to you to follow, as you chart your course in life.  If you do not know the answer to that question, that is a sign you need to take some personal reflection time.

3.  You never lose everything.  I know it can not feel like that.  You feel like you have nothing left in the world and cannot imagine how you will rebuild.  But, I've felt that way and rebuilt, many times.  All you do is lose distractions.  You lose the things that cluttered your mind or path.  You learned what is important to yourself.  I know there has been change, but change is not death.  It is rebirth, too.  In Tarot, the death card is both the end of one thing and the beginning of something new.  You can always begin, again.

4.  Your past is not gone.  It is etched, forever, in time.  The good that you had in the past is still good... and in the past.  You may revisit some of those joys in the future, and often they can come in new ways.  However, those moments of joy and love and more that you had... were good and joyful and loving.. in the past.  They still remain so, in the past.  More importantly, the YOU that existed in that time was good, and you were not foolish to be how you were in those times.  You did a good joy with what you knew to do, at the time, and should be proud of yourself.  

5.  Lastly, one of the most important parts of your foundation cannot be seen.  It is the invisibles that make you who you are.  It is your love, creativity, curiosity, passion, wonder, hope, and more.  If you don't bring those into your future, you will be leaving some of the best parts of you behind.

So, take time to assess your foundation.  Do you have work to do on it?  Good.  In my opinion it will always be changing and should always take time of work.  But, it will be one of the greatest things to maintain as you channel your way towards a happy life.

Focus on the Good

 "Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened.” - Dr Seuss

This quote is something that I have had a lot of experience with in the past with regards to my wonderful time raising my kids.  Those memories are etched forever in time, pics, and my mind, as well as Facebook memories, very often.  It also applies to my wonderful romance of this year.  Though that is over, it was objectively one of the best times of my life, and I will forever be grateful for the opportunity to have experienced it.  I gained so much and changed so much in my experience with her that I will carry with me into my future paths.  I hope to maintain a connection to her to have future grand memories in the future, as friends as well.  

 However, as I reflected on it all over the past weeks, I realized something that is true by extension.  There is something good to maintain from so much of our lives that we often just sweep under the rug, because those relationships, connections, locations, and more have passed out of our minds.  This week I watched The Arrival, because I remembered the plot that has similarities to Interstellar, as well.  Time passes, and we feel that reality flows with it.  So, if something is not in the present, we conclude those things are no longer worthy or true or real.  We often mourn the loss of those things.  There is some real motivation for the mourning, because we no longer will be experiencing those things.  However, that moment.. those times... had value.  We were happy in them and did grow from them.

I am not saying that they should have remained.  Some things go and some things remain.  Some things just change.  Everyone is responsible for their own path, and no one should be judged for how they choose to live it.  Some people in our past were intentionally harmful to us, and that is something that definitely should not remain.  But, I can think of good experiences and times in each of the states I have lived and with many of the friends I had over those times that were lost to distance, distractions, political differences, and more.

It is easy to feel that your life was either good or bad by focusing on different elements of your past.  If you only look at the outcome of things, it will tend towards bad, because those things have ended.  But, if you focus on the good moments, even in the things that no longer remain, your life can be seen as full of joy.

So, that is my challenge to myself and one that I would give to you.  As things change and hardships come, look for the good.. not only in what remains but what happened along the way.  Be proud of yourself for taking changes and the joys you brought into the lives of others.  Smile at the good chapters in your story, and take faith in yourself that happy chapters will happen, again. 

Feel Your Feelings and Then

Feeling your feelings is important.  It is important to value the feelings of others.  Everyone's feelings are valid.  

Life has taught me that life changes. When life changes, we think we have to understand it to respond to it.  The reality is that we can never fully understand our path or why it changes.  That does not mean you shouldn't have feelings.  But, I would caution you against letting the feelings have the driver's wheel.  

Many times... most times in my experience... this is where you have the most power over your life.  There are pressures on you on how to respond. There are not only emotions but societal norms on how to respond.  Well, the last time I've noticed, society is messed up, and hormones often cause more problems than they resolve.

I am someone that defends freedom, but I've also in the past posted on how true freedom is freedom from yourself... from those natural responses that try to write our script.  After a long life, I've determined that script is rubbish.  So, whenever something happens, I try to pause... reflect.. and then respond appropriately to what I desire for the outcome, not necessarily for my emotional response or even in my own self interest, always.

So, when something happens, I would recommend you feel your feelings offline.  Put away your phone.  Process.  Reason. And, then respond.  I think that is a better chart to a happy outcome.

Off Script

My engagement and relationship is over.  I will do one paragraph on it and then move forward (in writing.. my heart will take time to recover).  There is a line in the movie You've Got Mail where Meg Ryan's character says.. "People are always telling you that change is a good thing. But all they're really saying is that something you didn't want to happen at all... has happened."  This was one of those things for me, and even though I understand and adapt to change (I've had a lot of experience doing that), it will involve a period of re-centering, focus on my positives, and rebirth.  I do not wish her any ill will.  I hope for us both to heal, together, as friends.  The rest of this post will deal with things I've learned from life that relate to change.

Today, my Facebook came up with a reminder of ten years ago and showed a picture of my kids and me.  I do not have the close relationship with them that I did at that time, now.  So, that was depressing.  That disappointment is one of many that I have had over my life, where things did not go as I planned them to go.  Over time, I have got quite skilled at recovery from disappointment or being able to set it aside to keep moving forward.  There is a song about moving on that I  may include in a playlist, shortly, that deals with change in this regard, as well.  There isn't always an easy or sweet outcome to our adventures.  It doesn't detract from the glory of the adventure.  I used to always say that the outcome has nothing to do with the attempt.  If you stay hidden behind walls, you never risk anything and never grow.  That is the worse outcome.  I heard a quote in a song, earlier, that said the amount of the pain is often related to the amount of the love that you put into it.  That has been true for many of my disappointments, over life.  However, I definitely would not have not experienced those moments with my kids and more.  They are some of my highest moments, even if they no longer exist.

I think that in order to operate in our lives, we have to create a script of sorts.  A line requires two points.  We have the first point of where we are.  Then, we say.. this looks like a good place to go.  So, we write a script of how our lives will play out.  It rarely goes according to the script.  And, often, the whole chapter must be concluded to move on to the next part of the story.  Change.. happens.  Our definition of finding happiness, therefore, must not rely upon a specific outcome or a destination but in the moments of joy we find along the journey....  before the script changes.

So, this blog is simply to say that.  Life doesn't have a habit of following our scripts.  It changes, but there can be joys in the sub plots and the theme changes.  To have a happy story is less about getting what you desire and more about enjoying the moments.  Then, when things change, you simply say.. plot twist.  Ok... what's next?