Skip to main content
James Bryer Ph.D.  Softening to LoveServicesJames Bryer Media ResourcesJames Bryer Softening EventsWisdomsAbout James Bryer and Softening to LoveContact James Bryer
Latest Posts
Archive
Categories

.
Wisdoms 
Saturday, July 27 2013

 

 

 

Make Room for Messy

 

Messy life

Messy love

 

Messy me

Messy you

 

Forgive messy

Honor messy

 

Make room.

 

 

Make room

For love

 

Make room

For life

 

All messy

Awe worthy

 

Make room.

Posted by: AT 11:09 pm   |  Permalink   |  Email
Sunday, July 21 2013

 

 

 

       Hearing that I might be looking for quotes to share with you, my friend Richard gave me a beautiful volume, Through God's Eyes, wonderfully organized and annotated by author, Phil Bolsta.  The book brims with over 500 pages of short passages by various spiritual teachers.  Here are three quotes (from pages 56-57) that resonate with me. 

 

 

Seeking Love

 

       "A person desperately searching for love is like a fish desperately searching for water."

                                                         Deepak Chopra

 

 

       "Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all of the barriers within yourself that you have built against it."

                                                    A Course in Miracles

 

       "Love is a state of Being.  Your love is not outside; it is deep within you.  You can never lose it, and it cannot leave you."

                                                        Eckhart Tolle

 

 

       When it comes to love, finding is more fun than searching.  Enjoy!

 

      

 

Posted by: AT 11:06 pm   |  Permalink   |  Email
Sunday, July 14 2013

 

 

Have Fun

 

       Dusty and Lefty, two fictional cowpokes on the NPR radio show A Prairie Home Companion, ended a recent sketch with these words: "If you can't enjoy misery, you've got no business being a cowboy." 

 

       Thursday, after a full day and long week, I went home to mow the lawn.  The day was hot and sticky, and I grumped through most of the mowing.  There was enjoyment to be had, but I missed it – blue sky, a bit of a breeze, flowers blooming, lush and varied shades of green all about, and even some exercise-induced endorphins as I urged the mower up and down our hilly yard. 

 

       I missed an opportunity for conscious choice on Thursday.  For example, I could have acknowledged my discomfort and grumpy mood, stayed there as long as I wanted, and then looked around for what else was present, for something that might feed my spirit.  I could have, and can, make room for both discomfort and enjoyment.

 

       No doubt, you've heard the expression: "Any job worth doing is worth doing well."  Right now, I'm more inclined to say:  "Any job worth doing is worth doing with joy."

 

       Have fun.

 

      

 

      

 

        

 

      

Posted by: AT 10:13 pm   |  Permalink   |  Email
Tuesday, July 09 2013

 

 

Survival Strategies

 

      

       For some time now, I've been listening to myself and others from a curiosity that inquires:  "What did you learn early in life about how to survive in the world?"  Those early rules had value.  They allowed us to belong in the family culture into which we were born.  And, as youngsters, in order to survive we had to belong.

 

       Some kids learn to stay small, to be nice and not threaten anyone.  Others learn to be safe by being tough and fighting for themselves.  Some learn to take care of others and to ignore their own needs – to give and not receive.  Others, responding to scarcity, conclude that giving is losing and that they need to take care of themselves, because no one else will.  Some discover invisibility as a way of being safe.  Others survive by expressing themselves loudly and often.  Many kids learn to mistrust themselves.  Others learn to place trust in external authority.  Still others learn to trust no one. 

 

       Because the rules have survival value, we learn them quickly and don't easily release them.  We attach to these early conclusions about ourselves, about life and about how to survive.  And, because they're so well practiced, our survival strategies soon become automatic, unconscious and as natural as breathing. 

 

        But they don't always feel good.  At some point, usually not too far down the road, the original strategy presents its limitations.  It stops serving us.  Typically, our first response is to shore up the old approach by doing more of the same.  Over time, as we begin to sense our imprisonment, we try breaking the rules in an attempt to free ourselves.  And that's when we feel the fear – a powerful, nameless dread and lack of permission, whose job is to hold us back and keep us in place.  At its deepest level, this fear we can't name is about survival.  And so, of course, we resist like crazy the very growth – and freedom to be – we so deeply desire.

 

       Fortunately, the story does not end there.  Over time, for each of us in our own way and at our own pace, the growth impulse invites us to stretch past the old rules.  We expand our tolerance for the experience of dread.  We don't run from it quite so fast.  We don't return quite so quickly to the "safe" harbor of the old strategies.  Eventually, we come to see the fear for the fiction it is.  We're scared, of course, but not really in danger.   We're just breaking old survival rules and growing into new territory.  

 

       In fits and starts, we make awkward and unsteady, graceful and inspired movements toward freedom, wholeness, and permission to be – movements that take us from survival toward vitality. 

 

       This is hard, heroic work – requiring faith, commitment, persistent mindfulness, and the regular exercise of spiritual muscle.  In my experience, it's an ever-unfolding journey – with no end in sight.

 

 

Posted by: AT 09:53 am   |  Permalink   |  Email

 "James has a very welcoming presence and an easy going demeanor in addition to an excellent sense of humor . We are all free to be our own goofy selves."

    James Bryer - Softening to Love
    copyright 2022 all rights reserved
    Site Design and Hosting By Metaphysical Websites