It's very simple really. You come here and read my writings. You laugh, you cry, you hopefully learn something new and gain a moment of mindfulness. Most importantly, you relate to a fellow human as I struggle along the way.
To make things easy though, I've designed this site into seven different parts, one for each day of the week. Each new week brings a new song lyric that is meaningful to me in some way that I try and turn into a valuable, thought-provoking lesson. The rest of the week is filled with supporting posts, built around the lyrical theme for that week. We start every Sunday and roll through a very special Saturday celebration, each and every week.
Here is what is should look like.
If you're going to stick around for any period of time, you will find out that I am an old 'Head. I enjoyed my college years during the mid-nineties when music was flourishing. I was instantly attracted to the improvisational jam band genre, the gold standard being the Grateful Dead and what was then the still up and coming, Phish. These bands played an important role in my life and my development and I quickly picked up the lingo including to "never miss a Sunday show".
Why, you ask? Because Sunday is for the die-hards and the passionate followers. It usually follows a weekend run at a venue (Friday --> Saturday --> Sunday) and by that third night, the real fans have stuck around. Not the Friday night fly-bys nor the Saturday night specials that squeeze their shows in over a weekend. Sunday is for those that are committed to the band and their music, and quite often they would be rewarded for their persistence.
Sunday shows came to be legendary, at least in the minds of those that attended for the reasons I cited above. Sunday has long been a day of rest and worship. Why not make it a key day in our week as well? A chance to learn something new by looking inward, as well as towards God. Sunday sets the tone for the week. It is the foundation that the remaining posts build on, a lesson designed to carry you (us) forward through the week, no matter how tough it gets. We always know we will have to face Monday.
My father used to say that we live 1/7th of our lives on Monday's so we need to embrace it. He was right, so let's take on that Manic Monday and turn it into a Mindful Monday! This will be posts offering suggestions on meditation and mindfulness, both of which are critical to improving and managing one's mental health. No need to dread Monday's anymore. Let's seize the day, because before you know it, Tuesday is here (and gone with the wind).
There is nothing more debilitating than living in the past and trust me when I say, it is easy to get stuck there. Rerunning life's low points or your mistakes, ruminating on thing we could or should have done, even beating ourselves up over things we long lost control over (if we ever had it to begin with). You see, "control" is an illusion and the paradox is, the harder you try and control things, the more unhappy you will be. Conversely, letting go of the driver's wheel and living mindfully in the present is the way forward to a better life. So Tuesday's gone with the wind and that brings us to everyone's favorite, hump day!
Wednesday Morning 3AM is an album by Simon and Garfunkel, a duo whose lyrics invoke a lot of feelings but often ones of sadness or despair. Wednesday's will become a beacon of hope, a chance at the midway point to catch our breaths and realize that we are okay. That by giving up that control, it actually allows us to relax and live for each moment. The way life was designed to be lived, as addicts have known for a long time, is one day at a time.
Thursday's child is full of woe, but that doesn't mean that child doesn't have hope. The one thing that must never be given up is hope, as it is the promise of better days ahead. We might not be winning at life right now, but circumstances will change and things will always get better. Unfortunately, the only way out is through which is difficult for Thursday's child whose woe has him paralyzed. We will let Thursday serve as a reminder of our woe, how we will manage it, and ultimately use it to shape and evolve into better humans.
Everyone loves a Friday. From an early age, you learn the power of Friday and the restful weekend. During the youthful years, it was the main party night when everyone cut loose the weight of the prior week and forgot about responsibility for a while. This was possible because Friday was the farthest away from Monday that you would be on a weekend and Monday, as we discussed, started the whole process over again. At least until the next Friday.
Friday was for parties, drinking, and using drugs. After all, it was Friday, and I was in love. Of course, I was in love with the wrong things (drugs, alcohol) for the wrong reasons (to escape my feelings and my regular life), but it was love nonetheless. Now it is time to redirect that love, back towards something that needs it badly. Something that has been neglected while the partying and escapism was going on.
You see at some point, I stopped loving myself. I got caught in the downward spiral of feeling painful feelings that I refused to deal with, numbing that pain with substances that would help me forget, then feeling guilty about it once done which created painful feelings and started the cycle all over again. At some point, I had to get off the merry-go-round from hell. It took a lot of courage to first forgive myself for all those past mistakes. That took some time to really mean it, believe it, and understand what I meant by forgiving myself. I can't eliminate those mistakes or embarrassments, but I can acknowledge them and forgive my past self for doing what I did at the time. It was often wrong and embarrassing, but I forgive that young man. I wish he would lighten up and relax a bit, at least that's what I tell him when I forgive him.
It is incredibly powerful to truly forgive yourself. Until you let go of your past failures, and offer yourself some grace, you will not be able to love yourself (or even worse, love someone else). I was too broken to open myself and invest the level of trust and commitment required to make a relationship work. That is both with myself and with my wife, who is a Saint for sticking by me (so far). Friday will be a celebration of self-affirmation and self-love served with a side of forgiveness and compassion. We are all just human, suffering greatly in different ways.
Which brings us to Saturday and time to have a little fun. I mentioned my love of the Grateful Dead, and their lyrics tell amazing stories. So each weekend, we will enjoy "One More Saturday Night", a Grateful Dead inspired post celebrating us surviving a week and the cool music the helped us through it.
As that is what this journey is. It is one foot in front of the other, keep grinding one day at a time. That's all we are capable of living, certainly in terms of being present. Worries about the future or dwelling on the past is not a simple endeavor for some of us, like me, who is just wired a little differently. Just as some can't walk away from drugs or alcohol, some struggle with their mental health as well. So often, the two are connected with the drugs exacerbating the mental health concerns or at least masking them.
"This is how we do it" -- Montell Jordan On our hands and our knees, we will roll, roll, roll. I hope you enjoy this and I hope this works. There is that word again -- Hope! I have it and I feel it, stronger than ever. There is something better waiting down that road. Time to FAFO!
Be good to each other.
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