Jeanne H Barnett's Blog

RAIN IS . . .

—just water
falling from the sky
—bringing life
and death below
created to fall, created to fly

—puddles
feeding all of life
—floods
overwhelming all
bringing calm, bringing strife

—storms
darkness swirls ‘round
—heavy clouds
seen everywhere
hiding much, much is found

—water falls
without, within
—water forms
softly changing
opens ways, clears past’s bin

Rain is . . . I am . . .

—-
thoughts – JeanneM Hicks Barnett
Saturday – January 7, 2023
—-
bloganuary
#bloganuary

Why do you write?
That is the question for today and my answer is
“because super heroes fail.”

All though my life, I have believed in “super heroes.”
I believed there was always going to be someone
who would “rescue” me, save me
from whatever was happening in my world,
take me away from whatever was hurting me . . .
but that did not happen—ever.

First, there was disappointment when no super hero
appeared during my childhood illness requiring hospital
stays and treatments disrupting my life, my activities,
my school . . . no super hero to make me like “normal” kids.

Then, there was the time of abuse by a trusted adult
continued by threats to destroy the family if it was revealed
requiring eventual removal from all friends and family at a
young age . . . no super hero showed up.

Without going through all the gory details of bad choices
leading to life with those who dealt out extreme “punishments”
to one who believed it was deserved, no super hero showed up
in any of the multiple times of such deep agony that it led to the
choice to end it all . . . no super hero came.

SO, WHY DO I WRITE?
#1 – as a catharsis, a way to discharge pent-up emotions
to try to find relief from the pain which also often leads me
to a different perspective on my times of pain from choices
made by me and by others – gaining understanding and insights
with no need to assign blame and looking back on writings
from the darkest times reminds me of what I came through
giving me hope for the future, future healing, finding more of me.

#2 – no one should face pain alone
altruism, unselfish concern for the welfare of others
has grown out of my path through darkness
I want to offer others HOPE –
the belief that, if I can make it
through the messes I came through,
they can make it through, too!

Bottom line:
I write to share that,
while “super heros fail,”
there is healing and hope
as we are all in this together
and there are many like me
who willingly expose their failures
to encourage others to hope
which is really the one point of light
that can guide us through all perceived “failures”

Super Heroes fail – we ALL fail . . .
BUT each of us who
walk through the darkness
prove that
hope keeps “failure” from being fatal –
let’s keeping holding up that light of hope
in a world that often seems so dark
and never let anyone face pain alone!

#bloganuary

Bah! Humbug!!! YAY, Scrooge!
I cannot tell you how many times I have felt like
saying that over the last few years of constant chaos and turmoil,
as I see the apparent loss of accurate knowledge of history
or the Bible or the teachings of the life of Jesus
with a YouTube channel making “experts” of charismatic,
authoritative-sounding persons who sell hate and violence—
SAD! Where’s the JOY?

BUT . . . with a Judeo-Christian background,
experiences in the world of the occult, studies in many
philosophies (Hinduism, Buddhism, Zen, transcendental meditation,
New Age, various “religious” new believer classes, and more),
I have concluded that my belief system is a combination of “truths”
I found in each of those experiences leading me to believe—

MY JOY IS MY CHOICE of combos:
• I choose my “filters” that determine how I see everything
• I choose my “focus” each moment
• I choose my “responses” to everything, good and bad
• I choose my “acceptance” of whatever is presented
• I choose my “memories” to hold onto
• I choose my “priorities”
• I choose my “commitments”
MY JOY COMBO is MY CHOICE

My past is littered with traumas, some to levels of deepest agony,
some that robbed me of non-recoverable “things,”
some that led me to the end of myself and the choice to live or die –
I chose to die, which obviously did not happen, but that is another story.
The point is: at the point I decided to end it all, people and events
had brought me to believe there was nothing I had left to value
or appreciate, not even myself–I was past depression into total acceptance of defeat.

After much time spent healing (an ongoing process still today),
I realized the most important TRUTH . . . I have a choice.
It has taken many years to reach the above list of a “combo” and
it will probably continue to change as life goes on—
and even that is my choice!
I can choose to “become,” to change as I live,
to embrace life as I see it and adjust as I think best FOR ME,
and to feel JOY in knowing . . . MY JOY IS MY CHOICE –
even Scrooge found that out!

===
tag: bloganuary
bloganuary

a treasure, prized highly as valuable, rare, or costly . . .
“treasure” comes from a word meaning “hoarded” which could
show as admirable or extreme in the negative and can mean loss
of some material good(s) or relationship(s) or bellief system(s)

BUT- what if “treasure lost” could be viewed
through its impact on me . . . as G.O.-L.D.?

• material good(s)
losing this “treasure(s)” brought me to see the fleeting nature
of material good(s) and, after time spent grieving the loss,
I was less inclined to be driven by my desire to obtain and
hold onto any material good(s)

• relationship(s)
losing more than one, some deep trauma led me through
extremely difficult dark times that resulted in my realizing
I must be “whole” myself before I can be a “part” of any
relationship

• belief system(s)
losing, or rather, transitioning into and out of several belief
systems over the years, has drawn me to examine and
choose from them what is still my inner compass of Life

SO – a “treasure lost” for me brought me
to seeing “G.O.-L.D.” was what I gained from losing
—sometimes
Going On-Living Daily
—or
Going On-Looking Deeper
G.O.-L.D.
for a treasure lost

—-
tag: bloganuary
#bloganuary

An inheritance is usually thought of as something of value passed on to someone –
either a financial or material possession, a genetic trait, or
behavior, attitude, physical characteristic, etc.
that is identifiable to that person, group, or family

An inheritance is often much desired, even fought over
and the cause of broken relationships—but sometimes
it is a burden, as in the case of an asset that
carries a tax liability or has a debt attached to it
or has a risk attached to it as in the case of the
genetic predisposition to a particular disease.

The area of inherited emotional baggage is
one that seems mainly to be ignored, perhaps
because it is an area that is hard to explore and
challenging to view objectively, but sometimes is
mentioned after some explosive event or tragedy
occurs and the search for causes and a desire to
assign some responsibility comes up empty.

The importance of what is passed on to others
cannot be overemphasized because awareness of
what has been passed on to me by others can help
me gain insight into who I am and guide me to
understand more about why I make certain choices
which might be confusing to me without a
review of what has been passed on to me –
very often without my realizing it.

Inherited emotional baggage—a view, without
assigning guilt to myself or anyone else, can help
me in many ways.

If I explore where my feelings and my beliefs come
from, I can make choices to keep or discard certain
pieces of the puzzle that is me.

I remember a story I heard often when I was
growing up about
a woman who always cut a corner off the roast
she was cooking before she put it in the pan.
When her daughter asked her why she did that,
she said her mother had always done that, but
she did not know why. So the daughter asked
her grandmother why she cut the corner off her
roast before cooking it and her grandmother said
it was because she always cooked her roast in the
same pan and the shape of the pan meant she had
to trim off one corner to make the roast fit in that pan.
After the daughter told her mother the reason that
her grandmother cut the corner off the roast,
her mother stopped cutting off the corner of her
roasts because the roast fit in her pan without
cutting off the corner . . .
finding out “why” changed a way of doing something
that was being passed down as the way to do
the task but was not needed once the reason
was understood –
a multi-generational way of doing something
that was totally not needed was passed on until
someone stopped and asked “why”—WOW!

What could I discover about me and my life
just by asking “why” and
then making a conscious choice
to accept or reject,
grow or discard one concept and
how would that affect
what I pass on to others?
Choosing my inheritance
and my legacy . . . WOW!

An inheritance is usually thought of as something of value passed on to someone – either a financial or material possession, a genetic trait, or behavior, attitude, physical characteristic, etc.
that is identifiable to that person, group, or family 
An inheritance is often much desired, even fought over and the cause of broken relationships—but sometimes it is a burden,
as in the case of an asset that carries a tax liability or has a debt
attached to it or has a risk attached to it as in the case of the
genetic predisposition to a particular disease.

The area of inherited emotional baggage is one that seems
mainly to be ignored, perhaps because it is an area that is hard
to explore and challenging to view objectively, but sometimes is
mentioned after some explosive event or tragedy occurs and the
search for causes and a desire to assign some responsibility
comes up empty.

The importance of what is passed on to others cannot be
overemphasized because awareness of what has been passed
on to me by others can help me gain insight into who I am and
guide me to understand more about why I make certain choices
which might be confusing to me without a review of what has
been passed on to me – very often without my realizing it.

Inherited emotional baggage—a view, without assigning guilt
to myself or anyone else, can help me in many ways. If I explore
where my feelings and my beliefs come from, I can make choices
to keep or discard certain pieces of the puzzle that is me.

I remember a story I heard often when I was growing up about
a woman who always cut a corner off the roast she was cooking
before she put it in the pan. When her daughter asked her why
she did that, she said her mother had always done that, but she
did not know why. So the daughter asked her grandmother why
she cut the corner off her roast before cooking it and her
grandmother said it was because she always cooked her roast in
the same pan and the shape of the pan meant she had to trim off
one corner to make the roast fit in that pan. After the daughter
told her mother the reason that her grandmother cut the corner
off the roast, her mother stopped cutting off the corner of her
roasts because the roast fit in her pan without cutting off the
corner . . . finding out “why” changed a way of doing something
that was being passed down as the way to do the task but was
not needed once the reason was understood –
a multi-generational way of doing something that was totally
not needed was passed on until someone stopped and asked
“why”—WOW!

What could I discover about me and my life
just by asking “why” and then
making a conscious choice to accept or reject,
grow or discard one concept and
how would that affect what I pass on to others?
Choosing my inheritance and
my legacy . . .
WOW!

“I-SOLATION” to “I-NTEGRITY”
The greatest need in our world that seems to be everywhere is the “need to belong,” to be with others who are like me in some way, preferably in all ways.

Everybody seems to want to belong –
whether it is gangs, or churches, or political groups, or
clubs, or families (biological or created), or
groups bonded by causes or ethnicity or
groups motivated by injustice or trauma—
the list could go on of how each of us tries to find
somewhere to “belong” – a group “like us” or
we go out and create a group demanding others
become “like us” in order to be “right.”

And yet . . . there are NO two people in exact alignment in
every area and, after some time, many often reach the
point of being disillusioned by someone or by the group
in general and, although they might not admit it,
they feel “i-solated” in the group and just make noises
of agreement in order to maintain their “belonging”
to that group.

So, while out waving banners, hanging flags, or posting on
social media the “message” of their group, many feel an
inner aloneness and may even push harder to appear to
belong to the group because they cling to that “belonging”
like a life raft and cannot let go or they will fall into the
abyss of being alone “outside” and there is NO WAY they
will do that—it appears that most of us will not do that,
we fear that more than almost anything!

So, the questions are hard to ask and even harder to answer . . .
• how do I be ME and
still be a part of the world I live in, comfortably
• how do I react when someone tells me
I am not acceptable
• how do I stay true to what I think is right, what I believe,
and not be offensive to others who do not agree with me
• how do I grow ME as my life gives me more experiences
and my perspective offers more insights and
still stay true to ME
• who am I – do I really know me or am I just a
combination of all the others I have met and
interacted with and should I be this combination,
is that the real ME

“I-solation” does not have to mean alone –
it just means “I” need to always be true to
who “I” am (in the present),
stay true to who “I” want to be
(in the future, reviewed and adjusted by experiences),
and hold in my heart the
Truth that “integrity” starts with “I”
(inner assessment lined up with outer actions:
the state of being whole, entire, or undiminished)

My choice: a feeling of I-solation from others or
knowing I am being ME living with I-ntegrity–
It would seem living with ME and working through
the answers to those hard questions would be
a good way to go . . . I think I will try it!
Simple — not easy!!!

IF I had to go out into that scene to perform
some task or do some work or to travel to
some place, would I still feel peaceful?

OR would I be concerned about the slippery
ground and the coating of ice on all those
surfaces? I had not thought about that!

Looking outside while standing inside makes
me feel peaceful because I only have to look
at the scene, not deal with the consequences
of a winter storm “dump” of ice and sleet.

SO is life the same way?
Can I look at some “scene” and
be peaceful
while those having to deal with it
are not peaceful?

DO I stand inside my safe place and criticize
others for not being peaceful as they face
the consequences of some “dump” of
circumstances that do not concern me
because I am still standing inside my safe
place just “looking” and judging?

DO I need to think about the world outside
my safe place, about those who live outside
my safe place and what they face outside
my safe place?

I am not sure I like where this might lead me
. . . outside my safe place
. . . still a peaceful scene – outside?
=======
perspective –
• how I see
• what I see
• why I see
Perhaps I need to take a deeper look
at my perspective . . .
inside AND outside