Awareness — Page 80

Your Note

October 5, 2015 By ChuckBehrens Leave a Comment

I use to show this film clip near the end of my presentation:

DYING TO LIVE

with the question:

“WOULDN’T IT BE NICE IF WE ALL HAD A MR. HOLLAND’S OPUS MOMENT. . .?”

I guess I’m still asking . . .

I’m FINDING people are still wondering about that Question. . . .

One of the biggest

F E A R S

we all have when facing our eventual deaths is:

“HAS MY LIFE BEEN MEANINGFUL?”

You don’t have to take all day,

You don’t have to go on a week-long retreat,

You don’t have to go on a year-long mission trip to

P A U S E

and hit your own personal DVR Review button

and know your many

P u r p o s e s

M e a n i n g s

R e a s o n s

D e s t i n i e s

you’ve had. . .

s h a r e d . . . .

Have you ever had a Mr. Holland’s Opus Moment. . .

YET. . . ?

Would you like to have

O N E

now?

HERE:

If you can’t begin to recall

p e r s o n a l l y

just how many lives you’ve

touched

enriched

blessed

strengthened

encouraged

heightened

inspired

motivated

HOW. . .

in or out of this World could you even begin to understand or

I M A G I N E

THOSE LIVES YOU’VE TOUCHED

who have gone out and touched countless other lives. . .

who have gone out and touched innumberable other lives. . .

who have gone out and touched infinite other lives. . . .

Your Mr. Holland’s Opus Moment is literally knowing

Your Ripple

is Endless.

Uhhhhh. . .

try Un-Stirring those constantly affected Waters

Mr. Holland!

Monkey Wrenched

October 2, 2015 By ChuckBehrens Leave a Comment

Ever felt like a

S M A S H E D P L A T E ?

S H E D I D

It was the Saturday before Halloween all the

W A Y

back in 2002

It was an all day retreat that I was contacted to do on

HOLY HELL

for a couple of Church groups that wanted to work through their

SMASHED PLATE SYNDROMES

S H E

was the one who contacted me; she was a Parish Nurse.

The day before the retreat, unbeknownst to me for these past 13 years,

S H E

had been diagnosed with MS.

I broke a plate using a monkey wrench

over and over again while asking:

“WHAT’S YOUR MONKEY WRENCH ?

I pointed out to the group that this was a harrowing sound as these smashed pieces jingled in the bag as I walked around the circle among where they were sitting.

I shared that this eery sound reminds us all of the one single day we celebrate every day of the year, sometimes with gusto: HALLOWEEN

(Because of all of the varied and many masks we wear)

I told the group not to worry because psycho-sociologists have a remedy for this bag of broken pieces that sounds like a bag of chains with each step taken. . .

“PICK UP THE PIECES AND GO ON”

Problem:

WE STILL HAVE A BAG OF BROKEN PIECES!

B U T . . .

There’s a Universal law that every major Religion and all of the

N O N E S

agree:

ALL THINGS ARE MADE NEW

( Pssssssssst: Which Spring doesn’t Prove THAT? )

I often tell every group I present before:

“I AM NOT HERE FOR THIS GROUP TODAY. . .I AM ONLY HERE FOR ONE, SINGLE PERSON. . .I JUST DON’T KNOW WHICH ONE OF YOU ?

Nearly Thirteen years later I found out it was

H E R

I conducted the funeral for a 95 year old gentleman I had never met before. He was retired High-School Choral Teacher and there were many of his former students there. I actually joked about what George Burns once said about getting THAT old:

“YOU DON’T HAVE TO WORRY ABOUT PEER PRESSURE”

S H E

was the wife of the Choral Teacher’s grandson.

S H E

came up to me after the service and said,

“You probably don’t remember me. But I hired you to come to a Church in 2002 to give an all day Seminar for a group of grieving people. I was one of them. I had just found out the day before that I had MS and I know it doesn’t show that much but I struggle every day. My MRI is a mess and I was a terrible wreck that day with where my Life was headed with this terrible Detour I had just been told. You smashed that plate, telling us that our Life has a way of meeting up not so well with Monkey Wrenches that get thrown into the middle of our living. I felt like those broken pieces and just when I thought you were going to leave us with, ‘PICK UP THE PIECES AND GO ON’ you showed us that there was something much better than trying to pick up the pieces and futilely attempting to put them back together, or just going on. . .You held up a brand new plate that was a replica of the one you had just smashed and boldly stated:

BEHOLD. . .ALL THINGS BECOME NEW !”

With tears trickling down her face she said, “That day. . .that moment. . .you transformed my life. Can I give you a hug?”

“TODAY. . .I AM HERE FOR JUST ONE, SINGLE PERSON. . .I JUST DON’T KNOW WHICH ONE OF YOU?”

What. . .

What message are you giving. . .

What One, Single Person needs The Gift. . .

DESPERATELY NEEDS

The Gift of Y O U, today?

Sometimes, it may take as much as Thirteen years to find. . .

Sometimes, you may never find out. . .?

S H O W U P

Do not Disappoint. . .THEM

G I V E

even when you feel

like The Gift is Empty

or as if it’s

N O T H I N G. . . .

Throw a Monkey Wrench at Something bad to make something good. . .

SOMETHING NEW !

Your Compassionate Child

September 28, 2015 By ChuckBehrens 2 Comments

T H E Y

tell us that it’s one of the things we lose the fastest and at the earliest of ages:

OUR COMPASSIONATE CHILD

We usually talk ourselves out of being playful

We usually talk ourselves out of being curious

We usually talk ourselves out of being inquisitive

We usually talk ourselves out of being dreamers

We usually talk ourselves out of being spontaneous

We usually talk ourselves out of being fun-seekers

We usually talk ourselves out of being Wishers

We usually talk ourselves out of being Hopers

We usually talk ourselves out of being more Kind

. . .more caring

. . .more loving

. . .more giving

. . .more sharing

. . .more compassionate. . . .

Are we that influential

Are we that powerful

Are we such great experts in Self-Talk

that we can actually squelch

THE CHILD

within

that has never wanted to be silenced or pushed so deep inside that

R E M E M B E R W H E N

became more of a

ONCE UPON A TIME

than we ever imagined or should of allowed to become. . . ?

Well. . .

not today;

not now;

. . .give in

Crack the door open enough to let the

Hide ‘N Seeking

kid in you come running out to the

Excited screams of

A L L – Y, A L L – Y IN FREE

to touch the

H O M E B A S E

that’s never really ever been lost

and yet still,

right now,

on Purpose

F O U N D

all RED ROVER COME OVER

again

to be

T H A T

Compassionate Child

we have always been

. . .and now, even need to be more!

When The GIANT EAGLE Ascends

September 18, 2015 By ChuckBehrens Leave a Comment

It was a busy Saturday morning. . .in an extremely crowded Giant Eagle Grocery Store.

It was just a quick,

GET IN, GET OUT

kind of an excursion.

(Aren’t they all?)

I went in and got a couple of gift cards and two greeting cards and then. . .

got in a long, a very long 10 items or less line.

There she was,

THE GIANT EAGLE ANGEL

She had a basket full of things. . .many different

E L E V E N T H I N G S

and then it happened. . .

She looked at what I was holding in just one hand and said,

“Sir, why don’t you go in front of me. I’m in no hurry and you just have some gift cards.”

I, protested at first and told her it wasn’t such a big deal, but she insisted and so,

NOT TO INSULT HER

I took her up on her offer and thanked her profusely.

. . .And then,
B A M

IT HAPPENED.

I told her she had done her good deed for the day and that’s when she shared with me that this had nothing to do with her good deeds so much as her

C A T H O L I C G U I L T

I joked and asked her if she was blaming The Pope on her good deed

and she joked back and told me it was more of the Nuns than The Pope.

I thanked her again for her

good deed

generosity

kindness

fear

guilt. . . .

It made me think about me

It made me think about you

It made me think about us

What ultimately makes us do what we do?

Are the reasons

P U R E

Tainted ?

Was this about some kind of weird guarantee of getting a small spot in Heaven

Not wearing Asbestos underwear for Eternity?

SHOULD’S = GUILT

OUGHT’S = FEAR

HAVE-TO’S = GUILT/FEAR

WANT-TO’S = RAINBOW’S/POT’S OF ENDLESS GOLD

Some kinds of Choices, huh?

What do you Choose. . .

What really CHOOSES YOU?

Can and Act of Kindness

just be an

A C T OF KINDNESS ?

(It Can. . .until. . .it CAN’T

Hmmmmmmmm of the Day:

Sometimes the higher The Eagle Ascends, not only the Closer to Heaven,

BUT the Bigger the Splat of the White Stuff that always finds your Windshield. . . .

IF YOU’RE HELPING SOMEONE AND EXPECT SOMETHING IN RETURN

IS IT

B U S I N E S S

K I N D N E S S

DYER’D NEED

September 9, 2015 By ChuckBehrens Leave a Comment

People die everyday. . .

Sometimes very famous, very influential people

Two such people died on August 31:

Oliver Sacks and Dr. Wayne Dyer.

I’ve read many of Wayne’s books and actually heard him speak once. . .

His message?

Be open

Be forgiving

Be loving

Be Compassionate

“Upon waking, let the words THANK YOU flow from your lips, for this will remind you to begin your day with gratitude and compassion. make it a practice to begin each day by thinking first of someone else and then making a decision to actively do something, anything, that will bring a smile to someone’s face. When you become conscious of wanting to do something kind for another human being, you move into a higher way of being. It takes your thoughts off of yourself and WHAT’s IN IT FOR ME? and puts them on HOW MAY I SERVE? which is precisely how the universal mind we call Tao or God is always operating. When you’re aligned with a compassionate outlook, your entire day will reflect that kind of awareness.

Some suggestions for getting you started: Email a note of appreciation, say a kind word, apologize to an individual you’ve needed to make amends with, pick a few wildflowers and hand them to someone, give away some personal items such as books or jewelry, or send a smile toward someone that might brighten their moment….

–Wayne Dyer in EXCUSES BEGONE!

It’s one thing to Teach the Lesson. . .

It’s quite another to Learn it. . .

and absolutely another to simply

LIVE IT

My personal, favorite take away:

“IF YOU HAVE CHOICE BETWEEN BEING RIGHT OR KIND. . .PICK KIND”

Maybe the best way a person who has impacted us, lives on not so much by remembering their words but by actually living them to our fullest abilities. . .

M A Y B E

OR. . . .

EAGLED

September 7, 2015 By ChuckBehrens Leave a Comment

WHO ARE YOU ?

It’s a question we get asked all of the time, isn’t it. . .

It’s a question we. . .

WE ASK OURSELVES

. . .A LOT, too, isn’t it?

Does the answer ever

C H A N G E ?

THEY

tell us that our children and most especially our grandchildren will most likely, in their lifetimes, have not just five jobs, but actually

FIVE OR MORE CAREERS !

So if we are

WHO WE ARE

as a profession or how we earn our money or

WHO OUR HEART SCREAMS WE ARE WHEN NO ONE ELSE IS LISTENING OR WATCHING ?

Hint:

You know you’ve been

E A G L E D

when you START OVER

. . .especially if it’s not been your choice to do so

We never have a purpose

We never have a reason

We never have a destiny

We never have a meaning

We, out of the very many things, the very many labels, the very many roles, the very many people we actually become and occupy, the absolute one is that we never stay

T H E S A M E

The Eagle doesn’t so much teach us how to soar. . .

so much as

HOW TO SOAR AGAIN

(and here’s the best part)

AGAIN and AGAIN and AGAIN and AGAIN

If that’s not a celebration of

Labor Day. . .

you quite possibly

have never worked

have never changed,

have never finished/begun again

have never celebrated

have never lived

(enough)

I Don’t Know (IS AN ANSWER)

September 4, 2015 By ChuckBehrens Leave a Comment

I don’t know. . .

is a terrible answer.

Does I don’t know ever sit well with anyone, for anyone?

Does I don’t know ever make the heart beat lighter, the mind more peaceful, the soul more settled after a room full of Doctor’s all through out the day parade in, giving theories, hypothesis, checking, re-checking, testing, re-testing and after IT all

I DON’T KNOW

is the end all answer Erin and I were given after five seizures, five nights at Cleveland Clinic, numerous tests, a spinal tap, blood work and more worry than two mixed up minds could possible comprehend.

“BUT SOMETIMES, SOMETIMES, ‘I DON’T KNOW’ is the only answer there really is,” the Doctor told us before we went home.

He told us to take solace in all of the things we now know IT IS NOT: A mass or tumor, a hemorrhage or a bleed, or a stroke.

Maybe we’ve come to expect too much when it comes to our modern day medicine and our sophisticated ways of diagnosing and prognosing infections and diseases?

But out of all of the Punctuation we use or is used against us, none is more haunting or frustrating than

THE QUESTION MARK

In the three weeks, home now from the hospital, there have been a few more question marks that have arisen but most of them have become more vapor-like because as the Doctor’s promised,

“These symptoms of the headaches, ear pressure, dizziness and endurance will diminish over the next three weeks, going along with our theory that it was a viral infection that we just can’t prove in the lab.”

So life. . .like it so often does,

from the Mt Everest’s to the Dead Seas

goes on. . .

The clock’s have ticked their Toc’s

The Calendar pages have been ripped away and discarded

The Sun has risen and the moon has become full

Medicines have been taken

Meals eaten,

L I F E G O E S O N

with Periods, Commas, Exclamation points, Hyphens, Semi-Colons,

QUESTION MARKS

. . .and that IT GOES ON

dims. . .if not in fact, eliminates the

making the other side of the sheets a little more bearable

(This is the third installment of four of the ROUGH SIDE OF THE SHEETS: These are some of lessons experienced, learned, and how hopefully, shared. It’s my hope that you enjoy these journey-ings, and more, take the time to share a few of yours so that we can all learn a little more about those razor blade laden sheets…and in the sharing, soften them a little)

The T I M E

September 3, 2015 By ChuckBehrens 4 Comments

(This was originally posted on Friday, August 28, 2015, but because of some unexplained technical problems, it didn’t post as universal as expected; hence the reposting of this article)

THE TIME. . .

Do you have it?

Do you possess. . .o w n it?

Was there just one, specific, distinct time you actually did. . .

When T I M E

in reality. . .

S T O P P E D ?

Monday

8/10/15

3:15:54 p.m.

was my

T H A T

moment. . .

my point in time. . . .

When you find yourself on the other side of the sheets, you not only find them rougher, unsoothing, cutting, severely less than anything that could be considered comfortable. . .

THESE ARE THE KNOWNS

from THAT side of the sheets.

It’s the

U N K N O W N S

that makes the other side of the sheets so

g r a v e l l y

It had just been some 34 hours since Erin’s last of five seizures and there was a lot of disorientation, a vastness of confusion from her to me to the medical staff compassionately attempting to get an

exactness

on her condition. . .trying to isolate the

WHY, THE HOW COME, THE WHAT-FOR

of it all.

Blood tests were taken; EEG was being studied; CT Scan was being evaluated; a not-so-good-MRI without Contrast freshly finished and now, literally in the middle of a Spinal Tap,

standing behind a thin curtain where I could hear the conversations of the medical staff, Erin and my daughter Zoey who was permitted to be present for The Tap to keep her mom still. . .

I felt the light hand pressure of another one of Erin’s Doctor’s on my shoulder.

When I turned around, she motioned me to come into the hall way

and in the few steps away from the curtain, The Procedure,

it took me to follow her to the hallway

my heart was a war drum in my chest. . .

a beat I can’t remember ever duplicated

because I knew in that very moment

at that VERY TIME

my life. . .

our life. . .

was potentially about the change

for an ever.

“We weren’t able to get an MRI with Contrast because she was moving around to much for us to administer the contrast, but we got a good enough MRI to definitively rule out any tumor or mass, any Hemorrhages or Bleeds and no sign of any Stroke. We believe that it is an infection or a virus but we already were very proactive and began her on a high-powered IV Antibiotic, Acyclovir that should more than be capable of taking care of the infection. . .This is very good news, Congratulations. Hopefully, this spinal tap will reveal what we are fighting. . . .”

I looked down at my watch as she turned and walked away.

My watch was blurry. . .

salt water in the eyes, causes that. . . .

I took a picture of my running watch.

I wanted to freeze that moment. . .

isolate it. . .

set it a part. . .

always recognize it. . .

OWN IT

Monday, August 10, 2015; 3:15:54 p.m.

The other side of the sheets didn’t get any less rougher at that moment,

but they certainly got readjusted, fluffed up and fabreezed

. . .the corners still weren’t tucked in, the center all smoothed out

their appearance mocked their texture. . .still

The Watch. . .kept keeping time. . .

held it prisoner

for what any Watch, Clock or Time Piece never fully reveals. . .

The All-Powerful

N E X T

. . .because even if it’s GOOD NEWS. . .

there’s always a NEXT

. . .like when we found out that there was no mass or tumors, no hemorrhages, no stroke and with the early spinal tap results. . .

NO INFECTIONS/DISEASES. . .

N E X T !

(This is the second installment of four of THE ROUGH SIDE OF THE SHEETS; these are some of the lessons experienced, learned, and now hopefully, shared. It’s my hope that you enjoy these journey-ings, and more, take the time to share a few of yours so that we can all learn a little more about those razor blade laden sheets. . .and in the sharing, soften them a little)

A Living

September 2, 2015 By ChuckBehrens 1 Comment

A LIVING

Now, that’s the Hmmmmmmmm of the Day, isn’t it:

A LIVING

Just what is. . .

A LIVING

There are some that say, you don’t really know

A LIVING

until DYING

Oliver Sacks, died this past weekend. . .

he knew THAT was going to happen. . .I suppose we all do, because none of us have ever met anyone who’s ever lived for ever and the chances of us…any of us…being the first are severely unlikely.

Oliver knew a little bit more specifically that he was going to die. He had cancer. He had multiple metastases in his liver. Nearly 10 years ago he had a rare tumor of the eye, an ocular melanoma. He knew then that about 50% of those with ocular melanomas actually metastasize. . .he was of THAT 50%

Early this year, Oliver. like he so often did, wrote about this situation in the New York Times under the Title of:

“MY OWN LIFE

May I?

. . .”I have been increasingly conscious, for the last 10 years or so, of deaths among my contemporaries. My generation is on the way out, and each death I have felt as an abruption, a tearing away of part of myself. There will be no one like us when we are gone, but then there is no one like anyone else, ever. When people die, they cannot be replaced. They leave holes that cannot be filled, for it is the fate–the genetic and neural fate–of every human being to be a unique individual, to find his own path, to live his own life, to die his own death…I cannot pretend I am without fear. But my predominant feeling is one of gratitude. I have loved and been loved; I have been given much and I have given something in return; I have read and traveled and thought and written. I have had intercourse with the world, the special intercourse of writers and readers. . .above all, I have been a sentient being, a thinking animal, on this beautiful planet, and that in itself has been an enormous privilege and adventure.”

IS THAT IT?

A LIVING

Would you have written; felt those sentiments of Oliver’s?

Do You?

What would you add?

What would you subtract?

The Scientific Study is sound and sure and Universal:

ONE OUT OF ONE OF US DIES

Go ahead. . .research it. . .refute it

One of my favorite quotes from Robert Frost, is also one of my favorite quotes about Life:

“All I know about Life can be summed up in three words: IT GOES ON

One thing that the many countless funerals I conduct teaches me–each of them– is:

ONE DAY THIS WILL BE ME

Does KNOWING that

make me live any differently?

More generously

More kindly,

More lovingly,

More forgivingly,

More appreciatively,

More graciously,

M O R E

Well. . .that is the Life long question for all of us. . .

because metastasized melanoma or not

we are all…even at this very moment…one heart beat less than having even just one more. . . .

and that, perhaps most of all, defines

A LIVING

BULLY

August 31, 2015 By ChuckBehrens Leave a Comment

Sometimes. . .

The Bully gets

B U L L I E D

Most of the time, we’d stand up and cheer when we actually see or hear of this happening.

It is, actually, what makes this video so viral. . .

WE LOVE CHEERING FOR THE BULLIED. . .

The Underdog.

Here might be the question of the year. . .maybe even the decade. . .maybe this Century and

CENTURIES PAST:

What if the BULLY and the BULLIED

are one and the same. . .

What if

The Bully and the Bullied are actually

Y O U ?

The worst Bully you might ever encounter is the one that stares you down in the mirror

. . .there just might not be any more of a Brutal Bully.

I’m Fat. . .

I’m a Loser. . .

I’m Lazy. . .

I suck. . .

I’ll never get this right. . .

I’m not meant to be in a relationship. . .

I’ll never kick this habit. . .

I_________________________________. . . .

Whatever you believe about negative Self-Talk

YOU BETTER NOT BELIEVE THAT IT’s JUST IN YOUR HEAD !

The Research shows that HAPPY people have a way. . .a habit. . .of putting bad days behind them and LEAVING them there. . .

Head-butting the over matched, huge, big, bad Bully and not only standing up against that Bully

but actually

BACKING IT DOWN

Knock THAT TRAIN off it’s tracks.

We all do Self-Talk

We all do NEGATIVE Self -Talk

We all have the capability of doing POSITIVE Self-Talk

HOW?

Three Words:

C O N F I D A N T

S M A R T

E F F E C T I V E

Go ahead, Bullied,

Test it out. . .

The next time the Bully starts the trashing of YOU

Get YOUR BULLY on

See YOURSELF as Bullying the bully by being

Confident. . .Smart. . .Effective.

Hmmmmmmm of the The Day:

I bet that’ll get your Goat!

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