Setting things down part one

AS WE HEAD INTO 2020–AND SOME OF US VOW TO DO MORE...PEACE AND JOY MAY. DEPEND UPON WHAT  YOU DO LESS OF—WEALL MAKE CHOICES ABOUT WHAT WE CARRY FORWARD INTO THE NEW DECADE...THIS IS A LITTLE  ENTRY ABOUT  WHAT MY VOICES INSIDE TELL ME...
There are ghosts and shadows  from my past

The question is how long  they’ll last

Will I learn from them and let them go

Or fear them hence and they will grow

Sometimes my own dark side  comes clear

It has great  power fueled by fear

of things  I’ve said and I have done

Mistakes I’ve made  far more than one.

Thus far  some fears still wear the crown 

While others I’ve  managed to set down

I have learned the lessons  that they carry

But why are some things still so scary?

I think it is that we forget

That answers  sometimes  aren’t known yet

So we carry with us  all the dread 

 Having little faith  in the road ahead.

So I haven’t posted  for a week and I start with this?   What in the world is wrong with me…What does this have to do with  seeking peace and joy?  

Well I suspect  sometimes when we sit and think about the world we all think about  a few great things to come and  also  think about some regrets.  

Well okay maybe it’s  just me who does  that in which case… come back and read tomorrow.

for the first  40 years I lived on this planet…okay about 45 I started trying to answer every question  with  the framework that the answer  was to be found in my past.  I pulled the big dusty book of Jim off the  shelf and reviewed  all my triumphs  and failures searching for answers and often  woke up all the fears of my failures in doing so.  Then when I decided to move forward and actually address these questions of  course I picked up all these ghosts and carried  them  along with me.  

 Then thanks  to a number of circumstances I was  challenged to answer the question—what if you  didn’t  have to try to answer all the questions  in your past before  looking on the path ahead for the  answer to the question in your heart right now?  

Whoa…at first that was  hard and  really  frightening because I had to trust i  had learned all the lessons from my past that I could have learned and  if not..well I was going to leave them behind along with all the scattered  refuse  of my faults.  However, life kept throwing  new things  in my face until I realized that my past experiences were  only weighing  me down and that  from time to time  you must just set that stuff down and walk ahead.  

Eventually  I learned that far more answers lie ahead than ever lie behind and even if there is valuable info in your past…your future will go back and get it without you worrying  about it.  

how can  that be…..well that’s how curiosity  works.  It  allows  you to create and explore using new tools.  Fear holds all the old tools and demands constant attention so you can learn  so little that questions are going to be  very hard to answer and even worse  you are unable to  discover  you might not even be asking the  questions you really need to answer. 

So here’s  my summary  for today… because I’m coming back to this tomorrow.

It is easy to  reflect on  your ghosts because their stry is finished.  We think all our success has come from  our past so the answers  we need in our present  or our near future are  back there too  Well…. some answers lie in the future and curiosity  is a powerful  tool for  finding answers although fear will try to hide some of them.  

When I get  up in the morning I have  a little routine and  you may borrow it….

I pick three questions that i  will try to answer today and ask any of my ghosts if they would  like to walk along to help me find the answers….but I  tell them i am not going to carry them… I know that sounds  goofy..but I don’t care…  

Then In the evening if I have  not found the answers I simply thank the world for showing  me some new lessons and  say a  prayer that  tomorrow  I will wake up with three questions…either the same or different.  I cannot change the past so all I can do is respect the ghosts for a while.  I cannot control the future but I can explore it so  that is what I do.  

So  tomorrow we  are  going to talk about  “Why” did this happen? and how  (I have failed ) and done okay with it.  

After tomorrow…well we’ll see what questions appear.

Have a great  day.