Jim Harmon

A friend died this week. We had been friends since we were five years old. His death was a tragic end to a tragic life. The tragedy of his life seemed to be something he was stuck in. The pieces of the story are the facts. The facts include things like abusive parents, not being valued by employers, troubled spouses, and wayward children etc. There are so many wrongs and troubles which are part of our lives. In any good story, think of your favorite books and movies, the main character has to overcome an obstacle or crisis. What would happen if the character used the troubles of their past as an excuse for poor behavior or giving up? This would make the story more interesting for sure. Now the obstacle to be overcome is even greater. We can expect someone to come along in the story who believes in our character and who has hope to offer. We would expect our character to struggle with this hope and then eventually accept it and use it to overcome their obstacles. What would happen if our character continued to blame the people and events in their past and present for their current circumstances? What would happen if they failed to grasp that the facts of their past did need not determine their future? What would happen if they heard the message of hope but the story that they told themselves about their life did not include this hope that was available to them at this moment? What would happen is that we would have a tragedy.

Have you ever heard of a lucid dreamer? I am sometimes a lucid dreamer and what that means is I am aware that I am dreaming. When I was a child, I would have bad dreams. At some point I would become aware of the dream being a dream and I would change the story so that the bad dream would become a good dream. The key word here is awareness. The key concept is that I was not a victim of the dream. This means that I was aware of my ability to make a choice which would alter my reality. At some point in life we become an adult and the ability to change our story becomes a responsibility. Whose responsibility is it for you and I to live a life that fulfills our purpose? You are responsible for you and I am responsible for me. I am not responsible for my spouse or my adult children or my coworkers. You cannot be blamed if others don’t live up to their purpose and you cannot blame anyone for not living up to your purpose.

Now for this to be personal- You tell yourself stories about everything that happens to you. You have a family story. You have a work story. You have a health story. You have a friend story. You have a God story. The facts of your past in each of these stories are what they are. These facts are part of your story but they do not need to determine what happens next in your story. 

It is not like you will wake up tomorrow and forget about the injustices of the past. The mountains you are surrounded by will not instantly disappear. The injustice is a tar pit. The mountain is a barrier. The way to get out and over is to take a step. One step and then another and then another. You don’t have to do it alone. You will most likely need someone because your new story will require a new way of thinking and a new way of acting. These are things that we really need the example of another to pull off successfully. From wherever you are now, get a vision for the story of your future and then take the next best step. That next best thing is you stepping into a new story. What is that story? What is the next best step?

There are times when I have been enveloped in darkness. What I mean is that I am in a situation where I have no clue what to do. There is no choice to make because nothing can be seen. Have you been driving along and suddenly came into a thick fog? It is unnerving to not be able to see the road or obstacles. The eyes strain to see but they cannot. All senses are on alert. The body tenses up. You are in a state of stress. Perhaps you know exactly what it is like to be in a foggy situation.

I have been in the wilderness on a starless night when it is as they say, pitch black. The loss of a flashlight would be disastrous. This is not the envelope of darkness I am referring to though. What happens in life when we need an option? We need to know the right choice, or some choice, any choice really, but there is nothing but darkness. What to do in times like this? How do we navigate through life during these times when we are in the fog?

When I am hiking deep in the wilderness, far from stores, hospitals and phone service it is easy to get lost. Getting from one place to another out there requires skill, situational awareness and grit. There is much similarity between being in the wilderness and being in the fog of a situation with no available options. Anyone who has been through a divorce, endured an undiagnosed health issue, lost a job, been in a heated argument with a young adult child, been evicted or foreclosed upon knows what fog is. These are stressful situations. Lack of options creates stress. The process of finding your way in the wilderness is similar to finding your way out of these stressful circumstances. The tools required when hiking can also be used as metaphors for the tough moments of life. They are a topographical map, compass and gps.

The map shows where the resources and obstacles are.

The compass shows which way is North.

The gps shows where you are on the map.

Teenage children. If you are or have been a parent of them then just saying these words evokes some strong emotion. The teenage years are treacherous times. What would your teen years look like on a map? Imagine a very large sheet of paper the size of a map you would hang on the wall. Put a dot on one corner of the map and write your birth date. This is the beginning of your path. Around that dot you can write the names of the people available to you as a resource. These would be your parents, siblings, doctors, and care givers. You can write the names of the places like your home or daycare. If there was danger or trouble during this time write them down also. About a foot away from the dot for your birth date make another dot to indicate you being one year old. Has anything changed? Most likely you don’t remember much but write anything you are aware of. Make another dot a foot away for your second birthday. Are there playmates names to add? Any changes in the people of your family? Do the same thing for every year of your life. Make a note around each year of the strengths that you develop. Write the troubles that you encounter. If you develop a fear of something write it down. Here is a list of things and people who should be on the map of your life.

The people

Family members / friends / teachers / God / care-givers / neighbors / clergy / co-workers / police / politicians / people you work for / people your work serves / pets / dates

The places

homes / schools / medical facilities / work places / city, state, and country / parks / vacations / restaurants

Activities

hobbies / chores / obligations / music you listened to / books you read / movies you saw / the way you used your free time

You

What are your abilities or disabilities when in regards to your physical, mental, and emotional traits? Write your hopes and fears for the various points of your life as best as you can remember.

Draw a line from your birth date dot to your first-year dot and continue on connecting all of the dots. This is the path that your life has taken. This is the map of your life. The reasons you are the way you are and why you do what you do becomes clearer with details added to your map. It should make sense. Your map is different from everyone else’s but the more time you spend with someone the more your maps have in common.

Pick a time in your life which was very stressful. Look at that time on your life map. What choices are you aware of now that if you knew of then would have made the situation less stressful? Keep this in mind the next time you feel stress. There are resources available to you and there are obstacles around you. Believe that they are there. Figure out what they are.  When I look back on my life, I realize that I sometimes lack faith in my resources. I want things to happen on my timeline. Waiting patiently is something I must remember. Fear is a big issue in stressful circumstances. When we are afraid of something, we behave like this -FEARS is an acronym for; Fret, Envy, Anger, wRath, and Seek to do evil. The opposite is the faith response to; trust, delight, rest, and wait patiently. Fear can be a fog of its own. When you are in the fog you have a choice between faith and fears. I am not saying that you just sit back and do nothing about not seeing options. You seek, knock and ask while having faith that your seeking will not be in vain. The key is to not fret.

Here is a simple way I can sum up this point. Stress is the result of not being aware of desirable options in a given situation. We will call the thing that keeps us from being able to see things – fog. Fog keeps us from seeing a variety of things. First it keeps us from seeing things on the map that are resources and obstacles. Next it keeps us from seeing our compass properly to know where North is. Next the fog keeps us from knowing our position.

We spent enough time on the map to understand that we are surrounded by resources and obstacles. We move on to the purpose of a compass. The arrow of a compass points to the North magnetic pole. It always points there and the magnetic pole doesn’t move too much. The North pole is symbolic of our values. This is commonly called a moral compass. North is North and right is right. It is not right to do wrong. This does not mean that knowing what is right is easy. We need something that points us toward what is right. There is a compass that tells us that the loving thing is always the right thing to do but deciding what is loving is not always easy. Choosing to love in all situations is a value. It is a true value. It is a value that blows away some of the fog. A compass points to true principles. Perhaps you are in a financial fog. You have been hit with a big expense. You know that your neighbor is doing quite well financially and they invite your over for dinner. While at their home you see piles of cash on a desk. One pile is all it would take to erase your problem. If you were to check your compass to see that it is pointing to a number of principles which would be violated by taking the pile of cash. Love is pointing in a different direction, honesty is pointing in a different direction, and among others faith is pointing in a different direction. If you were to take the money a new fog would descend upon you. This is why people’s lives become disasters. They choose to not follow the compass. There are factors which can throw our compass off and it will not point toward true principles. Lies are one of these things. They can be lies told to us by a con artist. They can be lies we tell ourselves. In the situation with the pile of cash you might tell yourself a story about how you deserve the money or about how the person who has the money doesn’t deserve it. You may believe the lie that God just want you to be happy and taking the money will make you happy. False principles skew our compass. These principles are things like greed, envy, malice, and selfishness. Irrational emotions are also in this category as well as simply not understanding the circumstance. These false principles, lack of understanding and emotions increase the amount of fog. 

The next important item is our gps. This is knowing what you want, where you are and where you want to go. Rule #1 is to know what you want. This is the why I am doing it question. If you don’t know why you are going somewhere then it doesn’t make sense to go there. My belief is that if you really want to make sense of life you should know why you are here on this Earth and then make the thing that you want to be successful at living a life that does the why. In other words, you should want your why. If you want something other than your why then you are never going to accomplish the reason you are here for. Next is to know where you are going. I believe it is much more important to know where you are going than it is to know exactly where you are. Know where you are going, go there, and then you will know where you are. This leads us to create a plan to travel from where you are to where you want to go.

Here is a bonus life planning exercise

Now draw more dots on you map to indicate your next twenty years. The last years of your life are a logical result of where you were, who you were with and who you are. The same will hold true for the next years. The choices you make now and at each dot along your future path change your life. Do you have something that is hindering you now? Choosing to get a health issue fixed now can greatly improve your future. Taking care of an addiction now can greatly change your future. Learning a new skill, making time for friends, making spiritual growth a priority, making and keeping a budget are some of the things that determine our future. There are things we cannot know but there are many that are within our power to choose. The more you think through the coming years the more fog there is. The more choices you make about the people, places, and activities you write onto your future map the more the fog dissipates.

I hope you took some time to think about what you want, where you want to go and the plan you have to get there. Your plan will require some skills, tools and equipment to successfully complete the journey. Before I go on a one-week hike I put in six months of preparation. This future you is going to need to be in a certain level of physical fitness, you will need emotional health, spiritual health, you will need relationships, and your finances must be part of your consideration. You may need additional education or coaching. What you were made for, what you want, and the place you are going are worth the focus required to put together what is needed in order to reach your intended destination. Most people are not willing to say no to the distractions. My guess is that the person you desire to be in the future doesn’t spend their days doing things that amount to very little. The problem is that most people have a difficult time saying no to these time wasters. Saying yes to making what you want line up with your purpose and having a plan to get there will require saying no to a lot of stuff that is normal for people with below average lives. I don’t want to be negative about this but the stuff that fills up most people days are traps set by the evil forces of this world that are opposed to the purpose you were made for. This is something to be mad about and to use to propel you to say yes to what is good.

There has been a lot said here so to sum it up I will repeat my earlier summary and add a bit-

Stress is the result of not being aware of desirable options in a given situation. We will call the thing that keeps us from being able to see things – fog. Fog keeps us from seeing a variety of things. 

• First it keeps us from seeing things on the map that are resources and obstacles.
• Second it keeps us from seeing our moral compass properly to know what is right. 
• Third the fog keeps us from knowing our purpose, what we want, where we are and where we want to go.

Fog is cleared by-

• Recognizing and having faith in available resources.
• Choose to do what is right and reject influences which pull you away from making right choices.
• Being confident of your purpose in life and making fulfilling that purpose what you want.
• Choose where you want to go to get what you want and making choices consistent with the plan you have made to get you where you want to go.

If you will do the things in these last four points your life will be much better.

That’s all for now.

Peace and love fellow traveler

,Jim

I don’t need it to be New Year Day to realize that something in my life could use some change. It is pretty sad that most resolutions fail. Resolutions are typically very important. They complete statements that begin with “My life would be better if__________” Failure is the norm for most people. The good news is that you are not going to be one of “those” people anymore because you will get the victory over those tough issues.

There are a few things I have been talking about on the topic of resilience. I try to boil a complicated topic down to a statement that can be remembered and used in the moment of need. These statements are in bold below.

The first statement is Resilience is the stability and joy created by hope in a secure resource.

This reliance on a secure resource brought us to the idea of options and the statement that The lack of options results in stress. Having options is the result of being able to access resources which were built up in advance of the moment of need. The resources that are available to us come from every area of life. There are nine areas of life and they are; Spiritual, Physical, Intellectual, Emotional, Vocational, Family, Social, Financial, and Hobbies. Each of these areas of life are accounts through which you give and receive. We want to build each of these accounts up so that we are able to give and receive lavishly in each of them. The statement to guide us into building up our accounts is This action will achieve the desired result.

This all sounds great but I know that the choices I make don’t always make sense. I wish that I always acted in my own best interest but I don’t. I know what I should do but I don’t do it. I know what I shouldn’t do and yet that is the thing that I do.

Perhaps you have noticed that same thing after dieting, running a marathon, or building up an emergency fund. You know that you should stay on track and maintain the results all of that hard work achieved but….

I totally understand because I have had all of the emotions that go along with this struggle. I propose that emotions are not only a casualty of the problem but they are the source of the problem. Let me explain. If I went to you with a problem looking for advice, I bet you could give me general direction on most anything I could ask. If I told you I wanted to get into shape you could make some suggestions. If I told you I wanted to lose weight you could help with that too. I know you would have something to say about that broken relationship. If I wanted to save some money or whatever, the list could go on and on, you could help me with direction on what I should do. We have a general idea of the answers to not only each other’s problems but also to our own. If we were rational and always made choices that are in our best interest then we would take our own advice and life would be better. The reason we don’t do what we know we should do is because of emotions. This is where it gets real for you and for me. Facing emotions may even be scary but we are not going to make this scary. We are going to make this simple so that it is something we can actually deal with.

What do you love doing? It is probably not difficult for you to get into the mood to do this thing. Making time to do it can be managed because other things can wait. It might be expensive but that probably doesn’t matter. The reason you do not have to struggle with doing the thing that you love is because your emotions are in alignment with doing that wonderful thing.

I’m just going to say it, life stinks when it is filled with things we should do and not with the things we want to do. It’s not that the things we should do are bad. It is probably just the opposite and that makes it worse. There would be no guilt or shame for failing to do something that didn’t matter. This doesn’t change the drudgery that a life filled with should do that and should do this is. The reason it is drudgery is because the heart isn’t in it. There is not an alignment between the thing you should do and your emotions. Things that we put our heart into are things we want to do. They are things we get to do.

This leads us to the solution to our problem. Create emotional alignment with the things that are important. What this means is make the things that are most important to you the things that you want to do. Change the really important things from being in the should do category to the want to do category.

This is really powerful because we are going to change our emotions. We are not going to be a captive of our emotions. Our emotions are not going to have the power to undermine the amazing life that is available to us. Our emotions are not going to lie to us and tell us we are not loved or that we aren’t enough or aren’t good enough. We are going to do the best things and we are going to do them because we want to do them not because we have to do them.

We will talk about many ways to do this but the big idea is that we will change our emotions by changing the way we think. I have a game I would like for each of you to play. Put a note pad in your pocket and every time you have a critical, fearful, angry, or negative thought in any way draw a down-arrow on a page. If you have a kind, hopeful, thankful, encouraging or generally positive thought make an up-arrow mark. 

Change is going to be fun and it is going to be hard work. I am looking forward to hearing your story about how your life has become more resilient as you Create emotional alignment with the things that are important and Act in ways that will achieve the desired result which will give you Options which reduce stress and result in you having The Joy and Stability of Resilience.

That’s all for now.

Peace and love fellow traveler,

Jim

Resilience Part 2

Click here for Part 1 “You Can Make Trouble Into Joy”

Let’s talk about how you can decrease stress by increasing your resilience. 

Resilience is the stability and joy created by hope in and access to a secure resource.

Your gas gauge reads 1/8 of a tank while driving in the desert as you see a sign that says the next stop for gas is 250 miles. You begin to sweat as your stress level increases because you don’t have enough gas. There is no hope that the amount of gas you have will get you to the station. You do not have access to the secure resource that you need- Gas. Am I alone in feeling that there are so many desert areas of life that we travel through? When I was newly married, I became aware that every relationship has a “bank” account. Not a real bank account but a relational account. We are familiar that a bank statement is a list of deposits and withdrawals. Relational bank accounts are also made up of deposits and withdrawals. Relationships make you feel a certain way. These relational bank accounts are real because our emotions are real. Pretend you go into a bank to open a checking account. They require you to start by making a deposit. We are going to go one step further in what we imagine. Now pretend you go into the bank with another person and open an account with them. One of you or both of you make a deposit to open the account. Think about your relationships and what you consider withdrawals and deposits in those relationships.

Have you ever received a gift that you didn’t want? I have, but since this is a public conversation, I will not go into the details here. I have one neighbor that throws all of his children’s Halloween candy away. I expect that if he is given a gift of candy it is not received by him as a gift. One person thinks they are making a deposit by giving the gift but they are really making a withdrawal. Wow, it is no wonder that relationships are difficult. After a large snow storm I decided to be a great neighbor and remove the snow off a neighbor’s side walk. My Golden Retriever ran over at some point and made a bit of yellow snow over their grass. Later my doorbell rang and it was this neighbor with the freshly cleared sidewalk. He told me in no uncertain terms to keep my dog off his yard. The clearing of snow was not mentioned. Clearly both of us made relationship withdrawals in that interaction. We need to come up with an easy to remember idea to guide us into doing things that are actually received as deposits. Banks used to have machines which would count your coins. There was a basket where reject coins would be returned to you. Foreign or damaged coins would not be accepted. The same rule applies to people. We must know what “currency” they want to work with. Facebook is a master of this. They curate your news feed to give you more of what you want. Whatever side of the political spectrum you hail from is known to Facebook and they give you what they know you will not reject. The same is true for your relationships. You must care enough about others to pay attention and give them what they want. This is what a deposit is. Perhaps you are like me and have fallen into the trap of thinking that your role is to give people what they need not what they want. These gifts are seldom received as deposits. Here is a memorable statement to help you make deposits-

This action will achieve the desired result

It’s a no-brainer that deposits which achieve the desired result are good. Does this mean that all withdrawals are bad? Absolutely not. The truth is people will like you more if they can do something for you. Good relationships revolve around giving and taking.

As long as someone is making deposits into the relationship there is something there to withdraw from. An aunt of mine says there are two types of people in this world, givers and takers. Eventually the givers get tired of giving without the other person in the relationship making a deposit in return.

Deposits can be made in every area of life. When I became a parent, I found that children spell love as T I M E. Time is the deposit. What is the consequence of not making deposits with children? I also learned that discipline without a relationship leads to rebellion. A relationship is not saying I’m the parent and you’re the child, do what I say. Relationships require doing things that are received as deposits. Will this action achieve the required result? Will this thing that I intend to be a deposit be received as a deposit?

You may think that I have left faith out of this discussion. Faith is not the same as hope.

Faith is the certainty that even though you may not see the resources in the account, they are there nonetheless. Faith also has to be based on something. Children do not know the depths of their parents’ resources but, unless shown otherwise, they have faith that the resources are there. I don’t know what God has for me but there are times that I have nothing. Nothing to base my hope on except for this; I have Jesus who is my waymaker, miracle worker, promise keeper and light in the darkness. We not only do all we can to make deposits which create hope but also always have faith. This is so necessary because in the end we do not have full control over what happens. Just as our hope is based on what we see that is really there, our faith is based on what we don’t see that is really there.

What I intended to say to you here is that you can become more resilient by having hope as you increase the resources available to you in every area of life. Every area of life is an account. Relationships are one area of life. Accounts are managed by making deposits and withdrawals. Grow your accounts by making deposits because this will give you something solid to base your hope on. Realize that we need to be intentional about deposits to keep from doing things we think are deposits but are actually received as withdrawals.My hope is that you make deposits in every area of life and test what you do by asking yourself whether This action will achieve the desired result.

Click here for part 3

Resilience. When I think of this word, I picture a window that doesn’t break when a ball is hit into it or a floor that doesn’t scratch when the kitchen chair is slid across. It is a word that doesn’t deny that life is rough but implies the ability to bounce back. The difficult question is how do you become resilient. 

I believe that the key to resilience is having stored up resources.

I was in Boulder, CO and after climbing Bear Mountain I decided to take anther hike to Royal Arch. I brought very little food with me and ate close to nothing that day. On the way to the Arch I bonked. To bonk is a term used by runners and hikers which describes becoming suddenly and extremely fatigued. I couldn’t go on. People who passed me could tell something was wrong and expressed their concern. I had no available blood sugar. Thankfully I had a Cliff Bar in my pack. After eating the bar and a long break my energy revived. The loss of blood sugar would have been worse had I not had the resource of the energy bar. A circumstance without options can truly be hopeless. It is changes in circumstance that requires resilience.

Sometimes we look forward to change and other times change washes over us with great grief. When things change for the worse you need options. Options are the fruit of resources. If you are stuck on the side of the road in the winter far from any town you have found yourself with a change in circumstances that can become seriously dangerous in a short time. What are the key resources that can turn this around? A working cell phone to call for help is a good start. A roadside assistance policy gives a lot of hope. If you are able to go to your trunk and get your emergency blanket wrapped around you and light a candle in the car your chances of survival are great. These are all relatively simple resources which give you options.

When something happens which you consider bad, the first thing you should do is consider all of your available options. Having options gives you hope. Having hope is the key to emotional stability and joy.

Resilience is the stability and joy created by hope in a secure resource.

We all want a degree of stability and huge amounts of joy. The way to achieve this is by developing your resources in every area of life. Here is a list of the areas of life. Make a plan for the ways you will grow your resources in each area. The areas are Spiritual, Physical, Emotional, Financial, Family, Social, Intellectual, Hobbies, and Vocation.

You have faith that growth in each of these areas will increase that amount of love that you receive from others and will also increase your ability to love. When change and struggles present themselves you have hope because you know that resources give you many options and you will not be stuck and overcome. This hope gives you joy and energizes you to love even more.

When people get married a section of scripture from 1 Corinthians chapter 13 is often read. This is the love chapter and it ends saying “faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.” This is more relevant than any newlywed realizes. Life is about to bring the newly married couple many challenges and the way to manage them is through faith, hope, and love. If they do this their marriage will be resilient. If we all live our lives with faith, hope, and love we will achieve resilience.Resilience is the stability and joy created by hope in a secure resource.

Unfulfilled aspirations. Picture your situation, whatever you call it, as a maze with many doors. There are interior doors leading to other paths in the maze. There are many other doors which lead out of the maze. The interior doors represent choices that keep you stuck in the realm of your current situation. The exterior doors lead to a new place. The interior doors are labeled. Here is an example of what I mean. As Gerry scrolls through FB she/he sees the lives of those who have what Gerry wishes for. They say FB is fakebook but what is happening in friends’ lives is real enough to have a picture of it and whether those pics are cherry-picked moments or not doesn’t change Gerry’s aspirations.  Gerry just wants a fair share of love and fun. Would you blame them for feeling empty? Gerry could choose to walk through the door titled “Indulge Yourself”. The response could be to go home and binge on pizza, ice cream, and Netflix. The whole time telling different unhealthy stories about why life is the way it is and why indulgence is deserved. The choice to isolate, to binge, and to develop unhealthy stories are all interior doors which keep us stuck in the situation even though we may be doing them to mask pain. The pain remains, and we may be even more stuck in emotional blues in spite of all of the “effort” put into managing the problem. Here are some examples of the inner doors available to us. The choices are endless and they are designed to entice us. They are quick fixes which either appear like they help us meet an aspiration or make up for failing to achieve it. If you watch TV commercials long enough you can have a long list of the labels on the interior doors. How would a vacation feel? What you really need is a fancy car. The right set of clothes would be the start of a new you. You deserve a break today. A $6 cup of coffee will make you feel so much better. Many other interior doors are there to give you a way to either spice up your life or chill out. You choose. You never have to leave. You can stay in the maze forever attempting to get what you want. Fill up your Instagram so that everyone sees your awesome life of the moments you have after walking through those interior doors which lead to emptiness.

The labels on the exterior doors are much less captivating than those on the inner doors. You might even say they are boring. Would you really expect someone who is feeling unfulfilled to go through the door titled “Serve Others”? This is why so many walk past the doors of Thankfulness, Exercise, Fidelity, Sobriety, and Healthy Eating and choose “Me Time” instead. The peculiar thing is that the interior doors sound like they lead exactly to the place you want to go but they don’t. The exterior doors seem like they lead nowhere but wind up leading to exactly the place you want and need to be.

When you sense that your life is missing something, do the smart thing. Exit the maze.