The gang
I have had the past a taunting me recently, like I have a memory, often triggered by something else, and even though I am grieved by it I am rationalizing that the memory I did participate in, or was forced, or hurt, but it was back when I was not able to rationalize like an adult – thus I was no match for an adult physically or mentally, so i was tricked or lost the fight.
The memories we have we should be able to deal with, all of them, but toxic societies make us weak. Remember, children in the middle ages dealt with seeing parents dealing with raids int heir village, family, friends, people died, sometimes gruesome deaths, and yet those children got through i and the young adults dealing with the world wars, young, and many did suffer after the wars but they got on and dealt with life.
When society is toxic you as a child of that society was not brought up in a mentally healthy situation, even in a wealthy home, because the only way to be healthy in mind is with healthy mature parents parenting you, nothing that society, materialism, commercial or feminist and so on can make you mature and able to cope, only a strong minded man and woman can do that for you, and if you didn’t have that then what you did as a child was in survival Mode, thus you were not of your own mind, but of a mind struggling to cope, eager to please to fit, in and incapable of rational logic and common sense that relied on unwise parenting.
You, as a child, young adult and possibly even now, lacked Wisdom, why?
Because your child wisdom is actually your wise parents wisdom that they pass down to you, and if they were not wise, or abused you, then they then and now are not wise, and they see their ‘cleverness” or deviousness as wisdom, of which it is clearly not.
Don’t blame yourself for what society denied you and/or your own parents denied you (whether they knew it or not), you are not at fault and not to blame, so those events you struggle with from the past were formed not by you but by your influences and lack of ability to think carefully, and that is why you lived and acted carelessly, and if you were prideful – many people are over prideful, vain, angry, loud and Narcissistic, because they are struggling and so they become loud, pride, and do foolish things to avoid facing the truth about themselves or hoping that the world doesn’t see how scared they really are and how they are not coping either.
Grief:
1: Denial – “No, not me.”
2: Rage and anger – “Why me?”
3: Bargaining – “Yes, me, but…?
4: Depression – “Yes, me.”
5: Acceptance – “My time is very close now and its all right.”
– Elizabeth Kubler-Ross.
We cannot, and will not, have a loving life of happiness until we weed the spiritual garden around us taking away the things that are negative that are trying to drown us in misery and unhappiness. You need to sometimes ruthlessly cut away all that is not profitable for your own spiritual growth.
We all want our own Garden of Eden full of honest good people. And we can have that. “You Can Have That!”
Like pruning a tree or weeding the garden, some people clog up our lives and take, or drain our spiritual energy from us leaving us sad, worn out and tired from being around them. Their existence in your life is not productive, and you gain nothing but their negative forces like their judgements, condemnation, cruelty at times, and negative answers to your positive inquiries. These people serve no happy purpose in your life.
The hard part is that by leaving that person’s presence, or removing that presence from your life can be hard. One reason is that we can become so used to having a person around us that we fear life without that person. We can feel that this life-draining person is our life and that we cannot function without this person.
As I found out years ago, sometimes we think that we truly love a person and we lie to ourselves (because it looks good, feels good, and seems the right thing) and tell ourself the value of having this controlling negative force in our life is good, when in reality it is the opposite. We always wonder why things just don’t get better, so we blame others, and if we are in sympathy with the controlling person then that person will blame others and play the poor sad victim, and use your sympathy to get you on their side and forever with that person. And this leaves you lost, wondering at the negatives that you see in your life all the time, and you are always wondering why things never change etc.
Step back from your own life. Look at your life from someone else’s view, someone good. And find some answers that you need for your future. This is the wise advice that you would give yourself “if” you thought that you were someone else.
Remember that we judge ourselves harshly at times, and because of those harsh judgments we cannot see the light ahead of us leading, guiding and showing us ways that our life will progress in the future.
Please be positive and know that you deserve a goo healthy loving life.
Please prune away those unwanted family and friend branches, and clean out the weeds around you because they will choke your life, desires, wonder, courage and happiness.
No one ever really regrets a good cleanup of one’s own life, because a good clean-out frees the soul and brings more positive opportunities.
Look at flowers surrounded by weeds and they are wilting and dying because the weeds are strangling the life from the flowers, and the weeds are taking all the goodness from the soil and leaving very little for the flowers, so the flowers never bloom fully. They just become pitiful versions of what they really could be.
Now imagine the weeded flower beds and the flowers are in full bloom, radiating their wonderfulness to the world, admired and appreciated by many. The flowers are encouraged to grow, they get all the food that they need, they are healthy, get plenty of air, and plenty of love and care. And so it should be for you. Be brave and make it so.
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All the best from
James M Sandbrook.
September 10, 2014.
One of the hardest things for the mind to deal with is knowing that we need to do something, and knowing that this is the right thing to do, but feeling fear, worry, about completing it.
Fear blinds us and make little worries into impossible to beat fears in our minds.
Another problem is depression, which causes the mind to feel that there is either no hope, or that we cannot see any hope is what we know is going to happen. A depressed mind lives in a negative fog that blocks the view to a more positive life and keeps us lost, sad, weary, seeing negatives and lonely.
An example of not seeing things right is the single life that we can have for a while (to remove past baggage, and to grow in maturity) and marriage life which was designed to give us a partner for life who is a compliment of our own self, and a kindred spirit. God made us to be with a mate for life.
But sometimes bad past relationships and a new comfortable feeling of being single and coming to a conclusion that you like being with yourself and being alone, makes one feel that being single is more desirable than being married.
Marriage with the right person is what we should desire. Modern society has the young craving for sexual relationships instead of relationships based on respectful love for one another. We are told to have fun, to enjoy life while we can, to be free, to have what they call fun relationships and then moving on, and in all that we are actually becoming slaves to a lifestyle that is not natural and that will not bring us happiness and a peaceful heart. A large amount of adult depression comes from a life of loose living as a teenager because years of treating oneself disrespectfully, and using other peoples bodies etc catches up on us.
There are those who live without a partner for long enough that they lose any desire for a sexual relationship and they just enjoy living. There are others who are married and have no sexual relationship in that marriage. They are probably more like best friends than married.
The point I am getting at is that there are things that are a part of the “natural” character of all people that we can stop, deny or refuse, but we will never be really happy unless we welcome such things with open arms and open heart and soul.
Being in love is natural, being married is natural, being alone is not natural (no matter how much we may dress it up and try to make it look and feel good). Depression often comes from isolation.
All the best from
James M Sandbrook.
September 10, 2014.
Because of our upbringing in society (not because of any fault of your own) we can be insecure. Insecure people don’t have good romantic relationships. They tend to struggle with trust and they are anxious that they may not be loved, or that their partner is looking elsewhere for love and sexual happiness.
This anxiety can cause the relationship to split up in the most saddest way. Both partners at a loss for words to explain the misery that they have been through our what went wrong. Both feeling that the other is the cause for the split-up.
Some people can become a form of in-house stalker. They are always checking up on the other. He or she can be jealous, needy, sees an innocent conversation as flirting, is clingy, feels that the other is not paying he or she enough attention, and some want all the partners free time spent on them.
Some people feel that their happiness is dependent on their partners attention towards them. If they feel that they are not getting the correct amount of attention (according to their own view) then their happiness starts to suffer. This leads to more insecurity, sometimes arguments and negativity.
If you don’t give the correct amount of attention according to your insecure partners view then you become (in their mind) “not a good boyfriend, girlfriend, husband or wife”. You fall short of the insecure persons idea of what you should be as a romantic partner.
People who are insecure tend to say things that hurt the relationship, or may say things that are accusations because they feel insecure about themself and about the relationship.
If we have relationship issues then it is wise to consider that it may be ourself that is the cause of our problems to some degree. And then from this knowledge we can work at making changes to our own personality so that our relationships will be more stable and able to withstand the storms of life.
First thing to do is focus on you, your environment, the 5 closest people to you who influence you the most. You have got to see things as they are, and see people how they have really affected your life. Only seeing the truth will set you free.
Many people who started self-help thinking that they were not the problem in the relationship, and after learning more about people, about life, about relationships, about how other people can influence our childhood etc, they can discover that he or she had “issues” that need dealing with, and until they are dealt with their relationships will fail.
An understanding partner makes all the difference. Someone who wants to see their love get through this is indeed a great help. This is what love is all about. An understanding partner knows that they both win with self-improvement.
Remember. If your relationship is struggling instead of pointing out the other persons faults, work on your own character. Be honest to yourself about your habits and opinions. Please be humble. They goal is to change for the better, not let our pride fight change.
It is a wise thing to do when we improve our own character, remove past baggage, and inspire ourself to greater things.
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All the best from
James M Sandbrook.
September 10, 2015 at 12:51pm .
Jesus did a lot of walking. There were other forms of transport that Jesus could have taken. His walking kept Jesus close to the public’s eye and that is where a person can be seen and can keep in close contact with the people. Jesus mingled with the people face to face and got to know them.
Today if we take cars everywhere we may go far but we miss everyone in between point A and point B.
I read a story of a man who moved from the USA to France and he and his wife got some bicycles and they walked and rode their bikes around the area that they lived in France. He said that when they visited their new French neighbours after some months of living there that he and his wife told the neighbours of the places that they had visited nearby and the sights that they had seen and the neighbours had no idea what it was that they were talking about. None of the neighbours in the nearby houses knew what they meant because they took cars everywhere so they missed the sights and some of these neighbours had lived in their houses for over 10 to 20 years etc.
It is amazing what politicians miss when they don’t get down to the ground level and talk to the people in a natural atmosphere instead of a visit planned with a fancy photo-shoot simply to create votes. This is why they are sometimes so surprised when they lose an election. Its because they only hear from supporters who always say that they will back them up and that they will win. They don’t really get a feel for what policies are working because they don’t “know the people” – They also find out the hard way that what is put in the newspapers is not always what the people really think and that is why the polls sometimes are so way off the mark.
The same is for preachers who preach but don’t visit the homes of the church members and don’t get to know them personally – the preacher and politician who judges the people will one day run out of God’s blessings in their work and it will show in due season.
Today would Jesus ride around in a big station wagon, or SUV, Utility, or saloon car? No of course not. He would walk as before because that is the most effective way of meeting people and getting a feel of the situation in that area from a ground-floor-level. We may need a boat to get from shore to shore but then its back to walking.
Many times Jesus preached out in the open spaces to get the Word across to the many and not just the few in the religious meeting places.
Also walking is good for fitness. He would have eaten the most healthy foods and not eaten toxic foods deliberately. We too must be careful about what it is that we eat and eat what is fresh and not a form of fast cheap takeaway foods, or processed foods. He would have drunk good fresh water too. Look after the temple, Jesus would have been an example of that and so should we be.
He wouldn’t have bought food off the big companies that abuse their income because that would have been seen as supporting the company. When we really sit down and consider it we should do the same. We are to be a light into the world as well – we need to set an example to our children and to the people who meet us – we are not to be phonies.
I once read that a McDonald’s bun for the burgers can last a very long time sitting on a bench out in the open. Now if that be true then imagine the toxic chemicals that gave it that ability to last so long, and people eat that. Would Jesus have eaten that? No, of course not. He wouldn’t support any food that was toxic in any way. His choice would have been for anything that God supplied and that is only natural foods.
I hope that this has been food for thought and will get you walking more. I pray God blesses you someway from this message.
All the best from James M Sandbrook.
Your loving companion should be:
Someone to share with.
Someone to hold when things don’t go right.
Someone who makes the bad times more bearable.
Someone who’s hug is a deep spiritual comfort when you are down.
Someone to talk to when lonely.
Someone to respect because this person shows respect for you.
Someone to cook for (I love cooking).
Someone who shows that he or she worries about you, and wants to help.
Someone to get excited about life with, to laugh and joke with.
Someone who holds your secrets and you hold theirs.
Someone that you don’t have to be a fake with.
Someone who knows who you really are and stays.
Someone who understands what it is that you are saying, and what you mean.
Someone who is sensitive about the same issues, desires and emotions as you are.
Someone to hold when the world has turned their back on you.
Someone who will walk that dark path with you regardless of the danger.
Someone who will walk with you no matter how bad your silly mistake was.
Someone who will teach you the true meaning of respectful love,
Someone who makes your days feel like life is finally worth it.
Someone who has shown you what true love is.
Someone who is giving more to you than taking.
Someone who physically affects your body, mind and soul.
Someone that is always on your mind no matter where you go, or what you do.
Someone that no one can take away from your mind and soul, a love you need.
Someone who sets you free!
Someone to make babies with and they will look just like the two of you.
Someone who lives true spiritual love with you!
All the best from
James M Sandbrook.
September 10, 2014.
“Who is controlling your mind?”
Who is sitting behind you right now whispering in your ear defeating your life, and pushing you in direction that you don’t feel right about heading in, and who is suggesting that you do things that make you feel uncomfortable about doing?
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Is it the opinions of your parents?
Is it the opinions of your friends and family?
Is it the old false negative opinions that have grown in your mind and taken root to keep you from attempting anything important, good and desirable in your life?
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Who or what is the controlling factor in your own personal life?
Who and what has control of your mind?
If it is anyone other than you, then it is the wrong source on information that you are allowing to control your life and mind.
Only you can live for you, “only you!”
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If you are not controlling your own life, then “Take Back What Is Rightfully Yours!!!!” Take back control of your own mind.
Consider this. God has a plan for your life. You will never, ever be able to live that plan if you are allowing someone else, or old negative thought patterns to control your life. A person other than you does not know God’s plan for your life, only you and God know. Only you feel and desire that life.
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People may tell you their opinions etc, but they are not spiritually capable of knowing the exact and constant path that God has planned for your own life. Trust your own instincts, and if you discover that your life stinks, then find out why, and then weed out the opposition to your happiness.
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All the best from
James M Sandbrook.
September 10, 2014 at 9:11am.
If you are not learning the lesson remind yourself that it is not because there is anything wrong with you.
You just haven’t got it yet. We all learn at different levels and a lot of our learning issues can come from past events that were negative.
I failed everything at school and was considered a slow learner who was always daydreaming and looking out the window instead of paying attention to the teacher. But years later, well after my school days, I learned so much more and easily learned everything I couldn’t understand in school. I think that the biggest advantage was that I could choose who taught me and how I was taught, and what I learned, and I did it at my own pace, and I learned what I chose to learn (What I was interested in).
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If a child has had its growth broken somewhere by abuse or for other reasons then that can affect their learning abilities as an adult.
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Another reason for us having difficulty understand what is being taught is that we are not getting taught by the right person or people. We all have our own different ways, feelings, opinions and beliefs – if is much easier to learn from someone else who is like minded.
I highly recommend that we get closer to God by living and acting like Jesus. He showed us the way to live a much simpler life with gentler ways. The closer we are to Christ then the more we understand what God has planned for us. What I mean is that it is easier to understand the teachings when we are on the same mental and emotional path as the teacher. Like-minded.
So if you are having difficulty understanding what is being shown to you then it may not be you or the teacher/motivator/therapist, it may be that you are not on the same spiritual path of understanding – you are not connecting. It doesn’t matter how many teachers you get and fail with because you only fail because they are not getting through to you.
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One reason Believers in God are taught to have like-minded friends is so that they can all understand one another and help one another. They think the same and talk the same – the speak the same emotional language.
The same is in the church, we are reminded to be with those who are like minded and love God with all our heart and soul.
The worst thing to do is to give up, so please don’t give up. Know that you were made in the image of God. Know that you like all people have the capability of learning all things that you need to.
The right people make all the difference. It is because when we are with the right people we are on the same emotional and mental bandwidth that they are on. It is far easier to get on with people who we don’t need to impress, or want to show off to, or feel the need to please, but simply good people that we can have good times with.
If we are relaxed with the teacher or the teacher is someone who is kind and generous and really does care about our learning and changing, then we will be encouraged and happy to be in this person’s care.
In the right environment and with the right people the student will eagerly learn and results will be seen soon.
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All the best from
James M Sandbrook.
September 10, 2013.
The guy who checks out the pharmaceuticals etc, said that the pain killers in fluids don’t make any difference in getting the effect to happen quicker, he said that even though the impression is to buy those liquid painkillers because they work faster does not exist, he says that they are just as fast or a tiny bit faster than the standard much cheaper pills.
trying to help people wake up and look out of the box.
The Gentleman
We all have a desire to be wanted, needed, helpful to others, respected, and such.
With the influenced of Hollywood movies and actors giving the false impression to young people that being “gangster”, mean, unlawful, a fighter and so on will get us respect, genuine friendships, company, has many seeking genuine relationships that won’t come their way, by being the opposite to what attracts good people and honest relationships.
Few words have carried as much weight across so many centuries as the word, “gentleman.” Today such a character or person assumed to be a gentleman is often reduced to a man’s good manners, such as holding a door open for someone carrying something, or for a woman, child, or someone struggling to get through, or wearing a suit. I think the suit idea came from England, where the businessman in traditional suit and bowler hat was called a gentleman.
The deeper meaning of the word is about a good man’s character, and many people trace that character back to the moral teachings and lifestyles of the prophets and of Jesus.
In order to get what we want for our own lives, we need to be what we want to see in the world.
If we want more honesty, we need to be honest.
If we want to be helped, we need to help others.
If we want to be treated with respect, we need to respect others.
If we want to be understood, we need to try understand other people.
If we need or want our spouse to be able to cope and handle life, we should be this too before we marry.
And so on…
Many traditions have described a man of this kind having high ideals, good moral standards, good values and high ethics in the work force, someone that many look up to, said to be by the many as a good example.
Many people complain that the world is not this or that, or that people should be more honest, good, compassionate, decent and so on, and they themselves are not what they want to see in the world.
Common Sense is that if we want change in the world we need to be that change ourselves, we need to be who we want others to be. The changes we want to see can start with us.
Jesus taught by example and words, meekness, service, and love of neighbour, and said that the greatest among us is the one who serves. Those who were not nice to Jesus in the beginning, people who doubted him and his work for God, Jesus cleaned their dirty feet as an example of what we should be like and how we should treat people who have changed, become new, and honoured God.
The medieval code of chivalry later joined these ideals to the protection of the vulnerable. Many were not good people their entire lives, but at a later time matured and became worthy of being called a gentleman of sorts.
Other civilisations reached similar ideas independently: Confucius spoke of the junzi, the person of cultivated virtue, the gentleman, and Aristotle of the man of good character who does the right thing for the right reasons.
All Parenting should be based on bringing up males and females who will have strong unbreakable values, desire a good future, and that good parenting will prepare them to deal with life, and also help them have a good character.
It is wisdom to realise that if our children have good character then this will help them through life and also help us relate to them and they will understand us better as their parents.
Strong Values gives the young something good and decent to believe in, and will also help them respect themselves as they stand with good character and a kind compassionate way of dealing with other people.
The gentleman should have faith and a centre. A gentleman is anchored in something greater than himself, whether that is God, conscience, or a firm moral code. Because his values are not up for negotiation, he stays steady when circumstances shift, he is his own man, not owned by company, family or society, he knows what he believes and that is enough for him during his life.
He courage is the willingness to do what is right even if it is hard, causes him long-suffering, even when it is costly to tell the truth, to stand beside the unpopular, to admit a mistake. A gentleman can be gentle precisely because he is not afraid.
The Gentleman has hope in life, his faith, in people and so on. The Gentleman believes that people can change, that effort matters, and that tomorrow can be better than today. The Gentleman believes that being hope and encouragement to those around him is something he cannot stop himself from doing as he wants to see people other than himself progress, mature, become more stable, confident and sure of themselves.
The Gentleman believes in sacrifice if the right cause is something he values and believes in, for the good of others. To the Gentleman real strength shows in what a man is willing to give up for others: his comfort, his time, his pride, sometimes his own advantage he walks from to give the advantage to others if it will help a cause and other people. The gentleman does not ask “What do I gain?” because that is not his only interest, first, he asks “Who needs me?”, “Can I help?”
The Gentleman protects without dominating, because his ego is deliberately held back, and he has no desire for unfair gain, bullying or forcing his way. His strength exists to help, protect, give a person a helping hand up from where that person has fallen, never to intimidate, hurt or to shame. The Gentleman guards the weak because he believes that those who are stronger should use their mental and physical strengths to help those who are not strong or need a guide to become stronger, he helps and protects those absent, and those without voice, the defenceless.
The Gentleman is fair and just, because to him it is just the clear and obvious way to be. He treats the rich and the poor the same, and he will never favour the rich and wealthy over the poor, because regardless of wealth to him we all have an equal say, the titled to him are not more important than the poor. He does not bend the truth to favour a friend or punish a rival, and he gives others the same benefit of the doubt he would want for himself.
The Gentleman is not defined by wealth, title, or education, or public status. A man can be elegantly dressed and cruel, or poor and noble, the persons character is more important than his or her attire or looks. The Gentleman is gentleness, but his gentle ways should never be confused with weakness weakness. The Gentleman is strong enough to hold his temper – be slow to anger, be humble enough to listen and try to get an understanding of what is going on and what you think, and secure enough not to need to win every argument, because winning is not the goal, finding the right answer that solves problems should be the goal.
In an age that rewards self-promotion and quick outrage, the gentleman stands out through quiet reliability, some will take advantage of him, but he keeps no real accounts, he just avoids those who have proven they cannot be trusted. He keeps his word as best as he can, because it feels important to him to be helpful and reliable. He speaks respectfully of others but will call a person out who has done wrong or is being unfair, he honours women, children and elders. He leads by service and measures success by the good he does, not by materialistic gain or fame.
The real Gentleman is a nice man, good to know, someone who you can rely on, trust, have faith in and know that when he shakes your hand and makes a promise he will do the best that he can to make that promise come true, he is as good as his word, and his handshake is as good as ay signed deal made in any lawyers office.
A Gentleman’s word is as good as a contract.
The Gentleman enjoys being helpful, useful, responsible, and even making personal sacrifices for other people gives him a good feeling knowing that in his small allotment of time on the planet he was able to make a positive difference to people who had no hope, no help from others, needed help, guidance, and advice, and he was there to do it.
The true Gentleman is the type that many come to his funeral because of how he affected their lives deeply, sincerely, completely and with empathy.
He lives not so much for himself, even though he does enjoy many things, he lives for others, and many times they never even have a clue that it was he that did them a good deed or favour. Life is not what he can get out of other people but what he can do for them, thats is what makes him happy and gives him joy, this is where his power and desires lay, in being someone who makes a difference for the better in other people’s lives, and it is not worthy of doing unless he gains nothing for his efforts.
All the best from
James Martin Sandbrook.