"Runaway Train" from Do-ing to Be-ing

“Every time that I have been here, you have instructed me to sit comfortably and then you have introduced your intended agenda …” I said to him, “Today, I would like for you to make yourself comfortable, and I am going to tell you what my agenda has been …” And I did. I told him about Her. I told him about “us”, and how we had become “us.” And this remarkable man (a gifted and accomplished Clinical Psychologist and University Professor), who had guided, coached, instructed, advised, listened to, exhorted, admonished, and cared about me, as my Psychologist and Friend, for four years … was thunderstruck.

“For all of these years, I have learned all about the make-up, the elements, the structure of You. Over that time I have witnessed you doing all of the 'right,' 'best,' and 'appropriate' things in your life. But this is the first time that I have ever seen you 'alive.’ The lights are on and you are 'at home.’ You have, prior to today, been a fully engaged Human … doing all of your life’s required and expected things. And now, for the first time, I see you as a complete Human Being.” I listened to his summary statement … and responded, “So, I have evolved from a “Human Doing”, to a “Human Being.” And we shared a mutual smile of acknowledgment and agreement.

Since that day, My Dear Reader, I have been focused on my responsibilities to that Being, that I now understand myself to have been wondrously created to be. And I have assumed the posture, that all of life’s required “doings”, of the “stuff” (the details required by the living of life), will be well and rightly taken care of, as a natural out-flowing from my moment-by-moment election ... my willful and knowing choice ... to be the most genuine and realistic Me, that I can honestly be. If I am Being the best John-Michael that I can be ... I needn't be focused on the doing of things. Those "things" will be done by someone else if I am not here to attend to them. But there is not ... has never been ... will never be ... anyone who can Be this funky individual that I have been so uniquely created to Be. Therefore, Dearest Friend, I must be about Being, and not sweat the Doings.

As Ghandi so beautifully put it, I “must be the changes that I want to see in my world. Hence the license tag on my vehicle that reads “justbeingme.” Just as my Email address is “justbnmebrown@juno.com", and this blog is “Just-Being-John-Michael" as my testimony to whomever may be open, and sensitive, to the message suggested there. For, My Dear Reader, that is what I was best created to be … Me. No other person can be this individual that I alone am. And Life holds no one else responsible for being all that I am capable of being … other than Me.

I went, that day, long ago, from that inhsightful Man's office alive, aglow, and being a functioning Me ... from the inside, out. He said that the energies, power, and force that She and I shared, reminded him of a “runaway train.” (And he mailed me a tape of a song so-entitled [which I still have and smile every time that I see it.]) That runaway train did as all runaway trains must do … it eventually surrendered to natural forces, circumstances, and elements … slowed … stopped … discharged its passengers, one at a time, at different stations, for them to pursue their own individual purposes. But I now write, and live, in the residual power of what I retain from that illumination, that life energy, and that sense of being that she and I discovered on our beautifully wild and wonderful train ride. And I will forever love and respect her, and all of my memories of that gift of our moments together.

Even better ... I can encourage You, Darling One, to whisper that question to yourself. "Am I being the person that is uniquely me? Or, am I doing all of the stuff ... fulfilling all of the expectations ... performing all of the roles ... that are imposed upon me by others?" It is my fondest hope that I can encourage you ... in this moment of quiet reflection ... to dare to see how truly wonderful you are. This is what I see when I read your comments ... visit your blog and read your revelations ... listen to various forms of expression of your hopes, dreams, and aspirations. I am aware (because I allow myself to be aware) of the "music" behind your words. And I want, ever so much, to give you a glimpse of the beauty that you can know ... if you will but permit yourself to dance a few graceful steps to that music ... the song of your Heart's yearnings.


To that end, I send this little note of personal reflection and experience to you. For, don't you know, I love You. Really! I do. [big ol' smile]