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Reaching a State of Calmness

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Reaching A State Of Calm Can Bring Us Face To Face With Ourselves

Very Often We Forget The Lesson Unless It’s Difficult

There are times when we’re all very busy, probably too busy.   The first reaction for most of us is to expect the other person, or persons, to be able to read our minds, to know that we’re too occupied with what’s going on around us to stop and talk.  Usually when that happens we got embroiled in an action/reaction scenario. 

I remember a time in my life when it seemed I never had enough time and my favorite saying was, “I’m too busy.”  That mindset started out in my businesses but crept into my personal life. After telling my employees, and later my family and friends, that I was too busy, I would drop it at that, expecting everyone to be able to read my mind.

A few years ago I was presented with an opportunity that would prepare me for dealing with people from around the World.
 
My learning place came as a caregiver for my Mom the last ten years she was alive.  The last three years were difficult, with the last two being physically and emotionally exhausting.  In the beginning I felt it was more than I could handle.  Then one day I realized that “here’s a learning opportunity that’s being presented to me that can help me make the changes in my life that I’ve known about for a long time but haven’t been able to accomplish.” 

I was a cookie cutter of my Mom.  I had a lot of the same traits she had, most of which I didn’t care for in her or others, but had turned a blind eye to in myself.  I knew those traits were there, I just chose to ignore them because, “That’s who I am, and I’m too busy!” 

The more her health deteriorated the more often the sudden outbursts, the verbal abuse, and having to be physically on guard at all times, occurred.  I was fortunate, I’d had many years of discipline training, I knew the benefits of breath control and I had a wife who knew the situation on a firsthand basis. 

There were times when it would have been much easier to put my mother in a nursing home, visit when it was convenient and walk away when it wasn’t.  If I had chosen to do that, most people would have understood.  But, I would never have been able to see how my life might turn out by watching it pass in front of my eyes, as if looking in a mirror.

My Mom’s friends and acquaintances quit coming to visit because she alienated them with traits that had been “cute” when she was well but were amplified the sicker she got.

My experience has been that those who are aggressive by nature when well, have a tendency to become more belligerent when sick.  Those who are passive when well, become more docile when ill.  My tendency, like my Mom’s, was to be aggressive.  I saw firsthand what it was doing to her life and to those around her and I didn’t want that to be my future.  Because of the lesson that was being presented to me, I was able to begin bringing myself, and my life, to the center of the road. 

Because of that opportunity I’m better able to communicate with others and, even though I still have a lifetime of learning ahead, I’m at least able to be a little more understanding when they go ballistic over little things. 

I haven’t reached the place of a pacifist and really don’t care to, but I’m not teetering on the edge where little things can pitch me into the brink like they used to. 

I guess it’s like driving down the road.  Being in the dirt on either shoulder can be a dangerous place.   By staying on the road, we’ll live a longer and happier life.  There are times when someone else can be out of control and we have to be aware of those times and not allow them to physically, emotionally or spiritually crash into us.  We also can’t hold onto our half of the road, our belief system (our BS) so tightly that we end up in a relationship wreck through bullheadedness.

I believe it’s necessary to hold those responsible for their actions, their reckless driving through life, but since my learning opportunity, it’s proven to be more prudent to do that from a calm place, rather than from a reactionary point of view.

      

 

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About Larry Miller

I was born in Los Angeles in 1940. My father was a fighter pilot instructor during WWll and we moved from coast to coast, maybe that’s where I got the nomad in my blood. After graduating from high school in 1958 I joined the Marines. That lifestyle wasn’t for me and upon my discharge I went on with my life, and have never looked back. I worked briefly for a Caterpillar dealer in Riverside, CA before moving back to N. California where I was a welder and truck driver for a chemical company. Truck driving wasn’t my calling anymore than being in the Marines, and I went back to work for another Caterpillar dealer steam cleaning dirty tractor parts and welding. They sent me to schools, lots and lots of schools. I spent as much time going to trade schools as I did at work. I went from cleaning parts to apprentice field mechanic, to mechanic to the parts department to satellite store manager in less than two years. They wanted me to move to Sacramento and be a salesman: I moved to Oregon to learn to commune with nature. I went to work for another heavy equipment dealer and was later contacted by the World’s largest Lorraine Crane dealer and offered the position of purchasing agent and general parts manager. In 1967 I was offered a line of automotive parts and supplies and went into business for myself. My business revolved around eleven race cars that we maintained for others, driving race cars professionally and maintaining high end sports cars. I was a championship and regional champion driver. My business was the largest import parts and service, non dealer, in the state until I sold it in 1979. We went sailing in 79, first to Mexico and then Hawaii. I was an award winning Trans-Pacific sailor and sailor of the year, Hawaii, Island of Kauai. An opportunity presented itself in Hawaii during 1981 and I was back in business, importing Japanese auto body and hard parts. I also felt the pull to write and began freelancing for magazines and newspapers in 1982. My main focus in my articles is, and always has been, health, wellness and fitness. Most of us have heard the saying, “Time is all we have.” I disagree. Our health is all we have, because without our health, we have no time. I was a US Olympic team hopeful in racewalking and held all the records for the state of Hawaii. As a sponsored athlete in my forties, I finished first in nine marathons in a row in my division, qualified for the Ironman® and was the state USCF cycling champion five times in Hawaii and Oregon. Celinda and I were married in 1988 after a three year engagement. We sold our businesses and organic farm and sailed back to Oregon. After our sailboat boat was sold, we moved to Joseph, Oregon, two miles from the trailhead into the Eagle Cap Wilderness. We were caregivers for my mother the last ten years she was alive. We moved to New Mexico in 1995 because it was too cold for my mom in Oregon during the winters. Celinda designed, and I engineered and built our strawbale house. I began writing the weekly health column for a local newspaper in 1996, and still do. In 2000, I took the summer off to do a four month, 4000 mile, hike, bike and kayak odyssey. I’d been writing health, fitness and sports articles since 1982 and the journey produced a full-length, nonfiction, first person adventure book, Yol Bolsun, May There Be A Road, which can be bought from Amazon.com and others over the Internet. The summer of 2001 was spent hiking. kayaking, fishing and exploring the southwest. In 2002 Celinda and I spent the summer in Canada learning the hospitality business at a resort in preparation for doing promotion for the resort in the US. Most of 2003 was spent reestablishing the trees and landscape that had died during the stay in Canada. We had a house sitter and the house sitter had an ex-husband, and that’s a long story. In July of 2004 I did a solo kayak trip on the Snake River, taking pictures, writing articles and pencil sketching the journey. I hope to do another kayak adventure on the Snake River during the summer of 2008, on the section I missed in 2000 and 2004. In 2005, I returned to Canada to the resort where we’d spent 2002. I was supposed to be there for the month of June. I’d contacted people I’d met in 2002 and they came back to Canada to fish, hike and spend time at the resort, Echo Valley Ranch and Spa, while I was there. My one month became five and then it was off to Spain to do the El Camino de Santiago as a travel companion with one of the guests who’d returned to Canada in June. During the summer of 2006 a friend from Ireland, who I’d met in Spain the year before, came to visit in NM and we fished, hiked and explored the White Mountains of AZ. He’d never slept out in the wild in a tent before, and it was quite an experience, for both of us. My newspaper articles were put on the Internet beginning in 2002. I was asked to give public speaking engagements, photo and video presentations, on various subjects for the library in Deming, NM and continue to do so. In 2006 I videoed and produced a DVD for the Smithsonian Institute’s travel exhibit “Between Fences.” NMFILMS had a conference by invitation only, which I attended. While attending the conference, I realized that film making wasn’t what I wanted to do but I still wanted to use my sixteen years of experience and enjoyment of videoing and photography. During the winter of 2005, I discovered that no one on record had ever run from the Arizona border to the Texas border, a distance of 165 miles. During the spring and summer of 2006 I trained for the run and the run was completed in October, 2006. In late 2005, I began building and maintaining websites incorporating all the things I enjoyed about video, photography, travel and the out of doors. 2007 has been a summer of upgrading the home and property which resulted in a downgrading of my enthusiasm for being located in one place. If we don’t like what’s happening in our life, we need to change what we’re doing. Celinda and I are ready to pull up roots and move on. I guess I’ve come full circle. I’m ready to revert back to my childhood, and a nomadic lifestyle.

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