Welcome To Your BBQ

It seemed such a fitting song to be playing on Radio Port Douglas, early this morning, as I fired-up the car, pumped-up the radio & made my way-in to my home away from home, Origin Espresso. 
The song - It begins by telling a little story, recounted in part below, before hitting home with the chorus.......to my amazement, I hadn't heard this awesome song before.
The lyrics really rang home to me, making me smile, as lyrics are apt to do, and at this particular juncture in my life, they really could not have been more appropriate:


It is entitled 'Welcome To Your Barbeque'

The road is long and windy
Full of twists and turns
But before you can rise from the ashes
You've got to burn baby burn

Welcome to your barbeque
Where we roast all the dreams
That never came true
Welcome to your barbeque
Just Pig-out and dream anew

They must have received a cosmic request at Radio Port Douglas, since clearly, my soul had sent-out a take-away request for that one.
It was, unquestionably & most definitely, meant for Me.
Of course, it's so much easier to tell ourselves not to revisit our pasts, to let it all go, but we do go back, time and again. Sometimes, we're looking for answers, sometimes, looking back in anger, reflecting upon how we find ourselves - sometimes, in fact most often, it is repeatedly so that we do this - at the place where we now are, we reflect upon times gone-by, and usually revisit what might be referred to as The Bad Old Days - not always, since there are so many things that we remember with fondness, but certainly often.
And just how is that tried & true method working-out for us?
We cannot literally set-fire to our pasts, but we do need to find the strength to let most things go, and to continue this as an ongoing & continual work in progress.........when we find ourselves revisiting our past....where we have been, we need to remind ourselves of the Now, most importantly, along with looking forward to what magnificence and joy may lay ahead for us - that we cannot predict or know what this may be should only add to it's anticipated pleasure. 
Yes, very easy to say, but so hard to do, let alone master. 
It's something I, like so many others, no doubt - (and it's not any source of comfort that we aren't alone, even when it may constantly seem that only We have such dilemmas and such troubled lives!) - I am currently struggling with it, and I remind myself that, if what has transpired ever really mattered to me, then it's bound to hurt, and hurt a lot. 
I guess, then, we have to grieve, for it's passing.....to go though the grieving process as if a very dear friend had passed-on, but then, we should choose to remember a dear friend in all of the good ways, for the rest of our own days on this Earth - I guess, again, that we can't always do that too successfully, either, but we should aim in this direction always. 
Surely, we are meant to do this? 
Can we, then, dissect away all of the 'good' parts of our pasts that we continually resurrect & revisit in our thoughts, and use only those things to recall & reflect upon?
I don't have the answers - but, if we could, if such a thing is attainable, then I suspect we would be able to heal so much more quickly - we should at least try, if we must reflect, or abandon reflection altogether. Rather than taking this route, instead, with some things, we tend to seek far too many answers, where sometimes, even usually, there are none to be found......with other things, there are an abundance of answers many of which we are only too aware, and we all too often & readily elect to remind ourselves of our own errors, and the errors of others who have been within our lives, as if they can somehow really matter and make any difference as such to our life that follows........and how much use is all of this reinforcement of what we have done wrong, of the wrongs others have done to us? Just where is the pay-off here?
Is it simple catharsis, this act of revisiting our pasts - even what I am doing right now, writing this down......is this really beneficial to my own healing? 
Again, it's not a rhetorical question in any way, and I have no answers, simply more speculation as a fellow truth seeker and member of the Human Race. 
Certainly, we ask a great many more questions of ourselves as we advance in years, likely, almost without doubt, due to our increasing awareness of our own mortality - and it is good to seek answers, to have an inquiring mind, for want of a much better term.....it's in our nature, yes, but that doesn't mean that it's to our benefit and not, in it's very essence, to our detriment.
I think we need to really, properly and fully analyze just what we actually achieve by constantly looking backwards to all of these previous junctures of our lives.......constantly peering back towards the Gone, to the Done - it seems plain enough to see that we are harming ourselves constantly by doing so, and the pay-off, if there is one, is infinitesimally small.
Does it make us happy when we look back at what has been? 
Is it ultimately beneficial to those around us, some of whom may care deeply about us and our well-being - we cannot possibly be projecting and giving the very best version of Us.....we are, in effect, 'short-changing' the people in our lives and around us who matter most, by giving them this second-rate version of Ourselves.
Does it help us retain any kind of focus for living in the moment - does it help us to stop along the tracks, to smell the roses along the way, to savour each & every moment as it travels alongside us in parallel with our life-path?
It's so absurd that we cannot see the blatantly obvious answers to this foolishly obvious thing - it is gross neglect of our own soul in the extreme, to not absorb all of the joy around us, yet even as I type these words, my mind freely wanders away into reflective mode, and what enters my mind now are all the usual suspects of Guilt, Regret, Anger, Sadness, Remorse - there are more, so many more, but these are the major culprits...........I become angry with myself now, reminding myself of the futility of searching backwards in time, punishing myself for crimes I did not even commit, and doing it over and over again, repeatedly.
I tell myself, again, that what has gone has Gone, but the urge to look back is so strong and all-consuming. I know what it is that I need to do, yet feel, for the most part, powerless to do anything that will help me achieve what is, on paper at least, this most simple of outcomes....to live in the Now.
This is why it must be an ongoing work, why I must never again neglect my soul, never again take the risk of putting it on auto-pilot, trusting it to take care of itself. Like a flower, like a plant, it requires nurturing - and our soul is akin to one of those very rare plants, perhaps one that only flowers once every 10 years, and only then if all conditions are absolutely perfect for it. 
Bad analogy, yes, for sure, but the best one I can come-up with so early in the morning, and still only on my second flat white.
We must give freely to those around us, but primarily, we must give to Ourselves - it's not the 'proverbial' Rocket Science, but how often do we forget - I find myself now wondering about the truly selfish, and sadly, there are such people in this beautiful world we live in.
Do they have these issues?
In it's most simplistic of forms, surely they keep almost all things for themselves....one might be forgiven for thinking that they are overflowing with their own Love, and thus are immune from ever being hurt - they never come close to making themselves so vulnerable by giving too much at all to others, since by their very nature, they are Selfish.
I feel very sure that there are alternative prices to pay for being this way - perhaps they still find themselves with an abundance of love from their fellow friends or partners. (maybe I need to convert and become a Bad Guy - it's a very well-known fact that all the really great girls love a Bad Guy, so I ought to do well enough, surely?)
I feel sure that the reality is very different - there exists, somewhere out there, an equation that relates directly to Love and to Giving freely, with the return at least in proportion or greater than that as given. 
Then again, it cannot be an all-encompassing equation without variables (yes, yes, I'll hop-out of the Mathematical analogy thing real soon!) - historically, though, some have given so sacrificially, and have paid the ultimate price for doing so....I'm sure I don't need to quote names, since there are plenty out there. 
To get off the Maths thing, let's wrap the sucker up by suggesting that there may be a single equation with many variables, or a multitude of equations plus or minus what could be an infinite number of variables......or, should you prefer, we have not the first idea what is going-on, we simply do not know how it all works, nor are we really meant to know.
Each night now, I settle into bed with my earpieces firmly in place, listening to teachings from the minds of far greater philosophers than I will ever be - although I secretly do not wish that sweeping statement to be a self-fulfilling prophecy.  
I could state something as inane as 'I am much more a 'deep-thinker' than a Philosopher per se', but you might all laugh at me if I stated that.
Ooops!
Each night, via the magic that are AudioBooks, I also 'absorb' some beautifully simple principles, and it's as though the speaker is talking directly to Me - he must be, since he seems to know all about me, about my circumstances, my life as it has been and as it now is - parts of me suspect the speaker to be my house-mate, yet as amazing as he is, this dude doing the talking knows way too many things.......not that I am a secretive soul, au contrere, yet the man talking to me seems so much closer than the closest friend.......who has told him all this stuff?? 
It's amazing, wonderful, to have this person talking directly to Me, and the only down-side to any of it is that, every night, I fall asleep eventually (even amidst the fascination of what this guy is telling me, yes!)........I crash and fall asleep, missing what is without any doubt Very Important Information.
As you may have correctly guessed, I then need to back-track through the audiobook to the point at which I lapsed - a small price to pay, and I can usually always directly find it readily enough the next night.
Oh, the guy's name??
It's Eckhart Tolle.
The books? 
The Power Of Now, A New Earth, Awakening Into The Now and others........he's a very prolific writer and his works will benefit any and all who are open to change, are in distress, are lost and feeling alone, in crisis of any kind. I am no promoter, simply someone who has benefited and continues to benefit from the teachings of this absolutely incredible man.
So, if you'll excuse me, I have a lot more work to do - having a comprehensive knowledge of Anatomy & Human Physiology is of little use in the metaphysical realm - in the end, it's more about belief and trust in the power to change, to nurture and never neglect our own soul as a means toward such an end, and the need to remind ourselves that it will always, always be a work in progress until we draw our very last breath.