It isn't what you have, or who you are, or where you are, or what you are doing that makes you happy or unhappy. It is what you think about.
- Dale Carnegie
Sunday, April 24, 2011
A rattlesnake, if cornered, will become so angry it will bite itself. That is exactly what the harboring of hate and resentment against others is -- a biting of oneself. We think we are harming others in holding these spites and hates, but the deeper harm is to ourselves.
- E. Stanley Jones
(Thanks to Gregg Braden, on a Facebook post, for this one)
- E. Stanley Jones
(Thanks to Gregg Braden, on a Facebook post, for this one)
Healthy living doesn't happen at the doctor's office. The road to better health is paved with the small decisions we make every day. It's about the choices we make when we buy groceries, drive our cars and hang out with our kids.
- Tara Parker-Pope, in About Well blog on http://www.nytimes.com/
- Tara Parker-Pope, in About Well blog on http://www.nytimes.com/
When we cannot bear to be alone, it means we do not properly value or appreciate the only companion we will have from birth to death - ourselves.
No matter how many people may have loved us during our lives, the love we need most of all is the love we can give ourselves. It's the springboard to a creative and meaningful and fulfilling life when we are alone.
- Eda LeShan
No matter how many people may have loved us during our lives, the love we need most of all is the love we can give ourselves. It's the springboard to a creative and meaningful and fulfilling life when we are alone.
- Eda LeShan
To watch another struggle or experience pain is an opportunity
to open your heart and allow God's love to pour forth,
unconditionally and without reservation.
Allow your love to wash away the pain, not only of your brothers and sisters,
but of the pain you feel as well in watching them suffer.
© DavidPaul Doyle & Candace Doyle at http://www.thevoiceforlove.com/
to open your heart and allow God's love to pour forth,
unconditionally and without reservation.
Allow your love to wash away the pain, not only of your brothers and sisters,
but of the pain you feel as well in watching them suffer.
© DavidPaul Doyle & Candace Doyle at http://www.thevoiceforlove.com/
There is a story told in the East of two fakirs who had spent years in seclusion studying yoga, having learned extraordinary feats of physical and mental control and mastery of their minds and bodies. Standing on the banks of the Ganges they fell into one another's company, and in the course of their conversation one of them happened to imply that he had developed the ability to do more miraculous things than most, probably including his companion.
The other fakir, a bit older and perhaps a bit wiser, rebuked him gently, wondering whether he might not be carried away by a moment's boastfulness. But his newfound friend bristled with pride and volunteered to demonstrate what he could do.
The older man agreed to this. "Go ahead," he said.
The younger proceeded, "See the man across the river? I will make appear on a piece of paper in the his hand the name of a friend whom he has long forgotten."
The older man smiled, "Is that really the sort of thing you do? That's nothing."
The younger fakir replied, now with some heat, "Oh, really! That's nothing? Well, please tell me, what sort of miraculous feats do you accomplish?
The first fakir looked at him calmly and his eyes twinkled, "I eat when I'm hungry and drink when I'm thirsty."
The other fakir, a bit older and perhaps a bit wiser, rebuked him gently, wondering whether he might not be carried away by a moment's boastfulness. But his newfound friend bristled with pride and volunteered to demonstrate what he could do.
The older man agreed to this. "Go ahead," he said.
The younger proceeded, "See the man across the river? I will make appear on a piece of paper in the his hand the name of a friend whom he has long forgotten."
The older man smiled, "Is that really the sort of thing you do? That's nothing."
The younger fakir replied, now with some heat, "Oh, really! That's nothing? Well, please tell me, what sort of miraculous feats do you accomplish?
The first fakir looked at him calmly and his eyes twinkled, "I eat when I'm hungry and drink when I'm thirsty."
Finding and maintaining a healing diet that's right for you is one of life's greatest achievements. Think about it: How many of your accomplishments can radically improve your health, protect you from major illness, give you abundant energy, help create and sustain a positive outlook and make you look and feel years younger than your chronological age? When you consider all the suffering, medication, and surgery that you can avoid by eating health-promoting foods every day, you start to realize that a healing diet may be one of the four or five greatest gifts you could ever receive.
- Joshua Rosenthal
- Joshua Rosenthal
Saturday, April 23, 2011
Healthy Boundaries in Relationships
Boundaries by don Miguel Ruiz |
There are two kinds of boundaries we use when dealing with people--the boundaries we use when we don't have awareness, and the boundaries we use when we do have awareness. Usually we create boundaries in places where we can be hurt. We have emotional wounds in our minds, and if someone touches our wounds we have emotional pain. To feel safe in our interactions with people, we put boundaries around every emotional wound. These boundaries create a box that restricts us. When we heal the emotional mind, we no longer have those wounds, and the boundaries disappear. When they disappear, we create a new set of boundaries -- this time with awareness.
The second set of boundaries we create is because of other people's wounds, so we don't allow other people to give us their emotional poison.
When we are young, we play with other children to have fun, not to insult them or to give them our poison. As adults, we also want to have relationships that we enjoy. We don't want poison like anger, jealousy, or envy. We don't want each other's garbage. When get together, it's because we want to share our love and our joy.
When we are no longer wounded, and we are in a relationship, we can put up boundaries to restrict another's poison. We call that respect.
We don't want to have relationships that are disrespectful to us. For example, if I am in a relationship with someone and that person tries to control me, I can tell them, "Okay this is the limit. Don't cross this limit. You can be with me or not, but if you stay with me don't try to control me. Give me my space, and I will give you your space. I deal with my garbage, you deal with your garbage. If you are cranky, I will give you space. You can be cranky, it's okay, there's nothing personal. I respect you, and I want respect also. If you don't respect me, I will not stay with you and it doesn't mean that I don't love you, no… I love you. But if I'm not being respected, I will leave and you can be with someone who is the way you want them to be."
We can create acceptable boundaries with people whose emotional poison we do not want to eat. When we respect ourselves, we will not allow disrespect from anybody else. This is not selfishness, it's self-love. The controlling aspect is selfishness -- wanting a partner to stay with us even if we are in hell. If we go into relationships because, "Oh I need you so much," it's selfishness, not self-love.
We need to understand that self-love is completely different from selfishness. Self-love come from integrity. We recognize our integrity through our feelings. The feelings we have are real. If we don't feel good it's because something is not right. If we feel anger, we know that something is not right. If we feel envy or jealousy, something is not right. Jealousy is not bad, anger is not bad either. These emotions are telling us when something is not right.
Repressing emotions is not the answer … to change the cause of the emotions is the answer. If we feel anger or jealousy, we have to take one step back to see what is causing those emotions. If we change the cause, the affect also will change.
A love relationship should be based in respect. And that's why we put boundaries on our relationships. The boundary is not, "Don't touch me because I can get hurt." The boundary is a way to have someone show respect. We don't want their anger or their judgment.
Relationships can be so wonderful. We can be completely open and loving. But just because we love someone, that doesn't mean we have to put up with their anger, jealousy or abuse. We don't need to be abused, and we can't send out our abuse either.
This is a way of having relationships based in love. A selfish relationship is not based in love. " I love you if you let me control you. I love you if you do whatever I want you to do. If you are not the way I want you to be, then I won't love you." This is not love. "I will stay with you even if you abuse me, even if you mistreat me." That is not love either. How can we love if we don't love ourselves?
With self-love and self-respect life can be completely different. We can make life easy or we can make it difficult. The only one who suffers or enjoys the consequences is us. If we have children, and something happens to them then yes, we feel emotional pain. Sometimes we can get sick, and be cranky, why not? But it's not personal. We don't have to give our poison to anybody else.
Life can be a playground. We can create new habits and routines that are automatic and lead us to happiness, and to the enjoyment of life. We can play and have fun most of the time, and be loving all the time, for no reason. We don't need any justification to love. It just feels good. Love coming out of us is what makes life happy.
Copyright © 2000 don Miguel Ruiz
Who’s kissing you now? by Barbara Emrys
Every human mind occupies a human body. Since you are the voice in your own head, the thinker and the storyteller, let’s call you the mind.
You are destined to reside within a human being and live only as long as your human lives. What is your relationship to this human being? Is it by any chance romantic?
Your constant and loyal partner throughout this existence has been the body you inhabit. It has seen you through, well, everything – good times, bad times, life threatening situations, inspirations, and private pain. You, on the other hand, have probably treated it with indifference at best. It’s far more likely that you have abused and disrespected the body for a lifetime.
Both body and mind are the living representation of infinite life, one being made of matter and one clearly not. Each is necessary to the survival of the other. A mutual intimacy is unavoidable, but your communication leaves something to be desired – and a relationship lives or dies on the quality of communication.
What sweet words are you whispering to your other half? What gestures of kindness and compassion does it receive from you, if any?
I love you, spoken out loud several times a day, would make a really good impression. Thank you would be a stunning novelty. Appreciation never goes unappreciated. Forgive me would put things into dramatic perspective and also provide the best possible teaching.
It might be that you have spent a lifetime dismissing your physical body, while expecting it to serve you in all ways at all times. You have spent a lifetime obsessing about yourself – you, the purveyor of thought. You have been boasting about yourself and railing against yourself and marketing yourself. In other words, you have been investing so much in what is not real that you have ignored what is real.
You, too, can eagerly submit, the way lovers submit to falling freely into love. But you let fear make your choices instead. Listen to the human body. Make modifications in thought and behavior for the sake of a great romance. Take the tyrant out of this relationship. You, the voice in your head – stop being such a bully. Stop needing to know. Stop needing to be right. Stop believing yourself. Get down. Bend a little. Put your head below your heart once in a while, just to see how it feels. Literally kiss the ground you walk on. Give yourself the time to feel true love wash through you and over you. Submit to the tidal wave. Yes, it will modify you – and it may, perhaps, obliterate you. You would be well advised to build a reality on that.
Our human quest to merge, life-to-life, is a divine directive. Birds, bees, bubble whales and buffalos wrap themselves around this truth without a story and without judgment. We are storytellers, however, and it’s important that we use our great storytelling talents to drink in the liquid, life-giving nectar of divine romance. Who’s kissing you now? Who’s touching you, tasting you, whispering words of love and praise to you? Could it be you – joining forces with life itself, the lover of all things? Such a keen awareness of life, as it surges behind the stories, is romance in action. It is everyone’s destiny to be in love, without a doubt. So, kiss this precious human. Touch it, hold it, reassure and rediscover it. Give up all pretense and fall headlong and forever into love with it.
- from www.miguelruiz.com/blog, posted Feb. 26, 2010
You are destined to reside within a human being and live only as long as your human lives. What is your relationship to this human being? Is it by any chance romantic?
Your constant and loyal partner throughout this existence has been the body you inhabit. It has seen you through, well, everything – good times, bad times, life threatening situations, inspirations, and private pain. You, on the other hand, have probably treated it with indifference at best. It’s far more likely that you have abused and disrespected the body for a lifetime.
Both body and mind are the living representation of infinite life, one being made of matter and one clearly not. Each is necessary to the survival of the other. A mutual intimacy is unavoidable, but your communication leaves something to be desired – and a relationship lives or dies on the quality of communication.
What sweet words are you whispering to your other half? What gestures of kindness and compassion does it receive from you, if any?
I love you, spoken out loud several times a day, would make a really good impression. Thank you would be a stunning novelty. Appreciation never goes unappreciated. Forgive me would put things into dramatic perspective and also provide the best possible teaching.
It might be that you have spent a lifetime dismissing your physical body, while expecting it to serve you in all ways at all times. You have spent a lifetime obsessing about yourself – you, the purveyor of thought. You have been boasting about yourself and railing against yourself and marketing yourself. In other words, you have been investing so much in what is not real that you have ignored what is real.
You, too, can eagerly submit, the way lovers submit to falling freely into love. But you let fear make your choices instead. Listen to the human body. Make modifications in thought and behavior for the sake of a great romance. Take the tyrant out of this relationship. You, the voice in your head – stop being such a bully. Stop needing to know. Stop needing to be right. Stop believing yourself. Get down. Bend a little. Put your head below your heart once in a while, just to see how it feels. Literally kiss the ground you walk on. Give yourself the time to feel true love wash through you and over you. Submit to the tidal wave. Yes, it will modify you – and it may, perhaps, obliterate you. You would be well advised to build a reality on that.
Our human quest to merge, life-to-life, is a divine directive. Birds, bees, bubble whales and buffalos wrap themselves around this truth without a story and without judgment. We are storytellers, however, and it’s important that we use our great storytelling talents to drink in the liquid, life-giving nectar of divine romance. Who’s kissing you now? Who’s touching you, tasting you, whispering words of love and praise to you? Could it be you – joining forces with life itself, the lover of all things? Such a keen awareness of life, as it surges behind the stories, is romance in action. It is everyone’s destiny to be in love, without a doubt. So, kiss this precious human. Touch it, hold it, reassure and rediscover it. Give up all pretense and fall headlong and forever into love with it.
- from www.miguelruiz.com/blog, posted Feb. 26, 2010
Saturday, April 16, 2011
a blessed question re forgiveness, by Lisa Meade Withinsight
Who or what can you forgive so that you can fully embrace today's gifts?
Albert Camus, on God
I would rather live my life as if there is a God and die to find out there isn't, than to live my life as if there isn't and die to find out there is.
the effect of judgement, by Albert Einstein
If you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.
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