I get stuck when I think I’m at the mercy of somebody else. I get stuck when I can’t see and forgive my choices. I get stuck when I’m afraid I can’t do it, when I’m afraid I’m not enough.
But I AM enough–not because I messed up and landed here. I am enough because I’ve accepted responsibility for landing here and learned from it. I am enough because I know my situation can’t define me. I am enough because I’m ready to choose again.
I am enough because I am love.… More
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We can’t see what we’re afraid to see. We can’t feel what we’re afraid to feel. We can’t do what we’re afraid to do. We can’t be who we’re afraid to be–even if the person we’re afraid to be is our authentic self.
But we don’t have to wonder if we’re intended to be authentic. Our destiny is to choose love, rather than yield to fear. Our purpose is to reconcile our behavior with our essence of authentic love.
And when we choose to trust love and act on love, we also displace our fear. … More
This is my first share since my last newsletter. My doctor, my baby, ordered me to stay in bed. It had something to do with my screams and cries in the middle of the night, my begging him for intervention. This is not about a sprained sacroiliac, though.
This is about my baby. For three consecutive nights, he brought me dinner in bed. But the part that speaks love to me is his sitting on the floor next to me with his plate and his napkin to eat his own dinner, and assist me with getting food into my mouth. I’m so grateful for love that has grown into vulnerable and deliberately transparent.
Love isn’t needy. And I’m a very independent girl. But I’m learning to revel in connection, and I want my baby for life. Perhaps that sounds odd to you, but I trust love enough to trust whatever I encounter, with or without a partner. I still know that my life will only get better. But Sam and I grow too well together for me to wonder if I’ll outgrow him. I think I’ll keep him forever.
And I’m quite certain we’ll be in Love School for life. Always another lesson, another layer of the unconscious to bring into our consciousness.… More
We’ve all had those moments when we stared dumbfounded at a partner, before we retaliated. Remember that time she lost it and turned into somebody you didn’t want to know? The time his countenance actually changed right before your eyes — as if with special effects?
Are we all capable of turning into monsters?
That’s one way to say it. According to Eckhart Tolle, in his much acclaimed “A New Earth,” we have a “pain-body” that can, at a moment’s notice, erupt like a dormant volcano.
Tolle explains what he calls the “pain-body” as the accumulation of old emotional pain that we carry with us, because of our tendency to perpetuate it. He uses an example of “the duck with a human mind” to make his point.
After two ducks get into a fight, which is always short-lived, they separate and float off in opposite directions. Then each duck vigorously flaps its wings a few times, releasing the surplus energy that built up, and continues peacefully, as if nothing had happened. Ah, but if the duck had a human mind, it would keep the fight alive.
Tolle says the duck’s story would sound something like this: “I don’t believe what he just did.… More
Is there somebody who always leaves you feeling better than he found you?
I used to live next door to such a person. Whenever I ran into Bob, whether it was for 20 seconds or 20 minutes, I’d later count our meeting among the high points of my day. It took me a while to figure out why.
Bob was a psychologist — still working, still playing tennis, still stimulating — in his 70s. And he had, with much practice, learned how to make everybody feel accepted: He accepted them.
It’s not as simple as it sounds, though. Bob didn’t use a blanket acceptance to cover everybody he encountered. He actually saw each individual for who they were. He saw through my clothes and flowers and the guys who picked me up on weekends to what was inside of me.
Isn’t that what we all want — to be known and accepted, to be loved as we are?
In fact, that’s the most valuable gift a parent can give a child. Sadly, many parents are so caught up in their own drama that they don’t really see their children for who they are.
In the academy award winning film “Ordinary People,” Mary Tyler Moore paints a poignant picture of this.… More