Uncategorized – Page 623

Befriend the truth …

Dear Friends,

We may be tempted to shun the truth, whether it’s about us or somebody we care about. But the truth, all of it, is part of who we are. It isn’t something to be ashamed of, because we’re not. Let’s not judge it to be “bad.”

Let’s learn from it, instead. Let’s build on it and make it a beautiful part of our story. We can write anything we like around it. There’s just no leaving it behind.

The truth is ours for keeps, and forever a friend. There is no love, no life apart from it.

All good in love,… More

Are you cheating your partner?

When we forget that marriage is more than a promise to abstain from sex with somebody else, it can seem like only one partner cheated. In truth, marriage is a promise to love and honor; and abstaining from sex with others is a byproduct of that. The first partner to cheat is not necessarily the one to have sex with somebody else.

Let’s not deceive ourselves. Let’s learn how to truly love and honor.… More

How big are you?

When we think of “playing big,” we might imagine fame or mega bucks. Playing big is really playing fearlessly, though. What would you do if you weren’t afraid?

Love is fearless … and it’s BIG! YOU’RE BIG!… More

A beautiful ritual!

We can refresh in any given moment … or every given moment. … More

Celebrate Starting Over …

Start today. And if you mess up, start again before tomorrow. You get to try again until you get it just right; you get to learn until you know it all.

Then, I suppose you get to die happy or live in nirvana or be transported into the heavens.

Much of life is about starting over. It’s about falling down and learning from it, getting up and starting again. And if that doesn’t sound like fun to you, just watch a little baby do it. Better yet, let the baby wrap his little fingers around yours and help him learn to walk.

Look into his twinkling eyes and see if you don’t get a new perspective on resilience — joy in the stumbling and peace in the falling. There might be some cries and screams, but they won’t keep him down. With a little coaxing, I bet you can turn the cries into smiles and laughter, and find yourself gleeful.

Why not encourage yourself? Believe in yourself? Show kindness and understanding to yourself?

If you don’t do that, chances are you don’t feel like showing other adults kindness, either. But that’s just because you lost sight of the baby, or the goodness, in you and in them.… More

You are love …

From the time we learn the word “no,” we begin to get the message that what we would do naturally is “bad.”

As young children, we can’t make a distinction between our behavior and ourselves, so we buy into a lie — the lie that in order to be good enough we have to sit still and be quiet, or look pretty, or SOMETHING. But you know as well as I do that some of the demands we place on children (and ourselves) are more apt to stifle them than make them good.

“Even if you were fortunate enough to grow up in a safe, nurturing environment, you still bear invisible scars from childhood, because from the very moment you were born you were a complex, dependent creature with a never-ending cycle of needs. Freud correctly labeled us ‘insatiable beings.’ And no parents, no matter how devoted, are able to respond perfectly to all of these changing needs,” says Harville Hendrix in his bestselling “Getting the Love You Want.”

We have a fundamental motivation to be accepted, which is why you might jump to defend yourself, your parents, your children (even while reading this). Rejection used to point to a problem that needed our attention, and our survival depended on how sensitive and responsive we were.… More