179. Do something stupid today...

178. Her

Only once in your life, I truly believe, you find someone who can completely turn your world around. You tell them things that you’ve never shared with another soul and they absorb everything you say and actually want to hear more. You share hopes for the future, dreams that will never come true, goals that were never achieved and the many disappointments life has thrown at you. When something wonderful happens, you can’t wait to tell them about it, knowing they will share in your excitement. They are not embarrassed to cry with you when you are hurting or laugh with you when you make a fool of yourself. Never do they hurt your feelings or make you feel like you are not good enough, but rather they build you up and show you the things about yourself that make you special and even beautiful. There is never any pressure, jealousy or competition but only a quiet calmness when they are around. You can be yourself and not worry about what they will think of you because they love you for who you are. The things that seem insignificant to most people such as a note, song or walk become invaluable treasures kept safe in your heart to cherish forever. Memories of your childhood come back and are so clear and vivid it’s like being young again. Colours seem brighter and more brilliant. Laughter seems part of daily life where before it was infrequent or didn’t exist at all. A phone call or two during the day helps to get you through a long day’s work and always brings a smile to your face. In their presence, there’s no need for continuous conversation, but you find you’re quite content in just having them nearby. Things that never interested you before become fascinating because you know they are important to this person who is so special to you. You think of this person on every occasion and in everything you do. Simple things bring them to mind like a pale blue sky, gentle wind or even a storm cloud on the horizon. You open your heart knowing that there’s a chance it may be broken one day and in opening your heart, you experience a love and joy that you never dreamed possible. You find that being vulnerable is the only way to allow your heart to feel true pleasure that’s so real it scares you. You find strength in knowing you have a true friend and possibly a soul mate who will remain loyal to the end. Life seems completely different, exciting and worthwhile. Your only hope and security is in knowing that they are a part of your life. -bob marley

177. So simple...even a rabbit can do it

Excerpt from The Velveteen Rabbit

The Skin Horse had lived longer in the nursery than any of the others. He was so old that his brown coat was bald in patches and showed the seams underneath, and most of the hairs in his tail had been pulled out to string bead necklaces. He was wise, for he had seen a long succession of mechanical toys arrive to boast and swagger, and by-and-by break their mainsprings and pass away, and he knew that they were only toys, and would never turn into anything else. For nursery magic is very strange and wonderful, and only those playthings that are old and wise and experienced like the Skin Horse understand all about it.


"What is REAL?" asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. "Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?"

"Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real."

"Does it hurt?" asked the Rabbit.

"Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. "When you are Real you don't mind being hurt."

"Does it happen all at once, like being wound up," he asked, "or bit by bit?"

"It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."

"I suppose you are real?" said the Rabbit. And then he wished he had not said it, for he thought the Skin Horse might be sensitive.


But the Skin Horse only smiled.

Thanks to you...

176. Dis vs Dat vs Dit

175. Bright side

Just a quick and fast blog on my phone (kind of as a tester for this new app)



It is never the event or trauma that determines our life...it is the way we cope with it that does.

Think of those times when you are cooking or munching on something absolutely awesome...suddenly because of some random distraction...you drop that piece of food.  what happens?

"5 second rule!"

You then grab at the food, eat it, place it back on the plate, lick it clean...blah blah blah.  The same person could easily pick up that piece of food and toss it into the waste basket.

This is a crude metaphor for our ability to find the positive in things and different ways that we can cope.  Although we can never alter the events that occur in our lives, we can change our attitude about them.

Again, when we are unable to change our situation...we are challenged to change ourselves...We can change the way that we react to the unchangeable and difficult events...when crap happens...find your 5 second rule.

174. Risk

Today I will not worry about looking like a fool.

Today I will not try to be better than the other.

Today I will not cave under the belief of someone else.

Today I will not shy away from tears.

Today I will not back off.

Today I will live.


and today...I'll forget to brush my teeth before leaving the house :(

173. Angry

This is a LIE.  There is no safety in love.  To love means to risk.  Risk means possible injury.  Injury means pain.  So ask yourself before you choose to love someone if they are worth the pain.


...jump into resistance, fly into pain, hope for cracks, welcome the hurt and stretch your body for the discomfort...find that person who will brave the fire and flames by your side and not shrink back...


They are worth the pain.

172. Invitation

It doesn't interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart's longing.

It doesn't interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dream, for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn't interest me what planets are squaring your moon. I want to know if you have touched the centre of your own sorrow, if you have been opened by life's betrayals or have become shrivelled and closed from fear of further pain.

I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own, without moving to hide it, or fade it, or fix it.

I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own; if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful, be realistic, remember the limitations of being human.

It doesn't interest me if the story you are telling me is true. I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself. If you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul. If you can be faithless and therefore trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see Beauty even when it is not pretty every day. And if you can source your own life from its presence.

I want to know if you can live with failure, yours and mine, and still stand at the edge of the lake and shout to the silver of the full moon, 'Yes.'

It doesn't interest me to know where you live or how much money you have. I want to know if you can get up after the night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone and do what needs to be done to feed the children.

It doesn't interest me who you know or how you came to be here. I want to know if you will stand in the centre of the fire with me and not shrink back.

It doesn't interest me where or what or with whom you have studied. I want to know what sustains you from the inside when all else falls away.

I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.

-Oriah Mountain Dreamer


Just......holy crap....DAMN!!!!!!!!
-Psych!

171. To be or not to be

In my practice I run across four common questions that they look to me to answer for them.  

who am I

where do I come from

what is my purpose

where am I going

Unfortunately, if you are reading this right now...know that you will be disappointed...I don't know- but to be honest...even if I did, I probably wouldn't tell anyone that would spend time to read this blog ;-)

here's the thing, if you are too busy trying to find the answers to these things...you are too busy to live any of them.  What does that mean?  That means that you have to learn how to "stop existing" and "start living"

When I practice, I tell people the importance of not just narrating their life and telling me memories and stories, but instead to start talking to me about the experience of it.  That is the difference...when I recall a memory, I'm only reminding myself of that story...not of the emotional connection to it.

Consider music, remember the song, "baby got back"  of course you do...it was at every pre-pubescent dance, every love making session you had and every frat party thereafter....but it's not necessarily the song that we remember as we can remember the enjoyment and energy we felt when we hear/heard it come on at that dance.  When you recall that song- it is usually situated around an experience.

Although we all crave answers to those questions first written...my only suggestion is that if you must find the answers to those....seek the experience of the search first...find what makes you smile in searching for those answers....

This is the difference between living and existing.  When you live, you are always moving, you are seeking nectar, breathing in sea salted air and pine filled trees...you are open....when you exist you shut down all else but that which you seek....when you exist the journey means nothing so long as you get the answer or object that you look for...you are not moving or growing, you are stunted, a fractured moment never content.  

In searching for answers...seek the experience and life....not the existence or answer.  Seek nectar.

170.

"I sat down on a stone, with a sigh, and by a natural impulse one of my hands sought my forehead, and the other the base of my stomach.  I believe I never appreciated, till then, the poverty of the human machinery--for I still needed a hand or two to place elsewhere.  Pen cannot describe how I was jolted up.  Imagination cannot conceive how disjointed I was--how internally, externally and universally I was unsettled, mixed up and ruptured."

-Mark Twain



Yup....

-Psych!