Mood and exercise are related. If we feel ugh, we move around it doesn't take much to shake off the funk. Same with food and mood, move a muscle change a thought!
Move first and the motivation will follow!

There's always some beauty in extending one's boundaries. And I guess it’s quite random what feels naturally fun for whom and which boundaries need to be pushed next.
Suppose seeing your whole body develop under your actions and feeling your strength-potential increase is a valid motivation too and can make people feel happy for quite a while.
It's self-efficiency.
After all... if you take "working out" seriously its quite a challenge... you got to understand a lot about your body, you got to develop intelligent training methods, you got to learn how to push your boundaries without harming yourself by wanting too much, etc...
But yeah, natural flow from an organic movement which carries its meaning in itself is kind of next level. but after all, you always want a "reward" for moving your ass - be it the apparently humble the reward of a runners flow or the a-little-weird-reward-of-standing-in-front-of-a-mirror(object/pseudo-subject)-and-appreciating-what-one-sees after an intense workout.

Being this body is easier than believing I am inside it, I’ve never seen me...



love light and peace
ps/smoh

It's okay to answer questions with questions. That rule that says we can't is nonsense.

Isn’t that the mark of a good education (even if not acquired in school)?
To know how to ask good questions instead of giving "confident" answers.

I find new questions often far more useful than answers anyway.
Good questions are often more useful than any answers. Every time a more beautiful answer, that brings up a more beautiful question.

My favorite answers are good questions. Love being sent back within to find something I couldn’t see out.
I don’t remember ever getting frustrated with someone who answered one of my questions with another question.
 I don’t remember ever having a demand that someone else feed me an answer. I appreciate being pointed in a direction.

If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense. Nothing would be what it is, because everything would be what it isn't.
And contrary wise, what is, it wouldn't be. And what it wouldn't be, it would.

You see?

love light and peace
ps/smoh

This is today

I was somewhere today listening to a few people speak and at one point a man said, "Reckless unawareness" in response to a question about what triggers him.

"Reckless unawareness."

It struck me as such a common problem wrapped into a vibrant phrase.

"Reckless unawareness."

I couldn't really begin to picture what it was even as I could feel it happening all around me.
On the freeway.
In the markets.
In front of television sets.
Perhaps even face-to-face with family members, or lovers, or bosses, or animals.

"Reckless unawareness."

I couldn't find fault or judgment or shame in that way where I could accuse someone of it.
"You there, being recklessly unaware."
No.
Not like that.
Just more like a secret of the world that was in plain sight suddenly.

I don't think it means much to try and fix it with prescriptions and commands and to-do's as much as to simply repeat it here, his phrase so eloquent and concise:

"Reckless unawareness."  I also call it "Willful Obliviousness

love light and peace

ps/smoh

This Might Be a Common Muddle

I don't know what I am doing sometimes and it's not awkward until somebody else asks me, 

"What are you doing?" and then I have to come up with something.

I could ask them right back, 

"What are you doing?" and they'd have to admit they are using me to find purpose and meaning in their lives through inquiring into what I am doing but probably less likely to do that as much as say something like, 

"I asked you first."

Then we'd both have to stand there and stare each other down, waiting for one of us to come up with an answer and explain, indeed and matter of fact, what it is we are up to besides looking at each other.

Seems many of us, I assume you included, have done so much we can't imagine we are still alive yet again trying to find something more to do. 

It's like we could, if we could, sit back and relax into the amazing life we've to lead so far with all the ups and downs and ins and outs and side trips and oversights and what not and just bask in the wow of how'd that all happen so fast without any hint of having to fill yet another day with yet another whatever we can figure out to stuff it with.

Maybe the next time somebody asks 

"What are you doing?" I can say something like "avoiding questions for now". That might be a thing I could be accomplishing and save us both from having to prove that otherwise we aren't really doing anything at all.

It’s just a dance of words that float away.

love light and peace

ps/smoh

This is A Personal Bill of Rights for ALL!

1. Have the right to ask for what I want.

2. Have the right to say no to demands I cannot meet.

3. Have the right to express my feelings, positive or negative.

4. Have the right to change my mind.

5. Have the right to make mistakes and not have to be perfect.

6. Have the right to follow my own standards.

7. Have the right to say no to anything when I feel I am not ready, it is unsafe, or it violates my values.

8. Have the right to determine my own priorities.

9. Have the right not to be responsible for others' behavior, actions, feelings, or problems.

10. Have the right to expect honesty from others. (I might add an addendum... while accepting that I won't always receive it. Know that people lie and it's inevitable that they'll lie to you. That way it's not a surprise and there's no need to get mad when it happens. It will happen.)

11. Have the right to be angry at someone I love.

12. Have the right to be uniquely myself.

13. Have the right to feel scared and say "I'm scared."

14. Have the right to say "I don't know".

15. Have the right to not give excuses or reasons for my behavior.

16. Have the right to make decisions based on my feelings.

17. Have the right to my own needs for personal space and time.

18. Have the right to be playful and frivolous.

19. Have the right to be healthier than those around me.

20. Have the right to be in a non-abusive environment.

21. Have the right to make friends and be comfortable around people.

22. Have the right to change and grow.

23. Have the right to have my needs and wants to be respected by others.

24. Have the right to be treated with dignity and respect.

25. Have the right to be happy.

love light and peace

ps/smoh

Other Notes From the Field

My ignorance is greater than my intelligence by the size of the things I cannot know to not know about. Dumbly peaceful in me.
Maybe it could be that one does not need to know to be intelligent.
Maybe intelligence is a quality that appears no matter what I know about.

I have no contact with 90% of my bloodline and it has been the most healing choice I have ever made to cut those cords. At some point, one's own sanity and peace must prevail. The joy of setting boundaries and sticking to them is now called: Cactusing. "I had to cactus them."

You have every right to preserve your emotional integrity.

Despite the trials and chaos of our times, we still have a choice. We can choose our daily emotions and reality. We don't have to let the negativity of our times become the emotions of our character.

I grew up with many who were quite happy to take their shit out on others. They were quite capable of yelling, blaming and talking behind one’s backs, but when it came time to be accountable and to process their actions, they always had an excuse:

they weren’t “feeling well,”

they weren’t “up to it,”

their “nerves were shot.”

Perhaps you can relate to this manipulative pattern the perfect set-up for one-sided abuse.

Bottom line- If you have the energy to initiate a conflict, you have the energy to work it through.

All those excuses equal one thing - running away.

Don’t wait until your death bed to finally open your heart, safe in the knowledge that your vulnerability is time-limited. Better to in wakening now. .Let it go, be in the present, heals the blindness of humanity and lives peacefully. 

That's it, that's all that is it. 

Back to the present times, we need to be. 

The world needs peace, not conflict, not propaganda, not more evil. 

I wish more people had the insight and courage to heal their broken souls there are far too many in the world, what a more loving world we would be...

I wish I could stop evil. 

I wish I could have protected friends that got hurt but I know life has gotten so much harder with the amount of racist, hateful and homophobic people in the world. 

I wish I knew how to talk without it being condemned by people with different and changing ideologies that are often not compassionate.

More than anything, we long to be seen. To be held in a safe, all-accepting presence, and be seen through loving eyes.

The way the spontaneous meets the inevitable...

The way a smile isn't always a weapon.

The way each memory also haunts the yet-to-be-remembered.

The way a door hinge does all the work.

The way people who work with their hands understand textures.

The way the universe loves stars and insects.

The way a love walks in and just sits down as is and the whole world comes over and feeds it.

The way it pops up at the right moment only.

The way the universe is missing something kinder than us.

So

love light and peace

ps/smoh

You are your story, just like a book is a book.

The saying, "you are not your story," is trying to say that we are more than what happened to us. While that may be intrinsically true, any form of bypassing doesn't work and is not healthy. You have to work this stuff or it never leaves you. People seem to find the kind of religion or spirituality that will reinforce, rather than heal, their defenses.

I wanted to flee my past, so I conveniently bought into that.

Beware the transcendence bypasses who deny the significance of our stories. They are often deeply unwell. 

It’s one thing to say that we should not get trapped inside of our stories, but to suggest that all of our stories are without value and merit, is to deny our existence. I understand that they believe there is something greater awaiting us beyond the self but they are wrong. Whatever greatness awaits us must thread through the heart of the self, so that our experience of the “beyond,” is rooted in something real: our precious humanity and that is the only path home.

The story bypassing troupe has forgotten that their non-story shtick is a story, too. It’s always a story. The question is what we are going to do with it? 

Are we going to dive into the heart of it and expand in karmic stature through the learning of the lesson, or are we going to drown in our unresolved, floating numb and detached down in denial?

Do not deny the veracity of our suffering and distract us from the deeper issue: that which sources our thoughts. 

Turn toward our stories, and find our true-path right at our heart. I agree with the underlying philosophy, that we are so much more than our thoughts.

This philosophy seeks to find the rest of who we are beyond the self and seek to find it right at the heart of the self itself. 

We human being with emotionally integrated, richly nuanced, and full-bodied vital and robust.

Simply choose to live simply and work on being honest about our experience a little more each day. Just remember the only person you can truly believe in is yourself. 

We all are searching for our true purpose and our story is part of us if we ditch the story we ditch our very soul. 

Our story is our very being in human and spiritual form.

It’s what we have and have not learned our mistakes, our loves, our happiness, our joys, our sadness, our fear, our anger, our hatred and our peace of mind.

It includes the whole spectrum of feelings, deeds, and emotions. 

It’s not about the positive or negative...it’s about the purpose of the journey itself in its entire entirety in authenticity.

love light and peace

ps/smoh

On the topic of free speech and political censorship:

Should an attempt to censor political opinions (i.e. not including the censoring of medically inaccurate info. that physically harms people) be taken as willful ignorance?

Example:

1) Someone says something you disagree with. Even something that is flat-out wrong by your understanding.

2) You either

a) Raise counter-arguments,

Or

b) Try to have this different position removed from your presence and the presence of others.

Or

c) You just ignore it because you don’t understand the issue or because you’re not bothered to respond.

If you take the route of a) you do so because you know you have the arguments to back up your position and are willing to take an honest stance on them that accepts counter-arguments.

If you take b) You do so because you know on some level that you don’t have the arguments to back up your position, whether that is simply in a moment of forgetfulness or in general, and you are not bothered to research a counter-argument. AND you think the argument is too dangerous to be allowed remain in circulation unopposed by your worldview.

Taking c) is an honest response in recognition of ignorance that still respects other’s freedom of expression.

In my opinion, option b) is a foolish response. It assumes that you are correct even if you can’t or won’t argue your position. It is the removal of dissenting voices and the purposeful maintenance of an echo chamber.

What I would consider willful ignorance.

Regardless of the fact that this is obviously not a practice that removes bad ideas from any world other than your own personal one,

Is this matter different from the way I have described it?

As there is inevitably more to be considered, are there any points of consideration that strongly undermine the situation as I have laid it out?

This saying comes to mind: if you dish it, be willing to take it too.

Having said that, anyone can self determines the amount of dish or shit they're willing to take.

But IF I call for censorship, I better be able to support it with reasons or else remove myself from the room. People need to be able to take their own medicine. The only good reason for censorship, in my opinion, is if you are watching a malicious group preach violence in a way that’s actually having a demonstrable impact (because there are plenty of cases where people are all bark and no bite), and you feel it is necessary to temporarily restrict them until you can come up with a better solution.

love light and peace

ps/smoh

When People Say: "I couldn't help myself . . ." Could they? Or not?

People LIKE to think that we make choices, but in reality, we do especially not in the "here and now"... 

People have too much faith in their chain of thought's influence on their actual choices.

There was once a study where people were in a brain-scan while getting yes or no questions and the results were studied. One of the things they found was that in the pattern of the immediate reaction after the question was asked the final answer was usually apparent so the choice was made and AFTER this the brain sprung to life.

This is only one of many studies that indicate that people don't need to "think" to know their answers, but rather thinks in order to justify their answers.

Freud had an oversimplified model of how the human mind works, which is pretty much on the nose. we have our "id" which is the subconscious. The superego which is the conscious mind, our actual thought processes and ideas. And... In the middle is the "Ego" which works as a gatekeeper... it is to reconcile the two sides into one single course of action.

We are fools when we think of our thoughts as our actual true nature considering how much evidence there is that our thoughts are usually less influential on our actual actions. For example the power of repetitions; Commercials... How different people think depending on cultural conditioning... and how much social situations influence us.

There is a study that shows that inherited traits probably have more to do when shaping our personality than upbringing.

And still, people think that keeping a low weight is about "will power". Will power exists, but it is only a temporary thing, in the long term habits, urges, etc. are often much more influential. And Maslow’s pyramid of needs seems to constantly keep true... if a "lower" need isn't fulfilled, then our subconscious will make us ignore all higher goals in life until it has been fulfilled.

Just my take...

love light and peace

ps/smoh

Adjust your crown and keep on walking!

Don't take advice about Life from someone who is not enjoying life and living a lie, said I.

I've learned that people generally want us well, but if the person does not exemplify a quality I respect – I will have to look elsewhere.

Human beings are already naughty enough with trying to control each other without knowing what each other is thinking, plus having privacy of thought, means we can think to ourselves in peace without others getting excited and in our face, offering unwanted judgement and commentary when we don't want them to and generally just getting all up in our business that derived us loony because if we want to broadcast our thoughts to others we can always SPEAK. 
Thank GOD we have the sanctuary of our thoughts being PRIVATE. We can choose what or what not to share. 
There is a boundary, instead of any bugger being able to pry and spy whenever they want.

Yea why do some enjoy taking down a peg or two to cause someone to feel inadequate by outdoing or surpassing them???

"Watch it move. The baton of self-hatred. Passed from one person to the next, in the form of insults, arbitrary judgments, glares, and stares. One generation after another, riddled with internalized shame, channeling it towards their fellow humans in the hope that it will get rid of it. But it doesn’t get rid of it- it just embeds it further. The more we shame others, the more we internalize our own shame. The more we hate others, the more we hate ourselves. The more we judge others, the more we judge ourselves. We are one of the first generations with the chance to shift this pattern, to stop this self-perpetuating cycle of shame. I will begin...Fellow humans, treasure yourselves, honour your divinity, I wish for you everything that makes you whole."

 We don't need to explain our stand. We only need to show it...

It's so easy to blame things or others for what happened to us but it is our responsibility to live our lives.

Nobody has the obligation to make us happy or to handle things we want to and when we liberate ourselves from this way of thinking and take our lives in our own hands, the feeling is much better and the outcome more often than not, is what we decided for.

We can't create or change all exterior circumstances and people, but we can always choose how to deal with them and thus create ourselves and our own life over and over. And perhaps this will reflect on exterior circumstances, and people, eventually.

Sometimes you have to look at the person coming to tell you the story than the actual story being told..... Food for thought

 I realised that we as a human being are fully capable of a wide spectrum of emotions. We all are living in the truthfully grey area, it is NOT black or white if the right button is pushed we are all capable of harmful action. 
Each person has their own swags. It has to please our sensibility.


We don't know very much. That's why we act like we do. I have spent a lot of time gathering information on the subject of reality. Turns out it isn't interested in explaining itself. This blank space brought to you by the great mystery.
I find myself at a crossroads. We should never assume we know what we are doing or why or who we are doing it for. We are just not that smart. So I sit wondering, pondering....what is for me and I know the answer will not come in words.
So I wait. Waiting is difficult; it entails surrender to the unknown.
Silence is a master teacher.

Keep sailing your own boat...

love light and peace

ps/smoh

On A Nature of Reality

The languages might be the only things alive and the alphabets might be all alone in the middle of nowhere.
The history of everything may have no existence beyond the borders of the languages; past tense as a kind of gate latch.

The presentation of the letters appears to invoke their meaning.

What I am writing and you are reading is what we can do with what an alphabet is and also appears to be.

You translate the colors into sounds and I translate the sounds into colors. We meet in the middle like two nosedives. 

"I", "you" and "we" are their favorite suspicious characters.

What we fluidly call reality ambushes us from all sides.

We try to see what it "IS" and all we find is an electrical storming.

"Two egos can use the signs for the apparent separations perfectly. Eavesdropping, it appears to be an alternative reality, the worlds of "I". Unfindable and perfectly sayable."

The thought seems to be only the sentence we observe live.

We don't appear to have extraneous places to hear sentences.

Reality would have to be a version of an impossible necker shape. One way it's this, another it's this, another still this and that and on and on eternity times infinity equals imagination.

That being said, it was said so maybe it's just the noises themselves, "r/e/a/l/i/t/y".

Probably both-and-and-and...

We can have as many opinions as we can react to but only in the time allotted us to react at all

Choose opinions wisely. Your entire social experience depends on it.

ps/smoh

love light and peace

I am enough

Your light is seen, 
your heart is known, 
your soul is cherished by more people than you might imagine. 
If you knew how many others have been touched in wonderful ways by you, you would be astonished. 
If you knew how many people feel so much for you, you would be shocked. 
You are far more wonderful than you think you are. 
Rest with that. 
Rest easy with that. 
Breathe again. 
You are doing fine. More than fine. Better than fine. 
You’re doin’ great. 
So relax. And love yourself today and every day

love light and peace
ps/smoh

Life is a funny thing that happened to us on the way to our grave...

I am old school, I still believe in respect.

"In each one of you there is a hidden being, still in the deep sleep of childhood. Bring it to life! In each one of you there is a call, a will, an impulse of nature, an impulse toward the future, the new, the higher. Let it mature, let it resound, nurture it! Your future is not this or that; it is not money or power, it is not wisdom or success at your trade — your future, your hard dangerous path is this: to mature and to find yourselves."

Hermann Hesse

Learning is no longer an improver; it is merely the most expensive time-filler the world has ever known.

Fashion is what you adopt when you don't know who you are.

Never keep up with the Joneses. Drag them down to your level. It's cheaper and if they don't comply just let them be and run as fast as you can

Neither looks forward where there is doubt nor backward where there is regret.

Look inward and ask not if there is anything outside you want, but whether there is anything inside that you have not yet unpacked

“The very purpose of existence is to reconcile the glowing opinion we have of ourselves with the appalling things that other people think of us.”

The search for a lifestyle involves a journey to the interior.

This is not altogether pleasant experience, because you not only have to take stock of what you consider your assets but you also have to take a long look at what your friends call 'the trouble with you.'

Nevertheless, the journey is worth making.

I recommend limiting one's involvement in other people's lives to a pleasantly scant minimum

The only FREEDOM you truly have is in your MIND, so USE it. 

Tolerance only for those WHO AGREE WITH YOU is NO TOLERANCE AT ALL.

You are FREE TO CHOOSE, but you are NOT FREE from the CONSEQUENCES OF YOUR CHOICE.

Justice suffers when men refuse to STAND FIRM for WHAT IS RIGHT.

The UGLIEST THING I've ever SEEN is a HUMAN BEING WITHOUT COMPASSION.


love light and peace
nab/ps/smoh

Osho, once said, “Nothing fails like success”.

You discover a lot about yourself when you hit rock bottom and the same can be said about putting yourself back together again and pushing forward! Life is a process of learning and growth that never truly ends.

Observe your successes and notice the failure of what was promised.
This is because any desire is only a dream, a future program you bought into. Failure or success is head trips, not anything real.

Life is only this moment, no other time is true, real, or existential. This moment is a state of awareness, relaxation, peace, and contentment. We find this moment when we stop and observe. This is what meditation is all about.

I have recently been looking at expectation and how when we have this it causes suffering when it often doesn’t work out the way we want. I have never thought to put failure into this equation until now. We have success based on our expectations. Specific desired outcomes. When this doesn’t happen we see it as a failure and again we suffer. 

So to sum up, we only have the present moment and in that respect, every moment we are working towards a goal is actually the “success” whatever the outcome. 

Are you feeling lost in the world?

Just follow your bliss...

love light and peace
ps/smoh

LIFE IS SO BRIEF and TIME IS A THIEF when you're UNDECIDED. And like a FISTFUL OF SAND, it can SLIP right THROUGH YOUR HANDS.

May you feel the sacred gift of your humanity, the depth of love within your heart, and the brilliant light of your soul

love light and peace

ps/smoh

Our conversation at breakfast's table this morning was 'selfishness'.

What we get when we don't want to tell others what to do is more room to see what we do when we don't wait for anyone else to change. 
It is a form of self-love, not wanting to tell anyone else how to live life.
It's a free gift we can only lose one way.

- We are waiting for what we are when we are not waiting, peace is that dreadfully silly.
- Two sets of rules: the rules and the other rules
- We are not guided to anything; we are just falling along randomly, reverse engineering meaning from whatever it looks like we're doing; artists crafting a lifespan out of shits and giggles.
- We do what we love not because it saves us from irrelevancy or redundancy or because it validates who we are compared to who they are or even because we are compelled to do it. We do what we love because it's cool, that's all.
- If we do what we don't like, we at least like discomfort.
- We all have to do things we don't like in life' is a personal philosophy, not a statement about reality.

Healthy portions of selfishness are what tears down the walls.


love light and peace
ps/smoh

A NOTE TO A DEAR DARK FRIEND...The ego points out your flaws; your Spirit concentrates on your perfection. The ego sees your darkness; the Spirit sees your light. Look at your circumstances with the illumination of your heart. Don’t focus on the shadows, but rather the light.

Yes, I know the government is corrupt. 

Yes, I know there are people conspiring. 

Yes, I know people can lack integrity. 

Yes, I know that western culture is materialistic. 

Yes, I know that corporations are self-serving. 

Yes, I know that the media is manipulative. I share many of your concerns.

And I also know that we cannot change the world without acknowledging what is wrong. I know that we must stand against that which shames, oppresses and damages humanity. I know that we should not ignore the injustices and put on a fake smile. I know that we must find our voice and stand our ground. I know that we must fight for our right to the light. 

I believe deeply in forwarding moving criticism.

But something doesn’t feel quite right. You complain all the time. You have made negativity a full-time job. You don’t make an effort to find solutions. You blame everything on the world out there. You don’t actually do anything positive to effect change. And you seldom acknowledge the positive steps humanity has made. You seldom acknowledge the beauty around you. You almost never see the light in the darkness.

I know something from my lived experience. I know that the light is always there. It is there, in the breath that keeps you alive, in the smile of a child, in the one more chance to find your path. It is there in the rise of the feminine, in the therapeutic revolution, in the burgeoning quest for authenticity. If you can’t see it, then the issue is a personal one, for there are signs of progress everywhere.

And I also know from a lifetime of overcoming that it is possible to hold it all at once. 

To fight against injustice while still embodying the light. 

To see where we are lacking, while rejoicing in our abundance. 

To express our anger, and to live our gratitude. 

To feel overwhelmed by an unfair world, while still achieving our goals. 

To admit how far we have yet to travel while applauding how far we have come.

And so I wonder what lives below your perpetual negativity? Apart from the problems with the world, what happened that darkened your lens? 

What made the glass so empty? Is it really all about the world ‘out there’, or are there also unresolved personal experiences that need to be healed? 

What are you really trying to express the lack of love, attention, and satisfaction in your life? 

What is your deeper complaint? 

What lives below this victimhood? 

What needs to expressed and resolved so that you will see some light shining through again?

Please don’t wait until the world is perfect, for it will never be so.

Dear friend, how can I help you to believe again?

In these unusually dark times, I see how easy it is to be swallowed up by discouragement. The collective shadow has come to the surface, fast and furious. At times, it can be very difficult to hold to the light. Those of us who find it, let's spread it around. Let's lend it out. Let's give some away. This is how we will make it through these challenging times. By passing the light back and forth. By sharing the light...

love light and peace

jb/ps/smoh

Speaking my truth is the most effective tool I have found and what I value most in others

I've heard some women say that a man "completes them". 

If they are "completing" you, then you didn't have enough of "you" to begin with. A good relationship *adds* the two of you together... it doesn't take the lacking of one and then eliminate them. 
Stay an individual that shares a *part* of yourself with another... don't just become whole by being in a relationship.
This goes for men as well as women. Some men fear being alone, so the need to the company of a woman to feel complete... to feel as if they have a purpose. You need to have YOU first, *then* you have something to offer another.
A relationship should be the icing on the cake for a person, not the thing keeping them together.
It's all about agreement and equality. If the woman is *genuinely* happy in her situation, be that being a full-time housewife, or a high-paid lawyer, or doctor....more power to her.
The challenge is that many men, not all... MANY, aren't supportive in *any* of those situations.
So many men use the "power" they have as a bread-winner against the woman... and if the woman is the bread-winner, the man is insecure and threatened.

However, this status wasn't about "fault"... it was about maintaining individuality.
Nobody should validate who you are, male or female!

Nobody completes you, you are who you are as a person. its like saying am 75% and you're my 25 %.
Nah you are the 100% he or she is just the extra added bonus to add to your life. don't underestimate who you are.


love light and peace
ps/smoh

People pleasing are a self-protection pattern. 

If we keep them happy, they won't turn on us. 

But it comes at a terribly high price because, in our fixation with keeping others happy, we undermine our own happiness. 

In our desire to placate others, we deny ourselves.

Perhaps it’s time for a new way: Please others, when it truly pleases you.

People pleasing and unreciprocated kindness will wear the kindest person thin.

When one finally realizes what it is, they begin to understand the definition of self-love and leave those persons behind and change their patterns.

They also recognize when a person is offering kindness as an underlying manipulation and they then can choose not to participate in it because they know it is unhealthy and the cost is too big.

With most all things, if one peels the onion back far enough, fear is almost always at the core.

Stomp it out and replace it with self-love and love those who TRULY love you.

Nobody can make you happy, nobody can make you unhappy.

Rather, you are constantly invited to meet what remains unmet in yourself, to touch what you never wanted to touch, to explore the vast field of your own aliveness.

Making others responsible for how we feel is the beginning of all violence, both internal and external, all conflict between people, and ultimately all wars between nations.

Let others off the hook. 

Embrace what is alive in you. Learn to embrace your own feelings, however intensely they burn and scream for attention.

Celebrate the life in your loneliness, the vibrancy of your disappointment, the electricity in your sadness. 

Kneel before the power in your anger; honour the burning creativity of your fear.

From this place of deep acceptance, you do not become weak and passive. 

Quite the opposite. 

For now, you enter the world from a place of non-violence, and therefore immense creative power and you are open to the possibility of deep listening, honest dialogue, and unexpected change.

You are complete; nobody else can give you that, or take it away.

Don't seek happiness; be it, know it as your very essence.

love light and peace

ps/smoh

Empathy/Empathetic V Empath/Empathic are two very different things, are they not??

Empathy is an interesting word, often mistaken for something quite different, unhealthy boundaries, not knowing where we end and the other begins. 

I think of how often I remained connected to hurtful people and others to me when I was hurtful because I imagined myself empathic. And maybe I was but that didn’t have to mean that I endured their madness. 

Our empathic capacity can be as misdirected as any other ability. Just because you can feel where someone is coming from, doesn’t mean that you have to put yourself at risk. 

When we allow 'empathy' to keep us invested in that which brings us suffering, when we confuse it with a boundaryless way of being, it becomes just another word for misplaced faith and self-hatred. It is empathy run amok. 

It abuses your gift. Better to not turn your compassionate nature against yourself. Empathize with humanity, but shield yourself from harm.

The empath must learn boundaries and honor their instincts to survive... I'd rather be seen as rude than let anyone take their 'stuff' out on. Sometimes the strays you bring home will eat you alive in return.

Empathize is literally to be listened and validated.
That’s it. 

Sympathize is trying to fix. 

Sympathy it’s when one hasn’t learned to empathize.

I believe the age of sympathy it’s coming to an end. We do not need fixing, we need to be listened to and accepted our feelings.
When we learn to empathize we will no longer sympathize, no more fixing, no more dependence.

Empathy is what makes us human.

When there’s a fresh wound in your heart,
keep it open until it heals.
Air it out. Understand it. Dive into it.
Be fierce enough to become it.
If you ignore it, it won’t be able to
breathe.
If you ignore it, it will merely deepen,
spread and resurface later,
wanting to release.
And when later happens,
it will hurt even more,
because when later happens,
you won’t know what
you’re bleeding for.
Remain with it until it clears,
and watch the beauty pour
into your openness.
Remain open to feel lightness.
Remain open to feel free.

love light and peace

ps/smoh

An incredible writing. Rumi is my favorite poet.

"There is one thing in this world that you must never forget to do. If you forget everything else and not this, there’s nothing to worry about, but if you remember everything else and forget this, then you will have done nothing in your life.

It’s as if a king has sent you to some country to do a task, and you perform a hundred other services, but not the one he sent you to do. 

So human beings come to this world to do particular work. That work is the purpose, and each is specific to the person. If you don’t do it, it’s as though a priceless Indian sword were used to slice rotten meat. 

It’s a golden bowl being used to cook turnips when one filing from the bowl could buy a hundred suitable pots. It’s a knife of the finest tempering nailed into a wall to hang things on.

You say, 

“But look, I’m using the dagger. It’s not lying idle.” 

Do you hear how ludicrous that sounds? For a penny, an iron nail could be bought to serve the purpose. 

You say, 

“But I spend my energies on lofty enterprises. I study jurisprudence and philosophy and logic and astronomy and medicine and all the rest.” 

But consider why you do those things. They are all branches of yourself.

Remember the deep root of your being, the presence of your lord. Give your life to the one who already owns your breath and your moments. 

If you don’t, you will be like the man who takes a precious dagger and hammers it into his kitchen wall for a peg to hold his dipper gourd. 

You’ll be wasting valuable keenness and foolishly ignoring your dignity and your purpose." —Rumi

love light and peace
ps/smoh