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18
June 2013
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May
our walking on earth be gentle as the
union of the butterfly and the
flower.
traditional
Buddhist blessing
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Those who are
lifting the world upward and onward are those
who encourage more than criticize.
Elizabeth Harrison
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Love
is an act of endless
forgiveness,
a tender look
which becomes a habit.
Peter Ustinov
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We do
not inherit the earth from our ancestors;
we borrow it from our children.
Native
American Proverb
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Feeling
Unappreciated (an
excerpt)
Iyanla
Vanzant
How many times have you done something for someone, or
gone out of your way to do something for someone, only to
have that person fail to acknowledge you? How many
people have you been there for, only to find yourself
alone when you need someone? How long have you
worked on a job without being recognized? In how
many relationships have you given your all only to be left
hanging out to dry, with your broken heart on your
tear-stained sleeve? If you have an answer for one
or more of these scenarios, you have undoubtedly
experienced feeling unappreciate.
If you are anything like me, you probably get mad at the
other person or people involved, and then ask yourself,
"Why? Why me? Why do people ignore
me? Take advantage of me?" After this
useless line of questioning, I would switch gears and ask,
"Why don't people appreciate what I do for
them? What did I do wrong?" I found my
answers in The Course in Miracles: "What
you give to others you give to yourself."
Translation: If you appreciate what you do for
others, their response should be of little or no
consequence to you. It took me a long time to really
feel that way. . . .
"What you give to others you give to yourself."
The first step toward integrating this premise into your
life is the recognition of the truth that we are all
alone. We are all connected to the One Life through
the divine Spirit of the One Mind. There is no
separation among human beings.
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When we
understand this we realize that we are as wealthy as the
one we consider the wealthiest person, as intelligent as
the one we consider the most intelligent person, as
beautiful as the one we consider the most beautiful
person. Few dysfunctional people begin from this
premise! I told myself I was okay, but I did things
that supported my deepest feelings, which were that I was
not okay or wealthy or intelligent, and I certainly was
not beautiful. I attempted to demonstrate that I was
all of those things, and when people did not applaud my
demonstration with a thank you or by heaping accolades
upon my person, I was crushed. Can you imagine
becoming angry with a person who does not send you a thank
you card when you take a cake to their home after their
mother's funeral? It took me a long time to realize
that most of the stuff I did for other folks, I did for
recognition. It was not the doing that made me feel
good; it was the compliment for the doing that I was
really after. When it did not come, I felt that my
efforts had not been sufficiently recognized.
I once heard the comedian Chris Rock say something that
made a great deal of sense: "People always want
to be rewarded for the things they are supposed to do."
Things like showing up on time for work, or staying at
work until a job is done, or taking care of the children,
or being supportive or encouraging to a family member,
neighbor, friend, or a spouse. You are being paid to
come to work on time and to stay there until the task is
complete. People who choose to become parents are
responsible for providing love, guidance, and care to the
children they produce. The unspoken agreement in all
of our intimate relationships is to take care of (that is,
love, support, and honor) one another. Every living
being is accountable and responsible to their Creator to
treat others in the way they would want to be treated,
under all circumstances, in all situations. For
these actions we should expect no rewards or
recognition. It's called, "Love thy
neighbor."
It would be nice to be acknowledged, but it is
dysfunctional to believe that people are indebted to you
for what you do for them. Beneath it all is the
often unrecognized, hard-to-face truth that when we expect
someone else to make us feel good about what we do,
chances are we have done it for the wrong reasons.
There is an even better chance that we have acted with an
unstated, sometimes unrecognized or dysfunctional
intent. Nine out of ten of these cases are the times
we feel unappreciated. . . .
When your giving and your doing for others leaves you
feeling depleted and unappreciated, it is a sign of
dysfunction. There is a hidden agenda lurking
somewhere in the back of your mind. You must ask
yourself, "Why do I want to be recognized for this
thing I have done?" More important, you must
ask, "How do I want to be recognized for this thing I
have done?" What I discovered and used to cure
my dysfunction was that when I gave something or did
something with an unstated intent of making me feel
good, no amount of recognition made me feel better or more
appreciated. I guess it's like my mother always
said, "If you have to ask for something you need, you
really don't need it because God already knows your needs
before you ask." The other thing I discovered
about feeling unappreciated is, when I stopped expecting
recognition and rewards for the things I had done, it
poured in by the buckets.
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One
Day My Soul Just Opened Up
is a program of inspiration and motivation that
will help you work through problems and improve
your emotional and spiritual health. Through
exercises and readings, Iyanla provides you with
the tools to tap into your strengths and make your
dreams come true. One Day My Soul Just Opened
Up will open your mind, heart, and soul to the
truth of your identity as a creative and powerful
being. |
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Not
Alone Anymore
from journeytogrowth.com
The
Kabbalah teaches us that there is still a level where our
existence is gone, or rather insignificant, but our being
still exists. This is where we connect to the roots of our
personality, to the roots of life. It is not easy to give up on
the idea of omnipotence. It is not easy to be modest enough to
recognize the fact that we are part of a wider flow. No matter if
we are religious or secular, the fact that we are surrounded by
rustle life begs us to become a part of a whole. We all have this
feeling that though we have everything, we are still missing a
larger part that will give us a meaning, a context. Some people
call it god and some people are fine with the title of a
meaningful life. Whatever it is, all generations were looking
after this next level. Indeed, sometimes we are so bogged down
with dire feelings, lack of success, and blockades in creativity
that we don't bother to look ahead. But in moments when we are
satisfied enough with what we have, we still need to address the
urge of meaning. Yes, we can derive our sense of meaning from our
job, our wealth, or our consumption. All are good, but they also
have living roots that we should trace.
Roots of life
There are roots to
everything in us. There are roots to our existence – the whole
world doesn't stop from producing and reproducing life. There are
roots to our confidence –the whole universe testifies that, no
matter what, growth continues all the time. There are roots to our
creativity – the entire planet does not stop to surprise us and
change its forms all the time. And so on and so forth, every part
in our personality has roots to phenomena that exist within and
beyond.
The power of life
Often we don't want
to think so deep. We are afraid that it will swallow us, that if
we look at the larger picture we would feel so small, we would
disappear almost. But in fact, the bigger picture gives us
context. It actually makes everything we do as part of an eternal
flow that will always exist. Connecting ourselves to the
heartbeats of the world gives us new life. It empowers our own
personality because it binds every part to its origins. If we are
not confidence enough, connecting to the strength of nature will
give us the right perspective of a continuing life that will never
surrender. If we don’t find enough creativity, a short walk
outside will remind us how much creativity there is everywhere.
This is the power of connecting to life.
The echo
In fact, more than being
afraid to disappear in front of the eternal, we are afraid to be
alive because of it. The power of life, the feeling that we are
part of a whole, commands us to find our own mission. It gives a
deep meaning to our deeds and asks us to be responsible to our
echoing actions. They will ever remain in the universe and beyond.
But we should bravely answer this challenge. We should derive a
sense of meaning out of everything. We should stretch our being
and live a full life that makes a change, transforms the known,
and discover the unknown. Only then, full of energy and rooted in
meaning, we will stand still and hear it. We will hear a slight
echo coming back to us and assures us that the light shines
through us – to our surroundings, to the whole universe.
* * * * *
Journey
to Growth was launched in 2012 and is based on the work
and practice of Eli Kay, who teamed up with two psychologists, Adi
Lotnik and Ned Sasi.
He strongly believes that Kabbalah can enrich every person's life,
no matter what religion they practice, and that its deep truths
have meaning for all of us as human beings. For the first
time, English speakers can enjoy what his teachers and his
students have found is an incredible way to discover the inner
self and enrich life.
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Lovingkindness depends
on forgiveness. It definitely
works reciprocally. When I am able to forgive
myself--which is not always easy--I am kinder
to everyone. Including myself.
Sylvia Boorstein
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Prayer
Part twenty-one
of
a year-long series.
I've always
had a strange relationship with prayer in general, probably
because I learned early the "religious" perspective on
prayer, the perspective that tells us that prayer "should
be" this and should be that. Religions, unfortunately,
have put so many rules on prayer that it's almost impossible to be
a part of a religion and feel the freedom of prayer as a dialogue
between us and God (whatever we perceive God to be) rather than as
a highly structured, highly stressful set of rules and regulations
that probably will fail because of our own lack of piety.
It's rather sad, really, just how many people are disappointed in
prayer because the rules that they've followed haven't provided
the desired results.
One of the greatest obstacles that I felt to my prayer life was
the idea that if you pray for anything, if your faith is strong
enough then you will get it. I can't begin to list the
things I used to pray for but didn't get--any list would be
completely inadequate. But when I prayed for something and
didn't get it, then the fault had to be mine, according to
religious teachings, because my faith wasn't strong enough.
It was a Catch-22 situation, especially when I prayed for stronger
faith: of course my faith wouldn't grow because my faith
wasn't strong enough for my prayer to be answered.
Fortunately I've grown out of that without any real lasting
damage. I've learned that the most important element of
prayer is not what words I use or what form I use or what position
my body is in when I pray, but my sincere desire to connect with
God and life and my willingness to be open and honest, both in
what I say and in the ways that I listen.
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Never will I pray
for the material things of the world. I am not calling
to a servant to bring me food. I am not ordering an innkeeper to
provide me with room. Never will I seek delivery of gold, love,
good
health, petty victories, fame, success, or happiness. Only for
guidance
will I pray, that I may be shown the way to acquire these things,
and my prayer will always be answered.
Og Mandino
The Greatest Salesman in the World
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Personally, my
favorite form of prayer is simply to go for a long
walk and have a talk with God. It's nothing
dramatic and I don't follow any scripts or formulas,
but it does keep my mind conscious of the fact that
there truly is more to life than what I see around
me and what happens to me. When I talk to God,
I'm reminded always of the qualities that we ascribe
to God--love, hope, peace, compassion--and how those
are qualities that I should be striving to show to
every person in my life. During my walks, I
tell God what I'm feeling, what I'd like to
accomplish, things I'd like to be able to do, and
other things like that.
Most importantly, though, I don't ask God for any of
those things. I don't ask God for the money to
do something--I simply ask God to be with me to help
me to be able to do the things I need to do to
accomplish my goals. God's a pretty good
companion to have, for focusing on his presence
helps us to stay focused on hope, and when we focus
on hope, we can accomplish almost anything we set
our minds to.
Prayer is not a manipulative strategy. I
remember reading a book once in which a man on a
plane prayed about a woman he knew, telling God that
if she was the right one for him, God should have
her bake a pie for him. When the plane landed,
she was waiting there with a pie that she had baked
just for him. I remember feeling very
uncomfortable with this attitude--that God is a
servant for us, that we can get him to do special
things for us just by asking. My guess is that
he had heard her mention baking a pie, but that he
had forgotten it, or that he had heard her tell
someone else that she was going to bake one, but had
been focusing on something else at the time so the
fact didn't make its way into his conscious mind.
When we consider God to be a servant who's supposed
to do things for us, then we're setting ourselves up
for disappointment. Yes, we are supposed to
ask for specific things, but why would God give you
that job but not the other three people who have
applied? Praying for God to "give"
us something like that over other people isn't going
to have the effect of God making a decision that
you're more deserving. It may come to pass,
but it doesn't do so because God favors you over
others--God loves all of us equally, and there will
be something else waiting in the wings for those
others.
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When
you embrace the mystery and open yourself to it, a new life
is created, resistant to the old problems.
You will notice at times that
the new life isn’t what you asked for.
But asking for specific items or
for particular events to occur isn’t how I define prayer.
I cannot guarantee
that the orders you place with God will always be filled.
Prayer is not
a test of God, but a call for help to find your inner strength and
talent.
Bernie Siegel
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It's been well
said that prayer doesn't change God, but it changes
those of us who pray. Making prayer an
important part of each day helps to remind us that
there is more to life than our senses tell us, and
that we actually do have the ability to tap into the
universal consciousness that is God--we can become
stronger people and more compassionate people by
asking for the strength and the courage to live our
lives right, to live our lives in ways that are
beneficial to others, to be role models that other
people can see and hope to emulate themselves.
If we're peaceful people, others will want to know
how we've become peaceful. If we're
compassionate, they'll want to tap into that
compassion, too.
Prayer does change us, as Alexis says below.
It does give us strength, and that's something
important to keep in mind. Some people grow
frustrated and stressed out when they forget to stay
in touch with their higher power, because they try
to do everything themselves without any
guidance. It's like having a book of
directions and never opening it--it does us no good
at all unless we access its contents.
Likewise, our relationship with God has amazing
potential, but if we never tap into that potential,
it all will be completely lost--tons of potential
that's simply wasted.
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Prayer
is the most powerful form of energy one can generate. The
influence
of prayer
on the human mind and body is as
demonstrable as that of the
secreting glands. Prayer is a
force as real as terrestrial gravity. It supplies us
with
a flow of sustaining power in our daily lives.
Alexis Carrel
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And of course,
one of the most important elements of prayer is
listening to and recognizing the answers that come
to us while we pray and after we pray.
Sometimes our prayers are actually answered for us,
yet we don't recognize the response because it comes
in a form that we didn't expect--or we simply wanted
it in some other way. We must be aware that
responses to prayer may seem to be completely
different than what we think we want, but will be
what's best for us, and better for us than the way
we expected to see the response.
There really are no rules to prayer. It's kind
of astonishing that some people can tell us that
they ways that they pray are the ways that we should
pray--we're all unique individuals with unique ways
of thinking and seeing the world, and it only makes
sense that our relationships with God will be
different, too. There are some prescribed
prayers that we definitely can use to help us to get
focused, or that we can use when things are hectic
and we just want to take a quick prayer break, but
for the most part, our prayers should come from our
hearts, not from our heads. And when we learn
to pray that way and trust our prayers, then we'll
see how our prayer lives can positively affect our
lives overall, and we'll find that life becomes a
more beautiful experience overall.
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More
on prayer..
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One
of the most important elements of living life fully is
awareness-- awareness of our surroundings, of other people
and their motives and fears and desires, of the things that
affect us most in our lives, both positively and negatively.
In the twelve years of livinglifefully.com's existence, this
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We
need to teach highly
educated people
that it
is not a disgrace to fail
and
that they must analyze
every failure
to find its
cause. They must
learn how
to fail intelligently, for
failing
is one of the
greatest arts
of the world.
Charles F. Kettering
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A
friend and I were walking recently in the park. We
stopped to sit and chat on a bench overlooking the
children's swings and playground equipment. As we
relaxed, enjoying the warm sunlight and the sounds of
children's happy laughter, a man in his "latter
years" came walking spryly along, swinging an umbrella,
wearing a baseball cap and a bright red cardigan over his
khaki pants and red and white plaid shirt. He smiled a
greeting at us and proceeded directly to a nearby swing
set. Laying his umbrella on the ground, he settled
himself into one of the swings and vigorously, with great
joy, exercised his inner and outer child! His image
and actions held me transfixed for a moment.
Shortly,
the man stopped swinging, picked up his umbrella, and
started up the path toward where my friend and I sat.
As he came abreast of our bench, he paused, smiled, and said
that he came to the park every day, swung exactly fifty
times in the swing, and continued his walk. This man
glowed with the fullness of life. His eyes sparkled
with the joy of living, and he had no knowledge of the gift
he gave to us that day. His simple, childlike
exuberance and enthusiasm for life touched me deeply.
I have thought of him many times since that incident, and
his joy touches my soul. He must be quite a remarkable
presence in this world, bringing joy where he goes, and his
age is clearly of no concern to him. He has the joy of
spirit!
unattributed
related by John Marks Templeton
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Grace
is goodness and respect given freely and unconditionally.
A sense of divine love and protection bestowed on us when
we need strength and renewal. Grace helps us know we are
not alone and believe we are cared for and cherished.
Grace is a drink of clear, clean water in the desert.
Sue
Patton Thoele
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Over
a year of one-sentence reminders
of ways that we can
make the most of our lives each day that we live.
New expanded edition!
Book - Kindle |
A
novel of life and learning; Walker's fascinating journey
will remind you of all that is good in this world.
Book - Kindle
Read Chapter One |
When
David agrees to
give 70-year-old Hector
a ride west, he can't imagine the lessons he'll learn
about the discrimination in his life.
Book - Kindle
Read Chapter One |
"Getting
and spending, we lay waste our powers," wrote
Wordsworth over 150 years ago. And we're still doing
the same.
Book - Kindle |
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