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31 May 2022
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My
advice to you is not to inquire why or whither, but just to enjoy your
ice cream while it's on your plate.
Thornton Wilder
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I have a simple
philosophy. Fill what's empty. Empty what's
full. And scratch where it itches.
Alice Roosevelt Longworth
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When
you go out into this world, remember: compassion,
compassion, compassion.
Betty Williams
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Differences
are not intended to separate, to alienate. We are
different precisely in order to realize our need of one
another.
Desmond Tutu
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Letting
Go of Rigid Responses and Limited Answers
Hugh
Prather
We are
all presented with an occasional opportunity to say
something, do something, or go somewhere that we know from
experience will put us in an unpleasant or even dangerous
setting. The classic example is an invitation to a
recovering alcoholic to be around individuals who drink
heavily. Sometimes, of course, there are
work-related occasions that are mandatory, but often a
good excuse can get you out of almost anything. Yet
many people won't allow themselves this option because of
their one-sided definition of honesty.
Let's consider what the "honest" answer would be
to such an invitation: "No, I won't come
because you and your friends get so drunk and boring that
I'm afraid I might start drinking again. In case you
didn't know it when you hired me, I'm a recovering
alcoholic." This may be honest, but it
certainly won't lead to greater understanding, deeper
friendship, or more job security. It's only half
truthful because even though it verbally reflects the mood
and opinions of one person, it doesn't give equal
consideration to what the other person hears.
The real questions are, Does this brand of honesty lead to
increased awareness? Does it inform or does it
obscure? If true honesty is an absence of deceit,
then the new, popular way of being honest is a path to
greater deception.
Today, the ideal of
being verbally literal has been raised to religious heights.
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It is central to separation psychology, which aims to define,
distinguish, and "empower" each separated ego. For
instance, notice that when people say, "I need to be honest
with you," they usually follow with a speech of attack,
abandonment, or betrayal.
Occasionally, I am asked to counsel an "at-risk" teenage
girl who may have a history of falsely accusing people in
authority. To put her in a situation where she could be
tempted to make this mistake again would not be helpful to her or
me. So I always talk to her where other people can see us at
all times. But I am not "honest" about this, because
she would not benefit from thinking that I didn't trust her.
I'll say, "I'd like to get out of this office. Why don't
we walk over to the park?" (where there are lots of people).
Today, perhaps the most destructive application of ego honesty is
occurring within primary relationships. Many relationships
founder before they ever get started because both partners think
they must confess every sex act they ever had or thought of
having. Note that these confessions lead to greater
misunderstanding. They deceive, not enlighten.
Nevertheless, advocates of "honesty" have left no aspect
of marriage and family untouched. In the name of openness,
partners are supposed to update each other on every negative thought
and emotion they have, even though thousands of other thoughts and
feelings are not voiced. If husbands or wives have erotic
dreams about someone other than their partners, out of the hundreds
of things they dream about, these are the ones they must
recount. If a parent is contemplating divorce, the kids must
be informed because this is "the only honest thing to
do." If one parent catches the other parent in an affair,
they must "come clean" and tell the children what Dad or
Mom did.
Today we try to make our words reflect "how I've been feeling
lately," but we don't ask, "Where within me are these
feelings coming from?" We concentrate on making each word
a literal reflection of what only part of us is temporarily
feeling--yet we ignore other feelings and convictions, as well as
how the other person hears our words and what inaccurate conclusions
she or he comes to.
The new honesty is about what we say, not about what we communicate,
and as such is another version of "appearances are
everything." It, like all other aspects of separation
psychology, is "all about me" and disregards
relationship--our effect on each other. . . .
The fact is that whenever we talk to someone, two conversations take
place. There is of course the subject matter of the words
being spoken. But rarely is that where the true importance of
the exchange lies for either party.
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Gratitude
Journal: Keeping The Thanksgiving Spirit Alive
Year-Round
Elisabeth
Kuhn
Some people make
New Year’s resolutions. I make Thanksgiving
resolutions. Every year, I resolve to resume my practice of
keeping a gratitude journal.
And every year, about three weeks later, I lose the
journal. Not that this stops me. I just write my
entries in some other journal, or a notebook. You may
consider this weird, but for me, the act of writing things down
seems to be the important part. It’s almost as if the
writing action alone does something to the synapses in my brain
that helps me process and store the information.
Like everybody else, though, I get those warm fuzzies more at the
end of November than at any other time of the year. As it
turns out, I’m hardly alone with my seasonal preoccupation with
gratitude.
At Thanksgiving, people all over the country sit around tables
filled with turkey, brussels sprouts, candied yams with
marshmallow topping, cranberries, and pumpkin pie, and take turns
sharing with their loved ones the things they feel grateful
for. A wonderful tradition indeed – but what about the
rest of the year?
Lately, with our growing understanding of the Law of Attraction
and especially The Secret, we’ve become so much more aware of
the importance of gratitude and appreciation, not just on
Thanksgiving, but every day.
We know that expressing appreciation lifts our spirits and raises
our vibrations. And with that, it seems to change everything
around us – we start to draw to us things that we want, people
that are friendlier, meetings and plans that go more
smoothly. In short, things work.
Still, sometimes it can be quite a challenge to feel
grateful. Deadlines have a way of getting in the way as does
frustration with red tape. Annoying colleagues and bosses do
too, as do incompetent or aggressive drivers, infused with road
rage.
Ultimately, there are simply too many things on everybody’s
plate. It has gotten so bad that some people’s idea of a
really great time is a good night’s sleep.
I dare you to try an experiment. On a day when you’ve
gotten up on the wrong side of your bed, and things have gone from
bad to worse, take a few minutes to reflect. What is there
in your life, right now, for which you are grateful – or could
be, if you made an effort, a really hard effort if necessary?
Yes, it’s hard to find things to be grateful for when things are
scary and not going well. But the happier you can make
yourself feel, outward circumstances notwithstanding, the more
likely you will be to get a new job, especially a new job is one
that will work well for you.
Sometimes I think of it as some kind of grateful pill that makes
everything better. Of course, that’s when I remember to
take it. Here’s where the challenge comes in, though: how
to make sure I remember?
We don’t seem to have too much trouble with taking prescription
drugs or other kinds of medication every day. How do we
manage to remember that? Before I started taking the pill
for the first time, I was very worried that I’d forget.
And you know what? Over those 10 years I took it, I forgot
it maybe twice.
What helped me then was the same thing that will work here as
well: creating a routine. Probably the easiest way to
do that is by keeping a daily gratitude journal, with emphasis on
daily. Just keep it on your bedside table and write into it
every night. That’s how I remembered the pill. That,
and a little flower sticker on my bathroom mirror.
The important part is this: every time you see it and write
in it, it will realign your thinking. And once you do that,
your vibes improve, and the Law of Attraction will, once again,
begin to attract the things that are in line with what you really
want.
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* * * * * * *
Copyright
by Elisabeth Kuhn.
For more resources
for body, mind, spirit, and especially prosperity, visit
Elisabeth's blog at myfavoriteselfhelpstuff.com
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Living
Life Fully, the e-zine
exists to try to provide for visitors of the world wide web a
place
of growth, peace, inspiration, and encouragement. Our
articles
are presented as thoughts of the authors--by no means do
we
mean to present them as ways that anyone has to live
life. Take
from them what you will, and disagree with
whatever you disagree
with--just know that they'll be here for you
each week. |
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We
restore the holiness of the world
through our loving-kindness and
compassion. Everyone participates. It is a collective task. Every act
of loving-kindness, no matter how
great or small, repairs the world.
All those ever born have shared
this collective work since
the beginning of time.
Rachel
Naomi Remen
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Where Are We?
My wife and I are on vacation at the moment, and we're trying our
hardest to get the most out of our time here. We're in the
Italian Alps, in a small town on a lake, and we're trying to enjoy
ourselves fully. For us, that means something different than
it does for others. While the ways that we enjoy vacations
are different than others, let me share a few rules about
vacations that for us have helped us to make the most of the
limited vacation time we've had.
First, we like to make sure that we really get to know wherever we
are. This year, it's Alleghe, and it's only for three and a
half days. It's a small town, so it's not too hard to get to
know, and it's off-season, so it's even easier. That said,
though, we've been constantly faced with the temptation to go
exploring, to get into the car and drive all over so that we can
see as much as we can in the limited amount of time we have.
But for us, that's not an enjoyable way of approaching a
vacation. We're much more interested in really getting to
know the place we are, whether that be Alleghe or Anaheim.
If we get into the car constantly and drive around, then we're
spending most of our time inside a car--that's all there is to
it. We've spent our time walking around the town, getting to
know what it has to offer, what it doesn't have, what the people
are like to foreigners (they're very nice, by the way!), and where
we can eat.
We buy much of our food in the supermarket and make our own meals
at home (i.e., hotel or inn) rather than eating out for every
meal. Eating is much less expensive that way, and it really
is fun doing shopping in another country. We see what the
stores have to offer (very different!) and how they package and
market different items. We save our restaurant meals for
certain times, and with the money we save by not eating out every
meal, we can upgrade our meals when we do eat out. We can
also afford to buy more gifts for friends at home, something that
we truly enjoy doing--even more than eating out!
When we do drive somewhere, we have one of two plans--we have no
destination or time frame in mind at all, or we have a specific
destination to get to and a certain amount of time to spend
there. And we do everything early in order to avoid the
crowds that tend to start gathering in the early afternoons.
This morning, for example, we drove to a certain spot because of
something we wanted to do there. When it turned out that the
certain something was closed, we decided to do something
else--only to find that that, too, was closed. It is early
season, after all. But we had a nice morning that wasn't
wasted by just driving around blindly looking for something to
entertain us.
Sometimes we enjoy just driving around, though not blindly.
Sometimes the scenery is nice from a car, or the distances are
simply to far to do anything but drive in order to get
there. When we do this, we still have maximum distances (if
we drive for two hours, we still have two hours to get back, too,
and we don't want to be on the road all day.)
Much of the reason it's important for us to be aware of what we're
doing while on vacation is that we've known many people who come
back from vacation more tired than they were when they left. They're
exhausted from having taken a vacation, and to us, that really
defeats the original purpose of the vacation. Even in our
own experience, we've had times when we've simply tried to do too
much. We haven't enjoyed those times, and we've missed a lot
of some things because we've tried to fit too much in.
We also try to make sure that we don't have to skimp on everything
financially while we're on vacation. We don't take lavish
vacations--this year, even though the location is a bit
extraordinary (the Italian Alps), that's only because we were able
to connect it to a visit to friends in Germany whom we really have
to visit for various reasons. We've been to their part of
Germany, though, so we added on four days down here to give us
something new and different to experience. We find that
there's almost always a way to work in a few relaxing and
fulfilling days in the trips that we take.
Of course, everyone's going to vacation differently. I find,
though, that it's important to be present in the moment and in the
location rather than constantly planning my next step. I may
visit something nice tomorrow, but let's leave that for
tomorrow. It can be comforting to have a schedule, but if
that schedule keeps me on the run all the time, then it's worse
than worthless--it can actually be damaging. I don't want to
not get to know the place I'm staying just because I'm so busy
going to other places that I don't get the chance to relax and
enjoy my surroundings.
Vacations are extremely important, and they don't have to be to
exotic locations, and they don't have to be long. Some of
the best vacations I've ever had have been long weekends when
we've found a nice place to stay in a nice town, and then have
done a lot of walking around and exploring for a couple of
days. We get home feeling relaxed and refreshed when we do
this, and though others wouldn't call it a vacation at all, to us
it seems that it is--and we have the right to see things as we see
them, don't we?
My main advice to others would be two-fold: first of all,
know what you want from your vacation and make your plans
accordingly. If you want rest, don't plan on being on the go
all day, every day. And second, don't neglect the place
where you are by focusing your thoughts and efforts on the places
you still have left to see. Be present in the moment
wherever you are--after all, usually the reason you're staying in
a place is because you're interested in it. Vacations should
be enjoyable, but often they turn into stressful ordeals because
we try to do too much with them--relax and enjoy them, for they
truly are gifts to be appreciated and used well so that they can
give us the benefits that we hope to find in them.
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Whoever in trouble and sorrow needs
your help, give it to them.
Whoever in anxiety or
fear needs your friendship, give it to them.
It isn't
important whether they like you. It isn't important
whether you approve of their conduct. It isn't important
what their creed or nationality may be.
E.N. West
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™
