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17 November 2009 |
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We
need to find the courage to say NO to the things and people that are not serving us if we
want to rediscover ourselves
and live our lives with authenticity.
Barbara
De Angelis
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We
can see in
the puddle either
the mud or the
reflection of
the blue sky,
just as we choose. Lucy
Fitch Perkins
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Millions long for immortality who do not
know what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday
afternoon.
Susan Ertz
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On
Loneliness and Solitude
(an excerpt)
Kent Nerburn
You
should spend time alone. Not just minutes and
hours, but days, and if the opportunity presents itself,
weeks.
Time
spent alone returns to you a hundredfold, because it is
the proving ground of the spirit. You quickly find
out if you are at peace with yourself, or if the meaning
of your life is found only in the superficial affairs of
the day. If it is in the superficial affairs of
the day, time spent alone will throw you back upon
yourself in a way that will make you grow in wisdom and
inner strength.
We
can easily fill our days with activity. We buy, we
sell, we move from place to place. There is always
more to be done, always a way to keep from staring into
the still pool where life is more than the chatter of
the small affairs of the mind.
If
we are not careful, we begin to mistake this activity
for meaning. We turn our lives into a series of
tasks that can occupy all the hours of the clock and
still leave us breathless with our sense of work left
undone.
And
always there is work undone. We will die with work
undone. The labors of life are endless.
Better that you should accept the rhythms of life and
know that there are times when you need to stop to draw
a breath, no matter how great the labors are before you.
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For
many people, solitude is just a poet's word for being
alone. But being alone, in itself, is
nothing. It can be a breeding ground of loneliness
as easily as a source of solitude.
Solitude
is a condition of peace that stands in direct opposition
to loneliness. Loneliness is like sitting in an
empty room and being aware of the space around
you. It is a condition of separateness.
Solitude is becoming one with the space around
you. It is a condition of union.
Loneliness
is small, solitude is large. Loneliness closes in
around you; solitude expands towards the infinite.
Loneliness has its roots in words, in an internal
conversation that nobody answers; solitude has its roots
in the great silence of eternity.
Most
people fear being alone because they understand only
loneliness. Their understanding begins at the
self, and they are comfortable only as long as they are
at the center of their understanding. Solitude is
about getting the "I" out of the center of our
thoughts so that other parts of life can be experienced
in their fullness. It is about abandoning the self
as the focus of understanding, and giving ourselves over
to the great flowing fabric of the universe.
In
solitude silence becomes a symphony. Time changes
from a series of moments strung together into a seamless
motion riding on the rhythms of the stars.
Loneliness is banished, solitude is in full flower, and
we are one with the pulse of life and the flow of time.
The
awareness we experience in solitude is priceless for the
peace it can give. It is also the key to true
loving in our relationships. When we have a part
of ourselves that is firm, confident, and alone, we
don't need another person to fill us. We know that
we have private spaces full of goodness and self-worth,
and we grant the same to those we love. We do not
try to pry into every corner of their lives or to fill
the emptiness inside us with their presence.
As
always, look at the world around you. The mountain
is not restless in its aloneness. The hawk tracing
circles in the sky is not longing for union with the
sun. They exist in the perfect peace of an eternal
present, and that is the peace that one finds only in
solitude. Find this peace in yourself, and you
will never know another moment of loneliness in your
life.
Simple
Truths. Kent Nerburn
A very nice, simple collection of thoughts and
reflections on many of the aspects of our daily
lives that most of us take for
granted--possessions, giving, love, money, travel,
and many others. Very readable and
thought-provoking, and well worth a read. |
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Life
on the Front Burner
Louise Morganti Kaelin
How many times in your
life have you had to put something "on the back
burner", letting an idea or a project simmer in the
background while you focused on something else? How
often were the things that went on the back burner your
personal hopes, dreams or needs while you concentrated
on the hopes, dreams or needs of someone else?
There is nothing wrong with that decision and in some
cases it can be admirable. However, it's not admirable
if your personal needs never come off the back burner.
We all know that, during the safety instructions on an
airplane, we are instructed to put the mask over our own
mouth first, then on our child's. Why? The reason
is simple -- if we are knocked unconscious there will be
no one to look after the child, endangering them even
more than those few moments it takes to put our own mask
on. The wisdom of this is readily apparent once we think
about it, and is good advice to take forward into all
areas of our lives.
For many years, I put the needs of others first. As I
evolved personally, I came to understand that it was
okay - healthier, even - to put my needs equal to the
needs of others. In fact, it is how I now define the
word "selfish", and use the term
"self-centered" for someone determined to live
as though the world revolves around them.
Even with that advanced understanding, however, I still
didn't take care of my self as much as I needed. That
included delaying doctors; appointments or working past
the exhaustion point because someone else needed me.
Even though I felt my needs were equal to the needs of
others, the reality is that 90% of the time I still
opted to take care of others before myself. This isn't
bad, either, because for the most part these were
conscious choices I made. Unfortunately, there has
been a physical and emotional cost that becomes harder
and harder to bounce back from.
Where does that leave me today? With a new
understanding, one that suggests that, in fact, I need
to opt for myself more than 10% of the time.
However, I'm still basically someone who likes to give.
and I like that about myself, so it's really important
for me not to become that "self-centered"
person I described earlier. And that brings me to
the concept of choosing to put me on the front burner,
to live on the front burner.
This analogy is really appropriate for me. I think it
works because I
still am a person who cares for others. So, while
I may have neglected myself on the back burner, I find
that I do not neglect others back there. The
result is that I am truly taking care of myself and
caring for others at the same time, for the first time
in my life. Sometimes we just need the right analogy or
framing for an idea to really take hold. This 'front
burner' idea is perfect for me. In fact, I now keep the
tea kettle on the front burner on the stove. This
way, every time I walk into the kitchen I am reminded of
this shift in my thinking and it helps me remain focused
and clear about this positive new action and change in
my life.
So, where in your life have you been putting yourself on
the back burner and forgetting about you? A
harried parent, juggling work and family? An
over-conscientious leader or manager? Oldest sibling?
Youngest sibling? Caught between aging parents and
developing children? No matter how overwhelmed you might
be feeling, it is possible to find some moments of time
just for yourself. The key is remembering that it is not
an either/or situation. You get to take care of
yourself and handle your responsibilities to others.
Make a conscious decision to live YOUR life on the front
burner!
©
Louise Morganti Kaelin. Louise is a Life Success
Coach who partners with others to help them turn their
dreams into reality. Email: louise@touchpointcoaching.com;
http://touchpointcoaching.com
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been looking for a way to recommend many of the books
and movies that inspire us to live our lives more fully, and
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to make recommendations! |
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Living
Life Fully, the e-zine
exists to try to provide for visitors of the world wide web a
place
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are presented as thoughts of the authors--by no means do
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Eyes
Wide Open
tom walsh
The
Need to Let Go
I've
been getting some very important lessons on the
importance of letting go recently. They've been
coming from parents of students at the college where I
work, and they haven't been all that pleasant as far as
lessons go. They have to do with parents who are
so intent on "making sure" that their kids
succeed at college that they're sabotaging any chance
those students have of succeeding on their own
terms--which are the only terms upon which they should
succeed.
Here's
what happens--the students come to school, but the
parents don't trust them to succeed. In order to
try to "help," the parents call their son or
daughter every day, they check with teachers and
advisors to try to find out if their kids are going to
class and meetings, and they even try to find out how
their kid did on certain tests. It's an intrusive
type of control that never allows the kid any breathing
room, never allows the kid to make his or her own
discoveries about his or her own behaviors and habits.
Worse,
it shifts the college experience from the student to the
parents. If the student succeeds, it's obviously
the parents' success, because they've "kept
tabs" on Heather or they've "made sure"
that David doesn't "slack off."
Ironically enough, though, if the student fails, then
that failure is fully the student's fault, in spite of
all the efforts of the parents to "help."
Most
parents are happy if they hear from their kids once a
week when they're away at college. My stepson has
been away at college 1,400 miles away since July, and
we've heard from him five or six times. We've
never checked on his grades except to ask him how a
particular class went. His college experience is
his experience, and while we're more than willing to
help out if he asks us to, we're not going to impose our
wants and needs upon him. He's got enough to deal
with, without us intruding into his life daily.
While
it's bad enough that these parents are sabotaging their
own kids' chances of success at college, they're also
sabotaging something else: their own chances of
being happy and content in the present moment--any
present moment. If their minds are constantly on
their kids and what they're doing hundreds or thousands
of miles away, if they're stressing out about whether or
not the kids passed today's quiz or did last night's
reading, if they're trying to come up with new ways to
manipulate their kids into succeeding, then they
certainly are not focusing on giving their all to their
own surroundings.
They're
causing themselves inordinate amounts of stress and
tension simply because of their mistaken belief that
their kid's schooling is something that they should have
control over. They believe that they can cause
another person to succeed, a belief that has been proved
to be invalid over and over again in life. And in
their attempts to manipulate their kids, they almost
invariably begin to manipulate others, including
teachers, administrators, and advisors, causing added
stress in the lives of those people who really have done
nothing to deserve it.
What
do I take from this? A healthy respect for the
individual and the individual's need to find his or her
own way in life. If someone wants help, that
person will ask me. If I see or feel that someone
needs help and isn't asking for it, then I can offer my
help; if it's refused, however, I've done all I can for
the moment. Each person is constantly defining him
or herself, constantly learning more about his or her
own beliefs and needs and abilities. The more I
push myself into the experiences of others in an attempt
to "make" them succeed, the less they learn
about their own capabilities and needs.
When
we let go of the attempts to "help" others to
succeed, we're really letting go of our own need to
control and manipulate people and situations. And
the more we can let go of that need, the happier and
more fulfilled we're bound to become.
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Your
beliefs are your reality.
If you don't like the reality you see,
change your beliefs!
Stephen
C. Paul
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You
cannot fail at being yourself. A cat doesn't try to be
a tiger, and you shouldn't try to be something you aren't.
You are a process, not a product. Your job is to
discover
what you are and create that creature. You still won't
be
perfect, but success isn't about perfection--it is
about authenticity. You are a success if you are
being your real, authentic self.
Bernie
Siegel |
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Don Juan
assured me that in order to accomplish the feat of making myself miserable
I had to work in the most intense fashion, and that it was absurd. I
had now realized
I could work just the same in making myself complete and
strong. "The trick is
in what one emphasizes," he said.
"We either make ourselves miserable,
or we make ourselves strong.
The amount of work is the same."
Carlos
Castaneda
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Tom Walsh has
done it again
with his beau-
tiful heart-
warming book,
Walker.
I loved it.
--L. Abeling
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When
Walker first steps onto the road, he has no thoughts, no
history, no memories, and no clothes. As he travels and
meets people and learns from them, he comes to know more
about life, living, and becoming the person he's meant to
be. Walker is a parable for all of us who wonder
what might be the purpose of life, why bad things happen
with almost as much regularity as good things, and how we
can learn from the bad examples and experiences in our
lives as much as we can learn from the good things. Tom
Walsh's parable is a story of the ages, a timeless
exploration of ideas and thoughts that all of us wonder
about, a sincere and heartfelt portrait of a man who has
no past and no future, but who learns to make the most of
each precious present moment as it comes. |
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An excerpt:
Walker
awoke in the middle of the night, somehow expecting
someone to be there with him.
There was nothing, though—nobody.
The night was as dark as he had ever seen a night,
and there was a strong chill in the air.
Walker somehow had the feeling that something was
going to change very quickly, and that there was nothing
he could do about it.
He tried to go back to sleep, but he couldn’t; he
ended up lying awake for several hours until the sun came
up. As it
began to light the world, he couldn’t imagine a more
peaceful, more beautiful scene to wake up to than that of
the valley that lay before him.
But something wasn’t right.
He started to walk, looking for the wonder he had
always felt, but he began to feel that he was pushing
something, that he wasn’t admitting to himself something
that he should admit, and his steps were slow and heavy.
His confusion grew as he walked—what was holding
him back?
Two hours later, he stopped in his tracks in
amazement. There
before him was a spot he recognized, a spot that he had
seen before—the very spot where he had stepped out onto
the road. He
approached it slowly, carefully, unsurely.
A very faint trail led into the bushes, and those
bushes were so thick that he couldn’t see what lay
beyond them.
Was this what I’ve been looking for? he asked
himself. If he
followed this trail, he was sure, he might be able to
unlock some secrets of his past, find out who he was,
where he came from, how he had come to be on the road.
Were there people somewhere who loved him, who
missed him, who would stand by him when he needed them?
Did he even have a past?
Turner had told him that there would come a time
when he was ready to turn around, to seek out something
from his past.
But what if the trail led nowhere?
What if it led into the bushes, and past the
bushes, he would find nothing but more bushes?
He
sat down on the trail and closed his eyes, trying to calm
the thoughts that were confusing him. He listened closely
to his own breathing, trying to clear his mind of the many
images and ideas that were running around in there.
Soon he felt his body relaxing and his mind
quieting, and peace started to emanate from the center of
who he was. He
felt a sense of love for that peace, and for his self.
And
in the quiet and stillness, he suddenly knew what was
right. He knew
that while he might find out something interesting down
the trail from which he might have come so long ago,
anything he found there belonged to who he had been, not
who he was now. And
there was no use in spending his future days trying to
recreate what might have been in his past.
He stood, and for the first time he turned his face
towards where he had just come from.
He stood there for several long moments, and then
with one single step began the journey back towards where
he thought he should be going.
Turner had been right—there was a time to seek
something from the past.
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More
often than not, when we hear the word "courage," we
think of
heroic acts in times of crisis. But in our everyday lives,
we shouldn't
overlook the courageousness of simply being there.
Lives are changed
when we faithfully provide for our families, care for the
elderly, or
lend an ear to a troubled friend. Persistence in making
this world a
better place to live--for ourselves and others--is definitely a
form of courage.
Albert
Schweitzer, the great missionary, doctor, and theologian, was
once
asked in an interview to name the greatest living person.
He immediately
replied, "The greatest person in the world is some unknown
individual who
at this very moment has gone in love to help another."
As you go
about your work today,
remember that you could be someone else's hero.
unattributed |
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