The best relationships in our lives are the best not because they have been the happiest ones, they are that way because they have stayed strong through the most tormentful of storms.
"Certainly the most destructive vice if you like, that a person can have. More than pride, which is supposedly the number one of the cardinal sins - is self pity. Self pity is the worst possible emotion anyone can have. And the most destructive. It is, to slightly paraphrase what Wilde said about hatred, and I think actually hatred's a subset of self pity and not the other way around - ' It destroys everything around it, except itself '.
There is no need to search; achievement leads to nowhere. It makes no difference at all, so just be happy now! Love is the only reality of the world, because it is all One, you see. And the only laws are paradox, humor and change. There is no problem, never was, and never will be. Release your struggle, let go of your mind, throw away your concerns, and relax into the world. No need to resist life, just do your best. Open your eyes and see that you are far more than you imagine. You are the world, you are the universe; you are yourself and everyone else, too! It's all the marvelous Play of God. Wake up, regain your humor. Don't worry, just be happy. You are already free!
When you concentrate your energy purposely on the future possibility that you aspire to realize, your energy is passed on to it and makes it attracted to you with a force stronger than the one you directed towards it.
I'd heard of Evergreen Care Center before. Cass and I had always made fun of the stupid ads they ran on TV, featuring some dragged-out woman with a limp perm and big, painted-on circles under her eyes, downing vodka and sobbing uncontrollably. "We can't heal you at Evergreen", the very somber voiceover said. "But we can help you to heal yourself." It had become our own running joke, applicable to almost anything
Jeremy tried to be an interesting person. The trouble was that he was the kind of person who, having decided to be an interesting person, would first of all try to find a book called How to Be An Interesting Person and then see whether there were any courses available.
"It's not a problem. There are people out there with much worse problems than mine."-Cynthia "Doesn't make yours any more fun to bear."-Liza "No. But it does help with the self-pity."- Cynthia"
"It's been my observation" I said, "that you humans are more than the sum of your history. You can choose how much of your ancestry to embrace. You can overcome the expectations of your family and your society. What you cannot do, and should never do, is try to be someone other than yourself-Piper McLean." --
IF - and this is the greatest of them all - I had the courage to see myself as I reallyam, I would find out what is wrong with me, and correct it, then I might have a chance to profit by my mistakes and learn something from the experience of others,for I know that there is something WRONG with me, or I would now be where I WOULD HAVE BEEN IF I had spent more time analyzing my weaknesses, and less time building alibis to cover them.
You are not an alcoholic or an addict. You are not incurably diseased. You have merely become dependent on substances or addictive behavior to cope with underlying conditions that you are now going to heal, at which time your dependency will cease completely and forever.
The question is why one should be so inwardly preoccupied at all. Why not reach out to others in love and solidarity or peer into the natural world for some glimmer of understanding? Why retreat into anxious introspection when, as Emerson might have said, there is a vast world outside to explore? Why spend so much time working on oneself when there is so much real work to be done?
I'd have my happy ending, whether I deserved it or not. But this land, these people - they would have their happy ending too. The first few steps toward healing. Toward peace. And then things would be fine. Then I'd be fine.
How odd that we spend so much time treating the darkness, and so little time seeking the light. The ego loves to glorify itself by self-analysis, yet we do not get rid of darkness by hitting it with a baseball bat. We only get rid of darkness by turning on the light.
Lost in the Cosmos: The Last Self-Help Book or How you can survive in the Cosmos about which you know more and more while knowing less and less about yourself, this despite 10,000 self-help books, 100,000 psychotherapists, and 100 million fundamentalist Christians or Why is it that of all the billions and billions of strange objects in the Cosmos - novas, quasars, pulsars, black holes - you are beyond doubt the strangest or Why is it possible to learn more in ten minutes about the Crab Nebula in Taurus, which is 6,000 light-years away, than you presently know about yourself, even though you've been stuck with yourself all your life
There need not be a purpose to a person's death, other than that they have lived the length of their days on this Earth and now begin the longer part of their existence.
She is here. And she comes to you, and she does not speak, and the others do not notice her, and she takes your hand, and you ready yourself to die, eyes open, aware this is all an illusion, a last aroma cast up by the chemical stew that is your brain, which will soon cease to function, ad there will be nothing, and you are ready, ready to die well, ready to die like a man, like a woman, like a human, for despite all else you have loved, you have loved your father and your mother and your brother and your sister and your son and, yes, your ex-wife and you have loved the pretty girl, you have been beyond yourself, and so you have courage, and you have dignity, and you have calmness in the face of terror, and awe, and the pretty girl holds your hand, and you contain her, and this book, and me writing it, and I too contain you, who may not even be born, you inside me inside you, though not in a creepy way, and so may you, may I, may we, so may all of us confront the end.
Suffering is normal. Pain is normal, it is part of life... What is its texture, the weight of our suffering? What is its meaning? Begin by touching it, by coming close to it, accepting it: Hello, suffering, I am here with you. I am beside you, one with you, I am you. I am suffering.
When you feel sad, you are participating in a venerable experience, to which I, this monument, am dedicated. Your sense of loss and disappointment, of frustrated hopes and grief at your own inadequacy, elevate you to serious company. Do not ignore of throw away your grief
"I've seen how cigarettes went from being advertised in every type of media to being something found to be deadly... they can't kill me no matter how many of them I smoke but I've seen humans die from smoking them... if I were you I would stop smoking them." "Why should I? You smoke 'em all the time, you chain-smoke cigarettes," Mandy pointed out. "Yeah, I started doing that back in the Sixties... for reasons you likely saw on those VHS tapes... but I'm not a person, I'm Pollution, things like that aren't dangerous to me but they are to you," Alecto told her. "It's not a good idea."
"They think I'm not entirely 'grounded in reality', they say. They want me to go to some live-in nerdy activity ranch thing for troubled Canadian youth, that one out in Ontario where you come back programmed like some robot, dressed in a tye-dyed shirt and eating tuna sandwiches," Mandy explained, a horrified look on her face. "You're eighteen, not twelve! Would they really send you to some rat's nest like that?" Wendy questioned in mock horror. "Aw hell no, if you get sent there, they'll make you hold hands and sing songs about caring! And they'll force you to recycle everything in blue canisters, and to discuss your emotions in front of groups of bratty little dopes!" "Dear god, they'll have geeky youth wiener roasts at night, and no locks on the doors!" Mandy added, eyes wide. "...It'll be the day pigs fly, my parents have the camp brochure on the fridge but they'll never go through with sending me there. They always forget."
Just handle what's in front of you now. and the future will take care of itself. Otherwise, you'll spend most of your life wondering which foot you'll use to step off the curb when you're still only halfway to the corner.
To give up power to change for the better is inherently distasteful to everyone, and to force people to affirm that they are addicts or alcoholics so they can speak in a meeting is shameful and demoralizing.
The advertise their products in such a fashion as to make it seem wonderful to drink their ethanol products. It does not matter if they give their products fancy name like Cabernet Sauvignon or Pinot Noir, or if they put bubbles in an ethanol product and call it champagne or beer- everyone is selling ethanol.
Don't look to be saved in any one thing, person, machine, or library. Do your own bit of saving, and if you drown, at least die knowing you were headed for shore.
"Take a few minutes now and see your current circumstances- your physical condition, your emotional condition, your possessions, your financial condition, where and how you live, your relationships, the situations surrounding your life, and the way you believe other people see you- as mirrors showing you "Who You Are."
If those underlying conditions aren't treated, the return of those symptoms may cause us so much discomfort that we'll go back to using addictive drugs or alcohol to obtain relief. That's the primary reason there is such a high rate of relapse among people who have become dependent of alcohol and addictive drugs. It has little to do with alcohol and addiction themselves and almost everything to do with the original causes that created the dependency.
Understand something people, we will be hated by many in the name of Christ, ridiculed, mocked, stoned, slaughtered. We will be fined, jailed and killed for our love for Christ. You are supposed to see better with your eyes today, how close this is happening, just prepare your heart and soul to be braver than Peter and not deny Christ in the moment your life might be in jeopardy for Him and what you believe. Apostle Pauls says to live is Christ to die is gain.
A fundamental truth, is that there is simply no such thing as an inherently boring person or thing. People are only in danger of coming across as such when they either fail to understand their deeper selves or don't dare or know how to communicate them to others.
The challenges and changes you meet are, in effect, hand delivered to you by a generous, loving Universe for the purpose of making you stronger and wiser.
Believe that is cure is possible for you. Discover and heal the underlying causes with a holistic recovery program. Adopt a philosophy based on what is true in the Universe.
What we call coincidences, accidental and remarkable events occurring at the same time, are actually circumstances and events that have come into your life to serve a purpose is to benefit you.
That which stirs within, slows or quickens, goes deep or dies out. When I speak of spirit, I am not speaking of something related to or given by a force outside ourselves. I am speaking of the force that is ourselves. The experience of living in this world, bound by a body, space, and time, woven into the fabric of human history, human connection and human life. This is the force that feels, and thinks and gives us consciousness at all. It is the deepest, most elemental, most integral part of who we are; it is who we are.
If you allow disagreements and arguments to escalate, you are making the bone of contention of whatever you are heatedly arguing about more important than your relationship.
If you have experienced recurring situations in your life that are unpleasant, know that there is something you are supposed to be getting from those situations that you have not been getting and that the moment you get it, those situations will pass out of your life, not to return.
Do you believe in chaos- in random, uncontrolled events, in the idea that anything can happen at any time without fixed laws governing it? If you believe that, you will always be in a state of fear, not knowing what will happen from one moment to the next. The fear might be small, but it is there. That fear results in a lack of security and a feeling of mistrust.
Each of us is different and has different needs. In addition, our needs change over the course of our relationship. When you are committed to an enduring relationship with someone, you aren't simply concerned about having your needs met. You also go out of your way to care for your loved one, being aware of and adaptable to their changing needs.
To have the beautiful relationship you want, you and your partner must share your life stories with each other, holding nothing back. That sharing includes any past experiences of brutality, traumas, rape, incest, and emotional or mental torture of any kind that either of you has experienced as well as the wonderful memories you each cherish.
The current feminist agenda mostly accuses men or society in general, thereby ignoring the pivotal role played by women themselves in their life predicaments.
Be gentle and forbearing with one another and, if one has a difference(a grievance or complaint) against another, readily pardoning each other; even as the Lord has [freely] forgiven you, so must you also [forgive]. ( Colossians 3:13 )
You can fight the feelings of depression by reminding yourself of blessings in your life. You can listen to music or sing. Even getting your mind off yourself by doing something kind for someone else will help immensely. Don't forget that our moods are connected to our thoughts; therefore, I urge you to take notice of what you're thinking about when you feel depressed. You may find the source of your problem.
But making the ugly hurt part human again is not an exercise for the well-meaning social worker in us. This is the most dangerous work you can do. It is like bomb disposal but you are the bomb. That's the problem--the awful thing is you.
I learned long ago not to give a flying fuck what strangers thought about me. Hell, I only mildly care what my friends think. Life is too short to stress others' opinions.
What you think of as your common sense in regard to relationships may be based on something you have come to believe that isn't totally true or may not be true at all.