I can find only three kinds of business in the universe: mine, yours, and God’s. (For me, the word God means “reality.” Reality is God, because it rules. Anything that’s out of my control, your control, and everyone else’s control— I call that God’s business.) Much of our stress comes from mentally living out of our own business. When I think, “You need to get a job, I want you to be happy, you should be on time, you need to take better care of yourself,” I am in your business. When I’m worried about earthquakes, floods, war, or when I will die, I am in God’s business. If I am mentally in your business or in God’s business, the effect is separation. I noticed this early in 1986. When I mentally went into my mother’s business, for example, with a thought like “My mother should understand me,” I immediately experienced a feeling of loneliness. And I realized that every time in my life that I had felt hurt or lonely, I had been in someone else’s business. If you are living your life and I am mentally living your life, who is here living mine? We’re both over there. Being mentally in your business keeps me from being present in my own. I am separate from myself, wondering why my life doesn’t work. To think that I know what’s best for anyone else is to be out of my business. Even in the name of love, it is pure arrogance, and the result is tension, anxiety, and fear. Do I know what’s right for me? That is my only business. Let me work with that before I try to solve your problems for you. If you understand the three kinds of business enough to stay in your own business, it could free your life in a way that you can’t even imagine. The next time you’re feeling stress or discomfort, ask yourself whose business you’re in mentally, and you may burst out laughing! That question can bring you back to yourself. And you may come to see that you’ve never really been present, that you’ve been mentally living in other people’s business all your life. Just to notice that you’re in someone else’s business can bring you back to your own wonderful self. And if you practice it for a while, you may come to see that you don’t have any business either and that your life runs perfectly well on its own.
Katie, Byron; Mitchell, Steven (2002-05-07). Loving What Is: Four Questions That Can Change Your Life (Kindle Locations 395-409). Crown Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Sad Brazilian Football fan Shows His Kindness
This is a lovely story about kindness in the midst of loss…
Clovis Acosta Fernandes, a sad Brazilian fan, was shown crying all over the world, during Brazil’s loss to Germany in yesterday’s World Cup semi-final.
Less people have seen this beautiful picture of him handing his copy of the trophy to a German fan.
He was quoted as saying “Take it to the final! As you can see, it is not easy, but you deserve it, congratulations”
(Roughly translated)
Source: Reddit
Guess.What.Day.It.Is?
Many of the nicest people I know are Canadians! Happy birthday, Canada and thanks for Hockey, Tim Horton’s and Rob Ford and love to all my Canadian friends…
Believing our thoughts
A lovely thought…
When thoughts arise, then do all things arise.
When thoughts vanish, then do all things vanish.
Huang Po, c. 850
T.G.I.F.: It’s Been A Long Week
Heh, heh, heh…
Entering with gentleness
Yes…
If there is a single definition of healing it is to enter with mercy an awareness of those pains, mental and physical,
from which we have withdrawn in judgment and dismay.
Stephen Levine
Letting go of our entanglements
Thanks to WillowMarie for sharing this…
I came across a baby Jackdaw last evening in the grounds of the monastery at Moone. It was still somewhat unsteady in flight and was taking a rest on the ground, seeming a little bit intimidated by the next step it has to take in life, having to let go and learn to fly.
How surely gravity’s law,
strong as an ocean current,
takes hold of even the strongest thing
and pulls it toward the heart of the world.
Each thing-
each stone, blossom, child –
is held in place.
Only we, in our arrogance,
push out beyond what we belong to
for some empty freedom.
If we surrendered
to earth’s intelligence
we could rise up rooted, like trees.
Instead we entangle ourselves
in knots of our own making
and struggle, lonely and confused.
So, like children, we begin again
to learn from the things,
because they are in God’s…
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Your Integrity Attracts Loyalty
#truestory
One of the most important ways to manifest integrity is to be loyal to those who are not present. In doing so, we build the trust of those who are present. — Stephen Covey
Yes, Really
Heh, heh, heh…
Anger and fear and guilt…
Interesting perspective from Psychology Today:
In fact, those of us who routinely use anger as a “cover-up” to keep our more vulnerable feelings at bay, generally become so adept at doing so that we have little to no awareness of the dynamic driving our behavior. As I’ve discussed in earlier posts on the subject, anger is the emotion of invulnerability. Even though the self-empowerment (read, “adrenaline rush”) it immediately offers is bogus, it can yet be extremely tempting to get “attached”—or even “addicted”—to it if we frequently experience another as threatening the way we need to see ourselves (e.g., as important, trustworthy, lovable, etc.). After all, this is how all psychological defenses work. Simply put, they allow us to escape upsetting, shameful, or anxiety-laden feelings we may not have developed the emotional resources—or ego strength—to successfully cope with. So, for example, say your partner (whether intentionally or not) expresses something that leads you to feel demeaned. Rather than, assertively, sharing your hurt feelings, and risk making yourself more vulnerable to them, you may react instead by finding something to attack them for. It could be as petty as their forgetting to put something away, or not having gotten back to you on scheduling an event, or a past mistake that compromised the family budget—in short, anything! In such instances, what you’re basically doing (though it’s most likely unconscious) is endeavoring to make them feel demeaned, to hurt their feelings—or rather, hurt them back. It’s an undeclared, largely unrecognized, game of tit for tat. And while you’re engaged in such retaliatory pursuits, guess what? Presto! You’re no longer feeling demeaned—at least not in the moment. . . . Which, sadly, reinforces this essentially childish behavior (as in, “You’re the one who’s bad!”).
Go to the source for more: Anger—How We Transfer Feelings of Guilt, Hurt, and Fear | Psychology Today
Presty the DJ for May 30
Love Presty the DJ’s post — especially when they feature the Beatles!
Two more Beatles anniversaries today: “Love Me Do” hit number one in 1964 …
… four years before the Beatles started work on their only double album. Perhaps that work was so hard that they couldn’t think of a more original title than: “The Beatles.” You may know it better, however, as “the White Album”:
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The Cast of The Wonder Years Reunited and Took a Bunch of Selfies
I used to love The Wonder Years. Seems the cast had a mini-reunion this week…
This happens often…
…and it’s the reason why you want to pay a reasonable fee for your tools!
Tweedale Cemetery: Memorial Day in Smalltown America…
My family and I moved to Algoma Wisconsin 10 years ago this past January. 10 years ago on Memorial Day I was sitting at my computer early in the morning when gunshots rang out once, twice and three times. I was quite taken aback until I learned later that the shots were fired by an honor guard as part of the local Memorial Day observance in a cemetery located in the backyard of our neighbor across the street. I kid you not…
Tweedale Cemetery is located on private property on the southeast of the city of Algoma, in Kewaunee County, Wisconsin. The cemetery is behind a private home, located on the east side of Lake Street, in the 1700 block. There is no cemetery sign or separate entrance. For the past 12 to 15 years, or more, all the original headstones, monuments, or grave markers have been buried several inches underground, and covered by grass. The only visible evidence of the Tweedale Cemetery is this one in-ground memorial to four Civil War Veterans buried on this property. They are: 1) James Tweedale, 2) John Greeley, 3) Warren P. Thayer, 4) Oliver G. Rouse.
Source: Find A Grave: Tweedale Cemetery
For 10 years I’ve promised myself that on Memorial Day I would check that out. Here are some pictures and video from the experience…
Blessed Brokenness
Even if she weren’t my sister, I’d say she is a most excellent blogger. I’m so proud that she figured this blogging thing all out on her own without pimping me for advice… :-D
For some reason, even though Mother’s Day was a week ago, just this weekend in my Facebook feed was a video about mothers, produced by Pampers. It features very sweet mother-child moments, along with thank yous from moms to their kids for the ways in which they have taught them and made them better women. Towards the end the screen reads, “When you were born, I was born. And a love that transformed me forever was born.” It struck me as oddly paradoxical. You see I have spent the entire week wrestling with the experience of death to my ego, triggered by a heart-breaking experience with my girl.
After eighteen years of marriage, I’ve learned that if I want holidays to look anything like the way I dream them up in my head, I must communicate my wants. It took me a long time and lots of frustration to figure out that no one in my…
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Bright, shiny objects! 
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