When someone close to us is diagnosed with a terminal illness we feel so many things. Sorrow, regret, grief and confusion and eventually, if we’re able to, we try and find solace in the happy moments that person experienced. However, when this person is only 14, it’s even harder to accept their fate when they still have so much to live for. In this incredibly moving video, we learn of the story of Zach Sobiech; a teenager in his final stages of a rare and terminal bone cancer who turned to music to say goodbye. While his music became a hit, it was his message to spend your life making people happy that touched millions around the world.
via The Greatest Meaning of Life: Teenager’s Final Goodbye Touches Millions.
Think You’re Health Conscious? How’s Your Brain Looking?
It’s the most complicated organ in the human body, burns 20-30% of the total number of calories in your body, and is said to contain more tiny internal connections than there are stars.
The wonder-organ we’re referring to is the human brain.
And despite its complex nature, it’s actually very easy to look after.
Although, with many of us being unaware of how our intelligence, happiness and longevity continually changes depending on how we care for our brain, learning how to improve its health can undoubtedly change our lives.
via Think You’re Health Conscious? How’s Your Brain Looking?.
Are You a Prisoner of Your Mind?
In this 10-minute video, the legendary Eckhart Tolle explains that by analyzing every thought we have, we get trapped in a conceptual reality – effectively imprisoning ourselves in our minds.
Listen to this video to learn how to escape from this continual mental chatter so you’re able to hear the voice of wisdom – one that can only be heard when the mind is silent.
Father Guido Sarducci on work and life…
Life is a job! This explains a lot why the world works as it does…
You Say, ‘Jesus Is the Only Way’!”
I might lose a friend or two over this post, but over the weekend, I read an article by Dr. Steve McSwain on the Huffington Post and it rocked my world! I curate it here:
To those who know me, it is no surprise that I was born with a WHY chromosome.
Because I was so fortunate as to travel the world during my teen years…those highly impressionable years…I’ve seen things, heard things, experienced things that became fertile soil to my many questions.
I was raised in a Southern Baptist pastor’s home. Everyone I knew was Christian. Most were Baptist. Even if you did not go to church, you regarded yourself as Christian and, very often, as Baptist, too. So, the nearest thing to me of a person of another “religion” was a Catholic.
Yet, on more than one occasion, I’ve stood with thousands of other actual Catholics in St. Peter’s Square in Rome…as they eagerly awaited a blessing from the Pope… and, as I watched with curiosity… wonder… questions.
Running from Crazy…
Interesting thoughts from Mariel Hemingway. The more you listen, the more you ‘remember’ we are all connected and we are all the same…
I like clip 6 the best. Read the rest of Megan McWilliams’ talk with Mariel Hemingway here:
Running with Mariel Hemingway. ~ Megan McWilliams | elephant journal.
Are You the Cause of Relationship Disharmony?
The team at FinerMinds shares:
When your relationships are feeling like they’re out of sync, and you don’t like the way someone is behaving towards you, how often do you think, “If only they’d act in a certain way, everything would be great”?
Sound familiar?
Unintentionally, we often blame others for not living up to our expectations, when in fact, and more often than not, this type of relationship disharmony is a reflection of what we’re putting out there.
In this reflective, 10-minute video, we’re reminded of the need to work on the relationship we have with ourselves in order to cultivate the type of relationships we want with others.
Equipped for Empathy?
Barbara Ficarra shares:
“The great gift of human beings is that we have the power of empathy.” These are heartfelt words by award-winning actress Meryl Streep.
Do we all have the power of empathy? Are we hardwired to know what other people want? Is it easy to think about other people’s thoughts?
Rebecca Saxe’s enlightening TEDTalk “How To Read Each Other’s Minds” asks: “Why is it so hard to know what somebody else wants or believes?” “Why is it so hard to change what somebody else wants or believes?” And “How is it so easy to know other minds?”
Just Remember, Thoughts Aren’t Facts
Elisha Goldstein writes:
“A wise man once said, ‘Your worst enemy cannot harm you as much as your unguarded thoughts.'” The Buddha
I want to share with you an important “Now Moment,” the short, action-oriented pieces that come at the end of most of the chapters in The Now Effect. This little instruction can be enormously helpful in bringing to light how to gain freedom from thinking; and since thinking can be our number one bad habit, often launching us into increased stress or downward spirals of automatic negative thinking, it’s a good thing to loosen our grip on.
Are You Providing Soul Service?
FinerMinds says:
Doing something nice for someone is easy, but are you strong enough to let go of your ego and really empower someone through soul-motivated service?
In this 3-minute video, international best-selling author and spirituality lecturer, Caroline Myss, explains what soul service is, and how many of us do not always promote the strengths we see in others for fear that they may outshine us or leave us feeling humiliated.
Be Alert to the Needs of Others
Michael Hyatt shares:
Because we are so busy with our own agenda and tasks, it’s easy to overlook the needs of those around us. As I watched this beautiful Russian video, I was reminded again of the need to be alert to the needs of others, stop what I am doing, and lend a helping hand. The truth is, we are all in this together.
The Gift My Mother Gave to Me
I know that Mother’s Day is over for some, but for others Mother’s Day happens more than once per year! Tara Lemieux shares this:
“You can. You must. You will.” — Eunice Shriver
These are the words shared by Kennedy family matriarch, Eunice Kennedy Shriver, and to her daughter, Maria Shriver.
Her words were simple, but their meaning most profound—in that all things, when done with the fullness of heart, are possible.
In this most beautiful video, Maria Shriver tells the story of how her mother broke through all social barriers in founding the Special Olympics—and in doing so, became the torch-bearer for so many young dreamers.
“You are the stars,” she urged these most brilliant young souls, “and the world is watching you.”
Life as we find it…
“Life as we find it, is too hard for us it brings us too many pains, disappointments and impossible tasks. In order to bear it, we cannot dispense with palliative measures. There are three such measures; powerful deflections, which cause us to make light of our misery, substitute satisfactions, which diminish it and intoxicating substances which make us insensitive to it.” Sigmund Freud
Go to the source of this quote: Sigmund Freud Quotes | Famous Sigmund Freud Quotations – Page 3
Mark Nepo: Lineage
Mark Nepo writes:
Beyond family or the culture and religion of our birth, life will lead us to discover the lineage we are a part of, the circle of kindred spirits that nourish our soul. The difficulties of living can often make us put this lineage aside to deal with trouble first. I’ve done this and found myself lessened for putting what matters last. This poem speaks to how draining it is to put trouble first.
Lineage
Old Friends, Old Teachers,
I never meant to crowd you out.
At first I would drop anything
when you would appear. And
then, it was the noise of the world
that made me save you for a more
sacred time. It was obstacle after
obstacle that drew my attention,
while I kept you like a prize for a
quiet simple day. No one told me to
make this separation. I just started
to keep what matters from what
needs to be done. I began a
life of clearing debris in order
to live in the open. But there is
always more debris. And after all
these years you’ve never failed me;
always waiting in the noise, in
the pain, in the thing
to be cleared.
A Question to Walk With: Describe one way in which you’ve put tasks before things that matter. How can you reverse this and recover the priority of embracing what is sacred?
via Mark Nepo: Lineage.
Relationships: 4 Moving Mantras to Lift Your Partner’s Weary Heart and Spirit
FinerMinds shares:
In this touching 3-minute video, Zen Buddhist monk, Thich Nhat Hanh, shares four beautiful mantras to say to your loved one to help them feel more supported when they’re going through a difficult time, and to improve your relationship with them.
We found the mantras in this video (which is a snippet from an episode of Super Soul Sunday), to be such a beautiful way of strengthening the connections we have with the people that matter the most to us.
via Relationships: 4 Moving Mantras to Lift Your Partner’s Weary Heart and Spirit.
An excerpt from Hesse’s Siddhartha…
Hesse‘s Siddhartha captured my imagination when I was a graduate student and has continued to stimulate my thinking for over 30 years. Here is an excerpt from the conclusion of the book…
Continue reading “An excerpt from Hesse’s Siddhartha…”On Mother’s Day…
…nothing says love like chickensh*t! Let me explain…
This year we celebrated a week early so we can be with our mothers in IL next weekend. We have a tradition in our family for Mother’s Day; full body massage, breakfast in bed, everyone working in the yard planting trees, vegetables, etc., nice dinner, but the best part is I get to clean the chicken coop that contains about 6 months worth of crap from our long, hard Wisconsin winter. Gotta admit there were a couple of times I almost lost my breakfast [note to self; next year eat AFTER!] but I got ‘er done. All three overloaded wheelbarrows full…
How about you? What will you do to honor your wife on Mother’s Day?
EMBRACE THE SUCK!
Anthony Meindl writes:
It’s a very Buddhist concept. When we deny what reality is giving us, we create suffering. So life is a dance between minimizing expectations and surrendering to what our lives actually reveal to us.
By embracing our lives totally (even the stuff that “sucks”), we get through them. The Armed Forces have no other choice. If they’re out in the Iraqi desert or in the mountains of Afghanistan, the only way they’re going to get through those challenging experiences is by embracing them.
But for us with our modern conveniences and propensity for denial, we can distract ourselves, numb ourselves, fool ourselves over and over to avoid, disconnect, ignore, postpone, procrastinate and put our heads in the sand when we don’t want to look at what is.
And that’s ironic since the denial of something simply extends its presence.
So even though “the suck” sucks, the prolonging of it makes it even suckier. For longer.
So why do we do it?
Habit.
Get the rest here: EMBRACE THE SUCK!.
Change Your Life In 2 Seconds
Pema Chodron writes:
One of the lines that I really like in Gaylon Ferguson’s book Natural Wakefulness is “Distraction is married to discontent.” You could test this out in your own experience. There’s nothing as real and direct and counterhabitual as being present with yourself, just as you are, with your emotions just as they are.
As difficult as that can be, the result of that training is nonstruggle: not rejecting your experience, fully engaged with yourself, with the world, there for other people. Another result of coming back to being with yourself, just as you are, is that emotions don’t escalate. Continue reading “Change Your Life In 2 Seconds”
Your task is not to seek for love…
You might reflect on someone important to you, and ask: “What is between me and loving fully?” Notice what happens. This talk explores the ways we create separations from others, and the power of inquiry and presence to awaken an unconditionally loving heart…
Forgiving our way to freedom…
Another wonderful meditation by Tara Brach that I’d like to share with you:
Living with chronic blame or resentment is a trance that confines us to a limited fragment of what we are. This talk looks at the ways this trance is fueled and the process by which we release the armoring around our hearts.
Bright, Shiny Objects! 
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