Thinks I find along the way
Just because you’re too old for Sesame Street (and hopefully you already know your ABCs), that doesn’t mean you’re not too old to learn something. The Muppets are more than entertainers — they’re pretty good teachers too.
Here’s a look at 5 life lessons you can learn from The Muppets.” Get more here: 5 Life Lessons Taught By The Muppets.
I teach my students and clients that one should look for the best three paragraphs when curating; occasionally I say it’s OK to double dip and grab two quotes. When it comes to Kute Blackson, I usually break all my rules – his stuff is sooo good that I usually end up curating his entire post to that it’s easier for you to read the whole think. Today is no exception to the Kute Blackson rule:
Most guru’s or teachers will teach how to avoid suffering. I am going to share with you the seven steps of how to successfully create suffering in your life, so that you can be aware of them and make different choices.
Suffering can become a very dangerous addiction. An unhealthy way to feel. An ultimately unfulfilling way to feel alive. You can get so used to suffering that it becomes comfortable and familiar. Suffering is the ego’s way of feeling important.
Whether you are a businessman or a buddha, pain is inevitable. There is no way to avoid it. Just by virtue of being in a human body there will be some pain. Trying to avoid pain will only create more suffering. Embrace pain to release yourself from suffering.
Suffering is optional. Suffering is a choice.
Suffering comes from your story about what is happening in your life and less about what is actually happening. What is happening is simply what is happening. The suffering part comes from all your interpretations and meanings about the experience. Change your story and the way you are interpreting reality and you begin to change your reality. When you change your reality within yourself, you shift your experience of your reality outside. Once you understand this, you only suffer if you chose to.
What stories are you making up about yourself, your life, your partner, your current experience that is causing you suffering?
The Seven Keys to creating suffering:
1- Resist everything: Resist what is. Resist reality. Fight against what is happening in your life with all your might. This is a guaranteed method to suffer.
Key Solution: Accept what is, so that you can then decide how to shift it.
2- Holding the belief: “The experience that is happening to me should not be happening to me. I should be having some other experience than the one I am having. This shouldn’t be happening to me”. You have probably heard yourself doing some version of this. It just keeps you stuck.
Key Solution: Embrace your current experience. Your current experience is the experience that you are meant to be having because you are having it right now. Trust, and focus on what you can learn and how you can grow. The experience is here to help you evolve.
3- Focusing on all the things that you cannot control. This will only cause you to feel completely helpless and disempowered. It will leave you in a state of worry and anxiety. Some of us are professional “worriers”. No matter how much you worry, it doesn’t actually change the situation. Once you are done worrying, the situation will be the same. Worrying is a waste of time.
Key Solution: Focus on what you can control. Take actions that are in your power, step by step.
4- Refusing to change. Keep doing the same over and over and hoping for a different result. Well, as Einstein said, this is the definition of insanity. Are you so set in your ways that you are afraid of giving up the known suffering for the unknown possibility of happiness?
Key Solution: Embrace change. Be willing to do something different. Let go. Go into the unknown. Take different actions.
5- Give up your responsibility: Be a victim. Play the blame game, making everyone else at fault or responsible for your life and how you feel. Unless you take responsibility for your current experience, then you are powerless to change it.
Key Solution: Take full responsibility for your current reality and decide what changes you are committed to making. Give up blame.
6- Focus on everything that is wrong in your life. Whether a relationship or person. When you focus on what is wrong, you will surely find what is wrong. You will end up creating more of what is wrong to feel wrong about. Then the negative cycle continues.
Key Solution: Start focusing on what you are grateful for. Remember all your blessings, and appreciate that daily. What you appreciates, expands. What you thank about comes about.
7- Denial: Lie to yourself and others. Pretend that everything is fine when you know that it isn’t. When you avoid facing what is, you end up staying stuck and repeating the same patterns of pain and relationship. This only ends up prolonging your suffering.
Key Solution: Tell the truth to yourself first. Tell the truth to those in your life. Be honest. Face reality.
Life is too short to waste spent suffering. Most of what you worry about today, you won’t even remember a few months from now. Most of what you are trying to change in people today, you won’t care about on your deathbed.
You hold the padlock and you hold the key to your freedom.
Jon Swanson writes:
I wish I’d seen barnacles sometime in my life. I don’t like using cliche metaphors unless I’ve seen what I’m talking about. And I’ve heard that barnacles cling to the bottoms of boats and slow them down. And I’ve heard that it’s important to scrape them off from time to time lest the boat gets bogged down.
I spent the day yesterday scraping barnacles out of my office and off my heart. But since I’ve never seen barnacles, I can’t use that image.
Parts of my office hadn’t been adjusted since I moved in 53 months ago. A drawer was full of empty router boxes from some network projects we’ve done. There were drafts of various sorts, old catalogs, and pictures from projects that are long over.
I also took a couple steps on major projects, steps where the absence of action was slowing the progress of my heart. I was feeling trapped until I brushed off the inertia with a few keystrokes.
As I was thinking about my experiential ignorance, I remembered another image, this time about running. I’m not a runner, but I’m walking and riding more. And realizing the way baggage limits progress. Sometimes it’s the baggage of wrong actions and wronged relationships. Other times it’s just distractions we picked up along the way. The writer of Hebrews says,
It means we’d better get on with it. Strip down, start running—and never quit! No extra spiritual fat, no parasitic sins. Keep your eyes on Jesus, who both began and finished this race we’re in. Study how he did it. Because he never lost sight of where he was headed—that exhilarating finish in and with God—he could put up with anything along the way: Cross, shame, whatever..
Spiritual fat. Parasitic sins. That’s cleaning my office, clearing piles, ending collections.” via Scraping barnacles, losing spiritual fat, cleaning house..
I hope that Jon won’t mind that I added barnacles to his post… :-D
Any idea, plan, or purpose may be placed in the mind through repetition of thought. – Napoleon Hill
via Any idea, plan, or purpose may be placed in the mind through….
A second shot of Melody Beattie for today:
A married woman who had recently joined Al Anon called me one afternoon. She worked part-time as a registered nurse, had assumed all the responsibilities for raising her two children, and did all the household chores, including repairs and finances. “I want to separate from my husband,” she sobbed. “I can’t stand him or his abuse any longer. But tell me, please tell me,” she said, “do you think I can take care of myself?” — Codependent No More
Not only is it okay to take care of ourselves, we can take good care of ourselves.
Many of us, so confident about our ability to take care of others, doubt our inherent strength to care for ourselves. We may have come to believe, from our past or present circumstances, that we need to take care of others and we need others to take care of us. This is the ultimate codependent belief.
No matter where this self-defeating belief was born, we can release it and replace it with a better one, a healthier one, a more accurate one.
We can take care of ourselves — whether we are in or out of a relationship. Everything we need will be provided. We will have loved ones, friends, and our Higher Power to help.
Knowing that we can take care of ourselves doesn’t mean we won’t have feelings of fear, discomfort, doubt, anger, and fragility at times. It means we practice “courageous vulnerability,” as Colette Dowling called it in Cinderella Complex. We may feel scared, but we do it anyway.
Today, God, help me know how I can take care of myself.” via June 19: Letting Go of Self-Doubt.
Few books have been more useful to me in my life — if any of the codependency scenarios resonate with you, I recommend you purchase it, the workbook and ‘The Language of Letting Go‘…
This is a long story, but one I thought worth sharing:
Once upon a time, on his way to the Himalayas, was a saint, a wandering ascetic. He came across a shallow river he had to cross. Just when he was about to wet his feet, he saw a scorpion helplessly treading the water, trying to come out of the river. It was almost touching the bank but not enough to gain hold of the ground. The sage saw scorpion’s struggle and decided to save it.
He picked up the scorpion in his right palm with the intention to place it on the dry surface. No sooner did he do that than the scorpion stung and rushed off the palm in frenzy, landing in the water again. It resumed its struggle to come out of water. The sage caressed his ailing right hand with his left. His body was in pain but his mind, calm.
Seeing that the scorpion could lose its life, the sage used left hand this time to lift the scorpion out of water. However, it panicked and stung again. Once again, it sped off the hand and fell in water resuming its struggle to come out. The saint was left with both hands singed with excruciating pain. He was not the one to give up either.
He tried again. This time, he cupped his hands together and lifted the scorpion in one swift movement. Before it could react, he safely dropped it on the land. The scorpion disappeared into the pebbles that lay near the bank. The sage felt elated, for, he succeeded in carrying out his resolve, for saving another life, in holding his forte. It was worth the pain he thought.
At a distance, oblivious to the saint, a man, surprised and shocked, had watched the whole episode. He promptly approached the sage and said, “Pray, can I ask you a question please?”
“Yes, you may.”
“First of all, there was no need to save a scorpion. It does no good to anybody. Secondly, if must you save him out of compassion, you could have simply tried once. I’m surprised that even after it stung you so ungratefully, you persisted with your efforts. Why? How come you did not just stomp on it after it stung you?”
“Oh! That’s pretty simple,” the sage replied softly rubbing his stung hands against each other. “This was a scorpion, someone really low on the food chain, a creature whose nature is to sting, to panic, to harm. It is known for not exhibiting any compassion. It is supposed to be weak. Whereas, I am supposed to be a saint, a person whose job is to love everybody, to only offer unconditional love and compassion. I am supposed to be the strong one, the one higher up on the food chain. With my principles and lifestyle, my philosophy and practice, my elevated emotional and mental state, I am supposed to cleanse and transform the other individual. Right?”
The man nodded.
“Well then, a creature as lowly and weak as a scorpion does not change its basic nature, its traits, reactions in the presence of a holy man. Should I, the one who’s supposed to be a saint, let go off my righteous conduct, my demeanor in the presence of a scorpion? Am I now so weak to allow a measly creature change me, throw me off my principles and virtues? It did what it is designed for and I did what I’m designed for. It retained its behavior, and I, mine.”
The man prostrated at the feet of the sage and expressed his gratitude for the profound wisdom.
Living in this world, disagreements are normal, in fact, natural. You will meet people ranging from scorpions to saints, thankful to thankless, from weak to wild, and so forth. If they are able to provoke you, put you off, throw you off balance, they are stronger than you. When in any conflict, if you retain your goodness, you will emerge a winner. If you stoop down to their level, treating them the way they treated you, that invariably means they have won, that means you have become like them. Rarely worth it, if you ask me.
It is often not possible for a person to be one or the other at all times. Sometimes circumstances force you to sting like a scorpion, perhaps you may even repent later on; forgive yourself. A lot more important is to make a serious attempt to act like a saint. Whether you are a sage or a scorpion, it is a matter of choice, an independent choice. You have the option to retain your individuality. Strength comes naturally from such stance.
So, if you are willing, write in the comments below, whether you are:
- (a) a sage;
- (b) a scorpion;
- (c) or you can be either depending on the situation.
If you wish to be a sage under all circumstances, you can. It requires mindfulness and a conscious effort. Nothing will ever bother you thereafter.
Montaine wrote: “No man is more monster or miracle than myself” – unfortunately that’s true for me! I’d have answer with letter C right now, but as I’m thinking of the scorpions in my life, I don’t want to give up my power to be response-able and join them. “Am I now so weak to allow a measly creature change me, throw me off my principles and virtues?” If I am, my principles and virtues aren’t worth much, are they?
One more thought; imho the sage in this story isn’t quite so sagey as he comes out in the end. Think before you engage a scorpion! Perhaps his last action — quickly picking up the scorpion and setting it on the bank — should have been his first. Especially when “a creature as lowly and weak as a scorpion does not change its basic nature, its traits, reactions in the presence of a holy man”…
Questions? Feedback?
Melody Beattie writes:
Life doesn’t have to be hard.
Yes, there are times we need to endure, struggle through, and rely on our survival skills. But we don’t have to make life, growth, recovery, change, or our day-to-day affairs that hard all the time.
Having life be that hard is a remnant of our martyrdom, a leftover from old ways of thinking, feeling, and believing. We are worthy, even when life isn’t that hard. Our value and worth are not determined by how hard we struggle.
If we’re making it that hard, we may be making it harder than it needs to be, said one woman. Learn to let things happen easily and naturally. Learn to let events, and our participation in them, fall into place. It can be easy now. Easier than it has been. We can go with the flow, take the world off our shoulders, and let our Higher Power ease us into where we need to be.
Today, I will stop struggling so hard. I will let go of my belief that life and recovery have to be hard. I will replace it with a belief that I can walk this journey in ease and peace. And sometimes, it can actually be fun.Source: Daily Meditation ~ Making Life Easier – Miracles In Progress Codependents Anonymous Group
Here are some excerpts from Sal Khan’s 2012 commencement address at MIT:
“Remember that real success is maximizing your internally derived happiness. It will not come from external status or money or praise. It will come from a feeling of contribution. A feeling that you are using your gifts in the best way possible.”
“…Start every morning with a smile — even a forced one — it will make you happier. Replace the words “I have to” with “I get to” in your vocabulary. Smile with your mouth, your eyes, your ears, your face, your body at every living thing you see. Be a source of energy and optimism. Surround yourself with people that make you better. Realize or even rationalize that the grass is truly greener on your side of the fence. Just the belief that it is becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy…
…View stressful, political interactions as nothing more than a deeply immersive strategy game. One that can be won if you stay focused on what matters most and your emotions and ego are not tied to your argument…
…Make people feel that you care about them. And here’s, a well, a little secret, the best way to do this is to actually care about them.
…Make people feel that you are listening to them. Another little secret, the best way to do this is to actually listen…
…When you feel overwhelmed, walk alone through the woods and forget your name, your title, your education and view yourself for what you really are — another mammal wondering why it is here but appreciating the fact that your civilization has not as yet been evaporated by a supernova.” via Appreciate that our civilization has not as yet been evaporated by a supernova… – Lead.Learn.Live.. Thanks, David…
Melody Beattie writes:
We have choices, more choices than we let ourselves see.
We may feel trapped in our relationships, our jobs, our life. We may feel locked into behaviors — such as caretaking or controlling.
Feeling trapped is a symptom of codependency. When we hear ourselves say, “I have to take care of this person… .”
“I have to say yes… ” “I have to try to control that person…
“I have to behave this way, think this way, feel this way….” we can know we are choosing not to see choices.
That sense of being trapped is an illusion. We are not controlled by circumstances, our past, the expectations of others, or our unhealthy expectations for ourselves. We can choose what feels right for us, without guilt. We have options.
Recovery is not about behaving perfectly or according to anyone else’s rules. More than anything else, recovery is about knowing we have choices and giving ourselves the freedom to choose.
Today, I will open my thinking and myself to the choices available to me. I will make choices that are good for me.” via June 18: Recognizing Choices.
Melody Beattie writes:
Master the lessons of your present circumstances.
We do not move forward by resisting what is undesirable in our life today. We move forward, we grow, we change by acceptance.
Avoidance is not the key; surrender opens the door.
Listen to this truth: We are each in our present circumstances for a reason. There is a lesson, a valuable lesson that must be learned before we can move forward.
Something important is being worked out in us, and in those around us. We may not be able to identify it today; but we can know that it is important. We can know it is good.
Overcome not by force, overcome by surrender. The battle is fought, and won, inside ourselves. We must go through it until we learn, until we accept, until we become grateful, until we are set free.
Today, I will be open to the lessons of my present circumstances. I do not have to label, know, or understand what I’m learning; I will see clearly in time. For today, trust and gratitude are sufficient.
Maybe I should change the name of this blog to The Daily Beattie?! :-D
“Always concentrate on how far you’ve come, rather than how far you have left to go.” ~Unknown
It is laughably easy to forget to stop and take stock of how far we have come in our lives. Our world focuses so much on what we lack—be it money, beauty, prestige, or romantic success—that it is far too common for us to get trapped in the loop of needing to have, be, or do “more” before thinking that we might be good enough. I, for one, do it all the time.
A year and a half ago I was unemployed with no idea what to do next. I’d spent my life until that point ignoring the conviction that there was something I was meant to do. Since I didn’t know what that calling might be, I played it safe by getting a library degree.
I was pretty good at library work, but I was never passionate about it, which made me an unremarkable candidate for the few remaining library positions after the economy crashed.
All of this left me sitting at home, miserable. Unemployment, combined with a particularly nasty winter, led to a terrible flare up of my lifelong nemesis, depression. To say that I was despondent that winter would be a gross understatement!
Of course, I can now see that this was a blessing. That terrible winter pushed me to realize that something had to change, and fast. I was finished playing it safe, and ready to figure out my dream!
Since then, I’ve identified my true calling (to become a life coach), sought training, and now I stand on the cusp of living my ideal life. But is that how I see the situation most days? Of course not.
More days than not, I find myself focusing on how far I still have to go. I see the programs I haven’t implemented yet and the website that isn’t quite perfect, rather than taking the time to marvel over the fact that I have so many ideas and a website at all.
And you know what? Failing to acknowledge how far I’ve come robs me of a lot of joy and a lot of pride. I may not have everything figured out in my new business, but I’ve come a long way from where I was a year ago.
I would be willing to bet that you’ve made huge progress in the last year, as well, but are too focused on what remains to be done to see it. I invite you to start giving yourself credit for a lot of hard work and achievement.” Get more here: Knowing How Far You’ve Come: 8 Tips to Celebrate Your Growth | Tiny Buddha: Wisdom Quotes, Letting Go, Letting Happiness In.
Some people think it means being selfish, which couldn’t be farther from the truth. It’s not choosing me instead of we. Choosing ME before WE is a message of self-empowerment, self-respect, and self-honor to say “I deserve to have only loving, respectful relationships in my life that support me in having the best, most happiest life I can.”
So often we choose relationships that don’t support our best selves or best lives, but stay because we “love” the person or because we aren’t complete and whole within ourselves. Choosing ME before WE says you have to choose love for yourself first, to look for love from yourself first, to take responsibility for having the life you came here to have—and that in that choice you will always make the best relationship choices for yourself and others, even when it’s hard.” Get more here: Giveaway and Author Interview: Choosing Me Before We | Tiny Buddha: Wisdom Quotes, Letting Go, Letting Happiness In.
Nicholas Bate shares this list:
- It may not get better for a while.
- Perhaps a very long while.
- But you can get better.
- People are spending;
- businesses are spending;
- people need things: plumbers, coffee grinders, beds, insurance…
- businesses need stuff: training, consultancy, furniture, short-term lets..
- It may not better for a very long time
- But you can get better.
- Any time.
- But at what?
- Inter-personal skills.
- Professionalism.
- Thinking differently.
- Performing better.
- It isn’t easy.
- But Madrid was very, very busy last weekend with shops busy, restaurants full.
- NYC firms will be teeming on Monday morning.
- Stop waiting.
- Get a plan.
- Work the plan.
- Use every ‘er’ you can get hold of:
- better (at every transaction), faster (to market and fresh ideas), maker (of great customer service), thinker (of new ways to solve same old problems), lover (of life).
- Stop waiting for success.
- Start wanting success.
Donna Gates shares this…
Sometimes when we experience a massive shift in our mental, emotional or spiritual life, things can get worse before they get better.
One of the first things that we must confront with any addiction, whether it is to a toxic substance, an unhealthy distraction or an abusive relationship, is the level of honesty that we bring to the table.
This means that in addition to coping with the neurochemical balancing act that is taking place in the body, we also must look closely at what we desire, our resolve and long-term objectives.
These are big questions. And asking them can stir up quite a storm. Nonetheless, every day many of us are making a change for the better. We are making changes, weathering the storm and seeing the benefits.
How we nourish our physical body is very similar to how we nourish our mental and emotional body.
When I cleanse or detoxify my physical body, I always apply four straightforward steps to the process. Guess what? These four steps work with the fundamental process of detoxification. They can be applied to any area of life!
Go to the source if you’d like to know the 4 steps – they are full of ‘practical, tactical’ information you can use to detoxify spiritually, physically and emotionally…
Less is more. We all know the saying. It has been transformed into a platitude by advertisers and TV shows and even corporate American as it right-sizes people out of their livelihoods (“We’ll have to learn to do more with less around here.”). But is less really more? And if so, is the opposite true? Is more actually less?
Questions like this may be more important than you think.” Get more here: The Minimalists | More Is Less?.
When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years. -Mark Twain
Every mother generally hopes that her daughter will snag a better husband than she managed to, but she’s certain that her boy will never get as great a wife as his father did. -Anonymous
The father is always a Republican toward his son, and his mother’s always a Democrat. -Robert Frost
A father is a banker provided by nature. – French Proverb
When I was a kid, I said to my father one afternoon, ‘Daddy, will you take me to the zoo?’ He answered, ‘If the zoo wants you, let them come and get you.’ – Jerry Lewis
Small boy’s definition of Father’s Day: It’s just like Mother’s Day only you don’t spend so much. – Anonymous
When a father gives to his son, both laugh; when a son gives to his father, both cry. -Jewish Proverb
How pleasant it is for a father to sit at his child’s board. It is like an aged man reclining under the shadow of an oak which he has planted. -Voltaire
My father didn’t tell me how to live; he lived, and let me watch him do it. -Clarence B. Kelland
It is a wise child that knows its own father, and an unusual one that unreservedly approves of him. -Mark Twain
My father used to play with my brother and me in the yard. Mother would come out and say, “You’re tearing up the grass.” “We’re not raising grass,” Dad would reply. “We’re raising boys.” -Harmon Killebrew
One father is more than a hundred Schoolmasters. – George Herbert
You don’t have to deserve your mother’s love. You have to deserve your father’s. He’s more particular.-Robert Frost
Never raise your hand to your kids. It leaves your groin unprotected. – Red Buttons
It’s a terrible thing to raise your own to disown you -Sippican Cottage
Spread the diaper in the position of the diamond with you at bat. Then fold second base down to home and set the baby on the pitcher’s mound. Put first base and third together, bring up home plate and pin the three together. Of course, in case of rain, you gotta call the game and start all over again. -Jimmy Piersall
My Father had a profound influence on me, he was a lunatic. – Spike Milligan” via Sippican Cottage: How To Be A Dad.
Melody Beattie writes:
Master the lessons of your present circumstances.
We do not move forward by resisting what is undesirable in our life today. We move forward, we grow, we change by acceptance.
Avoidance is not the key; surrender opens the door.
Listen to this truth: We are each in our present circumstances for a reason. There is a lesson, a valuable lesson that must be learned before we can move forward.
Something important is being worked out in us, and in those around us. We may not be able to identify it today; but we can know that it is important. We can know it is good.
Overcome not by force, overcome by surrender. The battle is fought, and won, inside ourselves. We must go through it until we learn, until we accept, until we become grateful, until we are set free.
Today, I will be open to the lessons of my present circumstances. I do not have to label, know, or understand what I’m learning; I will see clearly in time. For today, trust and gratitude are sufficient.
But most of all? You deserve it from YOURSELF! Melody Beattie writes:
Love yourself into health and a good life of your own.
Love yourself into relationships that work for you and the other person. Love yourself into peace, happiness, joy, success, and contentment.
Love yourself into all that you always wanted. We can stop treating ourselves the way others treated us, if they behaved in a less than healthy, desirable way. If we have learned to see ourselves critically, conditionally, and in a diminishing and punishing way, it’s time to stop. Other people treated us that way, but it’s even worse to treat ourselves that way now.
Loving ourselves may seem foreign, even foolish at times. People may accuse us of being selfish. We don’t have to believe them.
People who love themselves are truly able to love others and let others love them. People who love themselves and hold themselves in high esteem are those who give the most, contribute the most, love the most.
How do we love ourselves? By forcing it at first. By faking it if necessary. By “acting as if.” By working as hard at loving and liking ourselves as we have at not liking ourselves.
Explore what it means to love yourself.
Do things for yourself that reflect compassionate, nurturing, self-love.
Embrace and love all of yourself — past, present, and future. Forgive yourself quickly and as often as necessary. Encourage yourself. Tell yourself good things about yourself.
If we think and believe negative ideas, get them out in the open quickly and honestly, so we can replace those beliefs with better ones.
Pat yourself on the back when necessary. Discipline yourself when necessary. Ask for help, for time; ask for what you need.
Sometimes, give yourself treats. Do not treat yourself like a pack mule, always pushing and driving harder. Learn to be good to yourself. Choose behaviors with preferable consequences — treating yourself well is one.
Learn to stop your pain, even when that means making difficult decisions. Do not unnecessarily deprive yourself. Sometimes, give yourself what you want, just because you want it.
Stop explaining and justifying yourself. When you make mistakes, let them go. We learn, we grow, and we learn some more. And through it all, we love ourselves.
We work at it, then work at it some more. One day we’ll wake up, look in the mirror, and find that loving ourselves has become habitual. We’re now living with a person who gives and receives love, because that person loves him- or herself. Self-love will take hold and become a guiding force in our life.
Today, I will work at loving myself. I will work as hard at loving myself as I have at not liking myself. Help me let go of self-hate and behaviors that reflect not liking myself. Help me replace those with behaviors that reflect self-love. Today, God, help me hold myself in high self-esteem. Help me know I’m lovable and capable of giving and receiving love.” via June 16: Loving Ourselves Unconditionally.
This is supposed to be funny. Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about what Nietszche said “You have your way. I have my way. As for the right way, the correct way, and the only way, it does not exist.” For some reason, this has really helped me end a lot of arguments before they even start. The Meta Picture via Ending an argument like a sir….
An atypical — but powerful — Father’s Day story with a lesson from Rhonda Britten:
The last time I saw my dad was on Father’s Day in 1975. It was rainy and cold much like most June days in the U.P., short for Upper Peninsula. I grew up in the part of Michigan that looks like the mouth of the wolf. The wolf being Lake Superior. The mouth being the Keweenaw Peninsula, or the Copper Country.
It’s a little-known fact that more millionaires were made during the copper rush of the U.P. than the gold rush in California. But I digress — as I tend to do when I am talking about my father.
You see, the last time I saw my father, he had a rifle in his hand and he was raging at my mother, bullets flying. When all was said and done, both my parents lay dead by my father’s hand and I was the only witness, the one left standing.
Most people assume I hate my father. Or worse, that I am glad he’s dead. I feel neither.
You see, I have forgiven him for that horrid act and that forgiveness has softened my heart and turned into love. Yes, I love my father.
He has taught me more about love than anyone, because he has taught me everything about fear.
The first thing you read when you crack open my book, Fearless Living, is this:
Fear is a killer.
It kills hopes.
It kills dreams.
It kills careers.
It kills relationships.
In a flash, it killed my parents.
It almost killed me.
How is it killing you?
I know this because of my father. He killed because he was afraid of the emotions he couldn’t control. He stewed when he was hurt. He blamed and attacked when there was an inkling of embarrassment or shame. Humiliation? He’d rather die.
After my mother’s announcement that she was leaving him after enduring his jealous rages, infidelities and abuse for over two decades — they were buried on what would have been their 20th wedding anniversary — he put two bullet holes into her while repeating over and over again, “This is your fault. You made me do this. This is your fault.” He was a victim until the bitter end.
My father killed (and died) because he was afraid. Afraid to lose, afraid to feel, afraid to be human.
This is why fear has become my specialty, my obsession. I am not going to let fear decide my life, my future, my fate. It isn’t going to tell me what to do, or convince me to blame the ones I love how wrong they are, or suck one ounce of passion out of me. No siree.
I was a witness to the horror of a life lived in fear.
But fear is so subtle, so seductive, so invisible, I have had to learn all of its tricks to stop myself from following the easy path of a fear-driven life. That’s what I have done for the past decade plus. I have devoted my life to understanding how fear works, learning how to process it in a healthy, loving way and master it so I can live the life my father was afraid to.
So here I stand. A daughter of a murderer. A daughter of a man who lived in fear. A daughter of a man who taught her how to love.
My father lived in fear and died in fear. I’m not going to do the same. I choose love. I know he’d be proud.” via Rhonda Britten: Father’s Day Without My Dad.
Bright, shiny objects! 
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