Love Is The Master Key To Happiness

Love yourself.  Forgive yourself.  Be true to yourself.  How you treat yourself sets the standard for how others treat you.

  – Steve Maraboli

Years ago I worked for a mortgage company in the Seattle, WA area.  When I interviewed for a loan processor position, the branch manager told me that I shouldn’t take the job if swearing bothered me, as everyone in her office swore.  I am good at tuning out what I don’t want to hear, so I went ahead and accepted the position. 

I had been on the job just a month or two when one of the other employees in the branch came up to me with a question.  She wanted to know what I had said to everyone that made them not swear when I was part of the conversation.  I told her that I hadn’t even realized that they didn’t swear when they spoke to me, and that I hadn’t told them anything.  She wanted to know why they were treating her different than they treated me.  I told her something like the above quote.  We subconsciously tell people how to treat us.  If she wasn’t being treated how she wanted to be, then she needed to look inside of herself to determine what needed to be changed.

Our job is to love others without stopping to inquire whether or not they are worthy.

  – Unknown

I think that the hardest part about giving and receiving love is that it puts us at risk of being hurt.  We worry about whether this new being in our lives will hurt us, if we open our hearts up to giving and receiving love. 

Faith ends where worry begins, and worry ends where faith begins.

  –  George Mueller

My father (stepfather) married my mother, and took on six girls ranging in ages from newborn to 9 yrs old (I was the 9 yr old).  Not one time in over 49 yrs has the word “stepdaughter” ever come out of his mouth.  Every time it has been “my daughter”.  My parents went on to have one more child, my brother, who is my dads only “blood” child.  My brother and my dad have a rocky relationship.  What so many of us had a hard time with, is that we want people to behave in a certain way.  We want a mother, father, spouse, brother or sister, to say or do certain things, and when they fall short of our expectations, we create trauma around it. 

When you love someone, you love the whole person just as he or she is, and not as you would like them to be.

  –  Leo Tolstoy

My mom passed away over 20 yrs ago, and our dad has been living with my husband and I for the past 11 years.  A couple of years ago, my brother and I had a long talk about his dad, and why I maintained our relationship after our mother died. With those that we love in our lives, our close friends and relatives, it can be easy to look at their faults.  To see all of the “dirt” in their lives.  Those faults pop up like neon lights blinking and blinking, “look here”, but there are also hidden nuggets of gold laying alongside each fault line.

None of us can be the perfect parent, son, daughter, sister, brother, or spouse.  It has meant a lot to me that “step” never came before daughter.  He has other well hidden (LOL) nuggets of gold, and he has his share of dirt, just like every one of us.  We need to adjust our “glasses” to see others through the filters of gold, instead of just neon signs of dirt. 

At the same time, we can’t live our own lives trying to live up to the expectations of others. 

Stop seeing yourself through the eyes of others.  You will never be able to live up to their expectations, and it will leave you feeling broken and insecure… Rather see yourself as the beautiful soul God made you to be, and know he made you to do great things.

  –  Karen Kastyla

Have your ever looked at yourself through the “fun house” mirrors at a fair?  They distort your shape, making you tall, small, thin, fat.  Some of them distort just a portion of your body and others the entire body.  When we try to live our lives for others, we distort ourselves creating a fun house mirror – we don’t see us, we just see the distortion. 

This is your own journey.  Don’t let others define it for you.  You shape the path of your journey through your effort, hard work, love, aspirations, dreams and always your pure intention.

  –  Abira Mukherjee

When I look at this photo, I see love on both the mans and the cats faces.  The cat doesn’t expect the man to act like another cat.  The man doesn’t expect the cat to be a dog.  They see the nuggets of gold in each other.  Their love is apparent.  They may not live up to 100% of the expectations.  And that failure to live up to expectations, doesn’t mean that they damn up their love behind a concrete barrier, demanding that the other behave a certain way. 

I know that my cats expect breakfast each morning the minute my feet hit the bedroom floor.  Since during the week I get up at 5 AM, on Saturday, Sunday, and any holidays, they still expect breakfast at 5 AM.  They seem to live with the disappointment (although they can be quite demanding and noisy about it – LOL).   They still rub up against me purring.  They still hop in my lap and try to type on the keyboard when I am busy.  I still pet them, feed them, and cuddle them.  I know that I will have to remove at least one cat every time I sit down at the keyboard to compose one of these posts.  I accept their need to interrupt me when I am not paying them enough attention, and they accept that I am eventually going to shut them out of the office so I can finish my post without kitty paws typing. (I blame all spelling errors on my cats!).

In the end nothing we do or say in this lifetime will matter as much as the way we have loved one another.

  –  Daphne Rose Kingma

[lp-logic ids=”3473″ limit=1][lp-logic ids=”3473″ limit=1 use_content=1] Content to use [/lp-logic]

Happy Thanksgiving

I just wanted to take a moment to thank all of you for becoming part of our community.  Thank you for taking the time to read our posts.  For commenting and liking them and most of all for sharing them with others.

I wanted to let you know that you have all become special to me, because through you I have realized that I am not the only one who thinks about what I write.  Thanks to you I have realized that there are many people in this world who see the possibilities that our world can become a better place.

I also wanted to take this day for helping me to be able to receive the love that you have shown to me, in encouraging me to continue to write my heart out on this page.  I always dreamed of being a writer, since I was a very small girl.  But I didn’t think that I had any talent.  I didn’t think that what I wanted to talk about, was anything that anyone would want to read.  You have no idea of the joy you have brought into my life.

Thank you!  You are a blessing in my life.  We are a blessing to each other.

Live An Inspirational Life

“There are two primary choices in life:  To accept conditions as they exist, or accept the responsibility for changing them”  – Dr. Denis Waitley

You can choose to be affected by the world or you can choose to affect the world. This little girl is not thinking consciously about affecting someone’s life, but she is doing so nonetheless. When you are walking down life’s path it is not just coincidence, happenstance, and luck, that you experience. It is an unexplainable, magically chartered course. That is what you see when you look at this girl. 

The girl in this photo isn’t seeing any limitations about what she can see, be or do. She hasn’t yet bought into the story of limitations. For her life is still simple. It can be that way for you too. You don’t have to make everything be complicated. It can be fun, instead of an adrenalin fueled drama of “guess what happened to me today?” It can instead be a joyful, “Guess what happened for me today?” 

Same story, just a different way of looking at it. If you just take a moment to step back from what is happening and say silently to yourself, “I wonder what happens next?” You give your brain a chance to go into curiosity, instead of drama, and you experience a better life.

“You cannot get through a single day without having an impact on the world around you. What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make” -Jane Goodall

Every person who is, or ever has been a part of your life, changed your life, and you changed theirs. You could put labels on the changes, and call them positive and negative. The truth is that most are simply neither. The story that you tell yourself about them, is what gives them the positive or negative charge in your memory.

“If you’re not making someone else’s life better, then you are wasting your time.  Your life will become better my making other people’s lives better”  – Will Smith

You never know what will happen in your life.  Sometimes something horrible and unforeseen happen.  You go to a peace rally and a terrorist plows his car into a crowd of people and takes the life of a beautiful young woman.  Her parents and friends lose someone they loved and were so proud of.  At the service, they talk about what a wonderful person she was.  You can see how much she meant to so many.  The circumstances of her death have in fact projected her into being a hero.  Someone who stood up for others.  Someone who cared about others, and had a true moral code she lived by.  That is how it plays out in so many peoples lives.  We stand up and talk about them after they are gone. 

From what you hear and read about this young woman, she fits this quote because her death is certainly waking up humanity:

“If you want to awaken all humanity, then awaken all of yourself.  If you want to eliminate the suffering in the world, then eliminate all that is dark and negative in yourself.  Truly, the greatest gift you have to give is that of your own self transformation”  – Lao Tzu

But how much do we communicate about the important things to our friends and family while they are here?  My Uncle Paul got a thank you post on his Facebook page from someone that was best friends with his son when they were growing up. It reminded me of how we all have memories of someone special in our lives that affected us in such a way, that they changed how we saw the world,.  They changed who we chose to be in the world by their actions. Most of the time we never know how we affected someone, because they don’t think to express it. 

Most of the time, our family finds out about it at our funeral, when they feel moved to talk about what we meant to them. This post reminded me of how important it is to say these things to people while they are still alive to hear it.

I edited it slightly, but here is the post. “Hello Paul, hope things are going well for you. I am sending you this note because I wanted you to know that I think of you often. I have never shared this with anyone before, but I have always considered you as my second father. I have tried to model myself after special traits from both my real father and from you.. One of your many special traits that I recognized early on was your very high degree of patience. One example that I think about often, is watching you make constant repairs to your hay bailer. When that damn thing broke you always were ready to fix it with huge degrees of patience, no cussing and no throwing of wrenches. Just fix it, even if the project took all day. And fix it you would. That has to be another one of your special traits, you seemed to be able to do anything and fix anything with confidence. You played a huge role in developing my love for the outdoors. So thank-you for that important role.”

He does a wonderful job of describing my uncle. He is a mechanical wizard. He is very methodical and I don’t remember him ever losing his patience with us, and we certainly did things as young kids that would have tried it. 

What I really loved about this heartfelt expression is that it was just my Uncle being his authentic self that impacted this young man. It wasn’t some heroic act, or awesome talent, it was how he handled himself on a daily basis as he worked on his farm. It was how he made this young man feel.

“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” – Dr. Maya Angelou

The lesson here is to be your authentic self.  To live on purpose in everything you do in your daily life.  To pursue what sets your soul on fire.  But how do you go about chasing those dreams you have?  Because when you are doing that, you are living a truly magical life.  An inspirational life.  A life that truly impacts and changes not only those you know, but the millions of people around the world you don’t know around the world.  Why?  Because living your life on purpose fulfills your God given destiny.

Reflect What You Desire, Mirror What You Admire

“Life is a mirror and will reflect back to the thinker what he thinks into it” – Ernest Holmes

This is a great time to reflect back on what transpired for the past few months of your life. What happened to the goals or resolutions that you set for the year? Did you achieve them? Did you give up on them? Did you rise up or fall down?

If you look at your reflection in the water, you see the outer surface of you, looking back at you. But if you put your hand through the reflection, you can see what lies beneath.

The question I always ask myself is “why am I doing this to myself? How can I do better?”

It’s in the looking at what’s beneath the fears of self-sabotage that you can see what is holding you back.  Then you can pierce the illusion(s) to find the real truth.

“When someone tells you it can’t be done, it’s more a reflection of their limitations, not yours” – Thegoodquote

Looking back helps you to see what you want to bring into your life.

• I trust that I deserve unconditional love.
• I trust that I can have happiness and success every day in my life.
• I trust my wings and fly. 
• I trust that I am right were I need to be, and that this year is going to be an amazing year.

It is not the things that happened in your life that define you, but how you coped and adjusted through them, that made you who you are today.

• Release this fear that became a protection. 
• Release that will power alone can make a transformation.
• Release the self destructive way of thinking.

“You can be stunned, awakened, and changed by what happens to you, but choose to grow from it, and refuse to be reduced by it”– Unknown

2022 is a year for deep self-reflection.  The past few months new things have been brought up from the depths beneath the surface and released.  Wars, a global pandemic, Black Lives Matter, Police brutality, a personal loss of income, stay at home orders, teaching children from home, working from home, and on and on.

“Self reflection is a humbling process.  It’s essential to find out why you think, say, and do certain things . . .   then better yourself”  – Sonya Teclai

You are working on being a better person, and that includes your body, mind and soul.  So the reflection that you see right now, is showing you who you were. So reflect back to it, who you want to be.

“The ability to honestly and quietly reflect on one’s life is one of the most powerful tools for personal growth” – Richard Carlson

I saw a photo years ago of Carrie Fischer and Harrison Ford.  The article asked why it was ok for Harrison Ford to have aged, but not ok for Carrie Fischer – they were talking about 40 years ago when they filmed the first Star Wars movie to the start of the new Star Wars movie series how much she had aged. It is really sad that someone feel the need to say negative things about how someone looks.   Harrison Ford had aged too, but no one was commenting about that.   

Speaking in this way didn’t help anyone. I think Carrie Fischer was an amazing woman, who had her struggles, just like all of us. She was courageous because she did it in the public eye, and said what she thought. The way she was upfront about mental illness puts her in the category of being a hero in my book.  

“When I loved myself enough, I began leaving whatever wasn’t healthy.  This meant people, jobs, my own beliefs and habits – anything that kept me small.  My judgment called it disloyal.  Now I see it as self-loving” – Kim McMillen

It means that you can say this to your own reflection:  “I love you” means that I accept you for the person that you are, and that I do not wish to change you into someone else.  It means that I will love you and stand by you even through the worst of times.  It means loving you even when you’re in a bad mood, or too tired to do the things I want to do.  It means loving you when you’re down, not just when you’re fun to be with. 

“I love you, means that I know your deepest secrets and do not judge you for them”  – Jonathan Safran Foer

So what do I do when I see someone extremely gorgeous? I stare, I smile, and when I get tired of holding up the mirror, I put it down.  🙂

Your Real Strength Is In Your Greatest Weakness

Every great dream begins with a dreamer.  You have within you the strength, the patience, and the passion to reach for the stars to change the world – Harriet Tubman

Harriet Tubman certainly walked her talk.  She escaped slavery going to the North.  But she didn’t stay there.  Instead, she made 13 missions to rescue other slaves using the Underground Railroad.  She rescued over 70 families.

When the Civil War broke out, she worked as a scout and spy.  One of the raids that she was part of saved 700 slaves.  She is such a great example of not letting anyone break her soul.  She not only stood firm for her beliefs, but helped hundreds escape slavery.

Harriet had dreams and trusted her intuition.  There are stories of how she would lead the slaves down different paths, because her dreams told her the normal way was not safe, and she was right every time.

We all have had hard times come upon us.  Times when you feel hopeless and helpless, that you cannot take another step.  Days when you feel that the whole world is against you.  Times of loss, of betrayal.  A death in the family, a divorce, a loss of income and status.

People are like stained glass windows.  They sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when darkness sets in, their true beauty is revealed only if there is a light from within – Elizabeth Kubler-Ross

It is in these times that you have the choice of your greatest pain becoming your greatest source of strength.  In that moment of surrender, you find the spark to go on.

Derek Rydell tells a story of how he was diving in a coral reef in his book “Emergence”.  Not paying attention, he found himself trapped in a coral bed of fire coral.  Fire coral is poisonous.  Try as he might, he couldn’t see the way out.

He talks about the conversation in his head.  First, he was pleading with God to save his life.  It was let’s make a deal.  Then his imagination was running wild on being found dead from the poison of the coral.  What his friends and relatives would say at his funeral and so on.

Finally, exhausted and seeing the sand sharks swimming towards him in the coral he accepted that he was going to die.  At this moment of complete surrender, no longer fighting, a huge wave came through the coral and swept him up on the only piece of coral that was safe.  He was able to stand and see the only pathway safely out of the coral and return to shore.

This was his moment of waking up.  This was his moment of divine consciousness coming both from within and into him.  It was his “Kairos” moment.  The definition of Kairos is the perfect, delicate, crucial moment, that fleeting rightness of time and place that creates the opportunity for action, words, or movement.

In that space of complete surrender, something inside of him finally released who and what he came to earth to be.  He realized his purpose, his divine mission in life.

When Derek stood up on the one safe place, he was standing in God’s time.  He was outside of time.  For that one moment he was completely in the present moment.  He wasn’t seeing his death in the future.  He wasn’t full of regrets for things he did or didn’t do in his past.  He was in a “Kairos moment”, a time when God takes action moment.  Kairos takes you through time because you are standing outside of linear time.

Now it took time to integrate everything that came to him at that moment, but it was the moment that transformed him completely.  He had to seize that moment, in order to save his life.

Difficult times that challenge you are not meant to destroy you.  They are meant to wake you up to your life’s purpose.  It is up to you to accept it or deny it.

When you accept it, you find strength in overcoming the trial.  You have a clear purpose.

It doesn’t mean that you find an easy life.  It means that you realize why you are here, and you start learning how to accomplish it.

The most important thing in your life is not what you do; it’s who you become.  That’s what you will take into eternity.  You are unceasing spiritual beings with an eternal destiny on God’s great universe – Dallas Willard

Those who refuse to accept their destiny, choose to remain asleep in life.  They become bitter, negative souls, hopeless against life’s challenges.

Like the butterfly whose chrysalis gets opened from an outside source, their wings are weak and not capable of flight.

It is in the struggle to break out of the chrysalis, that the butterfly’s wings grow the strength to take flight.

Discover the path that you are meant to walk.  Celebrate the miles you have come and keep going. Believe in yourself and see yourself as the wonderful inspiring person you really are becoming.

Hello Beautiful!

We tend to live our lives based on what we believe about ourselves, our world, our capabilities and our limits.  Where do those beliefs come from?  More often than not they come from what other people have told us, history, science, religion, culture, family.  What if they’re wrong? – Gregg Braden

Growing up in my family we were assigned these roles.  I was the smart one.  My younger sister was the pretty one.  The Twins were just the twins – mirror images in looks but opposites in actions.  My fourth sister was blond and so different.  My youngest sister was the pest, and my baby brother was the spoiled boy.  I went through most of my life believing that I couldn’t be both pretty and smart – it was one or the other, so because I was smart according to everyone else, I couldn’t possibly be pretty too.

Since I also had the belief that it wasn’t safe to be seen, I didn’t mind not being pretty.

It is interesting how I have always reacted to compliments that are not about my being smart.  If someone comments on my photo for example it makes me uncomfortable because it went against an unconscious belief from my childhood.  I always felt like they were not being honest, they were just being nice.

Every time you are tempted to react in the same old way, ask if you want to be a prisoner of the past or a pioneer of the future – Deepak Chopra

It is kind of funny, but Facebook has actually helped me to release most of this belief.  It has happened in a strange way, because a lot of men try to use Facebook to meet women.  I am sure that this has happened to most of you.  Complete strangers want to be your Facebook friend.  It never occurred to me that this would happen because they were interested in me, I thought it was because they read my posts and liked them.

So, when I would get personal messages that indicated what they were really after I was shocked.  Now while I now screen my friends’ invitations, it did help me to release this belief.  These men and one woman (lol) didn’t know me, so they weren’t just being “nice”.  They saw something that attracted them.

It is kind of funny how your perceptions can literally change things.  They did this study years ago they called Pygmalion in which they were going to give this class an IQ test.  The researchers told the teacher that 5 students who would perform the best.  The teacher wasn’t told that these 5 children were just randomly picked.

From the teacher’s perception these were the 5 brightest students.  The test confirmed that these 5 students were the best in the class.  The teacher’s viewpoint impacted those students.  Something in the way she taught, the feedback she gave, something she did, made those five students “smarter”.

What we are told as children, from our parents, our teachers, our friends and relatives – what the expectations are for our behavior – subconsciously they motivate us to make them true.  Whatever negative beliefs you have about you, you filter through life’s experiences to make them come true for you.  You get what you expect.

The mind and the body are like parallel universes.  Anything that happens in the mental universe must leave tracks in the physical one – Deepak Chopra

The great news is that once you recognize what these unconscious beliefs are, you can change them.  This morning I had to wait for the Microsoft upgrades to finish before I could finish this post.  Every month or so, your computer gets program upgrades.  In this same way, you have the ability to give yourself a program upgrade.  You can change your reality by changing your beliefs.  By creating new expectations.

When you heal damaging beliefs about yourself, you remove limitations which are restricting your personal growth.

If you feel like you are pushing the boulder up a hill about anything in your life right now, examine what your beliefs are around what you are trying to accomplish.  Realize that this belief is not true.  That it probably came from a childhood experience that you then spent every year since proving was true.  And now you have the opportunity to release that belief and upgrade to a new program or belief.

Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate – Carl Jung

It is amazing how everything changes when you do this.  It is like the hose was turned on full blast, but because you had a kink in the hose, you were only getting a drop or two at a time.  Releasing the false belief, unkinks the hose, and your life rushes forward in the direction you were trying to go.  That boulder you were pushing uphill turns into a sled sliding down the hill at top speed.

So, I encourage you to find one limiting belief you have, release it as a misunderstanding, and upgrade that belief into something that serves you.

Watering Concrete Will Never Grow A Garden

“You should not have to rip yourself into pieces to make others feel whole”  – Unknown

“Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind didn’t matter, and those who matter won’t mind”  –  Dr. Seuss

“The whole secret of a successful life is to find out what is one’s destiny to do, and then do it”  – Henry Ford

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed people can change the world.  Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has”  – Margaret Mead

“Think big and don’t listen to people who tell you it can’t be done.  Life’s too short to think small”  – Tim Ferris

“The medicine for my suffering I had within me from the very beginning, but I did not take it. My ailment came from within myself, but I did not observe it. Until this moment. Now I see that I will never find the Light unless, like the candle, I am my own fuel”  – Bruce Lee

What would you be if the people around you refused to let you fail?

Burn brightly and never, ever, ever, let anyone convince you to be less than the brightly shining star that you are.

Sending Love Wherever It Is Needed

We all have those days.  The days when nothing is seeming to go the way you planned.  That day when every mistake you made in the past year, shows up on your desk within 5 minutes of your sitting down.  Those days when you feel that the very idea of being able to control anything in your life, is life’s great joke on you.

“Life has many ways of testing a person’s will, either by having nothing happen at all, or by having everything happen at once”  – Paulo Coelho

If you could see what was being hidden in each of our lives, I think that you would be more loving to one another.  There is a video that was done, where little thought bubbles come up as the camera goes down the halls and elevators in a hospital.    Someone is saying goodbye to their dying father.  One man was just told the tumor was benign, while another was told he has cancer.  An elderly woman with oxygen has been waiting for a heart transplant for 69 days.  An exhausted nurse is at the end of a 12 hour shift.  “

Those are the days when you need someone to hug you and say, “You are Good Enough.  You are Capable of Handling this.  You are Important.  You are more than Worthy.  You are LOVED.  You are NOT ALONE.”  These are the days that you need all of the light and love that the world can send you.  What you have to remember, is that at this very moment, someone in the world is either sending you that love, or is in need of you to send that love.

“Could a greater miracle take place, than for us to look through each other’s eyes for an instant?” – Henry David Thoreau

It is when you are living your life from the place of passion and purpose, that you shine the brightest.  Knowing that your deepest dreams can be reached.  It is when you take that deep breath, and just let the emotions flow out of you, that you can reset yourself.  It is hard to be loving and empathetic when you are in survival mode.  You need to give yourself the oxygen mask, reset your emotions and then help others.  Find that spark inside of you, and let it shine first for you.  Then shine it for others to help them find theirs.

Recently driving into work, I was playing a CD with healing sounds.  A friend of mine knew that I have been having some health issues, and thought it might help.  So I purchased it and have been playing it all week.

I realized that every area in almost everyone’s life right now is undergoing some issues.  Work layoffs; health issues; injustices in life, and just watching the news can make you a  little stressed out about how everything is in a negative place right now.

Writing these posts and finding the “good news” articles and videos is what keeps my feet walking down my path of transformation.  It is keeping me sane.  It is why I write, and why I want to share what I find with all of the other LemonadeMakers out there.

“Remember . . .  the entrance to the sanctuary is within you”  – Rumi

Then you add in everything negative happening with the war in Ukraine, fighting in politics between the parties, terrorists’ attacks; the workplace and school shootings, countries at war within their own borders, or threatening to make war on other countries – it can all feel overwhelming.

None of these problems have easy solutions.  I think that we are all being called by the Divine to wake up.  To be the love and light that the world needs to heal.  We all need to heal in some way.

“Spread love everywhere you go.  Let no one ever come to you with leaving happier”  –  Mother Teresa

When you lift someone else up, it automatically lifts you up.  As the saying goes, “you rise by lifting others”.  It is not dependent on the other person appreciating your showing them love.  It is not dependent on it being reciprocated back to you.  It could even be ignored.  It will still lift both of you up.

This is because your showing love to others means that you are actively involved in the growth and support of another person.  Right now, you may not be in a place of being able to offer a refugee a place to stay.  You may not be in a place to donate money to help support someone in need.  But you are always in a place of showing love to someone.  Even if it is just a smile and a small prayer that love light their way forward.  You are always able to shine out the love and light to others.

Make Sure To Taste Your Words, Before You Say Them Out Loud

Judging a person does not define who they are, it defines who you are.  It is almost impossible to truly understand what another person has experienced in their life.  Even if you have experienced a similar trauma, you don’t have the same fears, doubts, sorrows or pain that they have, each of which colors their experience of the trauma.

It’s easy to look at people and make quick judgments about them, their present and their past, but you’d be amazed at the pain and tears a single smile hides.  What a person shows to the world is only one tiny facet of the iceberg hidden from sight.  And more often than not, it’s lined with cracks and scars that go all the way to the foundation of the soul.

  –  Sherrilyn Kenyon

That is why the very act of judgment is so harmful.  Most of us have the mean inner critic that creates a lot of havoc in our life.  We really don’t need the additional bench of outsiders judging us too.  Judging doesn’t bring anything positive to the table. 

There is nothing more dreadful than the habit of doubt.  Doubt separates people.  It is a poison that disintegrates friendships and breaks up pleasant relations.  It is a thorn that irritates and hurts; it is a sword that kills.

  – Buddha

What doubt and judgment reflects of us is actually small prejudices.  These small personal judgments or beliefs we make are deceptive because the are like the thorns – tiny, but dangerous.  It works its way into the body and festers,  creating an infection than can imperil your life.  This is what leads to extremist thinking and actions.  It is these thorns that lead to bombings, to being a sniper in a tower shooting innocent people, to so many of the mass murders and terrorist actions we see today.

Allow judgments, expectations, and illusions to fade into the darkness. And in the light, all that remains is love. 

  – Greig Grippen

True empathy for one another means that we step out of the initial judgment or thought that we have about ourselves or another person.  It requires that we look beneath the surface to see what the storms of life have dumped into us.  When you peer into the water of a lake, you see the things hidden from view. There is dirt, mud, rocks, sand, sticks, leaves, things that you expect to find.  But what else might be there?  What has the  rain, wind, flooding dumped into the water over the years? 

There will always be a reason why you meet people.  Either you need them to change your life or you are the one that will change theirs.

  – Unknown

I remember that some divers went into a small lake just a few miles from Seattle-Tacoma Airport after a bad storm.  The lake is surrounded by office buildings and homes.  What they found were lawn chairs, outside tables, and various things that had been blown into the water over the years from the homes around the lake.  They also found a very, very, old hand hewn canoe from a tree, thought to be over 150 yrs old.  Just like this lake had been hiding many things beneath the surface, so do we.  Empathy  is what allows us to dive deep and begin to truly understand what might be going on.

We also have to look at the reason we are making the judgments, from a self improvement perspective.  There is a saying that every judgment we make about others, is about something that we don’t want to admit seeing in ourselves.  So when we make that judgment about somebody’s body being covered by tattoo’s or that they have bright green or purple hair, or that outfit is too young for them and so on and so on.  What is that judgment reflecting about us? 

“Go to the edge.” the voice said.  “No, I’ll fall.” I replied.  “Go to the edge.” the voice said.  “You’ll push me.” I replied.  “Go to the edge.” the voice said.  So I went and I was pushed and I flew.

  – Zen Proverb

I know that in the past for myself, I noticed that I made judgments about people who dressed differently than I did – in ways that drew attention to themselves, it was because I was jealous.  I was too afraid to call that much attention to myself.  Now that I know what was underneath of that judgment, it has shifted into being inspired by their courage.  What judgments do you habitually make that could be shifted into something positive?  Instead of judging others by the results of actions, what if we looked at the initial intentions, exercised empathy and went on from there? 

Life is a balance of holding on and letting go.

  – Rumi

The rush to judgment is the exact opposite of this.  It is a rush to hate on someone, when the true story isn’t even known.  The whole concept of bad news traveling fast is because no one has yet gotten all of the facts.  When my nephew was murdered, the headline in the paper was about one gang member killing someone in a rival gang.  My nephew wasn’t a gang member and had never associated with anyone who was.  He was simply walking through the park late at night taking a short cut to a friends house to get his bike and ride home.  He was just in the wrong place, at the wrong time.  Two days later, the paper corrected itself, on a back page.  We see this happen all of the time on the internet.  Instead, wouldn’t it be nice to see some comments on lets not make judgments until we hear all of the facts of an investigation?

The secret in life is enjoying the passage of time.  Instead of clutching onto the past or fearing the future, experiment with letting go into the mystery of life.  Float on the river of time, curious about its direction, open to its changing nature.  You don’t really know where it’s going, so why not relax and experience the ride?

  – Elizabeth Lesser

Instead lets meet in the field, with the idea of laying aside the blame and judgments.  Lets allow ourselves to live life without the judgment of wrong doing or right doing.  Where instead, we can simply live a more loved filled life.  I know that this sounds like an unrealistic impossible place.  But even if we could come close to the edges of such a field, think about how much our own lives would improve.  About how much the world around us would be improved, just by us trying to live in this space.

In silence there is eloquence.  Stop weaving and see how the pattern improves.

  – Rumi

[lp-logic ids=”3473″ limit=1][lp-logic ids=”3473″ limit=1 use_content=1] Content to use [/lp-logic]

We Don’t Have To Agree, In Order To Be Kind To One Another

“We find comfort among those who agree with us – growth among those who don’t” – Frank A. Clark 

It is interesting how as a human you tend to want everyone to think just like you do.  In my family, we like to have “conversations”.  When my grandmother was alive it was so interesting to listen to all of the adults after dinner.  She would usually introduce a topic that she knew some of my aunts or uncles wouldn’t agree on.

Then she would come at that topic in several different directions.  She was a researcher, and in her past had taught school in a country school with all the grades together.  She was really smart and if you were going to come at another viewpoint than hers, you had better know your stuff.

I grew up with it being normal to have conversations with others about conflicting viewpoints.  There never were any fights or loud voices.  No one was ever judged as wrong, just different.

So, raising my kids, we would also talk about things that we don’t agree with each other on.  My youngest son and I are on opposite sides of the political spectrum.  We all give each other a hard time, but it is with a joke encapsulating it.

No name calling or escalating into arguments.  Because whatever your viewpoint is about something, if you have an open mind, you can find some good points in almost any viewpoint that you can agree on.

He is pro guns and very conservative.   I am the “hippy” who still believes that someday we will really be a global civilization and get along.

What is so interesting is that we both have examples of the others’ beliefs that we can poke fun at, and we have lots of stuff that we are totally on the same page about.  The reason it works for us, is that we realize that as we grow and shift and transform, sometimes those viewpoints that we have held to for years, also change.  What you felt strongly about at 5 yrs. old; at 15 yrs. old; at 25 yrs. old; at 50 yrs. old will not be the same things.

Be a freethinker

“Freethinkers are those who are willing to use their minds without prejudice and without fearing to understand things that clash with their own customs, privileges, or beliefs.  This state of mind is not common, but it is essential for right thinking.  Where is it absent, discussion is apt to become worse than useless” – Leo Tolstoy

You don’t have to compromise your convictions to be kind to one another.  You don’t need to buy into being in fear of others, just because they are different. 

People are not meant to be matching bookends to you.  It really doesn’t matter what your political viewpoint is; what your skin color is; what your culture is; what sexual orientation that you identify with.  It doesn’t matter what your religion is. 

Imagine if you were to sit down and fill out a survey about any of the important things in life. Things like being able to feed your family; having a safe place for them to live; having adequate medical care; equality – both for racial relations and work wages.  

I think that the survey would reflect you could agree on all of those things universally viewed as being important.  You might differ in how you think it should happen, but those small differences should never escalate into hatred and violence.

Spread #love, not hate. Spread #peace.

Have you ever become best friends with someone that you didn’t agree with?  It is possible to love someone that you totally disagree with about certain issues.  My husband and I have been married for almost 49 years. Our politics are on the opposite side of the spectrums, and our religious views are not the same.  But in comparison to how much we had in common, those things don’t interfere with our loving each other.

Even though we are in different political parties, I can acknowledge the good in his viewpoints.  We agree that we can have our own religious views and still love one another.

I think it is part of what has made us successful in our marriage.  We are best friends even though we don’t have the same beliefs about every single subject.

The more we can see the humanity in one another, the harder it is to hate someone.  No one should ever be judged wrong, just because someone else doesn’t agree with every word they say.

You don’t know what is going on in someone else’s life.  Something as simple as a smile has turned a stranger who was walking down the street away from suicide.  

If you could just be kind to everyone you meet, that simple act of kindness could save a life.  Be a heart that listens, and throw kindness around like confetti!  Be aware of opportunities around you to be kind. 

I love the video called Life Vests Inside – Kindness Boomerang’s – One Day.  You can watch it on “YouTube”.  https://youtu.be/nwAYpLVyeFU

It starts off with a young boy falling off his skate board.  A man with a orange vest like a road worker helps him up.  Then the boy sees an elderly lady crossing the street and having trouble holding on to her bags of groceries, so he puts down his skate board to help her.  Then the elderly lady sees a young woman trying to find coins for a parking meter and hands her some coins, and it continues on to end back up with the road worker being given a cold glass of water.  What I loved about it is that they included young and elderly; men and women; white, black, brown races; rich business man and homeless man.  Everyone had a chance to both give and receive kindness. 

The growth comes from really understanding that there can be different perspectives.  From understanding how what has happened in another person’s background could create a different belief system.

We have this idea that someone has to be wrong and someone has to be right.  You should never judge another’s choices unless you have a thorough understanding of their reasons for making those choices.

This thinking would mean that in almost all cases, there is room in your world for more than one belief.  Obviously we are not talking about harmful conduct.

“The best ideas emerge when very different perspectives meet”  – Frank Johannsson

The analogy of the map and directions fits here.  If you are going to San Fernando Valley from Ventura, CA, you might take the 101 to the valley or you might take the 101 to the 23, which becomes the 118.

Which way you go, would depend on where in the valley you were going and what traffic was like.  The 101 tends to be tied up with traffic more often and the 23/118 would probably be faster, again depending on where in the valley you were driving to.

I could argue for one and you could argue for the other.  I could have experienced a faster time one day, and you could have experienced a faster time the other way on a different day.  Depending on the circumstances the wrong or right answer would change.

Most things in life are that way – it all depends on the circumstances and the perspective you are currently viewing life through.

Regardless of which view you had, you could still be kind.  You could still show respect.  You could still hold yourself to a higher standard of grace and elegance when having a discussion.  You could still try to achieve the same goal, getting to San Fernando Valley.

So be kind.  Be compassionate.  Be respectful.  Express your beliefs with grace and tolerance.  Spread #love, spread #peace.

Happy Life

The last two lines of this story…

‪#‎bucketlist‬ ‪#‎bekind‬ ‪#‎helpothers‬

What do we live for?

What do we live for? I like to think we’re here to help others.

‪#‎inspirational‬ ‪#‎quote‬ ‪#‎bekind‬