Tag: Forgiveness

How To Let Your Brilliant Being Shine

I recently came across one of my favorite poems, My Brilliant Image, by the fourteenth century Persian Poet, Hafiz: One day the sun admitted, I am just a shadow. I wish I could show you The Infinite Incandescence That has cast my brilliant image! I wish I could show you, When you are lonely or in darkness, The astonishing Light Of your own Being! Hafiz is telling us that the astonishing light, the brilliance of our own being, is already with us.  We are filled with great light that permeates everything.    Brian Swimme, Evolutionary Philosopher and Co-Collaborator of the documentary…

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Love Forgive Listen Trust

After another loud, red-faced argument with my husband, I retreated to my corner to mentally reassert my rightness and curse under my breath. Our angry words hung in the air like trapped dust. We’d had too many of these arguments lately, and I hated how I felt. Like a shrew, the kind of woman who makes a scene in public and you watch, shaking your head and thinking, How could she do that? I hated too the inevitable aftermath: hours, days, of silence, polite avoiding of each other in the hallway, sleeping separately, and the only words spoken questions about food…

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Feeling Creatures Who Think

Last week I shared Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor's TEDx Talk with you and the idea that choosing to stay angry affects both your body and your mind. This week I'd like to share another powerful concept that Dr. Jill makes: that we are feeling creatures who think. We are not thinking people who feel, yet this is what our society believes and values – which is at the heart of many of our issues. Here is the science and biology behind it. Our limbic system is constantly asking, “Am I safe?” If things feel familiar to our limbic system, then we feel calm and safe. The system…

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Ask a Luminary

How Can I Fix a Friendship?

"Will a friendship I lost a year ago have a chance to be repaired?" ~ Karin, Dresser, WI Hi Karin, I’m sorry you’ve been without your friend for a year now. Whether your relationship with him/her can be repaired or not depends on each of you and your individual wishes about this. Without having details, I can only offer some general suggestions. The first thing to do is to reach out to your friend and let him/her know how much you miss your relationship and how you would like to become friends again. It’s very important when you do this…

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Ask a Luminary

How Can I Move Forward from My Mistakes?

"Could you please share with me how can I get over my past mistakes and actions? 7 months ago I had a terrible fight with a friend of mine, whom I had feelings for. It was a long distance relationship. Due to anger and rage, I communicated harsh words to her. I tried apologizing but she's not ready to take my calls and has blocked me off all social networking sites and hasn't communicated since. I terribly feel her absence and I'm down with guilt. Every day thoughts of her keep running through my mind. I feel that if I'd…

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Ask a Luminary

How Can I Solve My Financial Problems?

"I'm doing financially horrible. I needed to get some food and household items... I was flat broke and I had no other choice than to take my 7 year old boys' Xbox back. I feel so bad, I'm losing sleep. Did I do the right thing?" ~ Tiffany, Effingham, IL Dear Tiffany, We all run into problems from time to time, and often they are of a financial nature. I believe that most of the time, the problem comes from our thoughts. The most difficult thing to do when we don't know how we're going to feed our family is…

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Ask a Luminary

How Can I Forgive Betrayal?

"Hi, how can I forgive an infidelity and betrayal by my partner of 30 years, who has since left me? It has been a year since she left and I still have strong emotions; shock, sorrow, anger, grief, confusion that will not go away. I think about her every day and at night. My partner is 72 years old, survived cancer 2x while we've been together and has been professing her love to me all these years; telling me she looked forward to our future together. (I am 10 years younger.) I need to forgive, for myself more than for…

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How Do You Let Go of the Past?

I watched with great interest the various shows commemorating of the 50th Anniversary of the assassination of our 35th President, John Fitzgerald Kennedy. Having only been 2 years old at the time, I'm a little fascinated that it feels like it means so much to me. I'm sure it has to do with the impact on everyone around me at that time, that as an energetic being, I absorbed, without even knowing what it was I was feeling. I know my family was devastated. My brother and I stayed with my Grandmother while my parents made the pilgrimage to see Kennedy lying in state, which Mom later captured…

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Surrender Equals Peace

The other night I had such a moment of clarity and sense of surrender that it took my breath away. I was listening to a track from West Side Story, "Somewhere" (Music by Leonard Bernstein, lyrics by Stephen Sondheim). Here are a few lyrics: There's a time for us, Some day a time for us, Time together with time spare, Time to learn, time to care, Some day! Somewhere. We'll find a new way of living, We'll find a way of forgiving Somewhere . . . As I listened to the lyric: ‘we’ll find a way of forgiving’, my epiphany…

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Bouncing with Style: Reverse Forgiveness

One of the things that strikes me on a weekly basis is how I can in one week forgive my ex-husband for his cheating and abandonment of me and then the next week I'm back to hating his guts and those of Bozo his mistress. Am I bitter? You bet. Angry? Totally. Able to let it go and move on... not so much. What I have found with forgiveness is that it's not really a one-shot deal. Now sometimes it's because the original sin is aggravated. When my ex gave my child's mother's day card, made in his kindergarten class,…

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Forgiveness Is How The World Changes

"And if he sins against you seven times a day, and returns to you seven times, saying, 'I repent,' forgive him." Luke 17:4 When I was 12 I fell in love and all I wanted was to kiss her on the mouth. One day I did and it was sweeter than I imagined. That kiss made me excel at baseball, but going home at dusk was a short-lived glory for I knew when I got home I would have to pass my stepfather who would be drinking. "Where you been?" he growled as I came in. "Playing baseball," I answered,…

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Spring Renewal- Starting Anew

Just a few weeks ago I found myself mentoring a client who had gone through a major loss and life change. While sometimes difficult, rebuilding your life after a loss or big change can also be one of the greatest opportunities in life. When we look to Nature, we see that rebirth and renewal are a standard part of life. And like the newness of the Spring, we get to start over with the wisdom that we've learned from our past experience of what works and what doesn't. Life is giving us a clean slate to create anew. I've personally…

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Love Is the Answer

This morning I received two emails within 5 minutes of each other, from friends asking for advice on how to deal with a difficult situation. The first one wrote that her best friend's husband was dying from cancer. The second one shared that her friend's husband had been shot and killed yesterday. Both women were asking the question "How can I be there for my friend"? Who am I to give an answer to something like this? Yet they asked, and I felt a need to reach out with whatever I could. They gave me the opportunity to do what…

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