Tag: Love

Love Is The Only Sane Response

During the last twelve months, I have experienced some of the deepest sadness, pain, and grief that I can remember. I have had challenges with my body, my daughter was hospitalized with a very serious illness and on top of that, I'm walking the path with my son as he goes through aggressive cancer treatments. It has been gut and heart-wrenching. It is so hard to watch others suffer so deeply, especially our children, and not be able to do much, except love them.  And love myself! I keep on remembering what author and spiritual teacher, Stephen Levine, said to…

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Allow Kindness to Heal Your Struggling Self

With the return of my son’s cancer, I have had lots of opportunities to be with fear and despair.   Sharing this journey with my son has taken me to a deeper level of presence than I have ever known. My body has been a very dear friend throughout this fierce process, especially my belly and my breath. Whenever I am caught in the fear-based mind, sometimes all I can do is soften my belly and allow a deeper breath. The belly is one of the best biofeedback mechanisms we have.  If it is tight, we are up in our…

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How To Use The Mantra, “Just This Much”

If you watch your mind, you will see that it goes into the past or future all day long.  It especially loves to go into the future and when it really gets activated, it moves from a whole different place.  It will convince you that that you can’t do it right, or you can’t do it at all, or something bad is going to happen, and the thoughts go on and on.   These thoughts are just not true because we don’t know what is going to happen.  All we have is this present moment, but you can begin to see…

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How to Honor Your Survival System

We all created a finely-crafted survival system to bury or numb our pain when we were young.  We had to, as it was absolutely necessary for survival.  Life was too scary, and we didn’t have the skills to meet ourselves in our hearts. Our survival system can include compulsions, such as drug and alcohol abuse, shopping, work, sex, the Internet, busyness, self-judgment, and chronic worry.  I think about all of those years that I shut down the pain with food, drugs and alcohol.  In one year alone, I gained 97 pounds.  I would have died of the pain if I…

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An Open Heart Heals

The willingness to meet whatever is showing up in our lives takes courage.  Did you know that the root for the word courage means “of the heart”?   It takes an open heart and deep compassion to see all of the conditioned stories in our heads that keep us separate from life.  It takes courage to see them, love them and, under that gaze of compassion, allow them to evaporate like the summer fog when it is touched by the morning sun. I have been experiencing a lot of pain in my back and leg for quite some time now. …

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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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Top 5 Ways to Truly Love Someone

The word "love" is one that is thrown around perhaps more often than it should be. We all want to share love with someone, to receive love, to feel loved. It's a driving force in our lives. But, the term "love" has so many different versions that its meaning has become rather subjective. "If you do this, you love me..." So on and so forth. We find ways to measure someone's love - and our own - and use that to build a case for or against them. Love is used as a guise for fear, insecurities, voids and deep-seeded issues…

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Is Worry Holding You Down?

My husband and I love the Baja Peninsula, visiting it frequently over the past few years. On September 14, 2014, Hurricane Odile hit. With no phone or internet service it was days or, in one case, a week before we heard from our friends who live there. Without communication, I became obsessed with any reports I could get from the area. I looked at photos of damage. I worried about the lack of food, water, and electricity. I concerned over my friends safety as desperation looting began. That week I was also hit with a massive cold. You see, worry…

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The Truth About Transformation

Transformation is a process and a journey, not a destination. You will not wake up one day and be “transformed.”  Though some people, teachers or speakers may make it look like eternal and ultimate bliss, keep in mind that you're not seeing behind the scenes. It takes real effort, reflection and passion (drive and motivation!) to expand into a higher version of yourself... and to not fall back into old patterns. It’s a cycle, just like the wheel of life. You will have good days, bad days, slip ups, successes and everything in between. This doesn't mean something is wrong…

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12 Ways to Fall Wildly In Love with Your Life

By falling in love with life, we fall in love with ourselves (and visa versa). When we fall in love with ourselves we can access our true potential because we become willing to give ourselves the experiences, practices and beliefs that support us to succeed AND the self acceptance to get back up when we fail. If we don’t fall in love with life and ourselves, then we fall into the perpetual wheel of self sabotage, struggle and suffering. How I support people (starting with myself) to love life: I establish powerful, self-serving daily practices. Our habits make us who we become. Be…

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Here’s Your Daily Reminder

I don't often get to spend hours of quiet time with my mother, seeing as I have a soon-to-be 5 year old and a newborn.  But recently, I stumbled upon some free time so my mother and I sat down together to watch Heaven is for Real. (The little boy in the movie is simply delish, so cute.). My mother was especially touched by the film, citing a message she received from it. She said so often we go to church or hear a message, and for that short period of time we "get it." We are kind and patient and living…

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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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Discover the Secrets to Finding True Love

Are you ready to find your soulmate? Starting tomorrow, Thursday, September 11th, you can discover exactly how, step-by-step... and for FREE! Register now for The Secrets to Finding True Love Online Event. You’ll learn first-hand from experts like Dr. John Gray, Neale Donald Walsch, Dr. Helen Fisher, Gay & Kathlyn Hendricks, Katherine Woodward Thomas MA, MFT, Alison Armstrong, Christian Carter and more. A taste of what you’ll discover:
  • How to identify your “love personality type” and understand how it determines who you love, as well as how you attract love to you
  • A simple, quick and effective technique for releasing past emotional trauma and blockages so you are fully available to your Soulmate
  • The secret process that turns your longing into a powerful magnetism for love
  • The do’s and don’ts of making a specific list to manifest the right person
  • The 4 most attractive qualities, and how you can authentically embody them.

To save your seat, register for free now!

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We Love You (Poem)

On this World Suicide Prevention Day, and every day, may we send our love out to all who are hurting...   We Love You Child, I don’t know Why you experience such pain And even though I’m grown up I have no way to explain- Yet I can tell you from experience That life unfolds in stages And sometimes on our journeys We just need a few more pages- So please know you’re supported Even though you feel alone- And talk to someone that you trust Or call them on the phone- And know no matter how you feel You…

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A Berry Picker’s Guide to Dating

All of the local kids I knew picked berries during the summer to make spending money and some to pay for school clothes and supplies in the year ahead. I started picking berries for money at the age of 6. Over the years, I worked the season: first strawberries, then raspberries, a short crop of boysenberries (by far the easiest), marionberries or blackcaps, then blackberries. My aunt Joyce took me with her to the berry fields to "help out" at her summer job and after a full day of picking strawberries, (many of which made their way into my mouth)…

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Ask a Luminary

My Fiancée Left Me. How Do I Move On?

"My fiancée recently broke up with me after a four year relationship. She said that I kept pushing her away and did not want to communicate with her about our life. I agree that I was not always approachable and at times took her for granted. Funny thing is, when she left, I realised how much I loved her (expensive lesson to learn). It’s been two months now, and see is seeing someone else, who she says is always there for her and just wants to be with her. (We stayed about an hour drive from each other and I could…

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Should I Relight This Old Flame?

"I am very confused about a man who loves me very much. We had a relationship for three years and I ended it. He was facing homelessness and so I took him in. A part of me wants the relationship and another part says don't go there. Help!" ~ Debra, Philadelphia, PA Dear Debra, You say the man loves you very much but nowhere do you say that you love him. You also say, “A part of me wants ‘the’ relationship” but we suspect it is more likely the case that you want ‘a’ relationship. Many times people settle. They…

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Ask a Luminary

What Do I Do If I Love a Married Man?

"For 9 years I have felt irresistibly attracted to a man who is married. This situation occupies my mind and I need him to be in my life. I tried to avoid him but we always meet again. We like each others' company. What to do to really get him spending more time with me to talk things over? Can this be a real relationship or is it meant to stay an in-between? Others think this situation is really weird, but there is special reason why we are attracted to each other to both our evolution. What is he willing…

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Ask a Luminary

How Can I Put the Past Behind Me?

"Dear Sara, I grew up in Canada in a dysfunctional family with alcoholism, emotional abuse and neglect, then moved with my family to New Zealand when I was a teenager. My mother was unable to show any love or affection and I have tried for many years to seek approval and my mother's love. My childhood and adolescence had a significant impact on my mental health and happiness. I thought I was a bad person until I completed a social work degree and realised that my mother was not capable of loving and learned about childhood conditioning. My sister was…

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Using Your Relationships to Realize Real Life

The greatest, most abundant resource on planet Earth is also its least understood and utilized. Its unlimited supply is found virtually everywhere, anytime, and under all circumstances, even though few recognize its real value. What is this most precious collective resource? It is our relationships. Consider these truths: It is within relationships that we grow as individuals in everything valuable, because it is through them that we become stronger and wiser, allowing us to realize a love that transcends our unseen self-limiting self-interests. Yet, even though we may acknowledge the existence of this path to self-perfection, the essential mystery of…

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Ask a Luminary

Should I Take the First Step in a Relationship?

"Two weeks ago my crush sent me a friendship request on Facebook and he told me that he likes me. I was so happy but since then we haven't talked. I texted him once after that but the last message is always mine -- I feel like he's not interested in me anymore. The sad part is that I will never see him again after this week , he's going to another country! And I don't know if I should tell him that I like him or not -- what if he ignores me and I'll look so stupid? What should I do, please?" ~…

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