Broken Heart

Interesting article on LA Times about broken hearts:
http://articles.latimes.com/2005/feb/13/opinion/ed-heart13

Being Solitary

"Being solitary is being alone well: being alone luxuriously immersed in doings of your own choice, aware of the fullness of your won presence rather than of the absence of others. Because solitude is an achievement."

— Alice Koller

Shifting Focus

When our personal space feels as if there is no control over its arrangements—the who, what, when, where, and how—the awareness arises that our sense of comfort and security feels diminished. No one can feel comfortable when there is a feeling of powerlessness in the decisions being made about our personal environments. However, you now know more fully what you would desire your personal spaces to become. Have within your reach a few things that bring ease into your experience; music, books, pictures, candles, and whatever else brings forth your sense of Well-Being. Shifting your focus from what you do not like about your situation to what you do have in the Now will actually allow the Universe to synchronize the events that can lead to the changes you desire. Of course you must take action when you’re inspired and guided to do so, but your attention to the positive will set the wheels in motion.

from the app The Sourcerer

Fetal Position

When you sense that your dark night is one of pregnancy and oceanic return, you could react accordingly and be still. Watch and wonder. Take the human embryo as your model. Assume the fetal position, emotionally and intellectually. Be silent. Float in your darkness as if it were the waters of the womb, and give up trying to fight your way out or make sense of it.

from the book Dark Nights of the Soul by Thomas Moore

Love thyself

“I don't want to be with someone
who splatters their pain
across the Internet”
he said,
smirking

“And I don't want to be with someone
who could never get me”
I said,
turning to leave
letting myself feel
his disapproval
echo in my body
Letting it hit my heart
but not take home in me

Here is the thing my friends
Some of you
want me to assure you
that becoming more and more you
is going to go pleasantly
that you will end up
not only loving yourself
but be more adored
and your life will open
beautifully

And that is lovely
but just not guaranteed
In fact, quite the contrary
As you become more
you
there is a high probability
that it will trigger
those around you
and when people are triggered
they can come at you
with all their
disappointment
hate
and just plain
dissatisfaction

And I can tell you
it doesn’t feel good
And I can also tell you
it still feels better
way better
than trading
me
for
the chance
that you might like
who I am pretending
to be

Because sometimes
in the most precious
of moments
I get seen

And it feels better
then a million
sweet empty
somethings

And it carries me
through moments
like these
when my heart cracks open
and someone gets in
who has blatant disregard
for that which I hold dear

Someone
who just
doesn’t get it
get me

And I get it now
I understand
This my friends,
this is how you know
if someone
is a person for you

Because some will retract
and some will lean in
as you reveal
more of you

Choose the ones
that lean in

Yes this
please

Choose
the ones
that lean
in

by Emily Rosen

Power in Loneliness

Your Loneliness is Your Superpower.
Stop reaching for shallow, temporary fulfillment.
Stop avoiding your emptiness through distraction, or trying to numb it with things and people that have no capacity to love you in the way you’re aching to be loved.

There are treasures hiding in your sorrow, let yourself break open to them. All the way open, until you have no other option but to dance with the darkness inside you. Until your hunger drives you to plunge your tongue into the sweet, sticky pot of chaos in your heart. Until you savor your aloneness like wild honey on the tongue.

Transform your craving for love into POWER.
And rock your loneliness.
Full out.
Because when you realize you are everything already, then…bravely curate the connections that aren’t nourishing you. Shift them, or let them go.

Loneliness is kindling for the fire of desire; stoke it, and put your breath upon its flames. Feel it burn away what’s holding you back from love. Acquaint yourself with what you really want, and point your needle there.

Relish in the sumptuousness of yourself. Breathe into your belly, that tender bowl of wisdom and longing, and love it. Oh my goodness, love it.

See that your loneliness is a vast and holy temple.

Kneel upon its steps. Inhale the crisp air of possibility.

And when you’re ready, let it fill with light. Only light.

by Eva Clay

Overthinker

Some people think themselves into stagnation, frustration, exhaustion, anxiety and even illness. They have an aptitude for making the simple, complex, the easy, hard, the minor issue, a major drama and the pain-less, pain-full. They are adept at snatching defeat from the jaws of victory and also at wasting their time and talent through age-old art of over-analysing everything and everyone; analysis paralysis. They are experts at misinterpreting what people are saying and if there is a way to have their feelings hurt, they’ll find it. Even go looking for it. Not only do they have a history of almost doing things but more often than not they are obsessive, compulsive with perfectionistic tendencies. They worry too much. About nearly everything. They are people-pleasers who want change (different) but the change process scares them. They don’t need other people to sabotage their dreams or goals, they can do that all by themselves. They are highly skilled in the art of self-sabotage and if anyone will get in their way, it’s them. They are… the Over-Thinker.

font: http://www.lifehack.org/articles/productivity/how-to-stop-being-an-over-thinker.html

Reminder of the Day

The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don't have any.

Alice Walker

Being alive

"I don't believe people are looking for the meaning of life as much as they are looking for the experience of being alive."

Joseph Campbell

We live in a culture that prioritizes individualism above all else. We are taught to become individual citizens who live independent, separate lives from our neighbors. However, all the major spiritual traditions tell us the exact opposite, that we are all made of the same spiritual energy. If you have ever had an experience of universal love, where the feeling that you are an individual slips away and you feel merged with and at peace with everything, then you probably have not yet had a full experience of this kind of love, which many Radical Remission survivors describe as "the deepest love there is".

from the book Radical Remission by Kelly Turner

The Dangers of Closing your Heart

15 Difficult Feelings that mean you’re Evolving

This article is completely related to what I am going through these past 2 years.

Relationship endings

Imagine the next step, where we don’t see relationship endings as defeats, but as victories and necessary openings—lessons on the path to wholeness. Imagine the next step, where we honor the courage it took to open to the possibility of love, where we see intimacy as a wondrous opportunity to deepen in cosmic stature. How can any failed relationship ever be a complete defeat? It took such courage to brave it all, to make love with the divine, to touch God through our vulnerable heart. This is not to say that we don’t grieve loss; it is only to remind us of the opportunity that lives at the heart of every farewell. A little scar tissue can go a long way on the path to presence.

Jeff Brown

Challenges

The places where you have your biggest challenges are the places you have the most to give.

Queendom

We all have our own thing, and that's the magic.
And everybody comes with their own sense of strength,
and their own queendom.
Mine can never compare to hers
And her could never compare to mine.

Lady Jill Scott

Interiority: when you go to that space, you can't compare yourself to yourself, nor feel superior or inferior to anyone.

Magical creatures?

There are people in your life who inspire art. You blow them up into this mythical characters and you give them all those magical qualities or maybe they're just stepping stones for something bigger and better.

From Californication

Intimacy

The Key to a Healthy Intimate Relationship~

I'm often asked: what is the best way I can prepare for a healthy, deeply satisfying intimate relationship? How can I attract the right partner for me - a person who I can travel with on the journey of the heart, and is truly interested in exploring relationship as a crucible of healing and awakening?

There are many responses to these sorts of questions - workshops to attend, lists of 10 'secrets' to attract your perfect soul mate, 12 steps to manifesting your twin flame, and so forth. It can be important to experiment, with openness and curiosity, any approach that you feel drawn to.

The suggestion I usually make, though, is not nearly as sexy or compelling, or all that fun or flashy: learn how to take care of yourself. Learn how to practice radical self-care, self-kindness, and self-compassion. For to the degree that you are able to take responsibility for your own vulnerabilities and core emotional wounding, it is to this degree that you will release your partner from this burden, which is not his or hers to carry.

So what does it mean to 'take care of yourself' in this context?

By 'taking care' of yourself, I mean becoming very curious about your emotional triggers, about the feelings you do not want to feel - about your addictions, habitual behaviors, and how much you complain about and blame others and the world for your existential flatness, dissatisfaction, rage, and profound feelings of disconnection. Be willing at times to travel underneath the narrative, the very compelling story of 'me,' and make experiential contact with those emotions and sensations that you have abandoned - and at times are seeking in your partner. Make a commitment to stop complaining about your life and instead provide a sanctuary within you for your feelings, emotions, hopes, dreams, fears, and fantasies to unfold and illuminate.

Practice being kind to your feelings and emotions and you will naturally be kind to those intimate partners that are sure to trigger them in you. As long as we are looking to our partners to fulfill those functions that were not offered to us as young children, it will be difficult to come into a fulfilling, loving relationship that is not riddled by the pain of projection. Your partner is there to help you, to support you, but not to take care of or parent you. They were not put on this planet to do your work for you, but to skillfully support you as you turn toward, meet, and metabolize what has been knocking at the door of your heart for so long.

Perhaps there is no 'secret' to co-creating a fulfilling, supportive, mutually beneficial intimate relationship, as it is always in the end, a movement of the unknown. Intimacy is not something we can come to, figure out, or 'solve' by means of conceptual and egoic process, and may never, ever be resolved into a magical formula. But by learning to take care of yourself, you are creating a foundation upon which the mystery of intimacy can unfold, dance, and come alive within you.~

~Matt Licata

The Good People

I see the people that do the real work, and what's really sad is that the people that are the most giving, hardworking and capable of making this world better usually don't have the ego and ambition to be a leader.
They don't see any interest in superficial rewards.
They don't care if their name ever appear in the press.
They actually enjoy the process of helping others.
They're in the moment.
...It's not about the goal but the process.

From the movie Before Sunset

Reality is Reality

All our lives we're told, You can do anything you set your mind to! But you can't. If that were true, we'd all be movie stars, pro athletes, and presidents. Personally, I'd be this year's Super Bowl MVP.
This form of self-delusion was launched as a major crusade in psychology in 1950s, with the advent of the power-of-positive-thinking movement. It was a good idea, but some people now take positive thinking all the way to la-la land. They say things like, "You create your own reality." Sorry. Not on this planet. You create your own perception and your own meaning, but reality is reality.

From the book What Happy People Know, by Dan Baker

From Mr. Robot

Is any of it real?
A world built on fantasy!
Synthetic emotions in the form of pills,
psychological warfare in the form of advertising,
mind altering chemicals in the form of food,
brainwashing seminars in the form of media,
controlled isolated bubbles in the form of social networks.
You want to talk about reality?
We haven't lived in anything remotely close to it since the turn of the century.
We turned it off, took out the batteries,
snacked on a bag of GMOs
while we tossed the remnants in the ever-expanding dumpster of the human condition.
We live in branded houses trademarked by corporations built on bipolar numbers
jumping up and down on digital displays,
hypnotizing us into the biggest slumber mankind has ever seen.
You need to dig pretty deep before you can find anything real.