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March 27 - March 29, 2022
Looking at the other person keeps us distracted from our real work in the relationship—ourselves. As the saying goes, “How empty of me to be so full of you.”
The only person we control is ourself.
It is always an “inside” job.
We stay in relationships that don’t work for two reasons. First, because we hope they will change, and second because we were taught that every relationship should work out.
If our relationships are pure, if we allow the universe to work, and if we get the lessons as they come, our relationships will eventually be built on giving, free-flowing participation and sharing from both parties.
confrontation with expectation is manipulation.
As long as we cling to our agendas and our illusions, we do not truly love. Let them be who they are. If they leave, it might be because they were supposed to go.
People recycle in our lives. Sometimes this happens because we’re not done with the relationships, there’s more healing to be done.
However, sometimes people recycle because while the relationship is over, we have not completed it in our minds. We need to do our final work on the ending.
We eventually lose everything we have, yet what ultimately matters can never be lost.
Like everything else our loved ones are not ours to keep. But realizing this truth does not have to sadden us. To the contrary, it can give us a greater appreciation for the many wonderful experiences and things we have during our time here.
you dance at a lot of weddings, you’ll cry at a lot of funerals. This means if you’re present at many beginnings, you’ll also be there for many endings.
The Five Stages—which describe the way we respond to all losses, not just death—can be applied to our losses in life, whether big or small, permanent or temporary. Suppose your child is born blind; you might feel it’s a major loss and respond this way: •
Whatever you are feeling when you lose someone or something is exactly what you are supposed to be feeling. It is never our place to tell someone, “You have been in denial too long, it is now time for anger,” or anything like that, for we don’t know what someone else’s healing should look like.
Perhaps the only certainty about loss is that time heals all.
Just as there is no good without bad, or light without dark, there is no growth without loss.
And odd though it may sound, there also is no loss without growth. This is a difficult concept to comprehend, which is perhaps why we are always struck by it.
’tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.”
we would rarely trade the experience of having and losing our loved ones with never having had them at all.
Knowing about someone’s continued existence but being unable to share it with them may cause far more pain and make resolution far more difficult than permanent separation through death.
Loss is complicated and rarely occurs in a vacuum, and no one can predict the response to loss. Grief is personal. The feelings can be conflicted, delayed, and overwhelming.
Whether loss is complicated or not, we will all heal in our own time and in our own way. No one can ever tell us we should have been healed by now, or that the process is going too rapidly. Grief is always individualized.
If you wonder why you seem to keep meeting people who abandon you, it may be that the universe is sending you people and situations to help you heal your loss. Eventually, you will heal. In fact, the healing is already under way.
Our real power is not derived from our positions in life, a hefty bank account, or an impressive career. Instead, it is the expression of that authenticity inside of us, our strength, integrity, and grace externalized.
What is always true is that if you do what you love, you will have a greater sense of value in your life than if you own a Mercedes.
which showed me we don’t need to control things to make them happen if they’re supposed to. There are no accidents, only divine manipulations. That’s real power.
To recapture this power, remember that this is your life. What matters is what you think. You don’t have the power to make them happy, but you do have the power to make yourself happy. You can’t control what they think; in fact, you can rarely influence it much at all.
There was something that I realized about the fragileness of life that has fueled my gratitude. That gratitude has given my life enormous meaning and power.”
A grateful person is a powerful person, for gratitude generates power. All abundance is based on being grateful for what we have.
We focus on our own paths, paths that take us to things greater and grander than money and material wealth; we trade the game of “more” for “enough.” We quit asking “Is it enough?” because in our last days we will realize it was enough. Hopefully, we can understand this before our lives come to an end.
When life is “enough,” we don’t need any more. What a good feeling it is when our days are enough. The world is enough. We don’t often let that feeling in.
Saying that this is life and I don’t need anything more is a wonderful statement of grace and power. If we don’t need any more, if we don’t need to control everything, we can let life unfold.