Treasure your relationships

Relationships are often difficult. Whether it's a friendship, a marriage, a partnership, a dating relationship or parenting, they each one require a lot of effort if they are to be healthy and loving. Here is a brief essay to remind us how to make them work well. See it here: Treasure your relationships

Simple Acts = Happiness

Sometimes we just make life's good experiences too complicated. Happiness, contentment, a sense of inner peace, those things don't come from a new car or a fat bank account or owning the biggest house on the block. We come to know the really good stuff -- emotional growth, inner strength, profound joy -- as a result of so much more simple experiences. See some here and give them a try: Happiness

To get the most out of the relationship you are in...

"To get the most out of the relationship you are in, it won't be helpful to listen to the ego's stories about it.  They will only bring separation and conflict.  Essence (our true nature) would tell a different story about your loved one.  It would probably be something like this: 'This person is in my life for me to love to the best of my ability.  Let's see what happens if I do that.'  As Essence, we are here to serve others and serve Life.  The ego, on the other hand, is all about serving self." ~ From, What about Now? Reminders for Being in the Moment, by Gina Lake

Living Beyond the Comfort Zone

"Struggling and suffering are the essence of a life worth living.  If you're not pushing yourself beyond the comfort zone, if you're not demanding more from yourself -- expanding and learning as you go -- you're choosing a numb existence.  You're denying yourself an extraordinary trip." ~ Dean Karnazes, Author/Marathon Runner

Are You Willing to Do This for One Day?

Are you willing to stoop down and consider the needs and the desires of little children; to remember the weakness and loneliness of people who are growing old; to stop asking how much your friends love you and ask yourself whether you love them enough; to bear in mind the things that other people have to bear on their hearts; to try to understand what those who live in the same house with you really want, without waiting for them to tell you; to trim your lamp so that it will give more light and less smoke, and to carry it in front of you so that your shadow will fall behind you; to make a grave for your ugly thoughts and a garden for your kindly feelings, with the gate open - are you willing to do these things for even a day? 

—Caroline Kennedy, Author/Attorney

Which person in our life means the most to us?

"When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives means the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares." — Henri J.M. Nouwen, The Road to Daybreak: A Spiritual Journey

Why men die long before women

"American men are allotted just as many tears as American women. But because we are forbidden to shed them, we die long before women do, with our hearts exploding or our blood pressure rising or our livers eaten away by alcohol because that lake of grief inside us has no outlet. We, men, die because our faces were not watered enough." ~ Pat Conroy, Novelist

How Love Dies

"Love never dies a natural death. It dies because we don't know how to replenish its source. It dies of blindness and errors and betrayals. It dies of illness and wounds; it dies of weariness, of witherings, of tarnishings." ~ Anais Nin, French/Cuban Novelist

Let us work together for unity and love

“I offer you peace. I offer you love. I offer you friendship. I see your beauty. I hear your need. I feel your feelings. My wisdom flows from the Highest Source. I salute that Source in you. Let us work together for unity and love.” ~ Mahatma Gandhi

Wisdom About Love

"Sometimes the one who is running from the Life/Death/Life nature insists on thinking of love as a boon only. Yet love in its fullest form is a series of deaths and rebirths. We let go of one phase, one aspect of love, and enter another. Passion dies and is brought back. Pain is chased away and surfaces another time. To love means to embrace and at the same time to withstand many endings, and many many beginnings- all in the same relationship." 
— Clarissa Pinkola Estés (Women Who Run with the Wolves)