Contact with you activates baby’s nervous system that switches off stress, enhances digestion, healing and growth and imprints calm and connection. Sarah Buckley

I had a male friend remark to me recently that he knows why I never went out with him, that he now sees what my type is. I told him my type comes in all shapes and sizes and ages and cultures and traditions – my type cannot be determined by the outer shell, by the physical body.   It is determined by how he engages my mind and how he stirs my soul.  Does he make me think and expand my perception? Does he help me see the bigger picture and my place in it?  Does he draw creativity and enthusiasm out of me? Does he show he appreciates me and honors me? When it appears in the form of  a handsome, much younger man, don’t judge that as necessarily my only type.  Get to know him as more than just the pretty boy in the room and then you will get an inkling of why that choice right now.

I used to spend so much time reacting and responding to everyone else that my life had no direction. Other people’s lives, problems, and wants set the course for my life. Once I realized it was okay for me to think about and identify what I wanted, remarkable things began to take place in my life.   ~Melody Beattie

Adversity is a natural part of being human. Things fall apart. It is in their nature to do so. When we try to protect ourselves from the inevitability of change, we are not listening to the soul. We are listening to our fear of life and death, and our lack of faith. To listen to your soul is to stop fighting with life—to stop fighting when things fall apart; when they don’t go our away, when we get sick, when we are betrayed or mistreated or misunderstood. To listen to the soul is to slow down, to feel deeply, to see ourselves clearly, to surrender to discomfort and uncertainty and to wait.    Elizabeth Lesser

“I do not think the measure of a civilization is how tall its buildings of concrete are; but rather how well its people have learned to relate to their environment and fellow man.” Spiritual quote by Sun Bear of the Chippewa Tribe

Now flying free

She loved him because he had brought her back to life. She had been like a caterpillar in a cocoon, and he had betrayed and shattered her heart, drawing her out and showing her that she was truly a butterfly.   Ken Follett, The Pillars of the Earth

I don’t think of what smokers face.  The first day on a new job, a friend is asked for a cigarette by coworkers who see him smoking. The remedy was to only carry into the office each day as many as he wants to smoke or share. I don’t give him heck for smoking because he’s down to a few a day and he enjoys it.  He does it as cigarettes were meant to be smoked: he’ll take a break from work and step outside and look at nature; he’ll begin to relax and breathe a little more deeply and he uses smoking as his trigger to relax.  In the process of simplifying his life, he’s faced with handling serious issues as he rebuilds according to the new vision.   There can be a lot of stress rise and fall during that process.  To his credit, he doesn’t drink or drug or take prescription meds or overeat or gamble or carouse, just the few cigs a day.  If that’s all he needs to handle the amount of stress I know he is under, I say let him have the cigs.  Who am I to judge?  The below is from How To Deal With People Who Grub Cigarettes. Continue reading →

You say that you love rain, but you open your umbrella when it rains.
You say that you love the sun, but you find a shadow spot when the sun shines.
You say that you love the wind, but you close your windows when wind blows.
This is why I am afraid, you say that you love me too.
– Saruhan 1949 (Turkish folk poetry)