Category Archives: Thoughts

Aug31

Wholeness…

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“I actually attack the concept of happiness. I don’t mind people being happy – but the idea that everything we do is part of the pursuit of happiness seems to me a really dangerous idea and has led to a contemporary disease in Western society, which is fear of sadness. It’s a really odd thing that we’re now seeing people saying ‘write down 3 things that made you happy today before you go to sleep’, and ‘cheer up’ and ‘happiness is our birthright’ and so on. We’re kind of teaching our kids that happiness is the default position – it’s rubbish. Wholeness is what we ought to be striving for and part of that is sadness, disappointment, frustration, failure; all of those things which make us who we are. Happiness and victory and fulfillment are nice little things that also happen to us, but they don’t teach us much. Everyone says we grow through pain and then as soon as they experience pain they say ‘Quick! Move on! Cheer up!’ I’d like just for a year to have a moratorium on the word ‘happiness’ and to replace it with the word ‘wholeness’. Ask yourself ‘is this contributing to my wholeness?’ and if you’re having a bad day, it is.” 

~Hugh Mackay, psychologist and social researcher

…hope you feel whole today (and all the days hereafter)!

{Image via here}

Jul19

Shhhhhhhh…

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…Silence.

Have you ever gone a day without talking?  Or more than a day?

What about a day without communicating at all…no talking, no texts, no emails, no Facebook, no tweets…etc?

What about a day without any of the above…as well as no words or communication from others?  No television, no books, no blogs…etc?

Do you think it’s worthwhile to embrace silence in your life?

Would there be anything to learn from nature without all the noise?

{Click images for their source}

Jun21

Those Two Difficult Words…

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“…I’m Sorry.”

Why is it those two, little words are not only hard to say…but also sometimes hard to accept?

This past weekend I was hoping to receive an apology from someone…

but it never came.

Hence my mind has been thinking a lot about apologies and forgiveness.  I’ve been thinking back on the times I’ve needed to apologize.  Was I sincere enough?  What are the best ways to apologize to someone?

What do you think about these steps to an effective apology from Pick The Brain:

  1. Make it genuine – Anyone can spot a false apology and it will do more harm than good. A genuine apology is aimed solely at taking responsibility and overcoming a disturbance. There are no hidden obligations or expectations attached.
  2. Don’t justify your actions – If you are busy explaining why you did what you did, it will start to sound like you aren’t apologizing at all, that you aren’t ready to take responsibility. A brief explanation may help understanding, while a justification may just fuel the disturbance.
  3. Make a commitment to change – If you can’t confirm that you mean to improve, then you aren’t committed to an apology. If you aren’t committed to changing your habit of getting home late, don’t say “Sorry I am home late”. This will be a hollow and ineffective apology. You are better off thanking the other person, “Thanks for putting up with me coming home so late. I appreciate it” and taking it from there.
  4. Phrased you apology carefully – Make sure the other person knows why you are apologizing. “I was passing by so I thought I’d drop in and say sorry” is a lot different to “I wanted to come and apologize because I really do care about this relationship”. Don’t fake it. If you have a good reason to keep the relationship alive the other person will want to hear it.
  5. Be prepared for an awkward conclusion – While sometimes an apology is followed straight away by a counter apology and peace and flowers and little birds carrying banners of love through the air, not everyone reacts this way. Some people will behave indifferently, some will behave coldly, and some will react in a downright hostile way. This is out of your control. You have made the step to apologize. Doing it in a productive way is the best you can do. Maybe the other person will appreciate it now, later, or never. No matter what, you have done your bit and you can relax. The rest is up to them.

And what if you accompanied your apology with one of these actions…

1.    Hug. It’s hard to stay mad when you hug someone. Physical touch can bridge the widest of emotional distances.

2.    Write or find a poem showing how you feel about the other person outside of this situation. Keep it simple.

3.    Give the person a list of the top 5 reasons they are important to you.

4.    Create a collage of 10 photos of amazing places you’ve been together or fun experiences you’ve shared.

5.    Make a donation to the other person’s favorite charity.

“To forgive is the highest, most beautiful form of love.
In return, you will receive untold peace and happiness.”

– Robert Muller

Forgiving can be really difficult…especially when you never received an actual apology.

Here are some ideas to help forgive someone (even when it’s difficult) from the readers at Tiny Buddha…

  1. I remember them as a child and it’s much easier! -Joy Thompson
  2. I remind myself that I forgive not for them but for me and that it’s easier to forgive than to hang on to so much anger, hurt and betrayal. -Sarah Clark
  3. I just acknowledge that we are humans, so we are allowed to make mistakes. -Haydee Lizbeth Lopez Cruz
  4. Remind yourself that they are not separate from you; they only appear that way. Then you will realize you are one, and it is yourself you are forgiving. -Justin Hayden
  5. Do not keep thinking of the past or the bad thing that happened; when you let go of it, you get over the anger/bitterness that you felt and it clears the path of forgiveness! The best thing is time! -Ashna Singh
  6. Remember that we are all doing the best we can at the time. -Diane Paul
  7. Remind yourself of how much forgiveness would mean to you if it was your turn for a mistake! – Carol Mcbride-Safford
  8. Wayne Dwyer describes how hate is love which has been turned around. Seeing the expression of what can’t be forgiven as love makes it easier to forgive. Were also all doing the best we can, according to our own evolutionary state, including those we find hard to forgive. – Lise Heeley
  9. Because it takes less energy to love and forgive than it does to stay angry and hold a grudge. It brings peace to your life. -Linda Adams
  10. I know that I need to forgive someone, not for their benefit, but for my own peace of mind. Don’t do it for them, do it for you! -Cathryn Kent
  11. You remember why you love them. Love is about forgiveness.- Holly Chapman
  12. Forgiveness comes easier with the passing of time. I tend to find that, if I am wronged, I forgive the person before they forgive themselves, and when I am in need of forgiveness, it is I who feels the guilt for longer. -Mandy Richardson
  13. Stop thinking and just do it. Open your heart and forgive. -Lindsey Windrow
  14. Don’t force it. If I don’t feel forgiving, I can at least not act on my anger. Eventually forgiveness will come if you welcome it. -Julie Trottier
  15. Just learn to smile and let things go. -Sudharma Lama
  16. Give up on all hope of a better past. -Matt Child
  17. Every time you think of them send them love. After a while it gets easy. -Crystal Chang
  18. Meditate, meditate and meditate some more until it’s gone! -Margot Knight-Guijt
  19. The harder it is to forgive someone else, the more I am responsible. When I understand and forgive myself, forgiving others is easy. -Pamela Picard
  20. Two different approaches. One involves restoring your boundaries and sense of protection first. The other involves focusing on what your body is feeling and stop dwelling on the offense. Both involve being present. -Chris Campa
  21. Forgiveness comes easy when you know that what people say or do is about them, it’s not about you. -Kim Kings
  22. Shift the focus, feel the pain and think of the thousands of others in the world who are also feeling the same pain, then send a loving-kindness message to everyone to be relieved of this suffering. -Nick Ong
  23. When it happens I often ask myself “What strengths must I develop further from this?” Often the feeling of resentment just goes away, slowly but surely, because I wasn’t focusing on the person that wronged me, but the lesson that the event was trying to tell me. -Natassia Callista Alicia
  24. I allow myself to feel again whatever I didn’t express “in the moment” when I was with them. Forgiveness always seem to follow those (usually) difficult emotions. -Cynthia Ruprecht Hunt
  25. Write a brutally honest, emotionally raw letter telling them how much they have hurt and angered you, then tear it up and burn it. As you watch the smoke rise, think about the fact that you are not that hurt and that anger. It is fleeting, just like everything else. As the smoke carrying your hurt and disappointment disappears into the air, you can let it go. -Renate Wuersig
  26. For some wrongs, I just have to remember that they are responsible for their actions and then it is easier for me to just let it be. -Karen Garland
  27. By remembering that it will free me from the burden of the stress I feel, also, if I can’t forgive then how can I expect to ever be forgiven? -Leslie Brown
  28. Just look to the future instead of focusing on what’s past…think of creating new good memories to wipe away old bad ones. -Elizabeth Lindsay
  29. It becomes easy when you remember a time when you were forgiven, centering on how it made you feel. -Louisya Graves
  30. Understand this: whether you like it or not, over time, you will stop feeling the pain, so why hold on to something that’s going to away anyway? -Nirav KAKU

What do you think?  Do you have any thoughts on forgiveness?

I’m trying hard to breathe out forgiveness…

“The forgiving state of mind is a magnetic power for attracting good.”

– Catherine Ponder

…Do you need to apologize to someone?  Or forgive someone?  Why wait another day to do so?

{Click images for their source}

Apr26

Outpouring of Everything Good…

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Do you still write letters…snail mail is certainly not as popular in a world of texts, email, Facebook, and all the other forms of technology.  But coming home to a hand-written letter or card in the mail fills me with such joy & happiness.  I try my best to send out my own letters as often as I can in the hope of spreading a little joy to my friends & family. 

Maybe that’s why I’m quite taken with the site Letters of Note and especially with this particular letter…

In November of 1958, John Steinbeck — the renowned author of, most notably, The Grapes of Wrath, East of Eden, and Of Mice and Men — received a letter from his eldest son, Thom, who was attending boarding school. In it, the teenager spoke of Susan, a young girl with whom he believed he had fallen in love.

Steinbeck replied the same day. His beautiful letter of advice can be enjoyed below.

(Source: Steinbeck: A Life in Letters; Image: Thom and John Steinbeck with their father in 1954, courtesy of UC Berkeley.)

New York
November 10, 1958

Dear Thom:

We had your letter this morning. I will answer it from my point of view and of course Elaine will from hers.

First—if you are in love—that’s a good thing—that’s about the best thing that can happen to anyone. Don’t let anyone make it small or light to you.

Second—There are several kinds of love. One is a selfish, mean, grasping, egotistical thing which uses love for self-importance. This is the ugly and crippling kind. The other is an outpouring of everything good in you—of kindness and consideration and respect—not only the social respect of manners but the greater respect which is recognition of another person as unique and valuable. The first kind can make you sick and small and weak but the second can release in you strength, and courage and goodness and even wisdom you didn’t know you had.

You say this is not puppy love. If you feel so deeply—of course it isn’t puppy love.

But I don’t think you were asking me what you feel. You know better than anyone. What you wanted me to help you with is what to do about it—and that I can tell you.

Glory in it for one thing and be very glad and grateful for it.

The object of love is the best and most beautiful. Try to live up to it.

If you love someone—there is no possible harm in saying so—only you must remember that some people are very shy and sometimes the saying must take that shyness into consideration.

Girls have a way of knowing or feeling what you feel, but they usually like to hear it also.

It sometimes happens that what you feel is not returned for one reason or another—but that does not make your feeling less valuable and good.

Lastly, I know your feeling because I have it and I’m glad you have it.

We will be glad to meet Susan. She will be very welcome. But Elaine will make all such arrangements because that is her province and she will be very glad to. She knows about love too and maybe she can give you more help than I can.

And don’t worry about losing. If it is right, it happens—The main thing is not to hurry. Nothing good gets away.

Love,

Fa

I’m so struck by this letter…not only for Steinbeck’s honest thoughts & wisdom, but more so for his obvious, unconditional love for his own son.  Such a sweet testimony of parental love!  The act of writing the letter the day he received the note from his son is proof of love in action as well as words.

{Click images for their source, letter via here}