Posts tagged "relationships"

Here are the excerpts from brilliant book by Deepak Chopra, M.D., Ageless Body, Timeless Mind.

“This conclusion came after studying long-lived people from many diverse cultures and periods of history. Active mastery means having autonomy over one’s life and circumstances, not power over others.  Beyond any body of evidence about aging and how to prevent it, the single most important factor is that you make something creative from your existence.”

Ten Keys to Active Mastery:

1. Listen to your body’s wisdom, which expresses itself through signals of comfort and discomfort.  When choosing a certain behavior, ask your body, “How do you feel about this?” If your body sends a signal of physical or emotional distress, watch out.  If your body sends a signal of comfort and eagerness, proceed.

2. Live in the present, for it is the only moment you have.  Keep your attention on what is here and now; look for the fullness in every moment.  Accept what comes to you totally and completely so that you can appreciate it, learn from it, and then let it go.  The present is as it should be.  It reflects infinite laws of Nature that have brought you this exact thought, this exact physical response.  This moment is as it is because the universe is as it is.  Don’t struggle against the infinite scheme of things; instead, be at one with it.

3. Take time to be silent, to meditate, to quiet the internal dialogue.  In moments of silence, realize that you are recontacting your source of pure awareness.  Pay attention to your inner life so that you can be guided by intuition rather than externally imposed interpretations of what is or isn’t good for you.

4.  Relinquish your need for external approval.  You alone are the judge of your worth, and your goal is to discover infinite worth in yourself, no matter what anyone else thinks.  There is great freedom in this realization.

5. When you find yourself reacting with anger or opposition to any person or circumstance, realize that you are only struggling with yourself.  Putting up resistance is the response of defenses created by old hurts.  When you relinquish this anger, you will be healing yourself and cooperating with the flow of the universe.

6. Know that the world “out there” reflects your reality “in here.” The people you react to most strongly, whether with love or hate, are projections of your inner world.  What you most hate is what you most deny in yourself.  What you most love is what you most wish for in yourself.  Use the mirror of relationships to guide your evolution.  The goal is total self-knowledge.  When you achieve that, what you most want will automatically be there, and what you most dislike will disappear.

7.  Shed the burden of judgment – you will feel much lighter.  Judgment imposes right and wrong on situations that just are.  Everything can be understood and forgiven, but when you judge, you cut off understanding and shut down the process of learning to love.  In judging others, you reflect your lack of self-acceptance.  Remember that every person you forgive adds to your self-love.

8. Don’t contaminate your body with toxins, either through food, drink, or toxic emotions.  Your body is more than a life-support system.  It is the vehicle that will carry you on the journey of your evolution.  The health of every cell directly contributes to your state of well-being, because every cell is a point of awareness within the field of awareness that is you.

9. Replace fear-motivated behavior with love-motivated behavior.  Fear is the product of memory, which dwells in the past.  Remembering what hurt us before, we direct our energies toward making certain that an old hurt will not repeat itself.  But trying to impose the past on the present will never wipe out the threat of being hurt.  That happens only when you find the security of your own being, which is love.  Motivated by the truth inside you, you can face any threat because your inner strength is invulnerable to fear.

10. Understand that the physical world is just a mirror of a deeper intelligence.  Intelligence is the invisible organizer of all matter and energy, and since a portion of this intelligence resides in you, you share in the organizing power of the cosmos.  Because you are inseparably linked to everything, you cannot afford to foul the planet’s air and water.  But at a deeper level, you cannot afford to live with a toxic mind, because every thought makes an impression on the whole field of intelligence.  Living in balance and purity is the highest good for you and the Earth.

This is 4th book I read by Deepak Chopra.  Interestingly, when I read his thoughts, I catch myself thinking mostly the same.  I get pleasantly surprised when I find some of his expressions are exact like mine, as if we speak the same language.

Relationships and friendships come and go.  Sometimes we feel we put everything into it, but for some reason it is not working out.  We drift apart, and our hearts are broken.  Or are they?  Relationships and friendships might not work out, but our hearts keep beating.  They are strong and keep us alive.  Sure, they might hurt for awhile, if we let it.  We might start guarding our hearts by putting up the wall.  We think, “I’ll never get married again,” “I don’t want to get into relationship again,” “I will never trust anybody again.”  So, we lock our hearts away, put a huge protective wall and stop taking chances.  We tell ourselves, “We need time to ourselves,” or “We need time to heal.”  For some of us, it might take a short time, but for some of us it might take years to open up again.

So, when we think that our heart is broken, we carry with us our past hurts, a fear to be open again, a fear to be vulnerable.  Certainly, our hearts hurt because we carry with us all this baggage filled with hurtful memories, regrets, pain, anger, fears, what ifs, hopes, failed expectations.  Can you imagine life without all this heaviness?  Can you imagine heart feeling light?  It is possible.  It’s not easy, if we let our minds to control what we feel.  It is only possible if we get rid of all the past negativity through:

1) Forgiveness and letting it all go;

2) Letting our heart to feel what it wants to feel without mind interference;

3) Learning to love ourselves and focus on new possibilities.

Forgiveness…  Oh, I can now hear the protests, “But he or she did so and so!” Do you know that by carrying grudge, anger, or sadness and reliving painful moments, we only hurt ourselves?  It does not affect the person that hurt us.  It only affects us and our hearts.  So why torture ourselves with that?  The next thought:  What if that person who hurt us did not know any better given their own life experiences, or lack of?  There is no way this is an excuse, but from their point of view and circumstances, they thought they are right, they needed to be in control, or they might not be aware that they hurt us.  We are not in their shoes.  Therefore, we can not understand them where they were coming from at the time.  We all deal with stuff in our own ways.  Forgiveness is not for the sake of other person and does not excuse for the way they wronged us.  Forgiveness is a strength.  It is letting go what happened in the past, and not letting to affect us and our decisions in the now.  Can you imagine your heart free?  That’s the way to go.  Let it all be left in the past and not the present and the future.

Once we got rid of the past headaches, we will feel our hearts filled with so much love:  love for family, friends, animals, nature, LIFE.  The key is not to let our minds to control what we feel.  If the mind remind us about being hurt and if we concentrate on that hurt, it might bring the same situation we been before.  Now, if we trust our hearts and let it feel, it might lead us into a new love.

By opening our hearts to life, we open ourselves to new possibilities, new ways to experience things.  Our hearts never wrong us if we only really listen to them closely.  We are born with a “hunch,” with “inner knowing.”  Sometimes all we need is to quiet our minds, to hear it.

The third way how to heal our hearts is to learn to love ourselves, to accept ourselves the way we are.  I do not say to be conceited, like “Look who I am.”  To love ourselves means to know what we want in life and go for it, to be the best we can be and share our passions and talents with the world, to establish who we are regardless of others’ expectations.  Once we learn to love ourselves, we will attract love and respect of others.  We will be strong to recognize environment and people who are harmful to us.  Therefore, we will not get into bad situations.  Once our heart is filled with love, we’ll concentrate on just that.  That’s how we will attract love to ourselves by giving love and care to others.

We all have major changes in our lives when we need to start over.  It could be losing a job, losing a relationship, moving, or as simple as starting a new year, a week.  Each day can be a start over, too, if we choose.

Starting over is not easy for some of us.  We do not even know how to do it.  We feel lost.  We keep falling into traps that keeps us in the known, familiar, comfort (even when we hate it).  So, what does it take to get out of these traps?  How to go forward and create life we wish?

First, let’s identify the traps.  They usually are:

1) Looking back

2) What ifs

3) Victimhood

4) Attachment

5) Fear and resistance to change

These traps are usually intertwined, and it is not easy to get out.  One leads to another, and we feel trapped like in a spider web, feeling paralyzed with fear.  So, how to untangle ourselves?  How to use these traps to our advantage?

First, we often can’t help but look back.  Oh, memories…  “Those were good old days,” or “He or she is such a jerk.”  Positive or negative, our necks probably hurt from keep turning back.  This is the past, and we got to make a peace with it.  “The Past is Powerless” like Eckhart Tolle said in his book The Power of Now.   It does not affect us at this moment.  Only we affect ourselves by our own thoughts that we choose to have.  Nothing is wrong with remembering.  It only becomes hurtful if we choose to “relive” the bad.  Why torture ourselves?  When memory comes, we just got to observe it and let it go and think to ourselves, “This thought does not do any good for me.”  We can choose to have any thoughts and memories if we stay in the now.  Like in Landmark Education, I learned a phrase, “How can you drive forward, if you are looking back in rear-view mirror at all the times?”

Looking back also entails “what ifs.” What if we should have done that differently?  What if I’ll stay single forever? What if I’m too old to date?  What if I’m not going to find another job?  What ifs never end if we let it.  What ifs are only what ifs.  It is mambo jumbo of our over-analyzing mind and most of it is just a waste of time thinking and it is fear-driven.  If something is doable, let’s do it.  Other than that, let’s concentrate on our Now and future right at this minute.

Once we end a bad relationship or quit a bad job, we can’t help but feel victim.  So and so treated us badly, and we keep reliving our past.  Once again, we look back with resentment, regrets, anger, sadness, etc.  We are responsible for our own thoughts, so why we want to suffer again?  Plus, we did not realize back then that we are strong.  We felt as a victim instead.  That’s why people mistreated us.  If we would not allow ourselves to be a victim and be strong, we would not fall in this situation in the first place.  We live and learn.  So, let’s be strong, stand up for ourselves and never be or feel victim again.

The next trap is attachment.  We love familiar.  Some of us hate or afraid of change so much, we are willing to stay in any situation, even when it is detrimental to us.  That’s why we keep coming back to the same situations over and over again.  It is our state of mind that keep us trapped.  We cling to familiar and to known.  We hate our jobs, but we stay there because of our steady paycheck, benefits, everything is familiar.  We stay in bad relationship, hoping things will change for the better, but it never does.  It is familiar, and we do not know how to get out.  We attach ourselves to jobs, people, familiarity.  Change is always good.  Let’s re-program our minds and go for what we want.  If something is not working , we got to let it go and look for alternative.  We are worth all the best.  Therefore, we should not settle for anything less.  If we overcome fear of change, and challenge ourselves in unfamiliar territories, we will learn so much new.  We will get unstuck from our past, and starting over will feel like a new adventure, a new life we are worth living.

Now let’s imagine our new life.  We have an empty canvas, or a sheet of paper.  What colors we will choose?  What words we will write?  What pictures we will create?  It is all up to us.

Wish you a day full of cuddles!

and a day full of mischief!

Wish a stomach filled with chocolates.

and a day full of quiet whispers

Wish you a day filled with joy and laughter

and a day full of adventure!

Wish a day filled with magic

and a day filled with love and heart-warming moments.

Sending you lots of love on Valentine’s Day!

I love Holidays.  Seeing  the streets lit up with Christmas lights, and stores decorated with ornaments just puts me in a cheerful Holiday mood.  Most importantly, this is the season of happy times and togetherness with family and friends.

Yet some of us get stressed out over Holidays.  We have our own reasons for it.  This guide will help you to make through Holiday season with flying colors.

Wish you a season of togetherness, even some of you do not feel like it.

The key is to stick with likeable members and friends.

or to get preoccupied with something important

Confused what to give for Christmas?

Just follow your friends and family closely.

and see what makes their eyes sparkle.  That’s a clue for gift giving.

In all the chaos, shopping, decorating, do not forget to have a “Me” time.

Most importantly, have lots of fun!

And take time to enjoy the moments that take your breath away.

Wish you a joyful Holiday Season filled with lots of love, togetherness and fun.

Love and gratefulness are very synonymous, that it could be used in one word: Lovefulness.  When we love, we are grateful, and when we are grateful, we love.  Love can be romantic, and love can be for family and friends.  Also, love can be for life.  When we have love in our hearts, everything we do reflect that.  We become passionate.  We have a zest for life.  We start to notice small things that matter.  We appreciate many things in our lives, unnoticed before.  Our faces light up, and our hearts expand.  We have a great care for each other.  We even start to see hearts everywhere, unexpectedly:

Hearts in the sky

Hearts in Morning Glory

Heart inside the stone

We can even make our own heart in the sand

A heart between orchid petals

A heart in the flower

Hearts in Bougainvillea

Heart between the tree branches

Even puppy has a heart on her forehead

A heart on Sandhill Crane’s head

A heart within a heart <3

Now have you noticed hearts yourself?  Where?  When we have an attention on love, it represents itself in different shapes and forms.  How does it represent to you?

Happy Thanksgiving, my family and friends!

Wish you a season of plenty, full of joy and laughter.  May your tables be full of goodness, and many leftovers for pets.  May your eyes sparkle with love and passion.  May your hearts be filled with closeness and hugs.  Have the most incredible Thanksgiving ever, my family and friends and Thank You for being Awesome You!

Many of us in life get hurt.  Our hearts get broken, and we close ourselves in the shell.  Sometimes we come out of it, and get smacked over the head, and we go back into the shell again.  Some of us stay closed in for the most part of our lives.

In our minds we feel safe, unhurt, comfortable in our shells, so why bother to risk?  Why to risk to get hurt again?  What we do not realize is that by staying inside our shells, we miss out on life big time.  We miss out on new opportunities, new ways of life.  So, how to come out of this shell?  How to stop this vicious cycle?  We got to find out why we are in the shell in the first place.  It could be one or all these reasons:

1.  Our heart is broken and we need time to heal.

2.  We think we are not worth it.

3.  We think we are not good enough.

4.  We do not want to get hurt again.

5.  Any other reason.

If our heart is broken, there is nothing wrong to take time off to heal.  It might take months or even years to rebuild our heart from the scratch.  It is different for every person.  Only we can choose how much time we need.  It is all in our minds.  As long as we do not close ourselves forever, we can take as much time as we have to.  The problem would occur if we choose to be in the shell as our way of life or reason one becomes reason 2, 3, 4 and maybe 5, which are a plain nonsense.  We usually look at outside world for confirmation for who we are.  If we do not know our true selves or we do not see who we are for ourselves, the outside world can give us every stupid opinion.  It can turn us in whatever direction they want, and we believe in it.  If somebody tell us that we are ugly, stupid, fat, idiots, we believe them.  We will start seeing that we are not worth it and we are not good enough, and we will close ourselves in the shell.

Now if we have a firm belief who we are and do not look for acceptance in outside world, no matter who will say anything to us, we will just laugh at them and think they are nuts.

In other way, if we are closed in our shelves, nobody will know who we truly are.  We will not be able to show who we are to others allowing them to make wrong assumptions about us.  When they do, we get hurt because we know it is not true.

The only way out of it is to get to know ourselves and stand our ground and show the world who we are, and get people really to know us.  By sharing us and our gifts with the world, we will not give a chance for people to make wrong assumptions about us.

If we choose to be closed in, we will miss out on the world and the world will miss out on us.  We are too good and too important to hide.

Love…  what a mysterious thing…  We can’t see it, we can’t touch it, but certainly we can feel it within our hearts.  We fall in love, and we fall out of love.  We either afraid to fall in love again, or we try it again.

Why some loves work and some do not?  What is mystery behind it?  What is the secret to a true love?

The formula of a probable failure is:  a perfect picture+expectations+attachment.  When we fall in love, we have a perfect picture in our minds:  they’re attractive, kind, etc., etc.  Then we add certain expectations of how our partner should be.  Our love should be perfect, isn’t it?  Lastly, but not least, we become attached.  We do not want anybody to have him or her; we got to keep them to ourselves.  It feels so good to be together, no friends or family should have them.

What if our partner is not perfect, or change physically, mentally or emotionally?  What if they do not fit our perfect picture and expectations all of the sudden?  What if they do want to spend their time with family and friends?  The fights most likely will ensue.  All of the sudden, that perfect partner is not perfect anymore.  Hearts get broken, and we break up.

So what is the secret to a true love?  There might be many things involved, but for a starter:  let’s take our partner the way they are+no expectations+let them be

Would it be more exciting that way anyway?  A partner always surprise us for who they are.  We do not need to be right and wrong.  We can let them do their own things, as we do our own.  We do not neglect our family and friends.  We share our time with everyone.  We keep a relationship spontaneous and respect each other.  We do not “need” each other to be complete.  We are two individuals traveling the same direction.  This way we are not closed in in our one-sided point of view.  We have two views that expand our world together.  We let each other breathe and let ourselves just be.  What do you think?

When we look at the mirror, what do we see?  Do we see tiredness, sadness, wrinkles?  Or do we see happiness, enthusiasm, smile?  Do we see pain and struggles? Or do we see sparkling energy and love?

Now, let’s look at the outside world.  What we notice first? How we relate to people?  Do we see them struggling or being successful?  Do we encounter sadness or happiness?

Usually, our inner state reflect our outside world.  What we choose to concentrate on, that’s what we see.  What we feel inside, that’s what we feel and see around us.  That’s why it is so easy to feel empathy for people who are going or went through similar situations that we did.  We can feel their pain or joy.  Now, if somebody is going through entirely different experience that we never been through, we will not understand it; it will feel odd to us.

We are all conditioned by our past, good or bad and by what we know.  We’ve been through ups and downs and sideways.  We view our world through our past experiences, what is familiar to us.  If we been through pain, we view our world through pain.  We encounter people who are going through the same pain.  Sometimes pain becomes anger, hatred and revenge.  An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.  We want the person who hurt us to be hurt.  We want them to suffer the same way they made us suffer.  Where does it get us, though?  Like Gandhi said, “An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.” It does not do anything good, except it causes more pain.

Now, if we would concentrate from a place of love and compassion, no matter of circumstances, the outcome would be completely different.  We would start caring for each other.  Instead of war, there would be peace.  Instead of hatred, there would be love.  One man can make a world of difference.  Let that be us.  Gandhi is one of many examples.  He saw peace for India; he stood for his beliefs and by being himself, he reached seemingly unattainable.

So, how about instead of wrinkles, let’s see lines of wisdom. Instead of tiredness, let’s see rest.  Instead of sadness, let’s consciously smile more.  Instead of struggles, let’s imagine our dreams come true.  Instead of pain, let’s fill our hearts with love.  Love does conquer it all.  If we change our outlook in life and see our world through new open possibilities, we will change our life for the better.  Let’s reflect goodness from our hearts into the mirror of outside world and make a difference now.