Tag: inspiration

Soul Sunday

Good morning. I hope that you have a nice warm cup of coffee (or whatever your favorite morning beverage is) right near you, as you read this post. Sundays are for poetry on the blog. I also hope that you have a neat little notebook and a pen that you particularly love to write with, right next to your neat little notebook. I hope that you plan to write yourself a poem this quiet, beautiful morning. Poems are love notes to yourself.

Years ago I wrote a blog post that people seemed to really like and relate to, as it pops up as being read again and again, throughout the years. Here it is, if you are interested: https://kellyfoota.com/?s=thank+yourself or you can just search “Thank Yourself” on my blog search function.

I found this poem yesterday by a writer on Twitter, that has that same tone of my blog post. I love it, and as April begins, it’s a good poem to start the month out with, for sure (credit: @ronwritings, Twitter):

Another post I noticed on Twitter yesterday, was a post by Dr. Nicole LaPera. She asked her followers: “When was your first memory of feeling loved?” It hurt my heart, to read so many posts by readers that stated that it took well into their early adulthoods to feel loved. Some people posted that they have never felt loved. After reading a few of these tweets, I went right to our family chat, sent my family a picture of that tweet, and I wrote to my four children: “I don’t know how you guys would answer this, but I hope that you know how much your Dad and I love you, from the very start. Where you’d you get your start?” and then I added six heart emojis. And that last question is an inside family joke. Of course, this text message then turned into a family lovefest, but it honestly wasn’t a fishing expedition of mine. I wanted to be sure that my children feel loved. People need to know they are loved.

People need love. People need to feel love, and to feel loved. Why would we ever be stingy about sharing the most abundant and renewable force of energy that exists in our world? Today, love yourself. Show love to people. Be love. Feel love. It’s everywhere and it’s everything.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

SB

I inadvertently read a really good blog post the other day, from a website that sells jewelry. The writer was talking about the fact that her mother always repeated the same old saying, with drama and sadness, “You are only as happy as your least happy child.” The writer came from a huge family who went on to have huge families, so invariably her mother would have at least one child, or grandchild, who was going through a hard time, and so her mother was always a bit down. Until she wasn’t . . . .

The writer (Jill Donovan) said that her mother came to a peace one day, realizing that ultimately her children and her grandchildren were not hers first. They came from Source/God/Spirit/Universe, and this same Source that had always gotten her through her rough spots, would get them through theirs, too. And so while the matriarch of this huge family felt empathy for her loved ones, and helped to support them, she came to a greater peace of holding on to the faith that these trials would just bring them all closer to the deeper meanings and purposes of their own individual lives.

This is a truth that we all “know”, but it is sometimes hard to live, isn’t it? We have these fantasy-filled visions of our children living problem-less, seamless lives, with no difficulties to deal with, yet in our own lives, if we are honest with ourselves, it was during the harder times that our most authentic selves rose from the ashes. It was when we successfully navigated through our tough times, that we realized how steely, strong, determined and capable we really were to handle anything. And we didn’t do it alone. The Source within us helped us rise to the challenge. And the people who loved us, were kind and validated our feelings, but because they also believed that we would overcome our adversities, that belief in us, and that belief in our ultimate triumph, was more helpful than pity and tears.

I’m in my fifties now and it’s been really fun witnessing the growth of my friends and peers. Most of us have grown children now, and so I am now seeing my friends taking the time to unabashedly explore all different interests, and parts, and relatively unexplored avenues of themselves. Many of my longtime friends are showing up with talents and interests which I never knew that they had before. (honestly, I don’t think some of my friends even knew about these aspects about themselves either.) It’s really inspiring. By the time you get to our deep middle age, I don’t know anyone who hasn’t experienced any rough spots in their lives. But it is true, time and experience, flowing through the craggy rocks of our lives, usually polishes sharp, rough stones into beautiful gems. It is so gratifying to witness women who have had to go through deaths of loved ones, and divorces, and heartaches with their children, and financial breakdowns, and struggles to succeed and grow in their careers, to triumph over all their adversity, and now delight in exploring parts of themselves that they had long ago buried, under the self-imposed burden of believing that it was their job to keep everyone else happy.

Whatever your beliefs are, just know that Something Bigger (SB) from where we all came has got us. SB has you. SB has me. SB has our kids, and our loved ones, and our friends, and our pets, and our world. So be as happy and as curious and as exploratory as you want to be, in any given moment. That happiness inspires us, and lifts us, and frees us to deeply explore our own selves, and our world with less fear and trepidation, and more openness and hope for all.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Monday – Funday

Actually, I slept really well last night. We went to bed quite early after enjoying a full weekend of just plain, good ol’ fun. We went out of town, which helps anyone to stay in “the just fun” mode. When your house projects, and your home office, and your laundry room are not in walking distance, or staring you in the face, your only option is to relax and to enjoy. Changes of scenery are wonderful.

Yesterday morning, when we were packing to leave our hotel, a funny thing happened that nearly jump-started my heart. My husband and I were staying at an artsy, modern, boutique hotel that had minimalist decor. Our headboardless bed was sitting on a low platform, giving the whole room an Asian feel. When I was packing to leave, I did my usual “Let’s check underneath the bed to make sure that we didn’t drop anything”. I had to get way down on my haunches because the bed was low, low, low. It was then that I almost emitted out a loud, guttural scream and this was not because of the pain that I was feeling from going low, low, low. I almost screamed because I saw a limp hand lying underneath the bed. It took me a few seconds to realize that it was my own hand (I recognized the wedding rings). It turns out that the platform that the bed was sitting on was made of mirrored chrome.

If you like the picture above, check out this Russian fisherman’s Instagram below. He takes pictures of the ugliest catches he has ever brought out of the ocean. These creatures make the World’s Ugliest Dogs look like show dogs.

https://www.instagram.com/rfedortsov_official_account/

Have a great week, friends! (if you want to)

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Hoot Hoot Friday

Happy Friday!! Happy Favorite Things Friday! On Fridays, I stay above the surface and talk about the tactile, sensory, stuff you can experience in life that I just love!! Please check out previous Friday posts for more good recommendations. Today’s favorite, involves two of my favorite creatures from the animal kingdom: Owls (if there is such thing as a spirit animal, then I am convinced the owl is my spirit animal) and Underdogs. (Underdogs might be my all-time favorite of anything.)

Every year my husband asks the family if we want to do a family bracket for the March Madness College Tournament, and every year I agree to participate. I pick my bracket utilizing the highly scientific “Oh, okay, I know someone who went there, or someone’s kid who goes there . . .” system. Interestingly, I usually don’t do half bad every year, despite knowing virtually nothing about college basketball. I’ve even won the bracket, a year or two.

Honestly, I don’t think that I picked the Florida Atlantic University Owls to go too far. (Despite living in Florida, I don’t know any FAU alumnae) But I’m rooting (and hooting) for the Owls now! This is only the second time in which the Owls have ever made it to the tournament, and the ONLY time they have made it to the Elite Eight. This is what makes March Madness so special. You don’t even have to be a sports fan to revel in vicarious joy. March Madness brings out the freudenfreude in all of us, especially for the inevitable Cinderella team that surprises everyone.

Is there anything better in life than a Cinderella story? Be a Florida Atlantic Owls fan with me. Make them your favorite team of the tournament and send all sorts of good energy their way!

Have a great weekend! See you tomorrow!

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Morris to the Extreme

credit: @woofknight (Twitter)

What I find most frustrating in today’s world is everything seems to be taken to the extremes. It seems like every example that we are shown of anyone, and of anything, is the rare, scary, worst case scenario, and this “worst case” extreme is being held up, as a typical example of the whole (“the whole” being any particular race, gender affiliation, generation, political party, job/industry, religion, area one lives in, etc.). I don’t honestly relate to the extreme members of any group, whether the group be political, social, religious, etc., even those groups that I technically “belong to” and associate with. I’ve never been “educated” by an extremist or a fundamentalist in any area, because I have already shut down in fear, and in disgust to anything that they have to say.

As seen above, if I had never experienced an ordinary house cat before, and this picture is how I first encountered a cat, I might falsely assume that all domesticated cats are warmongers. In reality, this is actually the first time that I have ever even witnessed a housecat in military regalia. (and this is likely a doctored picture. I don’t assume that “Morris” realizes that he is sitting on an army tank).

I don’t believe that any extremist and fundamentalist is representative of “the whole” of anything. I do believe that hardcore extremists and fundamentalists are more rare than we are led to believe. Yet in my experience lately, our news media, and our social media would have us believing that almost everyone is an extremist about every single one of their own individual beliefs. Can you imagine how exhausting it would be to be that extreme and unyielding about every aspect of your life?! Extremists do not represent my family, nor my friends, nor my community. Do they yours? It takes a lot of energy, (and usually angry, hate-filled, one-minded, intolerant energy) to be an extremist. I prefer being around people who move from their deepest, most soulful energy when they are going about life. These people live their beliefs. Their energy seems to manifest itself in kind, curious, intuitive, loving, open-minded, healthy, thoughtful, and considerate ways. Their energy seems to do a better job of going about their lives mindfully, and confidently “being” the way, versus trying to control and shame and “cancel” and dominate and scare and bully others, into following “a certain prescribed way.” It is much better to be an example of a life well lived, than to try to force, and to indoctrinate your beliefs and your way of life on to anyone else. What say you, Morris?

(Fun Fact: The original Morris, the cat, was a humane society rescue who starred in 58 commercials from 1969-1978, until he died at the age of 17.)

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Fresh Starts With Results

Yesterday I wrote about the fresh start of spring. We get a lot of “fresh starts” in life, don’t we? New year, new season, new day . . . . the question is, do we make the most of our frequent fresh starts? Moving to a new location, or taking a new job, or getting a new pet, may all infuse new, exciting, hopeful energy into our lives, but as the saying goes, “wherever you go, there you are.” Without being deliberately conscious about the changes that we want to have with our “new starts”, and without being honest with ourselves about the things that we have to do differently, in order to go towards the direction of what we do want, we constantly get a reiteration of “same old, same old”, in just slightly different forms.

Thomas Jefferson (see quote above) and our forefathers had a vision for a country the likes the world had never seen before. This is what the site of The White House (whitehouse.gov) has to say about the Constitutional Convention:

“A chief aim of the Constitution as drafted by the Convention was to create a government with enough power to act on a national level, but without so much power that fundamental rights would be at risk. One way that this was accomplished was to separate the power of government into three branches, and then to include checks and balances on those powers to assure that no one branch of government gained supremacy. This concern arose largely out of the experience that the delegates had with the King of England and his powerful Parliament. The powers of each branch are enumerated in the Constitution, with powers not assigned to them reserved to the States.”

Our forefathers took what they did not like about what they experienced from the governments that they came from (too much power for one entity), and they used this to create a new way of governing (spreading and dividing power), “in order to form a more perfect union” (from the U.S.’s Constitution’s preamble). To be clear, I am not using this blog to create a political debate as to the beginning, and the current state of “our more perfect union.” If you are wanting a political debate, you have come to the wrong blog. I am simply using this example, and Jefferson’s quote to show the more practical, useful ways any of us can create our own true fresh start, in any area of our own individual lives.

If you want to make changes in your own life, first examine what bothers you in your current life. Explore each area. Your health, your relationships, your finances, your job, how you spend your leisure time, where you live, etc. are all categories to explore and to register your own satisfaction. If you find yourself feeling upset in one or more of these categories, think about what it is that you don’t like, but then (and this is key) pivot what you don’t like, into what you do want instead. We are all good at getting ourselves stuck, complaining about the things which we don’t like in our lives. Many of us have held onto the same complaints for years and years. However, what we forget, when we do this fruitless complaining, is that no change comes from this. If anything, the same old/same old gets even more amplified from the attention and the energy which we are giving to it. What we resist, persists. Resistance and frustration create a lot of energy and focus and give even more “life” to what we don’t like, and to what we don’t want in our lives. We all can complain ad nauseum, and in great detail about what the problems are in our lives, but we often forget to take the next step, which is to pivot these complaints into what do we want instead. If we don’t like how much we weigh, then what it is that we do want, is to be thinner and healthier. What are small steps which we can do differently, to move us towards what we do want? If we don’t like how are relationships feel in our lives, what are steps we can take to make our relationships healthy for us? We decided that we do want healthier relationships, so what does “healthier relationships” look like for us? Better communication? Moving on from toxic relationships? Reaching out to meet more people who share our interests? You get the picture.

Be honest with yourself where you really want your fresh starts in your life. Perhaps you really love your complaints, and you are attached to them, and the “victim status” in the areas which these problems give that status/mentality to you. That’s okay. If you are radically honest with yourself in this way, at least you realize that what you are complaining about actually gives you a payoff that you like, and that you want to keep in your life. What you are complaining about, you may actually be attached to, and therefore you like it, in your own weird way. Again, that’s okay. At least you know the truth about yourself, and your favorite gripes. But there are likely other areas in your life, where you really want to get that fresh start energy going, and make it into something new, and different, and better in your life. Figure out what it is that you don’t like, and what you don’t want, and turn that into a statement of what you do like and what you do want, instead. Then, write down small steps you can take, that can head you into the direction that you do want to head to, going forward. Be brave. Be consistent. Be focused on what you do want. “If you want something you never had, you must be willing to do something you’ve never done.”

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Monday-Funday

The key words for spring are “new” and “fresh”, right? Happy Spring! Tomorrow is a new moon and the start of the astrological calendar. These next couple of days are the perfect time to decide what in your life needs some “new-ness” and some fresh energy breathed into it. What has become stale and frozen and motionless in your life? How can you add some vitality and brightness and vigor to your everyday routines? I read an article over the weekend that stated that we have a tendency to make major life decisions such as where we live, based on what we spend only 10-20 percent of our time doing. If we are honest with ourselves, 80-90 percent of the time in our lives is spent on work, errands, appointments, commutes, and everyday-functions. The smallest percentage of our time is spent on dinners out, and parties, and vacations. Yet we may choose to live by the mountains, or at the beach, or at the heart of a major city, at a sacrifice to what would make our everyday experience more calm, enjoyable, economical and pleasing. The key is to focus on making your 80-90 percent so wonderful that the 10-20 percent, almost doesn’t matter – it’s just the cherry on top. What are some little changes and shake-ups that you could make for yourself, at this fresh new start time of year, that could bring some sparkle and delight to your own everyday life? Spring forward. Spring into action. Spring to life!

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Epiphanies and Curiosities

Yesterday, I was checked out at my local Walgreens by a man who resembled Cousin It. His long, dark curly hair was almost completely covering his face and he also donned a black mask, so it appeared that only one of his eyes was partly visible. I asked the clerk how he was doing and he solidly stated, “I am perfect.”

This made me hesitate. I had never heard the answer, “I am perfect” to “How ya doing?” in my whole life, and I told him that fact. The clerk asked me how I was doing and I answered, “Well, I’m not perfect, but I’m doing pretty well.”

Without a beat, and completely deadpan, he said, “Well, maybe you’ll get there someday.”

Since then, I’ve spent way too much of my time contemplating this two minute interaction. Here I am writing about it on the blog. Was this guy just strange? Was this guy goading me? Was this guy actually perfect? What’s the secret to being perfect? Are we all actually perfect? Was Cousin It supposed to reflect “perfection”?

So, in further insights to my overthinking mind, I read a viral essay by a college student who claims that the “study abroad experience” is horrible and overrated. This student, who was studying in Florence, has the right to her opinion, of course, but I’ve known many people who have studied abroad, including our eldest son, and they all have claimed this experience to easily be in their top ten events of their lives. What was more interesting to me, is that Amanda Knox, the American woman who, in 2007, was falsely imprisoned for murder in Italy, while she was studying abroad, commented on this woman’s essay on Twitter. She said this: “Girl, what are you talking about? Studying abroad is awesome!” 

Now, much like the “I’m perfect” statement, I don’t know in what context this statement by Amanda Knox was being made either. Was she being funny, sarcastic and ironic? Has Amanda evolved and healed enough to truly believe that her own experience in Italy was “awesome”? I honestly don’t know. However, it piqued my interest enough to go to Amanda Knox’s Twitter, and to read her introduction. (A quick update on Amanda Knox: She was acquitted for the murder in Italy in 2015, after spending four years in jail. She went to jail in Italy when she was 20. Amanda Knox now lives in Seattle with her husband and her child and she hosts a popular podcast.) In part of Amanda Knox’s introductory tweets, she says this:

” After I was convicted of murder and sentenced to 26 years in prison, when the earth dropped out from beneath me, and global shame rained down on top of me, I had my first ever epiphany . . . . My epiphany was this: I was not, as I had assumed for my first two years of trial and imprisonment, waiting to get my life back. I was not some lost tourist waiting to go home. I was a prisoner, and prison was my home. I’d thought I was in limbo, awkwardly positioned between my life (the life I should have been living), and someone else’s life (the life of a murderer). I wasn’t. I never had been. . . . .The feeling of clarity, though, was in realizing that however small, cruel, sad, and unfair this life was, it was *my* life. Mine to make meaning out of, mine to live to the best of my ability. There was no more waiting. There was only now . I was alone with my epiphany. I tried to explain it to my mom, but she couldn’t hear me. She thought I was depressed and giving up. She could not, and would not, accept that *this* was my life. She was going to save me, and she just needed me to survive until she did.I told her I would, and it wasn’t a lie. I *would* survive. I knew that, deep in my bones. But I knew that precisely because I had finally accepted that I was living *my* life, whether I was eventually found innocent and freed, or not. I allowed myself to begin to imagine alternate realities. What if I had been home that night, not Meredith, and Rudy Guede had killed me instead? What if I was acquitted and freed in five years? In ten? What if I served my entire sentence, and came home in my late 40s, a barren, bereft woman? What if I killed myself…I imagined all of those futures in vivid detail so that they no longer felt like shadows creeping over me from the realm of unconscious nightmares. And that allowed me to see my actual life for what it was, and to ask myself: How do I make *that* life worth living? That was a big question, one I couldn’t answer in its grandest sense. But there was a smaller version of that question: How can I make my life worth living *today?* I could answer that question, repeatedly. That was entirely in my power. So I did that. Doing sit ups, walking laps, writing a letter, reading a book – these things were enough to make a day worth living. I didn’t know if they were enough to make a life worth living, but I remained open and curious to the possibility. And while my new emotional default setting remained firmly stuck on sad—I woke up sad, spent the entire day sad, and went to sleep sad—it wasn’t a desperate, grasping sadness.It was a sadness brimming with energy beneath the surface, because I was alive with myself and my sanity, and the freeing feeling of seeing reality clearly, however sad that reality was. . . .The abyss never leaves. It’s always there. And anyone who’s stared into it, as I have, knows the strange comfort of carrying it with you.“

Our greatest suffering comes not from what actually happens to us, but our long-term suffering comes from how we think about, and how we react to what happens to us. Whenever I, or anyone I care about is going through a tough time, I repeat the mantra, “One Day at a Time,” all day long if I have to do so, for my own comfort. As Amanda Knox states, if we just concentrate on making our individual days worth living, this will likely add up to a life worth living. If we can work to find meaning and strength in all of the events of our lives, we can springboard from them, instead of wallowing in, and resisting the “unfairness” and the abyss of it all. If we can reach a point of epiphany in our own lives, that no matter what is happening and no matter what we are doing, we can believe that this particular moment, in this particular time, in this particular body, is perfect, then we have peace. And peace is what is perfect, isn’t it? Peace. Perfect. Maybe I’ll get there some day . . .

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

The Luck of the Friday to Ye

Happy Friday! Happy St. Patrick’s Day!! May today be lucky, plucky, clucky, ducky and crispy! (see Wack-a Chicken game) Obviously, I am in my typical devil-may-care Friday mood! On Fridays, I try to stay away from the serious side of life. On Fridays, I discuss my favorites of anything. Life is supposed to be lived sensually and tactically and curiously and peacefully, and then our minds start making up stories about it – stories that get us all tripped up. On to my favorite for today:

While we all love clovers on St. Patty’s Day (especially the elusive yet extremely lucky four leaf clovers), we usually do not like clovers on any other day, especially clover that shows up in huge swaths in our lawns. In wanting to be good to the Earth and also good to our three dogs, my husband no longer purchases synthetic weed killer. (which he insists doesn’t work well anymore, anyway) Instead my husband swears by this formula (which, you guessed it, is my favorite for today): 30 percent Harris Vinegar (one gallon), 1 cup coarse salt, and 1 teaspoon dish washing liquid. He mixes all three ingredients in his sprayer and makes sure that the concoction sits for 30 minutes so that it dissolves and mixes completely. Harris Vinegar is much stronger than the usual stuff that you get in grocery stores and use in salads. It’s worth every dime when used as a cleaner and as a weed assassin.

Some Irish proverbs to consider:

May you be at the gates of heaven an hour before the devil knows you’re dead!

May you have the hindsight to know where you’ve been, the foresight to know where you are going, and the insight to know when you have gone too far.

 May the saddest day of your future be no worse than the happiest day of your past.

It is often that a person’s mouth broke his nose.

And what I wish for all of you, my beloved readers:

May your heart be light and happy, may your smile be big and wide, and may your pockets always have a coin or two inside!

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Healers and Wholeness

Since last Monday, I have been grappling with a pinched nerve in my neck. I have pulled muscles before, even in my neck, but this experience has taken “pain in my neck” to a whole new level that I have never experienced before. Now, if I ever call anyone a “pain in the neck”, it will be possibly one of the worst things which I could ever call a person.

In the beginning of this pinched nerve mess, I started out thinking that I could just stretch my neck out, with some light exercises. This plan, instead, took things to a whole new level of miserable and excruciating. I then assumed that a day at the beach, vacillating between hot sand and cold water would do the trick, all the while downing Aleve and Advil like candy. That ended up being a sand-filled, “how am I even going to get up and out, from this beach chair?” disaster that sent me to an Urgent Care the very next morning. In conjunction with my doctor’s orders, I got prescription strength Aleve and Advil, and I rested on the couch, all this entire past weekend, watching an entire season of “Love Island”, and other stupid, mind-numbing shows, on the couch, with the kind, cuddling company of my daughter. (They say that love and laughter is the best medicine.) While this was peaceful and enjoyable, by Sunday, my restless self was still in a great deal of pain, and so I caved to starting steroids. Since this pinch nerve situation happened last Monday (and I am still not even sure how it happened!) I dreaded every single night (as did my husband), because until last night, I could not find one comfortable position to prop myself up into, in order to fall to sleep. For a week and a half, it took me a good 45 minutes to an hour, until I reached utter exhaustion, to finally fall asleep in a strange contortion of me being twisted in tandem with a heating pad and a mountain of pillows. I looked like a living Picasso painting.

But then, yesterday, I remembered that a wonderful acupuncturist had cured a pesky eye twitch of mine in just a couple of sessions, a few years back, and I thought that it couldn’t hurt to see what she might have to say/do on the matter of my neck. And last night, after a few needles and ear seeds later, I had the best night of sleep I’ve had, since this whole fiasco started. My arm and thumb still feels a little numb (in case you’ve never experienced it, and I hope that you never have to, pinched nerves in your neck radiate through your entire shoulder and down through your arm all the way to your fingers and thumb), but the pain is gone. I have one more session today, and my acupuncturist is confident that I will feel better by the weekend. She didn’t “tsk tsk” me for going to Western medicine first, and using her as a last resort. In fact, she told me to continue following their orders, too. “We will work in tandem,” she said, “to get you better.”

I am a believer in the yin/yang of all healing practices. What I love best about Eastern practices is that my acupuncturist started yesterday’s appointment with, “Okay, what is your body trying to tell us, my dear?” Sometimes Western medicine seems to just want to put a quick bandaid on to the symptoms. But Western medicine is backed by a lot of science and technology, and in my life, I have witnessed that all healers have the same thing in common: A deep calling to help others to make themselves whole again. Just like there are many paths to God, there are also many paths to healing. And ultimately, I think that our minds, and our bodies, and our spirits feel appreciated and “seen”, when we don’t take them for granted. Our bodies notice when we take a pause, and we show that we are willing to amble down different paths of healing, in order to make ourselves whole again. And so this helps our cells to relax, and they jump aboard the healing process, too. Pain is just a cry for help, to set things right. There are so many different healing modalities available to get any of us to wholeness, if we willingly surrender our controlling ideas of “how and when” we should arrive at “whole and well.”

“A healer’s power stems not from any special ability, but from maintaining the courage and awareness to embody and express the universal healing power that every human being naturally possesses.”
― Eric Micha’el Leventhal

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.