Tag: inspiration

The Shoulder

It’s interesting to me, when you are going through one of your darker periods in life, how much you cling to your mundane chores. Your to-do list becomes your savior. Doing laundry becomes your lifeline. Waiting in queue on a customer service call with bad elevator music, can actually be peaceful and lulling. Doing anything is good. Idle time is scary as hell.

Yesterday, getting groceries was cathartic. A month ago, getting groceries was just another one of the routine banalities of my life. I also look at people differently. I understand that there could be a lot of pain underneath the clerk’s pleasantries. I understand that someone’s grumpiness could be caused by medications that otherwise save that person’s life. One of the rare blessings of suffering, is a true, pure empathy for the human condition. I even empathize with people who numb out, and try not to feel anything, ever. Empathy is a heavy, overwhelming load to bear sometimes.

Fear and sadness sucks the energy right out of you. Taking a shower sometimes takes monumental courage and momentum. And then all the “shoulds” start crawling around in your brain: “You should take care of yourself, so that you can take care of your loved ones.” “You should remember that your family and friends deserve attention for the good and bad things going on in their lives, too.” “You should live in faith, and not fear.” “You should divide your attention and focus equally among your four children, not just your child with epilepsy.” “You shouldn’t feel sorry for yourself. Count your blessings.” “You should stop hovering over your man-child with epilepsy, and help him live as normal a life as possible.” “You should keep the romance alive in your marriage, or you’ll lose even more.” “You should keep writing your blog, or maybe you shouldn’t.” “You should find the cure for all that ails your family, and maybe even heal the entire world, while you are at it.” My “Shoulder” in my brain is a total bitch and a strict task-masker. My Shoulder loves to generate anxiety. My Shoulder loves to control me with shame. My Shoulder tells me that I’ll never be enough. Someone very wise once told me to never, ever should on myself. I wish that I could stop my evil Shoulder. I should do a better job with that. Isn’t it ironic that a “shoulder” is something that we are supposed to be able to lean on in tough times?

Recently, I found a prayer in an old wallet of mine that has been one of my favorite prayers for a long, long time. It’s actually the 3rd Step prayer from the 12-Step programs. I have been praying it a lot lately. Not because I should, but because I can, and because it feels good. This prayer resonates with me. Maybe it will help you, too.

“God, I offer myself to Thee – to build with me and do with me as Thou wilt. Relieve me of the bondage of self, that I may better do Thy will. Take away my difficulties, that victory over them may bear witness to those I would help of Thy Power, Thy Love, and Thy Way of Life. May I do Thy will always. Amen.”

Friends, I pray to bear witness of my victory over my difficulties, to anyone whom it will help. I do this, quite honestly, because I desperately want victory over my difficulties, but also, I truly like to help people. It feels good. I think that this is what we are meant to do for each other. Please know that despite being in a trough period, I love life. I see beauty all around me, all of the time, to the point that sometimes it even overwhelms me. Love is the miracle, and it never leaves us. Love can never be destroyed. Love sustains all.

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

Soul Sunday

As you may have guessed, the complications with our youngest son’s epilepsy continues. We spent the last three days at the hospital, thus I have not been writing my daily blog. We are all okay. Our son is back home with us now. (just where a college junior wants to be – back home with Mom and Dad – ha!) This frustrating and mysterious experience of finding just the right drug for stopping epileptic seizures is really beyond a tricky thing. What works for one person, destroys another person. What once worked for years for a person with epilepsy, all of the sudden stops working, with no sensible explanation nor apology.

Thank you for your love and for your prayers. I feel them. I was praying and I was sobbing in the hospital chapel this morning, and then all of the sudden I was washed over with the most calming, beautiful sense of peace. This feeling was lovely and comforting and overwhelmingly awesome, all at the same time. I felt everyone’s presence besides my own, alone in the quiet, solemn chapel. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. As you can imagine, I have prayed since the day that my son was diagnosed with epilepsy, for this disorder in him, to be healed forevermore. I have tried bargaining with God. I have tried doing good and charitable deeds to be “worthy” of his healing, despite my strong belief in God’s non-judgmental grace. Honestly, I have tried Jedi mind tricks. I am embarrassed by some of the avenues which I have desperately explored, to make this nightmare go away for my son, and for our family. My angel box is filled with little pieces of paper with the same prayer, “Please heal my baby.” Some of these papers are now aged and faded. I have been praying for this miracle, for seven years, since we first got my son’s epilepsy diagnosis. Still, for reasons that I don’t comprehend, my son’s stubborn affliction remains. But yet, at the same time, I remind myself that I have never really questioned why I have been remarkably blessed in so many other aspects of my life. I never question why my family has excellent health coverage which pays for emergency drugs that halts our son’s seizures while they are happening. Many people with epilepsy do not have access to these cutting edge drugs and providers. Without insurance, these drugs cost $1300 per single use. I know how privileged I am. When your heart is exposed to such worry and anxiety and fears about your own child’s well-being, you can’t help but realize how many other parents are going through their own personal agony, dealing with their own children’s afflictions, and on top of all of this pain and fear, they have money worries, and lack of resources to provide their children with the best care available. Many people are experiencing this heartache alone. I have a loving husband whose strong arms I rest in, every night, who shares my pain and yet comforts me with his deep, knowing stares. I have family and friends who support us, and lift us up, with their love and their concern. When my heart bleeds for my son and our family, the bleeding continues to pour out, for all of us parents who are hurting for our children, who sadly, we do not have the power to heal by ourselves. That’s not how mothering (parenting) is supposed to work. I am supposed to be able to kiss every boo-boo away, with a sense of power and ease and nonchalance. I hate every single one of our hospital stays, because every door that I pass as I walk on to our room, holds a room full of pain and fear and yet also a desperate hope, for a family that feels helpless, fearful, dejected and pained. I know their pain intimately, and I wish that I could stop it for every one of us. I wish that I could stop the bleed for all of us, but my heart’s tourniquet is overwhelmed.

Trying to catch my breath and to restore my sense of sanity, I was walking on the medical campus of the renowned hospital where I spent my time this weekend, and there, I spied an incredibly beautiful, old, and glorious tree, reaching out and shading the playground provided for hospitalized children – those young ones, who are still well enough to still go outside and play. I looked at her – the wise and stable tree. I touched her beautiful, cragged bark, knowing that I was touching a vital and living being, older and wiser, than I will ever be. I thought to myself, “There is a poem growing here, perfect for a Soul Sunday on the blog.” And I started to search my mind for the poem. And then I suddenly realized that I didn’t need words for the poem. The splendid, formidable, rooted tree was the poem, just in her being. Her fortitude and her vitality shades and protects her precious fragile charges. She does what she can do, and she takes her job seriously. She stays rooted and strong, and she continues to grow, in order to provide for her charges, with what she has to give. She does what she can, and knows that this enough. Other forces, higher than her tallest, reaching branches, will take care of the rest of what needs to be done. And in the meantime, the tree just does what she can, providing some oxygen to breathe, and some shade and some protection, for those who seek comfort under her solid canopy of restless leaves.

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

Drag

I’m excited for this afternoon because I get to meet with one of my long-time mentees “in person” for the first time in well over a year. Granted, we will be masked and there will be plexiglass between us, but it will be so good to share each other’s energy and expressions in physical form, versus Zoom. We are both pretty animated people. My mentee is a fifth grader, so this year, she is officially one of the “big dawgs” at her elementary school. She and her mom opted for us to meet in person this school year because my mentee decided that this was best. “No offense, but your dogs are kinda loud on Zoom,” she said. I am not offended. I can’t wait to see her. Isn’t it just so crazy about how much we once took for granted, before this pandemic came around and changed the world?

In other news, I downloaded a book recently which I have not yet read, but I think that the title is incredibly intriguing. (I always have several downloaded books on my Kindle, in queue. I like feeling excitement and anticipation for what to read next.) The book is called The Inner Work of Age: Shifting from Role to Soul. In reading a little blurb about the book by the author, Dr. Connie Zweig, she mentions that she thinks that people should stop counting age after 55. She suggests that around that age, you shift from all of your “roles” in life, into becoming a wise “Elder” which Zweig describes this way: “to leave behind past roles, shift from work in the outer world to inner work with the soul, and become authentically who you are.”

Reflecting on this thought, most of our adulthood is full of roles, isn’t it?

Wife/Husband/Mother/Father/Writer/Teacher/Doctor/PTA Parent/Committee Person/Banker/Executive/Supervisor/Entertainer/Mentor/Sister/Brother/Best Friend/Lover/Listener/Consumer etc. etc.

Dr. Zweig believes that “This identification with ego and self-image is a key obstacle to overcome in aging from the inside out. The ego’s goals are not the real tasks of late life. Our tasks now require us to move our attention from the exterior world to the interior one, from the ego’s role in society to the soul’s deeper purpose.”

I recently finished reading No Cure for Being Human, which is a heart-wrenching, brutally honest account of a young woman living with Stage 4 colon cancer. The author is Kate Bowler, a 40-year-old religion professor at Duke University, happily married to her high school sweetheart, and a mother of a young son. After her diagnosis, she decided to keep teaching and writing after conferring with one of her colleagues. Bowler was questioning whether continuing these activities, was “good” use of her quite possibly limited time left on Earth. Her colleague said, “I guess that depends if this is a career or a calling.”

That’s one of the blessings which we can find in aging. We can really start to hone in on our callings. We can start to shed everything that isn’t calling us, from our deepest, most intuitive self. We can stop identifying with our “doing selves” and our “roles”, and we can start to become lovingly intimate with our “being” selves. And we can choose to do this at any time in our lives. We don’t have to wait until we are 55. The older we get (not necessarily in age, but in wisdom), it becomes clearer that the only certainty in life is uncertainty. We can choose to stop fighting against that truth and just explore with profound curiosity, what it really is, that calls to each of us.

I once watched an interview with RuPaul, the famous American drag queen. RuPaul said this, “My therapist said to me once, ‘You know Ru, the power you have in drag is available to you out of drag.’ ”

Maybe wisdom is coming to the realization that our power does not come from “our drag” – our roles and our identifications and our achievements and our appearances. Perhaps our real power is the fathomless summons of our souls. And that enduring power, deep inside of us, is timeless and has been with us from the beginning of time. Today, let’s quiet down and take some time to remove all of the heaviness of “our drag” and just sit still and listen. What is calling to us from our hearts? What feels most authentic? How can we shed what no longer resonates? What is true? What is real? What is beautiful to us? What really matters?

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

Triscuits and Other Business

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(credit: Rex Masters, Twitter)

I’ve had a lot of fun with this Tweet this morning. I personally love Triscuits, but as my husband and eldest son commented almost simultaneously, this tweet is “oddly true.” My daughter said that eating Triscuits, are like eating a basket. My middle son texted, “Wheat Thins > Triscuits.” I don’t agree with that formula. Wheat Thins are razor sharp. If you don’t chew them up properly, Wheat Thins are hazardous. Wheat Thins will cut you. And they’re too sweet. I prefer salty crackers. Salty>Sweet, most of the time.

On a more serious note, I like this quote from Alan Cohen:

“When you do what you are here to do, you help others do what they are here to do.”

Sometimes we ignore our own purposes, when we get over-involved in other people’s lives. (a lot of us “mom-types” have a tendency to do this) We think that we are being “helpful”, but sometimes our “helpfulness” is just used as a distraction from dealing with what we, ourselves, are meant to do, with our own one precious life. Our own life is the only life in which we are truly and fully in charge of living. And when we live our own life’s purposes, and we are fulfilling what we are meant to do, we feel the most alive and connected to the Whole. This is the best thing that we can do for ourselves, and for everyone else.

The writer Anne Lamott posted this good reminder over the weekend on Twitter:

“If you [think] you can rescue [your nearest and dearest] with your good ideas and your checkbook, or get them to choose a healthy, realistic way of life, that mistake will make both of you much worse than you already are.”

Do what you are here to do. This will inspire others on their journeys. You are not here to control/live/experience other people’s lives. You are here to experience the totally unique and precious life that has been exquisitely and generously entrusted to you. Live your gift. Live your life. Trust the process.

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

Monday-Funday

i i i i i i

i i i ii

i I i i i

ii i i

i i iii i i i

About a week ago, I was reading magazines by my pool. Ralphie, our swimming-obsessed yellow Labrador was thrilled to have me out there with him. He jumped out of the pool to greet me, and he shook all of the water off of his 100-pound self, which landed all over my magazines. This has happened before. I know the drill, but this time, I had barely even begun to read my magazines. I almost considered it a loss, and tossed them unread, into the recycling bin, but something made me hold on to my Spirituality and Health magazine. I let it dry off, and I am so glad that I did. This weekend, I got to read (albeit on extremely wavy, wrinkly pages) an article by Kevin Anderson, who is a regular contributor to the magazine. And it turns out that this particular article is just what I needed to read, right at this very time in my life. Isn’t that how the Universe works?

Kevin Anderson explains the visual, which I rudimentarily created above. When you are in the middle of a sh*tstorm in your life (for lack of a better term), and everything seems chaotic and overwhelming, it is best to stay in the “I” of the storm. If the above visual represents one of life’s hurricanes which we all go through from time to time, we must be like birds. We must learn to stop fighting against the storm and to stay in the “I” of it, in order to be safe and to be centered. Kevin describes each version of the letter I/i’s this way:

i/i = “The small-i version of us is quite expert at generating fearful, stressed-out, depressing thoughts. The small-i self becomes part of the swirling storm in which we are caught when life feels like too much.”

I = “The large-I version of us is the eye of the storm. That self is capable of observing the storm swirling all about us both in the outer events of life and in our small self’s stressed-out approach to them. The large Self is the only version of us that knows how to return over and over to “I accept that this is here now.” But the large-I does not stop with noticing our judgments that life should be other than it is. It has the wisdom to act on whatever needs to be acted on from a centered, non-reactive place.”

Kevin then goes on to talk about birds who are migrating in the winter and inadvertently get caught up in big storms. Birds are wise and intuitive enough to stay in the eye of a hurricane, versus trying to desperately fly against it, or out of it. Even if the hurricane takes the birds a little off track from where they were originally planning to go, the birds know that they will eventually, safely reach landfall. He suggests that when our fear thoughts are swirling like a storm, we need to think of these thoughts as “a bell calling us to a brief meditation practice. When we notice fearful thoughts, we can breathe as if we have a direct connection to the highest virtues available.”

Just the reminder that the “I” part of us is always with us, and always available to us, in the steady, deepest center of each and every one of us, is such a comfort. The “I” part is the only part of us which is eternal, peaceful, non-judgmental, wise, and clear. The small-i versions of us are ego-based, and they are constantly changing with the winds of our outside circumstances, and the different people and the unique situations in our lives. The small-i versions of us are not eternal. They change with the winds. The bottom line of the article is the reminder to always stay with the “I” when you are feeling off track. Notice your small-i “freak outs” and gently move back to the “I” as often as needed. “I” will never steer you wrong.

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

Saturday Musings

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

When we dropped off my middle son at medical school earlier this year, there was a beautiful fountain on the medical campus, with this inscription engraved around the circumference:

“So many of our dreams at first seem impossible, then they seem improbable, and then, when we summon the will, they soon become inevitable.”

It felt so fitting to see that lovely quote, as we were watching our son embarking on his dream of going to medical school which he had worked so hard towards, for so many years. It turns out that the quote is by Christopher Reeve, the incredibly inspiring actor and activist, whose birthday would have been today. Christopher Reeve also said this:

“Once you choose hope, anything’s possible.” Always choose hope. When you look back at your life, you see so many things which have worked themselves out, in the most amazing, unexpected ways than you could have ever imagined, right? Hop on the hope train, and never get off. Always keep hope in your back pocket, as you journey through your life adventures. Hope’s compass always points north.

On a less serious note, I passed a store window the other day, and I saw this:

As my long time readers know, back in 2020, during quarantine, I temporarily lost my mind (didn’t we all?) and I decided that our family needed to get on the pandemic puppy bandwagon. My husband was not on board, mostly because we already have two other young, large, energy-filled dogs, Ralphie, the Labrador (the one who is currently on a diet, firmly against his will) and Josie, the elegant, yet noisy collie. Still, in the end, we “compromised” and we got Trip:

Now, honestly, I can’t pretend that having a three dog family is necessarily an ideal situation. I fully admit that there is often quite a bit of chaos, involved with living with three energetic, young dogs. That being said, all of us, in our family, have fallen quite hard for our crazy little Trippy. Interestingly, Trip has chosen my husband as “his person” and although he won’t ever admit it, I think that my husband is just a little bit smitten with our little brown dog.

“Dogs are like potato chips. You can’t have just one.”

“The reason a dog has so many friends is that he wags his tail instead of his tongue.”

“When an 85 pound mammal licks your tears away, and then tries to sit on your lap, it’s hard to feel sad.” — Kristan Higgins

“This home is filled with love and dog hair.”

Scarce Asset Friday

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Hi friends! Welcome to the best day of the week. Fridays are awesome!! Fridays are hopeful, full of anticipation and relaxation. On Fridays, I typically list three favorite things, or songs, or websites, or books that have captured my attention. This has been a rough week for me. My singular focus, all week, has been on my son’s health and well-being. (he has epilepsy) So, I’m just catching my breath on this lovely Friday. I don’t have my typical list of three favorite things. What I do have, is some incredible quotes from a recent article in Adweek, from an interview with Jennifer Lopez. Jennifer Lopez is almost other-worldly in her beauty, and in her abilities, and in her talents and ambitions, but her quotes, from this interview are such good reminders for all of us to remember that we are all “scarce assets“, which Jennifer describes this way:

“For me, what I realize is … no, there’s only one me. There’s only one that person. There’s only one that person. There’s only one that person. And what they each have to offer is uniquely different than everybody else.“

“I have a small circle and I like it that way. I’m not the person who gets a hundred texts a day or whose phone rings constantly. That’s not who I am. I have a very small group of very close people I trust and that I love who I know have my best interests at heart and who understand me as a public person but also as a private person.“

“I don’t think you start thinking about a personal brand. You become it because of what you create, what you do, how you live and who you are. Ultimately, I think it’s about what you reflect and what people see because in the end, you represent something. I’ve been incredibly fortunate in my life, and I live out loud through my artistry and my creativity and try to stay as authentic to myself as I can. I’m real. That was important to me—to stay connected to my roots and not ever change or make what people said or thought about me influence who I really was inside. It’s about being limitless and never allowing anybody to put me—and limit me—within a box.“

Remember that you are a precious, scarce asset in this world. Treat yourself as such. Have a great weekend.

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

Favorite Things Friday

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Good morning, friends and readers. Welcome to the best day of the week!! My regular readers know that I typically keep it light and fun on Fridays. On Fridays, I list three favorite things, or songs, or websites or books, or life hacks that make my life more interesting and engaging. You, my readers, really like Fridays, at the blog. Interestingly, usually the most popular days on the blog are on Fridays, and on Sundays (the day that I devote to poetry. You never knew that one of your favorite things is poetry, did you? I caught you. ;)) So this tells me that you, my readers, are my favorite kind of people, a delicious mix of fun and frivolous, yet deep and soulful. It’s good to be well-rounded. Bravo!

As many of you know, we suffered another setback with my son’s epilepsy, this week. His new medications aren’t working out, which is deeply disappointing because the side effects of these medications were much more tolerable, than his last medications. We coaxed our baby to come home for the weekend, so I had the best sleep of my week last night, knowing that he was home safe with me, in my safely feathered nest. (I love sleep. It’s definitely one of my favorites.) My youngest son (the son with epilepsy) is obviously one of my favorite people in the world, and it is not just because he is my son. It is also because my son is funny, and smart, and ethical – almost to a fault; he is insightfully (and sometimes brutally) truthful – like no other person I have ever met, and so, so resilient. I admire him greatly. I love him beyond reason.

I’m drained, friends. These setbacks with epilepsy are hard on our family. These disappointments bring all of our fears and uncertainties, back up to the surface. People who live with serious disorders, know better than anyone, just how fragile life is, and how quickly it can be taken. After experiencing a major health setback, and once you calm down from the anxiety, and you let your shoulders drop, you can sometimes find the gift that comes from these painful realities of living with a disease, or a disability that can take your life, at any moment. It brings clarity and beauty and gratefulness for every simple moment of living a life. I can’t tell you how much my heart sang last night, to listen to my husband and my son yell, in unison, at the football game last night, as they have done so many times in the past. I savored that sound like it came from Heaven above. Because it did. Heaven is all around us, if we open up our eyes and connect our watchful eyes to our hearts.

I’m sorry to get so deep on a Friday. You readers don’t like that, I know. You might be thinking, “Lighten up, lady!”, but it’s my blog, and I’ll cry if I want to . . . .

Please always remember that when you are considering your favorite things in life, it’s never really “the thing”. It’s always the feeling that you get from “the thing.” If you think of one of your favorite things, or people, or places right now, you will get those wonderful feelings that those things give to you, seeping into your consciousness right away. Try it. Do it often. Your favorites are really your favorite feelings, and you are capable of dosing yourself with your favorite feelings regularly. They are just a thought away. Stay aware. That’s the only way to live.

Happy weekend, my favorite readers of my favorite blog! See you tomorrow.

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

Every Day

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Thank you to everyone whose work makes a meaningful difference in my own life, every single day. Thank you to the people working at the electric company, and the water plant, and the cell phone towers. Thank you for the police, and the paramedics, and the fire department. I slept well last night, knowing that you are always at your jobs. Thank you teachers who have taught my children so well. Thank you farmers for providing our sustenance and thank you wonderful chefs for making the food even more delicious. (especially the cook at my son’s fraternity house. I know what it takes to feed three sons, I can’t imagine making meals for 300 young men every day.) Thank you medical professionals. You are working on fumes, these days, we know. Thank you airline professionals. The anticipation of my trips and adventures is one of the best feelings in life, ever. Thank you to all of the constructions workers who have helped to make our house what we want it to be. Thank you to the people who reliably take our garbage and recyclables away, every week. You are saints! Thank you to every repair person who has fixed our cars or our appliances, much to our relief. Thank you to my husband and other bankers who help to gather the funds where they are needed, in order to make people’s dreams able to be realized. Thank you entertainers and musicians for being the source of a hearty laugh or a deep cry, whenever we need it. Thank you maintenance crews for making our roads so driveable, even in the craziest of weather. Thank you manufacturers. I love my stuff! And I’m always looking for more stuff to delight in. Thank you, technology professionals and engineers and scientists. I can’t even pretend to understand how you do what you do, but I do know that what you do, has brought us to a whole new world, in the span of just a couple of decades. Thank you retail workers, who always make everything sitting right on the shelf where I need it, look so easy. Thank you Amazon delivery people. Sometimes I wonder if we have one of you assigned just to our house. You are a dream come true! Thank you fellow writers. Reading is one of my greatest passions in life, and you have given to me so much wonderful material! Thank you to everyone that didn’t come to mind in the first ten minutes of me scrambling to get this blog post out. I appreciate you. Know this. It’s amazing to me, in just one day of my life, how much other people’s work goes into making my every single day, what it is to me. Nobody does anything alone. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

“No man is an island, entire of itself. . . . ” – John Donne

Quotes about All in this together (99 quotes)

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

Sun-Baked Dog Fur

The other day, when I took my dogs out, the two older ones sat down decidedly in the grass, their noses twitching to the scents in the wind. They were making it clear to me that they weren’t going anywhere else, anytime soon. My dogs instinctively knew that they needed a restful sunbath. So they took it. And I followed suit. And it felt wonderful to sit out in the pleasant sunshine, on the soft grass, smelling the earthiness all around us. I buried my nose in the soft, luxurious fur of my collie, Josie. There may be no better scent nor feel in the world, than sun-baked dog fur. This is a type of the easy, simple therapeutic experiences that can make all of the difference in a day, but we often forget to take the time to do them, nor at the very least, to notice that we are doing them. In this way, animals are often wiser than we are, because they are so attuned to their senses, and allowing themselves to bask in their senses.

What are the little things that perk you up? What are the little things that make you excited to anticipate doing them? Really taste and savor your coffee, or the various flavors of your lunch. Really bask in the warm water of your shower. Be really deliberate about what scent of perfume that you want to apply today, and make a point to sniff your own wrist often and delight in the scent mixing and changing with your own skin’s essence. Follow your intuition. Take the time to savor the sensualities of the day.

“Sensuality is the total mobilization of the senses” – Milan Kundera

“To be sensual, I think, is to respect and rejoice in the force of life, of life itself, and to be present in all that one does, from the effort of loving to the breaking of bread.” – James Baldwin

12 Inspirational Sexy Woman Quotes For Strong, Confident Women | Michele Brookhaus | YourTango

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