Tag: love

Relationships

I’m sorry that I have been delayed with my post this morning. I’ve been constantly interrupted by my own distractions. Ironically, I was incredibly excited to have a totally unscheduled day. Perhaps there is wisdom to having a regular schedule.

I printed this out the other day. I also texted it to my husband. It’s an excellent reminder. We have always declared that it was vitally important to both of us to have genuine, authentic relationships with our adult children. I do not care to have any relationships, with anyone, based on fear, obligation or guilt, for the rest of my life. I’ve noticed that the relationships that we take the most for granted are often the ones with whom we are closest to in life. Some parents seem to have this sense of entitlement of “owning” their children, even after their children have long embarked on becoming adults. Some parents seem to think that they are “owed” a relationship with their children, just because they are their parents. But our children didn’t ask to be born. Once we are all adults, relationships are mutual. Would you choose to be close friends with anyone who was described as above? Would you choose to spend a lot of time with someone described as above? Would you want your children to spend a lot of time with the type of person described above? We are always modelling living to our children, even when we are all adults. What are you modelling to them with the relationships that you accept and expect in your own life? If your adult children have the traits described above, you have the right to limit your interactions with them, as well. Adults have the right to choose what kind of relationships, and how much of a relationship that they would like to have with anyone. When you are in mutually loving and respectful relationships, what you choose to do for, and what you choose to do with each other, is done out of choice, and because of honest love and connection. If you are still financially supporting your adult children, ask yourself why? Are you truly giving unconditional gifts, or are you trying to leverage that support with manipulation and control? Healthy relationships with anyone do not require manipulation and control. In fact, utilizing control and manipulation is the sign of unhealthy relationships. This poem by Kahlil Gibran has always been one of my absolute favorites. It speaks ultimate truth:

And a woman who held a babe against her bosom said, Speak to us of Children.
     And he said:
     Your children are not your children.
     They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.
     They come through you but not from you,
     And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

     You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
     For they have their own thoughts.
     You may house their bodies but not their souls,
     For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
     You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.
     For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.
     You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.
     The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far.
     Let your bending in the archer’s hand be for gladness;
     For even as He loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that is stable.

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

Here is the question of the day from 3000 Questions About Me:

995. What are you hypocritical about?

Tuesday Tidbits in Still January

+ “When you wake up tomorrow, it’ll still be January.” @ProfAlang, X

“genuine question, how is it still january?” @eosinlove, X

“We are 6 months into 2024 and it’s still January.” @hashjenni, X

“why is it still January. i’ve lived several lives this month” @milkygoddess, X

“Why is it still January? Let’s pack it up babe” @witti_indi, X

I’ve been noticing the remarks about this seemingly long January, particularly in the last few days. Honestly, January has been a good, satisfying month for me, but even still, it does feel sort of never-ending. Don’t the holidays seem like forever and a day ago??

+ “If the first thing you do each morning is to eat a live frog, you can go through the day with the satisfaction of knowing that that is probably the worst thing that is going to happen to you all day long.” – Mark Twain

This has been shortened into the statement: “Eat a frog.” The point is, get the tasks which you have been dreading, done and over with, and then you can enjoy the rest of your day and even your week, with ease. Hopefully, reading my blog is not your “eat a frog” moment. My blog is conceivably more of a delicious little Dove heart – just a tiny, harmless, happy break in your day. A spoonful of sugar, makes the frog go down.

+ “You are, in a general, low-key, ambient way, concerned about the whereabouts of your people at all times. You rather enjoy having a corner of your mind occupied in this way because it reminds you that you love and are loved.” – Holiday Mathis

This was one of my horoscopes this morning. It brought a smile to my face. It was one of those “I never thought of it that way” moments for me. I would say this is a true statement for me every day of my life. Maybe we worry about our people for the pure little prickling reminder to ourselves, that we love, and we are loved. We like to keep tabs on our love. I’m happy to dedicate at least a corner of my mind to my great loves. I just have to remember to show my love in the form of confidence, and not in worry.

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

Here is the question of the day from 3000 Questions About Me:

910. What is your favorite outfit?

All Around Friday

Good morning!! Happy Friday!!! Happy Best Day of the Week!!! I saw this posted on X and I decided that our dogs, Ralph, Josie and Trip will definitely want to send a snail mail Valentine card to these adorable children. I know that I have some fellow “snail mail” lovers who read the blog. Will you join me? Don’t our precious children need to know that “Love Makes the World Go Round“?

I got pretty deep on the blog this week, but on Fridays, I don’t go deep. On Fridays, I go fun. Maybe life is really just one big giant amusement park, right? There is so much good stuff out there to experience, enjoy, utilize . . . .So today’s “favorite thing” on Favorite Things Friday are these hilarious, over-the-top, “I really shouldn’t be laughing at this, but these are so damn funny, I’m almost peeing my pants” cocktail napkins. I stood in front of the DRINKS ON ME display in a local gift boutique, making a fool of myself cry-laughing at their snarky, colorful napkins, coasters and cards. If you want to start your weekend off with some belly laughs, go to their website, stat!

https://drinksonme.com/

Here is one of their tamer coasters:

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

Here is the question of the day from 3000 Questions About Me:

1523. Describe your “poker face.”

I Do

We just arrived home from the wedding which we had attended last night. I’m tired, but happily so. There are few experiences in this world that are more beautiful, hopeful, earnest, and comforting than weddings. How lovely it is to see two people commit to be there for each other, in full support of each other throughout their shared journeys throughout their lifetimes. Many wedding traditions have changed throughout the ages, and it is true that not all marriages last, but during the celebration of the uniting of two people, the whole space around them is elevated. We attendees to the wedding are all delighted to witness a couple of our fellow human beings bare their souls to each other, and also to say to all of us who care about them and to Creation, “I’m going to take care of this human. I’m going to be there for this human through it all. This human is very special to me.” And we all feel happy that there is another twosome in this world that have committed to having each other’s backs in the most intimate, devoted, exhaustive way that it is not possible to do for everyone who we each know and care about. Marriage elevates us. It elevates our world. And you see a microcosm of this in any wedding event. You look over the sea of beaming faces and you see the elderly, and the youth, and everyone in between, and you realize that marriage is a huge part of what has made our humanity what it is today. Our biggest celebrations and traditions in life are always about love. Weddings encapsulate the act of love, not just the feeling of love, but the act of committing to actually being love in one of its most gracious forms, as a caring, dedicated, devoted spouse of another being. Weddings are wonderful.

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

Here is the question of the day from 3000 Questions About Me:

1863. What song would you say best sums you up?

Being It

The son of one of my best friends from college is getting married tomorrow. He is the first of our group of friends’ babies to get married. It feels surreal. As you age, you get little markers along the way, reminding you that you are aging. (a lot of these markers have landed on my face in the form of wrinkles and bags) But every once in awhile, as you are moving along your life, you get big flashing lights that are determined to get your attention. They seem to scream: “You, my friend, are definitely in a different era of your life!”

I remember clearly going to this young man’s parents’ wedding. We all went to college together. There were a slew of weddings back then. And then, after a while, there weren’t many weddings to attend at all. Everything evolved to baby showers. And then there was a long period of supporting each other as we raised our families, sharing our joys and our griefs along the way. And not too many years ago, the graduation notices of the children of my friends starting coming into the mailbox more and more frequently. The Christmas cards we receive every year seem to have more wedding pictures on them, and now the darling babies featured on the front on the cards are often the adored grandbabies of our friends.

It is not lost on me that the major milestones that mark the turning of the seasons of our lives, are the milestones that show where all of our loving energy has been invested. The milestones in our lives show the growth of our relationships and of our endeavors, and the branches of where our lives have grown and spread. I’m not sad that I am crossing into this new era of my life. I am perhaps a little (naively) surprised, but I am not sad. I delight in everything that I have experienced and grown wiser about in my life. I am grateful for my life. I am grateful to share this journey with others who help me to reflect on, and help me to realize all that life really is, which is to say, can mostly be whittled down to one pure thing – experiencing, living, and being Love.

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

Here is the question of the day from 3000 Questions About Me:

2101. Can you do any fake accents? If so, which one? (This reminds me of a “No Horse Pucky” story. Let me start by saying that my husband and I have power of attorney for each other, and I handle all of our monthly bills. One month, there was a problem on one of my husband’s credit card statements that I was trying to get rectified. The customer service people told me that my husband would have to call about it, but my husband was out of the country on business. So, I thought to myself, “I’ll just lower my voice and pretend to be my husband.” Simple. Problem solved. I practiced a few times and I called back. I did my spiel in my “man voice.” The patient customer service person listened and then said to me, “Ma’am, we really are going to need to speak to your husband.” So fake man accent, is clearly not one of my talents.)

Pages from a Thought-alog

I have many notebooks full of thoughts that I have jotted down from signs I’ve seen, things that I have read, or insights that have come to me. In these notebooks I have pasted poems and artwork that inspire me, special cards that I have received, and feathers that I have found. I decided to flip through my current “Thought-alog” and share some of the goodies that I have in there, here on the blog today:

+ “Cycles end when you refuse to participate in them.” – SayItValencia, X When you raise a family, and then grow into becoming the elders of a large and growing brood, i.e. the matriarch and/or the patriarch of any family, and you are truly intentional about these roles that you have taken on, you inevitably become a cycle breaker. There are many things that you experience with your family of origin that you like and that you appreciate, and so you choose to deliberately continue these ways and traditions with your own family, but there are also things that you wish to stop. You want certain patterns of behavior and toxicity to end with you. You see how long certain cycles have continued on and on within your family line, and you decide that you will be where this negativity stops. You become a cycle breaker. This is not easy. People are resistant to change. You have to be continually aware and intentional to stop cycles from perpetuating. Generational cycles are highly ingrained. Sometimes as a cycle breaker, you even go a little too far in the opposite direction, and so your descendants may work to swing the pendulum a little bit closer to center. Regardless, I read somewhere that if you are an effective cycle breaker in a family or in an organization, you have likely changed the direction and the toxic patterns in this entity for at least seven generations to come. Being a cycle breaker is a worthy purpose and endeavor, in my book.

+ Major personal decisions should not be made by asking, “Will this make me happy?” but, “Will this choice enlarge me or diminish me?” – James Hollis

Eating cookies for breakfast will make me happy in the short term, and this practice will certainly enlarge my physical presence, but overall, this choice only diminishes me. Of course, I am not sure that choosing to eat a cookie is a major personal decision, but unfortunately, these little decisions add up, too. Sigh.

+ “If you ignore it and it doesn’t go away, it’s reality.” – I’m sorry but I don’t know who to credit for this one, but I do think that it is an excellent litmus test. We tend to grow stories in our head that veer far from reality. That little bump on your skin becomes malignant cancer as fast as you can say, “Web MD.” Still, there are things that we know deep down that we have to address. They are the things that don’t go away and they keep pinging you and pinging you harder and harder to address them. I always tell my kids to always take heed of the first lesson that the Universe hands to you because if you ignore that lesson, you will most definitely get bigger, and more dramatic lessons headed your way. Face reality when it is manageable to do something about it.

+ “Our true nature is peace and joy if only we don’t disturb it.” – Swami Satchidananda Remember, the true and real and timeless essence of you, and of me, and of your dog, and of every other living being in this world, is that peaceful, calm, tranquil, unbiased observer and experiencer, in all of us. The observer of your thoughts and your feelings is the real you. The creator of your thoughts is just your ego and your ego has quite the imagination. Your ego likes to stir things up. Whenever you need peace, just take three deep breaths and sit back in the rocking chair of your true self – the unbiased, unfearful experiencer and observer of what’s going on around you and within you. When you are in that space, you can laugh at the drama queen that your ego tends to be.

+ Fun, new words and terms from the Urban Dictionary and other sites like it:

delulu – delusional

solulu – solution

popular loner (also known as background friend) – someone who has a lot of friends, makes a lot of friends easily, but tends to stay on the peripheral

JOMO – Joy of Missing Out. It is a term to remind us to stay in the present moment, instead of constantly checking our phones and/or social media feeds.

+ My favorite quote from a recent, excellent WSJ interview with the actress Natalie Portman:

WSJ: What’s your most prized possession?

Natalie Portman: “I don’t have a prized possession. I have prized humans and prized dogs I love. I am into living beings.”

+ Tape these to your bathroom mirror (good reminders):

“Nature is not a place to visit. It is home.” – Gary Snyder

“You cannot have a happy ending to an unhappy journey.” – Esther Hicks

“All stories have the same finale.” – Daily Stoic

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

Here is the question of the day from 3000 Questions About Me:

2105. What do you compartmentalize in your life? (Hint: Compartmentalization is a form of psychological defense mechanism in which thoughts and feelings that seem to conflict are kept separated or isolated from each other in the mind. -Wiki)

Soul Sunday

Good morning. Welcome to poetry day on the blog. What I love about poetry is the mystery in it. Sometimes I write a poem, and it is still an enigma, even to me, as to what the poem really means. Writing a poem is like going into the deep tombs of yourself, and discovering unusual, foreign writing on the wall, and quickly and excitedly transcribing this strange writing, without fully understanding the meaning behind it. Reading a poem offers this same mercurial experience. Undoubtedly, there is a different meaning and truth that comes from any poem, from every reader of it. Everyone’s own experiences and emotions are what brings the context to the meaning in any collection of words. Here is my poem for the day:

The Universe has a way of getting really bored of my stubborn streak,

While I hem and haw and analyze, and strategize, and collect my allies,

The Universe says, Enough already!

And tends to make the changes that I couldn’t make for myself,

in one fell swoop. And then we Both sigh in utter relief.

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

Here is the question of the day from 3000 Questions About Me:

2361. Complete this thought: All roads lead to . . . ?

Lingua Cordis

I saw this the other day and I realized that I need to pray this prayer more often. Sometimes it is so easy and clear to understand what we are want to ask God to support us in. We come to prayer or meditation with a list similar to what a kid brings to Santa Claus, even if the list includes lofty, selfless things like for someone else’s healing, or for peace in wartorn countries. But other times, our heart is panging us. Situations in our lives keep playing over and over in our heads, like a broken record, but we can’t even define what the real problem is in these situations. We want the itching to stop, but we don’t know where to scratch. I often pray for clarity in my life. And when I do this, I want real clear clarity. I want the window to my soul to be so extremely clear that I could accidentally walk through it and not even realize there’s a window there. I want the kind of clarity that knocks you so hard on your head, that when you wake up, you feel absolutely stupid for not realizing “the truth of it all” from the get-go. I want God to hear my heart and then translate its message in perfectly simple straightforward English with the exact next steps to take. And God usually laughs at these demands and tells me that I need to stop relying on translators. “Quiet down and learn the language of your own heart. All of the answers you have ever needed I gave to you there, but only you can understand your own heart’s language.”

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

Here is the question of the day from 3000 Questions About Me:

878. What is one thing you won’t admit to yourself?

Your Masterpiece

I got back to art class yesterday, after a few weeks off for Christmas break. It was great to be back. I painted the little guy above as sort of a “warm up”. I thought that I would share him with you. He makes me smile.

The best part of getting older is coming to the proven realization that the end product of anything truly doesn’t matter. The real joy always comes in the doing, in the process, in the flow. Yes, a successfully grown family, business, career, marriage, homestead, project, craft etc. can give you a sense of satisfaction and pride and maybe even some accolades, but those feelings are such a small blip of feelings versus the myriad of feelings and experiences that go into the process of forming and building and creating and experiencing all of the works of your life. There’s peace in this realization. Your life is your main product. And it doesn’t end, until you end. And none of us really know what “when you end” means, if we are honest with ourselves. We all have beliefs and hopes, but none of us truly know the mysteries of what happens to us after we die. So, in the meantime, we are living our ongoing creative product – our lives. And this product is a collaboration with the entire world around us. Our main creative product, our individual life, has the support of the whole entire world which only benefits when our creative product brings more individuality and beauty and imagination and our own uniqueness that is unrepeatable, to the whole of it.

I’m a middle-age, empty nester who is attending art class for the fun of it. I’m not graded. My output doesn’t matter. It’s even okay if I don’t particularly enjoy my art class on any given day. If I spill some paint, so what? If I never frame my art, who cares? The joy is in the doing. The joy is in the exploring. The joy is in the accepting. The joy is in the gratefulness for the experience – every bit of it.

Your life is your only creative product. Everything else that you do is part of that product. Be joyful in “doing” your life. Explore. Accept the messiness and the so-called flaws of it all. Mostly, be grateful for having the experience of being able to create your one and only masterpiece, and also be utterly grateful for all of the wonderful beings who are co-creating with you. If our world isn’t a creative masterpiece of miracles, than what is?

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

Here is the question of the day from 3000 Questions About Me:

583. Do you prefer blue or black inked pens?