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Are we encouragers or discouragers? If we encourage will we be encouraged, if we discourage will we be discouraged? Do we get what we give?

If we encourage will we be encouraged, if we discourage will we be discouraged? Do we get what we give? Are we encouragers or discouragers?

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

Be an encourager the world has enough critics already. Unknown

Six o’clock is very dark these mornings. My husband cautions me about going out for a morning walk. Can I write earlier and walk later? Or will I take the extra time and write longer?

Do we hold people back when we voice our concerns? We may caution them not just about going for walks in the dark, but about decisions they make we second guess. You know it’s really an expensive city you want to move to. The crime rate is high. What if you can’t get a job because you are too young, old, inexperienced, too experiences, too uneducated, too educated, too naive, or trusting?

The worry is not unwarranted, but it also holds people back. People don’t have to move far away to be taken advantage of. It takes a certain degree of boldness to build a life we want. The intersection where boldness and fantasy meet may be where magic or disaster happens. If we are worriers we will see disaster looming, if we are visionaries we may see the potential.

We don’t know where fortune will lead us when we take off with our bundle on our back forward on our hero’s journey. It is our journey and we are full of hope, optimism and ready for adventure. When it is someone else’s journey we may see the dangers, obstacles, and pitfalls ahead of them as they move toward what they want to do, and where they want to go. We may offer what we think is good advice.

Do you really want to give up your good job to take a chance on… We don’t mean to dash their dreams, but what if… We know they have to risk failure to risk success but what if they fail? We aren’t trying to hold them back just give them a reality check.

In The Motivation Manifesto, Brendon Burchard tells us there are three types of people who instill fear in us, the worriers, the weaklings, and the wicked. Could we ever be accused of being one of these to other people? Whose dreams have we unknowingly trampled on? Who have we made second-guess becoming whatever it is they see themselves becoming?

Today will never come again. Be a blessing. Be a friend. Encourage someone. Take time to care. Let your words heal and not wound. Unknown

What if we became a cheerleader to something unlikely to work out? Their plan is not thought out enough, they don’t have the kind of talent likely to succeed? What is the correct response? Perhaps if we encourage them to define what they want to do and how they will achieve their goal we will help them clarify their path. Perhaps we can encourage them to prioritize their actions. Maybe we can help them work out alternatives in case there are obstacles they cannot see or the path to success is longer than they anticipate. We can celebrate their achievements.

If we can encourage people’s dreams, ambitions, goals, and desires we can be a help and not a hindrance as they strive to do better, be better, and achieve more. When we help other people reach success are we being helped on our path toward success too?

No one becomes a success at anything without helping people in some way. The more people we help the more successful we become. If we can help others determine what their gift to the world is, what the purpose of their life is we can be a great help to them. We may have no clue what their gift is, we can still encourage them on their journey in some small way. We can all be mentors and coaches to someone.

We may find sometimes we are the worrier, we are afraid the path they’ve chosen is too hard and fraught with difficulty. We may be the weakling thinking we couldn’t do it, so they probably can’t too. We may even fall into the category of the wicked.  We are only telling it like it is. Sometimes it is being told they can’t do something that propels people forward. Proving someone wrong has more power than listening to the cheerleaders.

We won’t be perfect working toward our own dreams or encouraging others towards theirs. Accepting our imperfections as people, parents, siblings, sons, daughters, friends, acquaintances and co-workers are part of our journey. We can only do the best we can and know when we look back we may wish we’d said something, or done something different.

Are we encouragers, or discouragers most of the time?

A word of encouragement during failure is worth more than an hour of praise after success. Unknown

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The Motivation Manifesto: 9 Declarations to Claim Your Personal Power by [Burchard, Brendon]
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Are we the South or North Pole to our partner’s South or North Pole? Do we embrace the differences between masculine and feminine? Like complementary colors, we need the contrast to bring out the vibrancy.

Do we embrace the differences between masculine and feminine? Like complementary colors we need the contrast to bring out the vibrancy. Are we the South or North Pole to our partner's South or North Pole?

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

Do what you did in the beginning of a relationship and there won’t be an end. Unknown

Yesterday I went to one of my favorite haunts to look at used books. Five books for the price of four and I always seem to be able to find five books that speak to me. Yesterday was no different. Sometimes I’ve even left a book behind that I went back for, sometimes it’s still there, but often it’s gone.

Love is a many splendored thing, and those lucky enough to have love in our lives know how empty it would be without love. Some of us are better with the realities of love than others. We wanted a boyfriend or girlfriend that became our spouse but didn’t want all that came with it. Sparks were flying because we were like the South Pole meeting the North Pole. Their masculinity met our femininity and we couldn’t get enough.

Over the years if we want the sparks to still fly we need to keep our poles polarized. We all have feminine and masculine parts of ourselves, but we need to make sure we don’t become too much the same and become more friends, and buddies instead of husbands and wives where the polarity of masculine and feminine is still strong. This is the nature of attraction even in same-sex relationships.

It seems to me some people want someone else to change for them to be happy. The only people we can change are ourselves. We change things about ourselves for better or worse and then there is a reaction in our relationships. If we want to bring out the masculine in our man maybe we need to bring out the feminine in ourselves. We can be the best man or woman we can be, that is what we can do. We cannot through cajoling, criticizing, or manipulation turn people into who we want them to be.

A great relationship doesn’t happen because of the love you had in the beginning, but how well you continue building love until the end. Unknown

If we are trying to change our partner we are trying to change the wrong person. Al-Anon a self-help group helping spouses of alcoholics tells the partner of alcoholics to quit trying to control others and focus on their own attitudes and behavior. The other person is always the problem in our eyes until one day if we are lucky we realize we are the person who can change things for our self. We have the power and although we may not like the truths we have to face. Once we face the hard truths, and accept that change is ours to make we can take charge of our life. Our attitude is everything.

What we resist persists and grows stronger. When we accept the person we are trying to change warts and all, and love them how they are even if that person is our self we can begin to effect change.

Life can only be how it is this very moment. It cannot be different. We cannot be different and they, whoever they are cannot be different.

Anything we allow to be exactly how it is, completes itself. When we don’t struggle against the reality of life and accept it for what it is it will complete itself. If our heart is broken we need to accept that. Resistance is futile, but acceptance is powerful. It is what it is, and that’s okay and once we deal with what is we can go forward.

Women need to focus more on our feminine energy and men need to focus more on their masculine energy to be the best we can be. We need to find the balance in our lives but balance isn’t more masculine women and more feminine men. Being feminine women and masculine men does not impact social, economic, and political equality. It will help us to give our greatest gifts, at work, in our relationships, and spiritually.

Are we embracing our masculinity or femininity in positive ways? Are we the South or North Pole to our partners South or North Pole?

To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in the casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable. To love is to be vulnerable. C.S. Lewis

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A Lifelong Love: How to Have Lasting Intimacy, Friendship, and Purpose in Your Marriage by [Thomas, Gary]
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Listening to understand. Seeking to understand more than to be understood. Sometimes the greatest gift we can give is to listen.

Seeking to understand more than to be understood. Sometimes the greatest gift we can give is to listen. Listening to understand.

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

The most basic of all human needs is the need to understand and be understood. The best way to understand people is to listen to them. Ralph Nichols

“No one listens to me but you,” I heard my son say to Krypto our Scottish Terrier when my son was about twelve. My Mom said when she was a young married woman living in the city she wished she could just find an old cow to wrap her arms around and talk to. I’ve many times wished I could wrap my arms around a horse.

We may be putting human characteristics on animals but it seems they listen and understand, if not what we are saying then our tone. They twitch their ears, offer comfort and we are not alone with our feelings.

Listening is the cornerstone of a good relationship. We need to feel heard to feel understood. When we don’t have the time, patience, skills or interest to listen to people they can become lonely and depressed. During a time of depression, feeling listened to can seem as critical as breathing air.

Sometimes it takes one person in someone’s life to listen to them that helps them move on. We hear about students who found that teacher. It is one of the things we get from being part of religious organizations, someone to listen to us and help us sort out our feelings and our life. Therapists are paid a lot of money, and part of it is to listen.

I had a conversation with my husband the other day. He doesn’t see the reason for long conversations with strangers. My response is you usually don’t have short conversations when they are short that’s just chit chat. Real conversations that impact people take a little longer.

If we have lots of people in our life we may not need conversation so much. We get it from everyone. Some people are not so lucky, their circle is small. People don’t always have someone to talk to. Sometimes the most important things are said to strangers because we may not feel we can talk to our family. We feel we would be judged, ridiculed, ostracized. This is why many hairdressers need to be good listeners. Like they say “only our hairdresser knows.”

Listening is not “Yes, but.” Listening is not, “this is what you should do.” Listening is not getting defensive, I need to work on this. Listening is not giving advice or telling someone they shouldn’t be thinking or feeling what they are thinking or feeling. Sometimes we only work out our thoughts in conversation. Our thoughts are all jumbled up in our mind waiting to be released through conversation. Journalling helps release those thoughts, but even those of us who journal still need a listening ear and connection.

We often misinterpret each other’s messages while under the illusion that a common understanding has been achieved. Larry Barker

Sometimes people feel they can only talk about safe subjects, but it isn’t the safe subjects they need to talk about. I’m reading a book called “The Dance of the Dissident Daughter by Sue Monk Kidd. It is her journey of finding herself as a Christian woman, wife, mother, writer and her conflicts with how women are portrayed in the bible and in the Church. The second created and the first to sin. The woman is man’s glory and her glory is her hair. Let women learn in silence and be submissive. I permit no woman to teach or have authority over a man.

I remember reading those things and how they impacted me as a girl on the cusp of womanhood. When you stumble across these things, who do you talk to about them? How do we process our place in the world? When I expressed it to one of my Aunt’s and I don’t know how I phrased it. She replied, “There are gifts, or joys or something in being a woman.” It was probably the best answer because it was true, and she didn’t make me feel stupid for not liking what I was hearing. I felt understood, acknowledged and like I didn’t need to like what I was hearing, and that it was okay to think and question.

It seems like a small thing, to acknowledge what someone is feeling and not diminish it. She could have said I didn’t have a right to not like what I was hearing or to question the bible, and it would have affected me in a completely different way.

When someone listens to us, really listens we feel accepted, understood, valued and validated. We don’t feel invisible or alone and it gives us a voice to help us find our self again.

It is very powerful to be a listener. It is a skill worth developing. I’m trying, it isn’t always easy especially with some of the people we need to listen to the most. That is when defensiveness rears its ugly head. We feel if we let them say what they are saying we are agreeing that what they are saying is true. A lot of the time we don’t agree with their side of the story, not completely.

We still need to hear them out, let them tell their side of the story completely and then when it is our turn to tell our side hopefully they will listen to us. When we try to talk over each other nothing is accomplished but more hurt feelings. The feelings get even more hurt because not only is there whatever happened, but by not feeling heard they feel they don’t count, they aren’t important, their point of view is not regarded.

We need to save our side of the story for another time. If we are telling our side of the story and they are telling their side of the story at the same time, no one is listening. No one feels listened to. There is no understanding, there is no healing. This is how a lot of problems don’t get solved and yet are talked about endlessly. But we protest, we do communicate, we do talk, it just isn’t working because the other person isn’t feeling listened to and then when it is our turn we don’t feel listened to either.

We can tell ourselves we listen endlessly, but our “yes buts,” and telling our side of the story doesn’t move the relationship along. It becomes an endless loop of conversations that goes nowhere, nothing changes, and neither party feels heard or understood.

We need to learn to listen. If we have rifts in our families listening is the likely antidote. Listening is the key to understand, and understanding is the key to healing. It isn’t always easy but it’s worth it.

Is there someone in our life we need to listen to and understand their side of the story? Can we seek first to understand before seeking to be understood?

The biggest mistake made by most human beings: listening to only half, understanding just a quarter, and telling double. Unknown

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The Lost Art of Listening, Second Edition: How Learning to Listen Can Improve Relationships Paperback – Feb 16 2009

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Overcoming our fears. Becoming humble and meek isn’t being weak doormats.

Becoming humble and meek isn't being weak doormats. Overcoming our fears.

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

Humility is not thinking less of yourself, but thinking of yourself less. C.S. Lewis

Last night Toastmasters was a treat. All the speakers but one backed out and he said he had little time to prepare but gave a good speech anyway. Instead of speakers, we did two extra rounds of table topics.

Many of us love and hate table topics. This is an impromptu speech for 1 – 2 minutes on a topic with no time to prepare and not a topic of our choosing. Sometimes the topics are easy and we can relate to them, some fit if we have specific knowledge or interests. Some leave us dumbfounded and rendered speechless.

We have a new member who bravely accepted the challenge and three guests who also did. Once we have that deer in the headlights feeling a few times we get used to it, sometimes something smart and thoughtful comes out, sometimes not. What we do is face our fear and get comfortable with being uncomfortable. This is preparation for life. We need to speak up in our lives, jobs, social and political situations.

When we face our fears in any situation it can change the way we face fears in other situations. For many of us, we have paid the price of fear. It is not cheap when we are afraid to take the chances and opportunities that life presents. It is only by facing our fears that we can embrace our life. We can choose freedom or we can choose to be constrained by fear.

It may take everything we have in us to face our fears, but if we do, we can change our life by taking the next step. The opposite of fearful and small isn’t becoming a tyrant who pushes their weight around.

Pride makes us artificial and humility makes us real. Thomas Merton

Perhaps dealing with our fear and becoming people who can deal with what life offers and choosing that which is good for us, and saying no to that which is bad for us, is becoming meek. The biblical understanding of meek is “power under control.” Isn’t that what we want? When we can harness our power and use it, direct it, focus it, control it, we become powerful people. Wild unharnessed power is dangerous, uncontrolled, and devastating.

Harnessed power is in engines, power tools, and great leaders. Jesus described himself as meek and lowly. Is true power refusal to inflate our own self-estimation, and reticence to assert ourselves for ourselves? Should our goal be to become humble “self-effacing,” and meek “power under control?”

Why are humble and meek made to seem like doormats and weak in our society? Many of us think arrogant, self-aggrandizing, and living a life for personal gain should be the goal. Maybe that is why people who attempt to live a life of hedonism feel empty.

Is facing our fears and living a life of passion and purpose what we should aim for in life? Where are we on the road to being meek and humble “self-effacing and with our power under control?”

Humility is not cowardice. Meekness is not weakness. Humility and meekness are indeed spiritual powers. Swami Sivananda

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David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants Paperback – Apr 7 2015

by Malcolm Gladwell (Author) 4.4 out of 5 stars 113 ratings

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Getting comfortable in our own skin. Does it matter if we are extroverts or introverts, shy or gregarious? Don’t we just need to learn to accept ourselves?

Does it matter if we are extroverts or introverts, shy or gregarious? Don't we just need to learn to accept ourselves? Getting comfortable in our own skin.

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

One thing you can do better than anyone else is, be yourself. Unknown

This morning I rolled over after turning off my alarm. I’ve missed my time for writing in my journal and reading. It’s raining so my dog Lulu didn’t get a walk. My hour was given up because I didn’t jump out of bed like I’m supposed to. Just five minutes became sixty.

Last night my daughter and I spent a fun evening with a Mary Kay consultant. I’ve known the Mary Kay consultant for years as the daughter of my Mother-In-Laws friends. She was encouraged to become a Mary Kay consultant by a friend who knew she was shy and it would help her deal with her shyness so she could go after the opportunities in life to use her talents. Mary Kay’s philosophy is to prioritize our lives with faith, family, and career in that order.

Back in the early 60’s when Mary Kay started the company she was hoping to give women opportunities to develop a business they could work at their own pace. She didn’t know the empire she started would grow to what it has. She started, she persevered and her company has outlived her.

Our consultant is a gifted singer. She auditioned for a spot in a prestigious choir and was accepted. Would she have done that without the confidence she’s gotten from Mary Kay? Who knows? Living a big life is taking chances, stepping out of comfort zones, using our talents and gifts.

The thing is we never know where getting out of our comfort zone will lead. We just have to do things, take the chance, risk failure and be uncomfortable until we become comfortable. We may only become comfortable being uncomfortable, but that is a big step.

Beauty is not flawless; it shines even through your flaws. Unknown

Introverts gain energy by spending time alone.

Extroverts gain energy by being around other people.

I’ve always thought of introverts as shy, but it seems we can be shy introverts or shy extroverts. There are also gregarious extroverts and gregarious introverts.

So introversion isn’t the same as shyness. We can’t change whether we are introverted or extroverted but we can work on shyness, getting comfortable speaking or performing publicly.

Introverts thrive in small groups.

Introverts like deep conversations. Introverts may be awkward at small talk but come alive when substantive topics come up.

Introverts need to have peace and quiet in their lives to set goals, recharge, process their thoughts, and tune into their feelings.

Introverts value their personal space.

Introverts like to talk about what they like to talk about. They are good listeners but it doesn’t mean they never want to get a chance to talk.

Introversion isn’t a mental health problem.

Whether we are introverts or extroverts, shy or gregarious we need to learn to accept ourselves and get out of our comfort zone enough to risk failure to risk success.

We can’t be different than who we are. Can we be the best we can be? Do we need to develop ourselves and use our gifts and talents? It may not be important whether we know we are an introvert or extrovert. We may find as we try to pigeon hole ourselves we don’t fit neatly into categories. We are individuals; we have quirks, strengths, weaknesses, challenges, gifts, and talents. If we can live our life with gratitude according to our values, priorities, and find passion and purpose isn’t that what’s important?

When you’re comfortable in your own skin, you’re beautiful. Confidence is the best makeup you could ever wear. Unknown

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Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking Paperback – Jan 29 2013

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Cultivating an attitude of gratitude. Does gratitude turn what we have into enough?

Does gratitude turn what we have into enough? Cultivating an attitude of gratitude.

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

Be thankful for what you have; you’ll end up having more. If you concentrate on what you don’t have, you will never, ever have enough. Oprah Winfrey

Today is my husband’s oldest nephews fortieth birthday and I met him when he was nine months old. We can say where did all that time go, but we know where it went. We were living our lives, and even though it doesn’t seem like it’s been that long between here and there, it has.

We lament about time, but we all have the same amount of it in a day. I was listening to a YouTube video the other day. The speaker said she always knew she would have a “big life.” Her parents were the last survivors of their families from the concentration camps of World War ll. She felt she owed it to them to have a “big life.”

A big life is the expression of a heart fully alive. A big life is adventure. A big life is risk and reward, fear and peace, despair and joy. A big life is immersed in all of the reality, and the potential, that the world has to offer. Taken from The Big Life – Live a Big Life blog.

What would it mean to each of us if we were to define what a big life means to us? What does it mean to me? Living a big life is being true to our self. It is having the courage to accept the challenges that life offers, love truly, fully, deeply. Be willing to take risks, be willing to accept the next challenge. Be willing to make a decision and stick by it. Be willing to deal with disappointment, be willing to deal with the messiness of family and relationships. Be willing to be the same with all the people we meet along the way. Be willing to step up for the next challenge, be willing to do the best we can where we are, and to be grateful for the chance to live each and every day no matter what that day brings.

I don’t think it is fame or fortune that makes a big life. Attitude is probably the most important attribute needed for a big life. Are we giving everything we have to everything we do or are we waiting? Waiting for what? Are we waiting for the opportunity that we’ll give our all to? Shouldn’t we give our all to every opportunity and see where that takes us?

Gratitude opens the door to the power, the wisdom, the creativity of the universe. Deepak Chopra

If we can live each moment of our lives fully, that should be the goal. All the mundane and special moments add up to our life. No matter if we are goal-oriented, or we live by the seat of our pants, we don’t know what tomorrow brings. Somehow we need to deal with what is while we work towards our goals, dreams, and aspirations. We also need to realize we aren’t more when we have more money, we just have more money. We aren’t more if we are thinner. This doesn’t mean we can’t want to be richer and thinner, it just means we will still be us when we reach our goals.

If we are waiting “until” to enjoy, feel good enough, relax, find love, exhale, rejoice, celebrate, or be grateful. It is likely that day will never come. We will never lose enough weight to love how we look in the mirror if we aren’t already okay with what we see in the mirror. If we don’t feel we are enough or have enough, there will never be enough. We are told there is no group of women as insecure as supermodels who have the thinnest thighs and shiniest hair.

We have enough today because we are alive today. We are told babies can’t live if they don’t get enough love. That means if we are alive today we got enough love. We are enough, we’ve received enough.

Today I am grateful for all the blessings, challenges, people, love, experiences, and everything in my life. It is what it is, it is what it will be, and I am grateful for the whole of it.

Can we live in gratitude for the blessings and bounty in our lives, even if it isn’t the blessings and bounty we want, or see in other people’s lives? Can we cultivate an attitude of gratitude?

Gratitude turns what we have into enough. Aesop

When I started counting my blessings, my whole life turned around. Willy Nelson

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The Little Book of Gratitude: Create a life of happiness and wellbeing by giving thanks Paperback – Sep 6 2016

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Own our mornings, own our life. Small habits lead to successes in our life.

Small habits lead to the successes in our life. Own our mornings, own our life.

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

When you arise in the morning, think of what a precious privilege it is to be alive – to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love. Marcus Aurelius

It’s dark out there in the morning taking my little dog Lulu for a walk. Where are the other dog walkers, or walkers of any kind? If I don’t go for my walk around 6:00 am it is hard to fit it into the day.

Last night I went to Dollarama looking for a binder to send my novel off to my cousin. Here I was thinking to myself they don’t have the good quality binders I’ve been buying with the clear plastic front. Is there something wrong with my thinking when I’m complaining about the quality at the dollar store?

I was pleasantly surprised when I first started seeing those binders at Dollarama, and because I use quite a few I’ve kept picking them up there. When we expect quality at the dollar store perhaps we aren’t thinking right.

I’ve picked up a book or three at the dollar store and I always think as an author how would I feel seeing my book at the dollar store? Then I tell myself to get over myself if someone reads our work no matter how it comes into their hands that is a compliment. It is a commitment to read a complete book of any type. If someone is willing to spend time with our words then gratitude is in order.

I love the morning routine of reading and writing in my journal. It starts the day off right. When the day starts off right it seems the whole day goes better. We’ve already accomplished something.

Our mornings set the tone for the day. We all have morning routines even if we don’t call them a routine because we aren’t proud of jumping out of bed, already late, brushing our teeth, and hurrying out of the house. If we do it every day then that’s our morning routine. Does our morning routine energize us or drain us before we start the day?

It is with the small, tiny steps, that we build our life. When we only do the things we have to do we don’t do the things for our self that build the life we want. We get to work on time because if we want to work we have to.

Morning is an important time of day because how you spend your morning can often tell you what kind of day you are going to have. Daniel Handler

It’s the choices we make for our life outside of work where we usually fall down. When we look at habits of the highly successful they usually have morning routines that sound impressive.

Tony Robbins has a seven-step morning routine he says will revolutionize our lives.

Meditation – a portion of time dedicated to prayer, or thoughts, or clearing our mind.

Gratitude – being grateful for what we have opens the door to having more.

Visualization – is the practice of seeing our goals as if we have already achieved them.

Journal – when we journal we can go back and read what we were thinking, planning, grateful for, and desiring. We can see how far we’ve come.

Exercise – if we don’t use it we lose it. We don’t have to do much, but putting a little exercise in our mornings pays big dividends.

Plan – how will we get where we are going if we don’t have a plan?

Eat the frog – he means to do the hardest thing first. The task we don’t want to do, jump in and get it done.

There are many morning routines; we just need to create one that works for us. We may have a five day morning routine and a weekend morning routine. The more we build our life with habits we want, instead of habits we fall into, the more we are likely to love our life. It’s our life; no one gets to live if for us. No one will do for us what we have to do for ourselves. Are we spending our mornings the way we want to?

If we want to own our day, don’t we need to start by owning our morning?

Lose an hour in the morning, and you will spend all day looking for it. Richard Whately

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The 5 AM Club: Own Your Morning. Elevate Your Life. Hardcover – Dec 4 2018

by Robin Sharma (Author) 4.1 out of 5 stars 71 customer reviews

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Building a life we love takes effort. If we wait for someone else to do it, will it get done?

If we wait for someone else to do it, will it get done? Building a life we love takes effort.

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

Love the life you have while you create the life of your dreams. Hal Elrod

Yesterday was a beautiful day and our last family gathering for the summer. My sister brought tomatoes and peppers from her garden and some bottles for my kombucha. My niece brought wine. We have so many weekends when no one has any plans but this weekend hockey started so my niece’s husband and son couldn’t come. My son-in-law’s soccer playoff was happening so my daughter didn’t stay to visit long.

Getting together over food, telling stories and laughing is a wonderful way to spend an evening. We don’t get together often enough; it is always a joy when we do. My nephew is turning 50 in 2020 he’s already invited us to his party. We have enough advance warning, we’ll be sure to be there.

Lives are busy but we lose touch if we don’t make an effort. None of my family lives around the corner. We have to make an effort to see each other. Over the years we’ve done a good job of keeping in touch and getting together. Yesterday I phoned two of my other sisters and had some good laughs as we filled each other in on what’s going on in our lives.

It is so great hearing about the progress people are making in their lives. The funny things that are happening, the way life is unfolding. I’ve always envied the people who have such good stories to tell. Things always seem to be happening in their life. Some of us are more listeners than talkers and I think I tend to listen more and as a writer that makes sense. Other people’s stories, experiences, challenges, and triumphs are what give me food for thought and things to write about.

Sometimes when I think about having a get together I think about the work, sometimes I think about how great it is to laugh and spend time together. The laughter and togetherness win out.

Life is what we make it, and if we don’t bother sometimes there is no one else to bother. My niece’s husband is a hockey coach and it is the people who step up who make things happen. I never had to be one of the ones that stepped up for any of the activities my children participated in. We get what we put into life, and I don’t think I got out of my children’s activities what my niece and her husband have gotten out of theirs.

We can sit on the sidelines of life, sometimes we can be part of the things other people create. Sometimes we need to be the ones that create them. When we are part of the creators we live richer lives. When we sit on the sidelines of life we are reaping what we are sowing.

The meaning of life is whatever you ascribe it to be. Being alive is the meaning. Joseph Campbell

If we want more out of life we need to put more into it. We know it’s true when we get up early, exercise, get involved in the community, develop our interests, talents, become better at anything we feel more alive, accomplished, and like we are doing what we are supposed to be doing.

It is sitting back and watching life pass us by that makes us feel everyone else is living a more adventurous, creative, and fun life. We need to find the balance between too much outside activity and too little. We need to create balance in what we give to our family, spirituality, work, creativity, and community.

Can everything always be in balance?  Can we have everything we want all the time? Can we do everything? We will have to choose the important things that fit into the seasons of our life. We have to decide what we are willing to do to get what we want. Is it true we have to decide what we want? Is it true we can’t get anywhere if we don’t know where we want to go? Or sometimes do we just need to do the next thing, whatever that is to build a life we love?

Can we set an ambitious goal? After all, don’t our goal determine our direction, and direct our actions? Can we come up with a compelling plan? Then, of course, we have to do the hard work of making it happen, deal with the setbacks, enjoy and measure our progress, and deal with our bad habits trying to derail us from reaching our goal. Life is a journey, enjoy the progress, it isn’t just about attaining goals.

Be not afraid of growing slowly; be afraid only of standing still. Chinese proverb

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Self-Compassion: The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself Paperback – Jun 23 2015

by Dr. Kristin Neff (Author) 4.4 out of 5 stars 62 customer reviews

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Is the opposite of love indifference, not hate? Are compassion and empathy the building blocks of love?

Are compassion and empathy the building blocks of love? Is the opposite of love indifference, not hate?

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

“Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries. Without them, humanity cannot survive.”
― Dalai Lama XIV,  The Art of Happiness

Yesterday we received a wedding invitation from high school friends of my husband who were childhood sweethearts, went different directions and reconnected after forty years. We hear about these kinds of love stories. We have the opportunity to witness and watch them take their vows. Marriage is not for the faint-hearted, but they already know this.

We need to treat each other with compassion and empathy. We can probably all see the wisdom in this. The problem arises when we realize that we aren’t seeing and feeling what our partner is seeing and feeling. Sometimes we can’t even begin to understand where their hurt is coming from. It isn’t that big of a deal in our mind. We need to be willing to look at our partner with compassion and empathy even though it is difficult to see things how they see things. Can we try to see how things might look from their perspective? Instead of just being upset at their reaction what if we try understanding, compassion, and empathy?

In a book I found, How to Improve Your Marriage Without Talking About It by Patricia Love and Steven Stosny they nail the problem between men and women. We don’t see problems the same, because we don’t see the same problem. Talking doesn’t always get us what we want. We want change, not rehashing over and over who was wrong, or more wrong. How do we actually fix things when we have the inevitable issues that rise up in relationships? Even if they aren’t completely fixed can we move towards better?

The authors say yes we can move toward better without involving our partner at all. We can do this because we react to each other’s behavior, mood, body language, tone of voice, etc. We’ve all walked into a room or house in a good mood and been infected by someone else’s foul mood, and it seems we couldn’t help ourselves to not affected by it. This does put the partner in a good mood at a disadvantage. It seems negativity trumps in the mood department.

The authors tell us why we have problems communicating is because men and women don’t feel the same things. Men feel shame, and women feel fear. Women have a hard time understanding men’s shame and men have a hard time understanding women’s fear. When it comes to compassion and empathy will we ever one hundred percent get the other person’s point of view?

At the beginning of our relationships, we were like a violin and a cello playing in harmony. The violin wasn’t trying to be the cello and the cello didn’t think the violin needed to be just like them. Along the way, we lose some of that harmony and we don’t appreciate the differences which attracted us in the first place. We don’t want a mini-me in our relationships. Sometimes we think we can only have harmony if we are the same. We can only have harmony if we play together in harmony.

Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around.
― Leo Buscaglia

One of the things this book tells us is when women leave the relationship they’ve often thought long and hard how they can make it work out there alone. Men, on the other hand, often fall in love with their wives again as she walks out the door. All of a sudden they now want to offer all she wanted, but they didn’t offer it when she was still in the relationship willing to work on it.

This may mean some women are giving up too soon on men who they could have a happy life with if they got past whatever the problem or stage is they are going through. Happy, long marriages go through stages and if we don’t get through each stage that isn’t so great, we don’t get to the better stages. Many of us leave during the stage of realizing our partner isn’t as perfect as we thought they were. We may think finding a better partner is the answer. Most of the time it is probably getting through this stage of disappointment to a new stage of seeing our partner again with new eyes and deeper love. Happy long marriages go through these stages again and again. It is easy to get discouraged and think “Is this all there is?”

This might be why second and third marriages don’t have a better track record. Instead of picking a better mate, we realize we have to deal with disappointment not discard the person that disappoints us. We will disappoint them, and they will disappoint us. Isn’t part of life dealing with disappointment?

They will also make us laugh harder than we have ever laughed. We will have some of our best times and some of our worst times. When things happen to us they are there to hold us and comfort us. If we can get through life with a partner and live through all of life, joys, sorrows, and deal with what we fear we can feel good about ourselves and our marriage. We can deal with our insecurities, failures, successes, challenges, and see some of our hopes and dreams come true. Then we can say we’ve lived through the depth and breadth of love. When we can accept our partner’s are not perfect, perhaps we can accept we also are not perfect, and it’s okay. We don’t have to be perfect to love each other; we have to see and love through the imperfections.

I know it’s not the same thing but my little dog is not the perfect dog. She barks too much when someone, even those who live here come to the door. We love her anyway. Our last dog had a doggy odor we didn’t love, but we loved him. Dogs like people are individuals with personalities, each fabulous and flawed in their own way. When we pick our partner we pick the story that comes with them, and they pick our story, and together we create a new story. If we get out at chapter five we never know what the end of that story could have been. What if chapter five was the only bad chapter? What if some people always get hung up on chapter five and instead of one marriage that gets through chapter after chapter they have a few marriages that end at chapter five?

The advice the book gives is for each of us to be true to our core values and then to invoke the four core value inspirations.

Improve – when we inspire ourselves to improve we don’t necessarily have to fix the problem just find a way to make it a little better to feel better our self.

Appreciate – find something about our partner we value and focus on that instead of the problem. We increase the value of our own life when we appreciate our partner in any way.

Connect – genuinely care about our partner’s emotional state. To connect we need to at least on some level intuitively understand his shame or her fear. It also requires an understanding that our emotional well being is tied together. If he feels good – we feel good. If she feels bad – we feel bad.

Protect – helping him relieve his dread of failure as a provider, lover, protector, and father, and helping her relieve her fear of isolation, deprivation, and harm.

Oprah said one of her biggest fears was ending up a bag lady. It is probably one of our biggest fears also. The book says women’s fear of ending up as a bag lady is because they would feel vulnerable, unsafe, and have no security. Men, on the other hand, would feel shame because they ended up on the street.

Why can’t we see why something is such a big thing? We can’t see it because that isn’t what a big thing looks like to us. Women have a hard time understanding men’s shame, and men have a hard time understanding women’s fear.

We can only change ourselves, and we can only control ourselves. Is one of the reasons therapy doesn’t work because we are waiting for someone else to get fixed, and they are waiting for us to get fixed. It’s easier to see our partner’s offenses than our own.

We need to understand that our emotional well-being is important to us, and our emotional well-being is tied to our relationships. If we can accept that our relationship is more important than anything we resent and worthy of appreciation, time, energy and sacrifice. Then we have something to work on. Not something for the other person to work on.

It’s nice to have romantic weekends, intimate dinners and great vacations. If they are not accompanied by a loving routine, they are more likely to have a negative effect because of the physical exhaustion and psychological letdown of getting back to our humdrum routine. To nurture love over a lifetime we have to nurture small moments of connection day by day.

Can we be the change we want to see in our relationship? Can we find some little thing to make it better? Can we appreciate our partner’s good attributes? Can we find some common point of connection? Can we find a way to help him feel less shame and her feel less fear? If we seek to understand more than to be understood, can we make things better.?

 A kind gesture can reach a wound that only compassion can heal.
― Steve Maraboli,  Life, the Truth, and Being Free

Thank you for reading this post. I hope you enjoyed it. I hope you will come back and read some more. Have a blessed day filled with gratitude, joy, and love.

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How to Improve Your Marriage Without Talking About It Paperback – Apr 29 2008

by Love Ed.D., Patricia (Author), Stosny PH.D, Steven (Author) 4.3 out of 5 stars 18 customer reviews

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Aspiring to be unoffendable is a work in progress. Finding positive ways to express our feelings is better than using negative ways. Does not expressing our feelings lead to depression?

Does not expressing our feelings lead to depression? Finding positive ways to express our feelings is better than negative ways. Aspiring to be unoffendable is a work in progress.

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

Anger makes dull men witty, but it keeps them poor. Elizabeth l                                   

Last night was another great night at Toastmasters. It was my fourth Toastmaster’s event in six days so I didn’t have the time to prepare my speech as I had hoped. My kids kept telling me my speech topic on probiotics wasn’t interesting.

In the end, I went with Aspiring to Be Unoffendable.  I should have printed off my post from yesterday instead of just going off the top of my head. In The Elijah List Francis Frangipane says when we allow offense to remain in our hearts, it causes serious spiritual consequences.

In Baby Steps to Happiness John Q. Beaucom tells us, deal with your feelings or become them. Feelings destroy lives. Feelings are also responsible for virtually all creative, heroic effort, and acts of unselfish sacrifice. It is not our feelings that are the problem, but how we deal with them.

It is not the boulders we stumble over, but the stones. We handle big disasters well, it is the little squabbles, hurts, betrayals, annoyances, mockeries, put-downs, and slights that bog us down.

We only have so much emotional energy we are told, and we can use that energy negatively or positively, but when it is gone it is gone. Each new day we get more emotional energy and use it how we wish until it too is gone. This is the choice we have in our lives, how we use our emotional energy.

Doctor’s tell us 85% of all illness and virtually all headaches, ulcers, and backaches are feelings based. There is even a link between feelings and cancer. We choose to spend our emotional energy on fear, anger, or rage or we can spend it on love, happiness, and joy.

When we are in the middle of it, does it seem like a choice? Negative feelings can be like a drug. We feel more powerful when we are angry and enraged.

I’ve always thought you can think positive just as well as you can think negative. Sugar Ray Robinson

Expressing our feelings is the opposite of depression. Expressing our feelings means “out with pressure.” Depression means “under pressure.” We repress our feeling at our peril.

We can’t do both at the same time. We can deal with negative feelings through expression. When we express our feelings it is different than becoming them.

Expression is talking, writing, singing, dancing, painting, throwing darts at a dartboard, exercising. Expression is not hitting or screaming. They mean hitting or screaming at the person we are upset about. If we have a punching bag and take all our frustrations out, that would be expression in my book. If we could go somewhere and scream at the top of our lungs without alarming anyone, that would be expression as well.

If we want to find a positive way to deal with our emotions we need to find a way of expression that works for us. The recommendation by John Q. Baucom is to choose one active, and one passive way of expressing ourselves each day.

Journaling has always been one of the ways I express myself. I paint but that is much more sporadic than journaling. Is going for a walk active enough as an outlet? Some of my best thinking happens on walks. Some of the things I’ve figured out in my life happen on walks.

It was during walks that I come to the realization that what offends me some times is a truth about myself I need to embrace. Yesterday I embraced being a liar. If not having grey hair, wearing makeup, high heels, and foundation garments like spanks and push up bras is lying then I am a liar and I embrace it. If wearing red is a signal of fertility – guilty of that too.

If feeling good about myself, makes me a narcissist then I embrace that too. Being part of the privileged people in the world, as I believe almost all Canadians are, I embrace that too. It is not possible to know about or understand every person’s struggle and if that makes me insensitive, inconsiderate, and selfish I embrace that too. If my view of the world is too small I embrace that.

If some people don’t like how I think or express myself, I embrace that too. We are more than our supporters or detractors, and neither should be too important to us. Flattery isn’t that much better than criticism.

We can be offended or perhaps we need to deal with the small nugget of truth we don’t want to accept? When we embrace ourselves warts and all then we can choose what parts of ourselves to improve. As Dr. Phil says “we can’t change what we don’t acknowledge.”

Emotion has taught mankind to reason. Marquis de Vauvenargues

Thank you for reading this post. I hope you enjoyed it. I hope you will come back and read some more. Have a blessed day filled with gratitude, joy, and love.

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Baby Steps to Happiness: 52 Inspiring Ways to Make Your Life Happy Paperback – Sep 25 1996

by John Q. Baucom (Author) 5.0 out of 5 stars 3 customer reviews

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