Silence

Mindfulness

How will you know that you are suffering if you are repressing your pain, rationalizing it, or busy with problem-solving?
You must allow awareness of your pain to enter in.
Being mindful is about noticing what is happening in the moment and having no judgment about it.
Notice your hurt and just be with it, compassionately and with kindness.
 Self-compassion is about being with your suffering in a kind, loving way, not about making suffering disappear.
We will always have pain.
 Suffering = Pain x Resistance.
The more you resist your pain, perhaps by trying to make it go away, the more suffering you will experience.
Mindfulness allows you to stay with the pain without the resistance.

The "Pain Body"

“As long as you make an identity for yourself out of pain,
 you cannot be free of it.”

Eckhart Tolle

Skittles

No Amount

Creating

Life isn't about finding yourself.
Life is about creating yourself.

George Bernard Shaw

Change

Only when you acknowledge the truth about what you feel can you start to heal.
Only acknowledged feelings of past hurt and trauma can be healed.
You cannot change what you will not acknowledge.
The past can be healed.
Old out of date habitual patterns can be collapsed.
New ways of responding and interacting with those around us can be learned.
Ways to self-soothe can be remembered and utilized.

Dr. W. Crew Lauterbach

Food

End Of The Story

Prisoner

When you care about what everyone else is thinking of you, you inhibit yourself.
 You’d rather do nothing and not get judged, than do something and risk criticism.

Worrying about what other people think of you will continue to hold you back from doing something potentially huge for yourself.
Take the chance to come out of this fear.
Speak your mind in a kind and honest way.
Let go of any attachment to how the other person responds.

Heart Priority

When things break, we all have a tendency to want to fix them.
There comes a point, though, when you have to put yourself first.
 You have to take those first steps toward making your own way, on your own terms.
 You have to know when to make your own heart the priority.

On-Line Weight Loss Programs

Researchers have found that dieters who used computer-based programs had better success at losing weight or keeping it off than those who tried to lose weight on their own.

The study also found that in-person programs appear to be the most beneficial, but online programs are often a more cost-effective way to lose weight or maintain losses.

Flourishing

True Friendship

In true friendship, one can express
anything and everything without feeling ashamed
or afraid of being rejected.

 Aparna Chatterjee

Releasing Shame From The Past

It’s only in releasing shame about the past
 that we’re able to be free in the present.

Negative Emotions Cycle

Someday

Blessed

Blessed is he who has learned
to admire but not envy,
to follow but not imitate,
to praise but not flatter,
and to lead but not manipulate.

 William Arthur Ward

Communicating Needs

By communicating your needs to others, you’re creating a mutually respectful environment, one where they’ll feel free to express their needs too.
Be prepared to listen to their needs as well.
Communicating our needs requires and creates a great deal of respect and authenticity in our relationships. When you’re honoring one another’s needs, you’re creating the opportunity for greater authenticity, respect, accountability, and love.

No More Excuses

Social Responsibility

Self-Compassion

SELF-COMPASSION creates a caring space within you that is free of judgment—a place that sees your hurt and your failures and softens to allow those experiences with kindness and caring.

VICTIM Identity

“As long as you make an identity for yourself out of pain,
 you cannot be free of it.”

Eckhart Tolle

Consequences

Vision

Gentle With Ourselves

“Be gentle first with yourself if you wish to be gentle with others.”

Lama Yeshe


Think back to the last time somebody apologized to you about something.
 Did you forgive them?
 There is a very good chance that you did.


Now think back to the last time you were unkind or insensitive to someone else.
Think back to the last time you let yourself down.
Have you forgiven yourself?

Being Alive

“I don’t believe people are looking for the meaning of life as much as they are looking for the experience of being alive.”

Joseph Campbell

Congruence

Gatekeepers

Defining

“When you judge another, you do not define them.
 You define yourself.”

Wayne Dyer

Expression

Someone can only meet our needs when they understand them; and someone can only recognize the potential impact of their actions if we’re brave enough to call their attention to it.
Express your needs and feelings.

Sudden Heart Attacks and Partners

Spouses of people who suffer sudden heart attacks are at greater risk for suicide and depression — even if the heart attack isn’t fatal.

New research shows that partners of people who suffer sudden heart attacks are more likely to become anxious, suicidal or depressed.
 Emotionally, they suffer more than spouses of people with other kinds of diagnoses.
 If your partner has had a heart attack, be sure to look after your own emotional wellness.

Weirdness and LOVE

Being Yourself

To be yourself in a world that
is constantly trying to make you something else
is the greatest accomplishment.

 Ralph Waldo Emerson

Needs

Realize that having needs is not selfish, weak, or dependent.

For some reason, there’s this idea that having needs makes someone selfish or needy.
 Please, let that go.
Sometimes we feel this way because we think the needs of others should come first.
 But how can you be available as your best self for others if you’re not taking care of you?
When you’re happy and taken care of, it’s more of a joy than a burden to take care of the needs of others.

Spinach

Always Possible

Wonder

Wisdom begins in wonder.


 Socrates

Choice

Well-Timed Silence

Becoming

“Life is a process of becoming.
 A combination of states we have to go through.
 Where people fail is that they wish to elect a state and remain in it.
 This is a kind of death.”

Anais Nin

Gentleness and Time

"When you encounter difficulties and contradictions,
do not try to break them, but bend them with gentleness and time."

 Saint Francis de Sales

Let It Go

Why get caught up criticizing your past decisions, what you did and didn’t do?
 It doesn’t do you any good.
You did what you could, and you’ll continue doing your best.
LET IT GO.

Push Yourself

Incomplete Compassion

Mindful Second Thoughts

It is impossible to control every thought that enters our minds. However, we can make the effort to patrol our mental environment.

We have the power to accept or reject any thought that floats through our consciousness.
The only goal is to be conscious, non-judgmental and mindful.


What are your foundational thoughts?
Which ones are you choosing to keep?
Which ones are you willing to change?
The choice is solely your own.

The NEXT Thought

“Since you alone are responsible for your thoughts,
only you can change them.”

Paramahansa Yogananda

 My take on this truth is this:
We have little or no control over the natural and organic thoughts that come into our consciousness.
I believe many people, and many therapists, waste time and energy attempting to control  AND ANALYZE these organic thoughts.
Instead, I have learned how to learn to choose what I focus and dwell upon.
 THIS. This is what is meant by choosing our thoughts.
What you feed-GROWS.

Let go of the desire to change, control, or become analytical about the natural thoughts you experience.
WE ARE NOT OUR THOUGHTS.
WE ARE HOW WE RESPOND TO THEM.

Aqua Affirmation

Simply

Revenge

The ugliest word in the world is revenge.

It spells hate;
 it spells fear;
it spells greed.
For my loss,
 I must kill;
I must steal -
 I must avenge.
It's your fault;
you must pay;
 you must bleed.