Boom

Change

Will you be able to change everything?  No.  In fact there may be lots of things you want to change that can’t be changed. 

 But YOU can still change!

Even when you are no longer able to change a situation, you are challenged to change yourself.  And that makes all the difference in the world.

What Can Be Done?

The Problem

Overthinking is one of the most rampant sources of stress and mental clutter. 
 The key is to realize that the problem is often not the problem. 

 The problem is often the incredible amount of overthinking you’re doing with the problem.

Your Future Self

Responsibility

When you deny responsibility in every relationship disagreement, all you’re really doing is blaming your partner.  You’re saying, in effect, “The problem is never me, it’s always you.”  This denial of responsibility just escalates the argument, because there’s a complete breakdown of communication.

So take responsibility for your actions.  Take responsibility for your relationship – the good times and the bad.  Work with your partner.  Communicate.  Blaming them is a copout that accomplishes nothing.  Either you both take equal ownership of the problems you two encounter together, or the problems will own both of you.

LIsten

Blame

The impulse to blame something or someone is foolishness.
There is nothing to be gained in blaming,
whether it be others or oneself.

Epictetus

Truth

You will not find Truth in your past data, only past data
that is based on other past data that is based on other
past data, and so forth. 
Forget your "past experience"
and look directly at the experience you are having
Right Here, Right Now.
There is your Truth.

Mirrored

Let the waters settle and you will see the moon
and the stars mirrored in your own being...

༺ Rumi ༻

Going Deep

Tiny Steps

There’s absolutely nothing about your present circumstances that prevents you from making progress. All you ever have to decide is what to do next (just the next tiniest step).
It really is this simple. 
You don’t have to have it all figured out to take this step and move forward.
Just do the best you can until you know better. Once you know better, do better.

This Is Love

Thoughts

"We are NOT our thoughts.
We ARE how we respond to them."

Dr. Crewson Andrew Martin/PhD
from "A Prescription For Contentment"
Available on Amazon.com

Dhammapada

How joyful to look upon the
awakened
And to keep company with the wise.
Follow then the shining ones,
The wise, the awakened, the loving,
For they know how to work and
forbear.
But if you cannot find
Friend or master to go with you,
Travel on alone -
Like a king who has given away his
kingdom,
Like an elephant in the forest.
If the traveler can find
A virtuous and wise companion
Let him go with him joyfully
And overcome the dangers of the way.
Follow them
As the moon follows the path of the
stars.

Dhammapada

Dangerous

Roles

Love

Spiritual

Yes, it does depend on how one defines the term SPIRITUAL.
Certainly for me, I do not define the term in a new-age or junk science manner.
I prefer Sam Harris' definition of the term:

"We must reclaim good words and put them to good use—and this is what I intend to do with “spiritual.” I have no quarrel with Hitch and Sagan’s general use of the word to mean something like “beauty or significance that provokes awe,” but I believe that we can also use it in a narrower and, indeed, more personally transformative sense.
Of course, “spiritual” and its cognates have some unfortunate associations unrelated to their etymology—and I will do my best to cut those ties as well. But there seems to be no other term (apart from the even more problematic “mystical” or the more restrictive “contemplative”) with which to discuss the deliberate efforts some people make to overcome their feeling of separateness—through meditation, psychedelics, or other means of inducing non-ordinary states of consciousness. And I find neologisms pretentious and annoying. Hence, I appear to have no choice: “Spiritual” it is."

Compassion

Avoiding The Trap

Remembering that you are going to die
is the best way I know to avoid the trap
of thinking that you have something to lose.
You are already naked.
There is no reason not to follow your heart.

Steve Jobs

Stereotype Thinking

No Recipe

The shoe that fits one person
pinches another;
there is no recipe for living
that suits all cases.
Carl Jung

Present

Eyes

Since we cannot change reality,
let us change the way in which we see reality.

The Best Day

Friendship With Oneself

Friendship with oneself
is all-important,
because without it
one cannot be friends
with anyone else in the world.

Eleanor Roosevelt

Changes

All changes,
even the most longed for,
have their melancholy;
for what we leave behind us
is part of ourselves.

We must die to one life
before we can
enter another.

Anatole France

Beautiful Aloneness

Palace

Be thy own palace
OR,
the world's thy jail.

John Donne

Stay Away

Link

Now and again,
it is necessary to seclude yourself among deep mountains
and hidden valleys
to restore your link to the source of life.

Breathe in and let yourself soar to the ends of the Universe;
Breathe out
and bring the Cosmos back inside.

The Art of Peace

Up From the Table

Center

Move like a beam of light;
Fly like lightening,
Strike like thunder,
Whirl in circles around
A stable center.

The Art of Peace

Solitude

Explore

No pessimist ever discovered
the secrets of the stars,
or sailed to an uncharted land,
or opened a new heaven to
the human spirit.

Helen Keller

Thoughts

Iron

Iron is full of impurities that weaken it.
Through forging, it becomes steel and is transformed into a razor-sharp sword.
Human beings develop in the same fashion.

The Art of Peace

Religion of Love

Be certain in the Religion of Love
There are no believers or unbelievers.
Love Embraces All.

Rumi

Forgive

Forging

Those who are enlightened never stop forging themselves.
The realizations of such masters cannot be expressed well in words or in theories.
The most perfect actions echo the patterns found in all of nature.

The Art of Peace

Warrior

The Way of a Warrior is based on humanity, love, and sincerity;
the heart of valor is true bravery, wisdom, love and humanity.

Emphasis on the physical aspects of being a warrior is futile;
for the power of the body is always and forever limited.

The Art of Peace 

Free

Letting go gives us freedom,
and freedom is the only condition for contentment and happiness.
If, in our heart,
we still cling to anything-----
anger, anxiety, the past or even our possessions-----
we cannot be free.

Degrees of Separation

The longer I'm alive the less I am concerned about national, ethnic or religious pride and tradition.
I think it all just divides us as human beings living on this planet together.
There is one race- HUMAN.
Why be so concerned about where one's ancestors originated from?
Do any of us have a choice in where we are born or what color our skin is?
Or, what our sexual orientation may be?

I'd rather take pride in what I've accomplished, what mark I leave on the world and how I treat fellow humans.

The rest........?
I'm really over it.
I really do not care.

Power

Change The Past

You change the past when you change the way you see it.

Overwhem

We forget that life happens in the moment.  Nothing else is real.  We only have to live in the now and work on one thing at a time.

Overwhelm does not exist. 

 It’s an illusion – a story we tell ourselves that offers us an excuse to get out of what we don’t want to do or don’t think we can do.

But we can choose to live our lives one choice and moment at a time. 

Rise

Slavery

Love that does not renew itself every day
becomes a habit and in turn a slavery.

 Khalil Gibran

Today

Truth be told, every second you spend doubting your worth, and every moment you use to criticize yourself, is a tragic loss – a fresh moment of your life thrown away.  
And it’s not like you have forever either, so don’t waste any more of your seconds; don’t throw even one more of your moments away. 
 Today is the best day to start loving yourself.