Dar's first four rules for living a happy life.

1. We each are responsible for writing our own rules.
2. If someone criticizes you, it says more about them than it does you.
3. No matter how hard you try, you can't make someone understand you when they're not listening.
4. Try not to judge people too harshly when they won't listen; sometimes their own lives demand all of their attention and they can't focus clearly on what you have to say.

Life is messy

                                                                                      

Life is complicated and messy. People are complex. We can live our lives  from a safe distance, and keep everything simple and clean, or we can go for the gusto and jump in and get dirty. ... Which do you choose? 

(Life lessons from Fizz)

Reflection

I think the hardest thing in life to learn is how not to be a reflection of that which causes you irritation, discomfort, or pain.  Too often our reaction to the these negative vibes are just as negative, and for that moment, we become the very thing  that we are defending ourselves  against. 

Self love

There is a frightened and gentle child within me, and one night while holding her in my arms as she cried herself to sleep, I made a promise to protect her, and give her everything she needs.

Winter Solstice resolution

Winter Solstice seems to me a more appropriate time to make a New Years resolution. It's the pivotal point when the darkness recedes and the light grows brighter, and it is the light which I wish to foster and allow to grow brightly inside of me.

Where it is true, that we all carry something of our past with us, that it has shaped and defined who we are; it is also true that we carry the seeds of our authentic loving selves inside of us as well. Despite the modelling of our past, we have the ability to shape and define ourselves. It is simply where we focus our attention that determines what will grow. 

I have given enough time to my past and to those in it who no longer wish to share this journey with me. I have mourned their loss and wallowed in self pity and blame, and in the process, I have forgotten who I am and where I wish to be. 

It is time for me to get back on track, time for me to look forward again and to be grateful for those who walk with me, now, and for however long they choose to.

It is time to focus on the light and leave the darkness behind. 

Flight

I feel like the world around me 
is crumbling
everywhere I look
there is conflict 

and argument 
nothing feels safe anymore 

I want to run away and hide

protect myself from the devastation
but there's nowhere to go 
because the devastation 
is happening
in me

A meaningful life

Would you think your life had meaning if it didn't matter to anyone else but you?

From the top down

After all is said and done, I've no other choice but to 'just be' who I am.

I believe in myself because the things I believe in are important to me, and I am the one who decided those thing are worthy of my efforts and attention, and that hasn't changed. I accept who I am because I see where I want to go. and for me, that defines who I am more than the faulty programming that gets in my way, and more than a friend leaving me because of it.

Better than anyone else, I know what I can be, and part of me is already there - the part that is capable of unconditional love. I know that I have this ability in me because I've felt the shear joy of it for everyone I have ever loved, before that loving became corrupted by the press of my own unfulfilled needs and the encroaching fear of losing that which had begun to fulfill them.

I will always want to love with an open heart no matter how many times I get hurt, and no matter how often I screw it up.  Doing so is the only way I will truly be able to experience that love that I crave, both in the receiving and giving of it. My need for secure attachments, and the anxiety I feel over losing that which comes nearest in providing it, is the handicap that keeps getting in the way of that love. But I am determined to do the work needed to make it less so, and one day, make the problem disappear altogether. 

Continuing to love with an open heart is the only way I can think of to to achieve this. . ... And at the same time, and like my Therapist suggested might be the way for me to go, fulfill my basic need for that missing love and security from the top down, while working toward the more loftier spiritual goal of becoming my best self.

Thank you Mandela, but these words belong to Marianne Williamson,

Prompted by Mandela's death I shared a quote that I thought was his, but I just found out from a friend on Facebook that it wasn't. The words belong to Marianne Williamson, and since I found the quote so inspiring,  and something I really needed to hear at this moment in my life, I'm reposting it, but this time giving credit where it is due.


"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, 'Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?' Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightening about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

~ Marianne Williamson, A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of 'A Course in Miracles'


Thank you Marianne.

Just be

I don't think I remember how to just be.

If it's not been one person it's been another, some asked, and some not, telling me how I should think, what I should feel, and what I should do to fix what's wrong with me. And on the occasion when no one else has been available to offer their insight, I've been more then ready to jump in with self criticism and demands, second guessing everything I do, my head spinning with alternative viewpoints and solutions, trying to please everyone and my own high standards at once, and not doing a very good job at any of it.

 I've spent about a year seeing a therapist, and a couple of intense years on my own before that pulling out one layer of belly button lint after another, trying to uncover the root of my problems, and I dont know if I'm actually any better off now for the knowing, than I was before I began this journey.  I don't believe I'm any happier than I use to be.  ... I have to say, there was really something quite blissful about my ignorance.

I can't pretend that I don't know that I have this anxious attachment problem. I've lost too many friends because of it to ignore it and not try to fix it. I have a responsibility to myself and those in my life to do so. But I'm tired of it all; I really am.

It's not that I'll ever become light and frivolous, that's not me.  I'll aways be a deep thinker, I'll always have a fondness for introspection, and I'm always going to want to do the right thing.  It's just that after all of it, I don't think I can trust myself enough to simply just be, and I'm not even certain that I should. 

Life use to be about being spontaneous, flying as high as I could, knowing God, or the Divine, or whatever you call it, though the sheer joy of life, love and living.  ... That was my plan anyway.

It's not working out that way at all.