I read this book as I was trying to study some different practices of meditation.
Ram Dass - Still Here - Embracing Change---
Some thoughts I liked in the this book:
Healing is not curing. Page 5
I'm still learning to be here now. page 7
I saw I had a choice, to change my mind of stop living. page 34
Learn to feel what is, without taking on the suffering. page 42
There is a big difference between being lonely and being alone. Loneliness is an affair of the Ego. Being alone can be a moment for the Soul. It is necessary to be a lone to have the time to be quiet, to meditate, to get to know ourselves. Being alone is an opportunity. page 43
Loss of Role/Meaning
It is important that we not wait until we find ourselves at such an impasse before seeking an alternative means of confronting our aging years. page 48
When we cease to resist our grief, for example, we learn that, painful though it may be, grief is an integral part of elder wisdom, a force that humbles and deepens our hearts, connects us to the fired of the world, and enables us to be of help. page 50
Age is an opportunity for considering questions like "What am I doing here? What has this all been about? page 53
Facing Fear:
In a calm moment, allow yourself to consider the list of the most common fears and challenges facing us as we grow older, from the usual suspects, to things like abandonment, death . . . page 53
We must be willing to look at everything - our own suffering as well as the suffering around us-without averting our gaze, and allow to be in the present moment. Rather than closing our mind to fear, we learn to open it, to sit with it, allowing it to arise and pass in its own time. page 54
If I Had My Life Over - I'd Pick More Daisies
Nadine Stair
If I had my life to live over, I'd dare to make more mistakes next time. I'd relax, I would limber up. I would be sillier than I have been this trip. I would take fewer things seriously. I would take more chances. I would climb more mountains and swim more rivers. I would eat more ice cream and less beans. I would perhaps have more actual troubles, but I'd have fewer imaginary ones.
You see, I'm one of those people who lived sensibly and sanely, hour after hour, day after day. Oh, I've had my moments, and if I had to do it over again, I'd have more of them. In fact, I'd try to have nothing else. Just moments, one after another, instead of living so many years ahead of each day. I've been one of those persons who never goes anywhere without a thermometer, a hot water bottle, a raincoat and a parachute. If I had to do it again, I would travel lighter than I have.
If I had my life to live over, I would start barefoot earlier in the spring and stay that way later in the fall. I would go to more dances. I would ride more merry-go-rounds. I would pick more daisies. Page 105-106
I love that poem. I am also reminded that we cannot live life over -so I must try to live it 'right' as I go along.
Chatty
Showing posts with label changing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label changing. Show all posts
Thursday, July 09, 2009
Monday, November 17, 2008
Inspirational People Week - Christina Applegate
Okay - something that always - always - always makes me feel better - is to look at others. Some people have it pretty bad - yet they take it in stride. They are heroes and they give me such inspiration. (I also stop feeling sorry for myself - it gives me strength).
Hopefully this week we can take a look at some inspirational people and see if we can gain anything from their strength. I think that is one reason we are here on earth - to help others.
It is one of the most beautiful compensations of life that no man can sincerely try to help another without helping himself.-Ralph Waldo Emerson
Some pursue happiness, others create it.-Anonymous
From an interview of TV GUIDE- Christina Applegate
"It's good to be back," she said in her recent interview with TV Guide. "I get tired quickly. But it's nice to have a focus for a minute outside of that."
That of course, is her recovery from breast cancer. The 36 year old actress was diagnosis in late March and ultimately underwent a double mastectomy in July. Applegate is cancer-free and, slowly but surely, healing both physical and emotionally from an ordeal that she admirably sugarcoats.
"Yes, it's hard. It sucks. But I'm not a victim."
Applegate is a profoundly different woman form the one who sat down with TV Guido last year. Then she lived and breathed work, almost to the exclusion of everything else.
All that shifted early last spring . "I started looking for a beach house the day I found out I had this little disease." "You just kind of go what am I waiting for for to get the things that you want and the things you dream of."
She bought a peaceful, quiet, beautiful place where she spent three weeks recuperating post surgery surrounded by friends and family, including her own mother, actress Nancy Priddy, who had also bravely battled-and beat - the disease. "I allowed myself to fall into their care, which is very hard for me personally because that is not my personality.
I have an extremely hard time asking others for help - for attention - for anything. It goes against what I learned from childhood - when someone gives you something - there's a price attached to it. Therefore, I tend to be pretty self reliant - which isn't a bad thing, but it's not a great thing either, some times. It seems I can give to others forever, but asking for something and taking from someone is something I have to work on.
I've learned without replenishing myself - it's a good way to burn out. We have to learn to take some time for ourselves and we may have to ask others for what we need. I've also learned that while we may get up the courage to ask for what we need, we risk the answer to be no -we will survive a no - it doesn't mean it's a personal rejection - there may be others reasons for a no. We have to say yes to ourselves and go on alone. No one said it was easy.
Hopefully this week we can take a look at some inspirational people and see if we can gain anything from their strength. I think that is one reason we are here on earth - to help others.
It is one of the most beautiful compensations of life that no man can sincerely try to help another without helping himself.-Ralph Waldo Emerson
Some pursue happiness, others create it.-Anonymous
From an interview of TV GUIDE- Christina Applegate
"It's good to be back," she said in her recent interview with TV Guide. "I get tired quickly. But it's nice to have a focus for a minute outside of that."
That of course, is her recovery from breast cancer. The 36 year old actress was diagnosis in late March and ultimately underwent a double mastectomy in July. Applegate is cancer-free and, slowly but surely, healing both physical and emotionally from an ordeal that she admirably sugarcoats.
"Yes, it's hard. It sucks. But I'm not a victim."
Applegate is a profoundly different woman form the one who sat down with TV Guido last year. Then she lived and breathed work, almost to the exclusion of everything else.
All that shifted early last spring . "I started looking for a beach house the day I found out I had this little disease." "You just kind of go what am I waiting for for to get the things that you want and the things you dream of."
She bought a peaceful, quiet, beautiful place where she spent three weeks recuperating post surgery surrounded by friends and family, including her own mother, actress Nancy Priddy, who had also bravely battled-and beat - the disease. "I allowed myself to fall into their care, which is very hard for me personally because that is not my personality.
I have an extremely hard time asking others for help - for attention - for anything. It goes against what I learned from childhood - when someone gives you something - there's a price attached to it. Therefore, I tend to be pretty self reliant - which isn't a bad thing, but it's not a great thing either, some times. It seems I can give to others forever, but asking for something and taking from someone is something I have to work on.
I've learned without replenishing myself - it's a good way to burn out. We have to learn to take some time for ourselves and we may have to ask others for what we need. I've also learned that while we may get up the courage to ask for what we need, we risk the answer to be no -we will survive a no - it doesn't mean it's a personal rejection - there may be others reasons for a no. We have to say yes to ourselves and go on alone. No one said it was easy.
But, we are survivors.
Love,
Chatty
Monday, November 10, 2008
Living Life In Color . . .Make Sure Our Own WIndows Are Clean
HOW DO WE LIVE LIFE IN COLOR - MAYBE EVEN TECHNICOLOR?
Lesson # 1
A young couple moved into a new neighborhood.
The next morning while they are eating breakfast, the young
woman saw her neighbor hanging the wash outside.
"That laundry is not very clean," she said. "She doesn't know how to wash correctly.Perhaps she needs better laundry soap"
Her husband looked on, but remained silent.
Every time her neighbor would hang her wash out to dry,the young woman would make the same comments.
About one month later, the woman was surprised to see a nice clean wash on the line and said to her husband:
"Look, she has learned how to wash correctly. I wonder who taught her this?"
Husband: "I got up early this morning and cleaned our windows."
* * *
And so it is with life. What we see when watching others depends on the purity of the window through which we look.
LESSON #1 - MAKE SURE OUR OWN WINDOWS ARE CLEAN, BEFORE WE LOOK AT OTHERS LAUNDRY.
Love,
Chatty
Lesson # 1
A young couple moved into a new neighborhood.
The next morning while they are eating breakfast, the young
woman saw her neighbor hanging the wash outside.
"That laundry is not very clean," she said. "She doesn't know how to wash correctly.Perhaps she needs better laundry soap"
Her husband looked on, but remained silent.
Every time her neighbor would hang her wash out to dry,the young woman would make the same comments.
About one month later, the woman was surprised to see a nice clean wash on the line and said to her husband:
"Look, she has learned how to wash correctly. I wonder who taught her this?"
Husband: "I got up early this morning and cleaned our windows."
* * *
And so it is with life. What we see when watching others depends on the purity of the window through which we look.
LESSON #1 - MAKE SURE OUR OWN WINDOWS ARE CLEAN, BEFORE WE LOOK AT OTHERS LAUNDRY.
Love,
Chatty
Wednesday, November 05, 2008
Do you know why?
Okay, the election is over. We all had our chance to vote. No matter who we voted for - we have to get behind the new president and not let it divide our country. Will it be easy - not really - but we must go forward - that's my core belief in all of life . . .
That being said -
There is a Rascal Flatt's song- in the movie the Notebook by Nicholas Sparks - another tear jerker - that could be a love story or a love story to yourself.
My question is - (while it's true it would be a whole lot easier never having to to go through the pain of changing yourself) - If you have issues/scars/hurts past or present - is it worth the pain then to to go through the pain to change yourself or not?
(You can see that it's not just the past we must reconcile with - things happen all the time that we have to look at and decide to let go of.)
Is it more painful to change who we are/what we believe/what we want or to stay the way we are - accepting what is, is what is?
Why not give up when it gets to hard or why even start to begin with? Is there a time limit or pain limit?
Why do some people say it's worth the pain and others say it's not woth the pain to change?
What makes us so different? There is something in the core of us that is different. What is it?
Do you know?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=saXYgBRas9Y&feature=email Here by Rascal Flatts
Chatty (thinking)
That being said -
There is a Rascal Flatt's song- in the movie the Notebook by Nicholas Sparks - another tear jerker - that could be a love story or a love story to yourself.
My question is - (while it's true it would be a whole lot easier never having to to go through the pain of changing yourself) - If you have issues/scars/hurts past or present - is it worth the pain then to to go through the pain to change yourself or not?
(You can see that it's not just the past we must reconcile with - things happen all the time that we have to look at and decide to let go of.)
Is it more painful to change who we are/what we believe/what we want or to stay the way we are - accepting what is, is what is?
Why not give up when it gets to hard or why even start to begin with? Is there a time limit or pain limit?
Why do some people say it's worth the pain and others say it's not woth the pain to change?
What makes us so different? There is something in the core of us that is different. What is it?
Do you know?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=saXYgBRas9Y&feature=email Here by Rascal Flatts
Chatty (thinking)
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