and you tried to change didn’t you?
closed your mouth more
tried to be softer
prettier
less volatile, less awake
but even when sleeping you could feel
him travelling away from you in his dreams
so what did you want to do love
split his head open?
you can’t make homes out of human beings
someone should have already told you that
and if he wants to leave
then let him leave
you are terrifying
and strange and beautiful
something not everyone knows how to love.

Warsan Shire

Self-Compassion

“To the degree that we look clearly and compassionately at ourselves, we feel confident and fearless about looking into someone else’s eyes.”

-Pema Chödrön

Deception/Dishonesty

The five primary forms of deception are:

~Lies: making up information or giving information that is the opposite or very different from the truth.
~Equivocations: making an indirect, ambiguous, or contradictory statement.
~Concealment: omitting information that is important or relevant to the given context, or engaging in behavior that helps hide relevant information.
~Exaggerations: overstatement or stretching the truth to a degree.
~Understatements: minimization or downplaying aspects of the truth.

Hanneli's Wish

"May the integrity of Peace and Truth be celebrated.  May love and courage shine in your heart stronger than ever, and may you find within you the light of a thousand suns to blaze through whatever challenges you face in times ahead.

May you meet the suffering of the world with compassion, both for yourself and for others.

May you shatter your self-imposed limitations with fierce honesty and persistent love.

May you invite the demons to show their faces with the confidence of your inner strength, knowing there is no darkness you cannot face with love in your heart.   May you find yourself in many unexpected fields of wild flowers and circles of compassionate friends.  May you share laughter and tears with openness and freedom. 

May we recognize the heart of ourselves in the eyes of each we meet. 

May you follow your aspirations, your heart and your dreams more fully than ever before.   When you feel awkward, know you are walking your own edge and growth and healing are also present.  Deep breath....

Happiness

"We can find stable happiness; we can learn to have long and pleasurable relationships; we can be at peace.  If we are willing to become warriors - not against others, but against our own dishonesty and defensiveness - then we can indeed grow and change and journey into freedom.   It's not enough to aim for pain relief.  We can aim for something much more dependable and luminous than that.   If we aspire to discover the true self, the know what we love and what we want, to be honest, and to take full responsibility for our strengths and our weaknesses, then we will be on our way."   Elizabeth Lesser

Perhaps

"Perhaps we wouldn't eat so much or smoke, or drink so much, if we were paying attention to ourselves.   Perhaps we wouldn't talk so much if we were paying attention to each other.   All of these oral activities are trying to meet a need, and perhaps the greatest need is to be seen and heard."  Christina Baldwin

Gift Me

 GIFT ME

Gift me with your presence
Show up fully, but only when you really want to
Not out of obligation or fear of disappointing.

Gift me with your stories
Of joy and pain, for through them you grow
To love life and learn wisdom
And in hearing them from you, I deepen too.
Tell it all, every detail...
What was said, felt and discovered
And how it changed you

Gift me with honesty
Tell me when I hurt or disappoint you
When I make you proud or just that you love me.
Tell me the truth, as you see it,
In me, the world and life
As the unfolding Mystery


Gift me with forgiveness
An honest attempt to give
Not only me, but all you meet
The benefit of the doubt
That even in my faults and frailties
You see the inherent worth and Light of God
Most of all...

Gift me with a chosen silence
When it would be easier to judge
Or you feel you can't resist the urge
To share with another the latest amusing, confusing
Insane thing you saw me do...or refrain from
For time has a way, of bringing all things full circle

Gift me with a compassionate, listening ear
When I seek a witness to my life and experience
And open your heart even wider,
That it may take it ALL in
And love me even more when I most confuse you

Gift me with a place at your table
A phone call just because
An invitation to adventure
And the assurance that
Not a day goes by without a smile lifting your lips
In fondness for memories we have yet to create

Gift me with patience
As time slows my steps
And mind's edges dull
Allow me the dignity and freedom of which I am capable,
But if the time comes that I am not safe or sane enough,
Care for me, as I tried to do for you
when you still fit in my arms
And needed a shoulder to sleep on.

Valerie Wilkins Alder  

Tell me a Story

"Tell me a story of failure in your life, a time when you made a mistake.   Tell me with compassion for the child or man or woman you were.   Tell it with ruthless honesty and gentle acceptance.   We do not avoid shame be hiding mistakes.   The shame just becomes buried within us."   Oriah

Trustworthy

"Being trustworthy, not betraying ourselves, is, in part, about recognizing moments or situations when we are likely to be untrustworthy and seek the counsel of people who love us and are willing and able to be honest with us.   The hard part, the place we hope wisdom will find us, in in deciding where and when we must break a promise to be true to ourselves."  Oriah

Reason

To love justice, to long for the right, to love mercy, to pity the
suffering, to assist the weak, to forget wrongs and remember benefits -- to
love the truth, to be sincere, to utter honest words, to love liberty, to
wage relentless war against slavery in all its forms, to love wife and
child and friend, to make a happy home, to love the beautiful; in art, in
nature, to cultivate the mind, to be familiar with the mighty thoughts that
genius has expressed, the noble deeds of all the world, to cultivate
courage and cheerfulness, to make others happy, to fill life with the
splendor of generous acts, the warmth of loving words, to discard error, to
destroy prejudice, to receive new truths with gladness, to cultivate hope,
to see the calm beyond the storm, the dawn beyond the night, to do the best
that can be done and then to be resigned -- this is the religion of reason,
the creed of science. This satisfies the brain and heart. --Robert G.
Ingersoll, The Foundations of Faith

Meditation

"Meditation is the practice of unconditional friendliness toward whatever is happening in the moment; the moment during which we sit in meditation, and all the other moments of life, whether things are going well or falling apart.  Mediation helps us find an internal witness with which to view external events.   Discovering and developing an internal witness may be the most important act of our life.   Being able to observe ourselves honestly, with acceptance and friendliness trains us to do the same with others at home, at work and in the world.   It trains us to be less reactive to whatever it is in life that causes us suffering.  It gives us the ability to experience our own pain without identifying fully with it and therefore to be more free from it.   We begin to fear life's pain less, to contract less around it.

Meditation can be a magnifying glass that lights the fire of happiness in our hearts.  Over time, mindfulness practice sensitizes our capacity for joy so much that even tiny physical and emotional pleasures can bring great happiness."    Elizabeth Lesser

Wanting

"If wanting to be wanted is about image, wanting to be loved is about heart.   The heart-truth of wanting to be loved is what we discover through a way of living that rests on honesty, directness, transparency."  Polly Young-Eisendrath