“Stay focused in the moment. Be where your feet are.”
-Robert Saleh (Head Coach of the New York Jets)
“Stay focused in the moment. Be where your feet are.”
-Robert Saleh (Head Coach of the New York Jets)
Personally I like to distinguish between pain and suffering. I go by an idea I came across which says that pain is inevitable, but suffering arises from resistance to that pain. I really appreciated the following quote, and it is obvious the author is referring to the inevitable aspects of suffering or pain:
“One of the keys to a creative spirituality of suffering has something to do with its inevitability. If life always bring suffering with it, then it need never be sought but merely accepted. Every human life will have a measure of pain in it at different stages of the life process.
An acceptance of suffering gives us all the suffering we need, so to speak. The question is not whether we shall suffer or how much but what our attitude to it will be and what we shall make of it….
The sacrament of the present moment intends to make us aware of the meaningfulness of life and of the presence of God in each moment. It asks us not to look to the past and wish for something that was gone, or to the future to desire something which might never exist. It suggests, instead, that we live in the present moment, whether that moment be wonderful or frightening, and that we find in that moment something important to experience.
Each moment of life is sacramental because it reveals God to us and brings grace with it. Each moment makes us aware of who we are and enters into our life story. Some of these moments may be suffering moments, but these too teach us about the texture and quality of our lives and the nature and character of the universe we inhabit.
We know then that life brings more than enough suffering with it. We need not ever seek suffering for its own sake or inflict it on others. Suffering becomes a creative and contributing life experience when we allow life itself to determine the occasion and the intensity, the moment and the magnitude of the pain.
Every person suffers sooner or later. The poor suffer physical deprivation, but many experience stronger bonds with those they love and fewer illusions about life. The affluent suffer emotional distance from themselves and others, but receive more esteem and comfort. Those whose lives are socially unsuccessful suffer failure in the public order, but may be closer to their families and less infected with greed. The successful suffer stress, endless expectations for better performance and vicious competition, but they gain a sense of satisfaction with themselves and the acclaim of others.”
Anthony T. Padovano, A Celebration of Life
“If you never let yourself feel sad, how do you ever feel happy?”
-Punky Brewster (episode 1)
I have found this to be true: You cannot selectively numb emotions. You cant just say “I’m going to avoid feeling pain so I can always feel happy” – they come hand-in-hand. Like a flow, flowing through you.
I think the healthiest is when we can allow that flow, even the flow of pain. It is said that suffering is resistance to pain.
So the point here being: perhaps pain is inevitable, and that flow which allows pain is required to also allow happiness. When you restrict the flow, to avoid pain, you cause suffering. Allowing pain is healthy; a pure pain is a cleansing pain, and even may incorporate pure beauty. A stifled, blocked pain can lead to the blocking of other healthy emotions, including happiness.
Love is spontaneous. It cannot be controlled. You cannot “make” love; you cannot do anything about it. And the more you do, the more you will miss it. You have to allow it to happen. You are not needed for it. Your presence is the hindrance. The more you are absent, the better. When you are not, love happens.
Because of their inability to be absent, modern man and woman have become incapable of love. They are only capable of doing things. The whole modern mind is based on doing. Whatsoever can be done, modern [people] can do more efficiently than any that has ever existed. Whatsoever can be done, we can do more efficiently. We are the most efficient century; we have turned everything into technology–into a problem of how to “do” it. We have developed one dimension and that is the dimension of doing, but in developing this dimension we have lost much.
At the loss of being we have learned how to do things, so that which can be done we do better than anyone–better than any society that ever existed on earth. But when the question of love comes, a problem arises because love cannot be done.
For example, meditation: we have become incapable of it, it cannot be done. Or play: we have become incapable of it, it cannot be done. Or joy, happiness: we have become incapable of them because they cannot be done. They are not acts; you cannot manipulate them. On the contrary, you have to let yourself go. Then joy happens to you, then happiness comes to you, then love enters you, then love takes possession. And because of this possession we have become afraid.
Modern [people], the modern mind, wants to possess everything and not be possessed by anything. [The modern person] wants to be the master of everything, and you can only be the master of things–not of happenings. You can be the master of a house, you can be the master of a mechanical device; you cannot be the master of anything which is alive. Life cannot be mastered; you cannot possess it. On the contrary; you have to be possessed by it. Only then is there contact with it.
Love is life, and it is greater than you. You cannot possess it. I would like to repeat it: love is greater than you; you cannot possess it. You can only allow yourself to be possessed by it; it cannot be controlled. The modern ego wants to control everything, and you become scared of whatsoever you cannot control. You become afraid, you close the door. You close that dimension completely because fear enters. You will not be in control. With love you cannot be in control….
-Osho, The Book of Secrets
“…when you throw a stone into the water, it finds the quickest way to the bottom of the water. It is the same when Siddhartha has an aim, a goal. Siddhartha does nothing; he waits, he thinks, he fasts, but he goes through the affairs of the world like the stone through the water, without doing anything, without bestirring himself; he is drawn and lets himself fall. He is drawn by his goal, for he does not allow anything to enter his mind which opposes his goal.”
—Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse
“Everyone can reach their goal, if they can think, wait and fast.”
Our health is connected to our neighbor’s health.
I heard this statement somewhere on the radio, some days ago.
It’s a reminder that we are all connected.
“Patience, understanding, and helping each other is the best thing we can do at this time” –Z, the landlord
“Here’s the thing, if we have goals and dreams, and we want to do our best, and if we love people and we don’t want to hurt them or lose them, we should feel pain when things go wrong. The point isn’t to live without any regrets…We need to learn to love the flawed, imperfect things that we create and to forgive ourselves for creating them.”
–Kathryn Schulz
Leap of Faith
Sometimes the Faith is exhibited by knowing that you dont have to jump.
“…if there’s one thing that I’ve come to realize, if there’s one thing that I see as the biggest problem,
it’s not in building a world where we eliminate the ignorance of others.
It’s in building a world where we teach the acceptance of ourselves,
where we’re okay with who we are, because when we get honest, we see that we all struggle and we all suffer.”
Kevin Breel – Confessions of a depressed comic TED talk
“Be open to all the universe has for you.
And be confident that you’re ready.”
-Zoraida Diaz
“The only intelligent response to the ongoing gift of life is gratitude. For all that has been, a knight says, ‘Thank you.‘” For all that is to come, a knight says, “Yes!”
–Ethan Hawke, Rules for a Knight
When you realize you don’t have control of the situation…
Trust
Trust in Life
Love is key, and you are the keyhole
Things are fine for you when you feel fine for you. They may come out of nowhere, and shock you, but if you hold the “this is fine”, “it is going to be ok” feeling constant, things reorder themselves to be fine for you.
If your perspective is at a general high/up/optimistic constant, Life will appear magical, because things are reordered in ways that appear crazy, to meet you on your perspective. Throughout the low times, your high perspective continues to carry you through, until Life comes seemingly out of nowhere again to meet your high perspective with a beautiful gracious blessed set of events.
Keep your perspective high, your optimism, and you invite the perception and experience of a charmed Life.
Be easygoing.
Smile 🙂
Enjoy yourself.
“…the point is to flex your flexibility, keep catlike presence with a reality that is becoming more unpredictable. not in an anxious way, rather in a “no matter what, something good for me arises from this” way. the more present and accepting of the moment you are, the more you will allow your mind to present you with opportunities to capitalize on every reality you encounter.“
You have to be OK with mistakes.
Because you know what?
You’re going to make them.
When you look at something, don’t read into it, just let it be.
“Compassion…can also express itself in the simple act of Presence…just being there, just…showing up. I think that compassion also is often linked to beauty. And by that I mean a willingness to see beauty in the other, not just what it is about them that might need helping.”
–Krista Tippett
“A superior man always assumes complete responsibility, knowing that, ultimately, he has no control at all and everything is out of his hands. He acts with impeccable courage and persistence, expecting nothing but the inherent feeling of completeness he enjoys in the fullest giving of his gift.”
—The Way Of The Superior Man, by David Deida
This is interesting: how are you supposed to assume complete responsibility over everything that occurs in your life, while ultimately not having control over anything?
Life and I work together, as a team, as partners. Not opposing players, not antagonists, but partners. Who knows exactly how this plays out. What exactly the rules are.
But everything we think, and do, is woven into the web of experience. And is a part of the manifested universe. And yet if it so wishes, Life will catch us completely by surprise…
“The wound is the place where light enters you”
-Rumi
Be the person mentally who you are comfortable being. Then you can feel easier to open up.
the false ego wants power
the natural being arrives at Grace naturally
Help me feel
Better
About
Myself
Remember your Goal, and always look for,
be open to opportunities for the next step.
Activates Law of Attraction