Tag: love

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Chillin

Keeping Focus on the Right Thing

HAPPY MOTHERS DAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I was watching / listening to the New York Knicks blowout victory today to go to the NBA Eastern Conference Finals. After the game, Knicks player Landry Shamet was asked about the historic 3-point shooting of the team today and the effect that had on the game. I really appreciated his answer. In effect he said not to focus on the result, but rather the process that leads to the result:

“We realized that happens because we play a certain way and we did the small things we needed to do in order to get those results, and I think that’s where our focus needs to be and that’s where it is. That’s I think why we were able to go out and perform the way we did tonight, cause we didn’t get caught up on shots just going in – kept doing the things we needed to do.”

-Landry Shamet

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Chillin

SpongeBob and the Simple Life

I really enjoyed this video (about 30mins) about how SpongeBob lives a simple life that he is happy with. He cooks burgers for a living, and is excited to do that in the best way he can. He thoroughly enjoys simple activities with friends. And, while he is imperfect, he has high optimism.

With social pressures and forces these days, I do believe these kinds of simple ways and values may lead to one of the healthiest kinds of lives.

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Chillin Quotes In Person

Beautiful Words Regarding God

“God is overjoyed when you steadily seek [God] with your gratitude, needs, and actively listen for [God’s] voice and guidance. Praying that you always feel God’s presence wrapped around you, reminding you of the most perfect love and that within the areas where you need the most support and grace, God shines the brightest”

-D

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Chillin Relationships

Black Hole of Neediness

The Black Hole of Neediness my friends. This is what I am calling my recent discovery. To get right to it: I discovered I have an emotional hole in me that has been there for years. And I have been trying to get other people to fill this hole for me. But this hole is insatiable, it can never be filled by anyone.
Subconsciously, without my awareness, in my past relationships (romantic and non-romantic) I have wanted other people to fill this hole. I was not aware this is what I was trying to do. But people are incapable of filling this hole, nobody can do this, even if they wanted to.
So I must walk around with this hole, realizing that it is permanent, and that nobody can fill it. This lets everyone else in the world off the hook. It also relaxes me, because now I can stop looking for a person to fill this, which allows me to set healthier boundaries, expectations, and honestly provides greater outlook for the future.
Something interesting is that once I realized I have this Black Hole, it dramatically reduced a visceral, physical anxiety response I would experience in my neediness sometimes. Instead of physical, the response has become more mental, which is actually an easier response for me.
This video is a bit long and slow. But if you’re in the mood, I hope you enjoy. Love and Blessings.

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Chillin

Jon Stewart and Grace of Forgiveness

“Look, I worked for Apple. There’s a lot of people who believe that Apple is exploitative in a way that is horrific. You know? We all have our lines that we are willing to cross. We get into a problem when we’re unforgiving, in any way – we offer no grace. And that doesn’t mean I don’t have lines that I draw that if people cross it, I wont do. But I do try to not be so rigid in the way that I think society has become….

I love a good argument. I love different points of view in all facets of things. But I also love grace. I’ve got people in my family that are to the right of Attila the Hun, and when people tell me ‘How can you platform that person on your show?’ I go: ‘I platform my uncle every f* Thanksgiving.’ And by the way, I love him. He’s a 3-dimensional human being who has qualities that I really admire – things about him. And we’ve lost that, we’ve lost the ability to love people, because we litmus test at every point, in every single moment.”

–Jon Stewart

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Chillin Halloween

Happy Halloween Birthday!!!! =)

Happy Halloween Birthday =)

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Chillin

Everything is Sacred and Alive

The following is part of a lucid dream, as recorded by Robert Waggoner in his book “Lucid Dreaming”:

I stop and look intently at the deep darkness. Is there evil in there?

Then, from within, I hear a voice deliver this message: “The light upholds the darkness.”And suddenly I know that behind all apparent evil or darkness is light; band that it’s light that gives us the sense of darkness.

Then I hear: “Everything is sacred and alive.” I intuitively realize that the light is in every living creature as a condition of its existence.

And then I hear something more clarifying: “Even the space between your fingers is sacred and alive.” I look at my outstretched hand and see the space between my fingers, that precious emptiness, and know with clarity that I live in a sacred universe, where even the apparent emptiness is aware and alive. With form or without, all is sacred and alive.

-Robert Waggoner, Lucid Dreaming

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Inserts Interconnectivity Relationships

Rest in Peace Charlie Kirk

Rest in Peace Charlie Kirk.

A man with a family. I believe it when they say he was a loving father and husband.

I disagreed with him for much or most of what I’ve seen him say. But, maybe it was his appearance on Jubilee, where I saw the entire 1-hour or so episode, or maybe it was somewhere else, I felt I saw his human side. I was touched by it. I felt like I knew him, I don’t know why.

I created a video about this but I took it down because the night of his death I was shown many clips where he had said negative things, and I don’t want to support those negative things he said that caused pain in other people, and I don’t want to support things he said that were dangerous or de-valuing of human life.

I don’t normally post on current events or divisive topics but I’m posting because I feel this moment needs us to see the humanity in each other.

We all have humanity. Charlie Kirk had a beautiful side, just like us all. We should bring beauty into this moment by preaching love and acceptance.

When we disagree, it is better that we do it with a love and compassion for all. Every person out there deserves to be treated as a human, with respect and humanity.

Rest in Peace Charlie Kirk, and all who have died. And may the greatest human compassion be brought to all who are suffering.

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Chillin

Even Negative Things Have a Sacredness

Even negative things have a sacredness to them, in their struggle. Don’t sacrifice their sacredness for your ego.

Example: Someone I love is having problems abusing medications, they’re unable to stop. I can turn on a music video with a catchy song about someone’s pill addiction problem, maybe I turn it on to make a joke for my entertainment, or to compare myself to “feel good” that I don’t have this problem. This is sacrificing the sacredness simply to feed the ego. Honor someone’s struggle, including your own. It is sacred. And while humor can be therapeutic and I believe even spiritual, ask yourself, are you feeding your Spirit or your Ego? With any move you make, are you feeding your Spirit, or your Ego?

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Chillin Quotes Relationships

Surrender to the Perfection of Imperfection

“Surrender to the Perfection of Imperfection.”

–Francisco N. Diaz

This was a quote from my cousin. What the heck does it mean? He was talking in reference to relationships, where each person must sacrifice and accept imperfection in a sort of surrender, and that is how things balance and continue to function.

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Chillin Quotes

Every Sacrifice Deserves its Reward

“Cada sacrificio merece su recompensa.” (quoted in Spanish)

-Alfredo

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Chillin Spark the Flame - Long Podcast

Podcast with Mom

Happy Early Mother’s Day 😆 And Happy Early Halloween 😊 I am posting this 2017 podcast audio of me chatting with my mom over a variety of deep, human topics. She is a therapist, substance abuse counselor, and is highly credentialed. But besides that, she is a practicer of much Life, wisdom, love, and deeply challenging human experience.

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Chillin

There’s a Beauty to the Routine in my Life

It hit me on the bus ride home. It was snowing, peacefully. I was watching the same old scene, the same stores, the Taqueria, the vitamin store, the pizza shop, the lights. And the warmth and peacefulness of the warm, full, quiet bus, and the dark but lit road outside, with people bustling across the narrow street. This is what my life is. This is what it could be every single day, in a way. Me staying a little late to help my coworker teammates with a task. Me being ready to do a little more work tonight at 10pm from home, and then some more careful work tomorrow. Everyone just accepting that this is the life, their life.

And it was a beautiful thought, a beautiful moment. Tears flowed down my face while the bus stopped to pick up a cold couple from the bus stop. I didn’t want those people to see me crying, but it didn’t really matter. This is NYC, I generally don’t know these people. But they are part of my neighborhood fabric in a way.

A beauty to accepting this is my life. The life I have been granted. A life I have worked for, and also have been blessed with.

Thank God.

Thankfully….

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Chillin Quotes Relationships

A Short Quote on Couple Relationships

“I don’t think it’s about whether someone’s right for you. It’s whether you both want to make it right. Like there is no perfect person, there is no perfect partner. There’s only the person that wants to make it work with you and the person you want to make it work with. And if someone doesn’t want to make it work with you it doesn’t matter how perfect you think they are, it’s not gonna work.”

-Jay Shetty

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Chillin Quotes In Person Using The Brain

It’s Beautiful When the Simple Things Make You Happy

Let me quote my mom and myself for a minute.

Yesterday my mom texted me: “I finally have an armoire to put my sheets in. Yay! So silly the things that make you happy when you get to my age. Have a wonderul day. Love you!!!” And I replied to her: “It’s beautiful when the simple things make you happy mom ❤️”

I have been struggling with gratitude recently. As I said to someone a few days ago:

“I feel like the practice of gratitude for me…I have to keep working on it….its like I get called / lured away from this gratitude, by these social cues / lures for things that I desire, not really material things but more ideas of a ‘better life’, like an amazing self-business or making so much $ from selling books, or having the whole family and everything with amazing job….but I look at people with fame, with $ and status, with great work, and I know they have sacrificed, probably things I dont want to sacrifice, things I truly value, like the people in my life, my loved ones. health, people, meaning and comfort. so this means that really, I think I have what I value the most, and I dont want to lose it soon, not before its natural time….I have to be grateful. and its this constant exercise of not only telling myself that this life is ok, but looking at it in its gorgeous illustrious beauty, because it is beautiful. gratitude really gives us beautiful lenses to see everything with.”

So, I think it is beautiful when we can appreciate the small, simple things. In fact I think appreciating the small simple things expands them in a way to be bigger and even more beautiful things. A key to happiness? Hmm….

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Chillin Life Is Yours Oetics

A Poem for Love for Me

I found this poem tonight. I had written it on 4/4/2013 at 1am. This was a poem I wrote to myself; I was realizing and learning how I needed to feel love, instead of just logically knowing that I was loved. At the time I was referring to romantic love. Now I can probably expand this beyond that:

A Poem for Love for Me

It is not enough for me to know I

am loved, I need to Feel it.

I need to feel I am loved.

A week ago I realized a baby portrait of

mine has had barbed wire attached to

it all these years, literally. I could

not hold the portrait tight. I could

not hold it right.

Then I realized, that baby needs to be

held, not looked at. Not put somewhere

to be looked at. He

needs to be held.

And that is me. And it is a daily occurrence,

daily need. I need to feel it

everyday. Anything else is not enough.

Because When I don’t, I shrivel up and recoil,

and get cold and bitter. I cant live like

that.

I need to grow and open my heart,

open up, and bloom. I’ve come too

far, I must

continue opening and growing

I May forget these details, but my heart

will not. My heart knows

that it needs Love it can feel.

My heart will not let me

stay with anything else.

-Dr. Orlando Fernandez

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Exponential Potential Interconnectivity Life Is Yours Quotes Using The Brain

The World Belongs to Optimists

The world belongs to optimists.
That’s all you have to say.
Just keep your eyes on those blue skies
And you will find the way…

To climb the mountain of success-
Now here’s the magic key:
That while you earn, you have to learn
To help humanity.

-Dr. Robert Kavesh (recently deceased)

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Chillin Interconnectivity Quotes In Person Reality

A Decision Can Change Your Life

“A Decision Can Change Your Life” – Janine Diaz

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Chillin Interconnectivity Life Is Yours Relationships

True Connection

Maybe the fact that we have flaws makes us a perfect human.

This is a beautiful video my cousin sent me. I must credit the creator, Verodigm, from Instagram. Here is the link to the video, and I am pasting the video below:

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Exponential Potential Hooraaaaaaaaay Inserts Reality

Passed My Dissertation Defense!!!!!!!!!!

Nice photo here, of me FINALLY passing my dissertation defense. Ed.D., here we come! Should be official by the end of September.

Included in this photo are my three faculty advisors, whom I appreciate very much. They strove to help me make the best, most professional, acceptable, stellar work possible.

I cannot quantify the hours, days, weeks, months, years of time, I put into this doctorate degree. Technically it was about 3.5 years. But the real time and effort is not quantifiable.

One interesting thing, is that during the process over these years, I could not let myself imagine this day, because it was too painful to imagine while I still had so much work to do. I had to stay Present in the work to keep my motivation. Essentially, not really lifting my head up, but keeping the head to the grindstone until the work was done. Otherwise I was afraid of becoming lazy and unmotivated with the weight of all the work that remained.

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Chillin Quotes

A Description of Humanization

“Humanization” is a word that describes the act of perceiving other people as human. This may sound like not a big deal, but it is the opposite of dehumanizing, which is lowering the value of a person to something less-than-human.

Below is an excerpt from Man’s Search for Meaning, a book written by Viktor Frankl, a Jewish survivor of the Nazi concentration camps:

“It is apparent that the mere knowledge that a man was either a camp guard or a prisoner tells us almost nothing. Human kindness can be found in all groups, even those which as a whole it would be easy to condemn. The boundaries between groups overlapped and we must not try to simplify matters by saying that these men were angels and those were devils. Certainly, it was a considerable achievement for a guard or foreman to be kind to the prisoners in spite of all the camp’s influences, and, on the other hand, the baseness of a prisoner who treated his own companions badly was exceptionally contemptible. Obviously the prisoners found the lack of character in such men especially upsetting, while they were profoundly moved by the smallest kindness received from any of the guards.“

Then the author provides an example of being humanized:

“I remember how one day a foreman secretly gave me a piece of bread which I knew he must have saved from his breakfast ration. It was far more than the small piece of bread which moved me to tears at that time. It was the human ‘something’ which this man also gave to me–the word and look which accompanied the gift.“

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Chillin Quotes

There is No Ultimate Arrival

“There is no ultimate arrival. Only continual reflection, failure, refinement, and re-commitment.”

-John Wineland, from his book “From the Core: A New Masculine Paradigm for Leading with Love, Living Your Truth & Healing the World”

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Chillin Interconnectivity

Finding Purpose and Meaning through Hopelessness and Suffering

Here is another quote from Viktor Frankl’s “Man’s Search for Meaning.” The author was a researcher who survived the Nazi concentration camps. In this book he writes about these experiences, and how it impacted his awareness of how people find meaning:

“Another time we were at work in a trench. The dawn was grey around us; grey was the sky above; grey the snow in the pale light of dawn; grey the rags in which my fellow prisoners were clad, and grey their faces. I was again conversing silently with my wife, or perhaps I was struggling to find the reason for my sufferings, my slow dying. In a last violent protest against the hopelessness of imminent death, I sensed my spirit piercing through the enveloping gloom. I felt it transcend that hopeless, meaningless world, and from somewhere I heard a victorious “Yes” in answer to my question of the existence of an ultimate purpose. At that moment a light was lit in a distant farmhouse, which stood on the horizon as if painted there, in the midst of the miserable grey of a dawning morning in Bavaria. ‘Et lux in tenebris lucet’–and the light shineth in the darkness. For hours I stood hacking at the icy ground. The guard passed by, insulting me, and once again I communed with my beloved. More and more I felt that she was present, that she was with me; I had the feeling that I was able to touch her, able to stretch out my hand and grasp hers. The feeling was very strong: she was there. Then, at that very moment, a bird flew down silently and perched just in front of me, on the heap of soil which I had dug up from the ditch, and looked steadily at me.”

This quote struck me. I find it beautiful in many ways.

Right now, regardless of what we think about the bird in this excerpt, it is obvious it was profoundly meaningful for the author, for the bird to land in front of him and look steadily at him. I gather that this meant there was connection there: connection between him and his wife (who was deceased at this time), and connection with this bird. And I think the meaningfulness stems from and has something to do with this sense of connection.

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Chillin Exponential Potential Interconnectivity Life Is Yours Using The Brain

No Matter What, Know that Things Can Get Better

No matter what, know that things can get better.

No matter where you are. Or what is going on. Regardless of the impacts of the past, the future can be very unpredictable.

No matter what we think is going to happen, or how we believe things will turn out, we don’t consciously know it all. We don’t know the details. And so often, wild, crazy things have entered into Life to be a part of reality.

Keep positive. Keep open. And definitely, please, stay real.

Keeping positive doesn’t mean denying the truth of the moment. Positivity that can spark change is about accepting the truth of the moment, being a “Yes” to it, with humility, love, connection, and optimism. Imagine the number of people who have done the worst things, and then turned their lives around. Imagine the many miracles people have experienced with seemingly no rhyme or reason, but which have been saving graces in their lives?

Keep positive my friends. Real to your self, your core, your Soul. And yet, positive. Loving. Accepting. Forgiving. Loving. Loving. Loving.

Blessings to you and yours. And all. One Love.

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Reality

Inviting, Allowing a New Home

Since the chaos of my move has decreased a bit, I’ve been sad in my new apartment for the last few days. It hit me this morning that I wasn’t letting go of my concept of “home” which has always been in my heart my childhood home that I grew up in. Now that home belongs to another family, and my grandma who always provided that home has passed away a year ago.

I think I have to “invite” this new home to be my home in my heart. Or something. Here is a video with some thoughts on this.

Blessings.

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Oetics

What is the Answer

What is the Answer?

I don’t even know the question.

I know I’m constantly looking for something.

Whatever it is, it’s not going to be found outside.

Even if I’m looking for human interaction / connection, the answer undoubtedly lies in me, or should I say ‘truths’ in me.

In a way, that’s a good thing.

It’s always there. Even if lost, it’s still with me.

Part of it has to do with needing. Needing / feeding from someone…it’s ultimately the direction or path, is through yourself. But, not the ego / character, more so, that door is found inside.

Maybe the reflections on the outside, which is all reflection, helps point us to that door, that way. And by ‘way,’ I mean honor, focus, source.

I don’t think you, nor I, are exclusively the source, but if you are unsatisfied with the outside, consider looking inside.

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Quotes

Unable to Perceive the Shape of You

“Unable to perceive the shape of You,

I find You all around me.

Your Presence fills my eyes with your love.

It humbles my heart,

for You are everywhere.”

-from The Shape of Water movie

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Chillin Exponential Potential Spark the Flame - Short Vlog Using The Brain

I do not Seek. I Find.

Referring to Pablo Picasso’s quote “I do not seek. I find” – and how the concept helps me perceive and appreciate the beauty of what is already here, and trying to reduce the ‘chase’.

When I chase certain things, they can be like forms and shapes in a cloud far away – as I get nearer the form disappears and what I thought was there turns out to be an illusion. Instead of chasing / seeking, we can ‘find’ what is here right in front of us, or beside us and around us. Instead of pursuing far away, we can open our senses and experience what we have been brought together with that exist with us right here.

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Chillin Exponential Potential Life Is Yours Relationships

Loss and Connection

My uncle is about to pass away. He battled many things, one of which is addiction. I love him dearly.

My grandma passed away in late June. She raised me.

There was a challenging, yet beautiful connection between my grandma and my uncle (mom and son). I think they needed each other in some ways.

Love you both. I am glad my heart feels your loss…it will be a way to connect with you.

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Chillin Exponential Potential Life Is Yours

The Best Security We Have

The best security we have is in who we decide to be, who our relationships are, and our faith in the higher power.