DAILY QUOTE
30.04.2022
Watch carefully
the magic that occurs
when you give a person
enough comfort
to just be themselves.
(Atticus)
29.04.2022
If you are worried about whether or not you will be misunderstood, judged, or criticized when you put yourself, your work, your art, your heart out there… the truth is that you will be.
There is no avoiding it.
The question is, how can you do it anyway?
How can you keep going?
As an artist, a creator, a parent, a teacher, a guide, a mentor, a leader, a (fill in the blank)... you will be misunderstood.
You will be judged. You will be criticized. We cannot avoid what is guaranteed.
And… showing up anyway to do what you are here to do (or what you choose, want, need, or desire to to… however you may describe it) is possible.
We can let this be a simple result of being human instead of a personal failing or something to fix/hack/figure out.
We can let it be a natural side-effect of showing up instead of a sign to hide.
Not being for everyone isn't a flaw - it's human nature.
Instead of avoiding judgment, we can learn to partner with ourselves through it.
Instead of avoiding criticism, we can create a well of compassion to return to within.
Instead of avoiding being misunderstood, we can root into our values, our why, what matters to us.
Instead of constantly looking to those who don't resonate with us, we can keep our eyes open to all who do.
We can trust others to find what they need instead of trying to be what everyone needs.
And we can practice trusting that our work, whatever it may be, will find those who are meant to find it.
May it be so.
(Lisa Olivera)
28.04.2022
Communicate with me,
no matter how dark,
no matter how strange
or deep it may be.
I love when people can be raw
and direct. Share with me,
the corners of your heart that
others have been too afraid
to stand on. Be you, all the time,
& let me in so I can understand you.
(Sylvester McNutt)
27.04.2022
Boundaries emerge from deep within.
They are connected to letting go of
guilt and shame, and to changing
our beliefs about what we deserve.
As our thinking about this becomes
clearer, so will our boundaries.
Boundaries are also connected
to a Higher Timing than our own.
We’ll set a limit when we’re ready,
and not a moment before.
So will others. There’s something
magical about reaching that point
of becoming ready to set a limit.
We know we mean what we say;
others take us seriously too.
Things change, not because we’re
controlling others, but because
we’ve changed.
(Melody Beattie)
26.04.2022
In the beginning, spirituality is a seeking practice.
We seek peace, we seek joy, we seek wisdom, we seek awakening, we seek self betterment.
Farther down the road, the realization comes that we already are the peace and joy and wisdom and awakening and self betterment that we seek.
At that point, spirituality becomes what it is… Not a practice of seeking anything.
But a practice of uncovering what was there inside you all along.
You already are the light at the end of the tunnel.
You already are the wisdom, you already are the peace, you already are the joy.
You already are awakened, you already are perfect.
All that’s left is for you to discover that you are.
(Teal Swan)
25.04.2022
Maybe I haven't met my Prince
Charming yet, but I have met
dozens of toads who taught
me how to rescue myself,
dozens of fairy godmothers
who taught me how to believe
in myself, & dozens of magical
moments that taught me never
to give up on myself.
(Mandy Hale)
24.04.2022
We are not supposed to all
be the same, feel the same,
think the same, and
believe the same.
The key to continued expansion
of our Universe lies in diversity,
not in conformity and coercion.
Conventionality is the death
of creation.
(Anthon St. Maarten)
23.04.2022
I don't trust anyone
who doesn't laugh.
(Maya Angelou)
22.04.2022
Trauma says:
You're not allowed to say no.
What if it makes the other
person upset? It doesn't matter
how uncomfortable or exhausted
you are, just say yes.
Healing says:
When I give myself permission
to say no, that doesn't mean
I don't care about other
people or their happiness.
I'm allowed to have boundaries
and do what's right for me,
even if other people
don't understand.
(Emmy Marie)
21.04.2022
INSTEAD OF SAYING "I'M OK“
WHEN YOU'RE REALLY NOT, TRY:
• I'm sad, and I need some support.
• I feel terrible. Can I have a hug?
• I'm feeling lonely.
Can we go for a walk together?
• I'm scared and frustrated.
Can you come over and sit with me?
• Are you open to a phone call?
I’d like to share how I'm feeling
with you.
• I'm not OK today, but I do not
need you "fix things."
• My heart is heavy.
Can you send me some loving energy?
• I'm feeling uncertain.
Do you have any words of
encouragement for me?
• I'm upset and overwhelmed.
Can we make time to talk later?
• I love you - but I'm not happy
with you right now.
I need some space.
We live in a world that celebrates
„being okay" and "sucking it up“
even when we are hurting,
overwhelmed, and sad.
I'm here to remind you that:
It's OK not to be OK.
You are allowed to ask for help.
You are allowed to fall apart.
You are allowed to speak up
and advocate for yourself.
You don't have to be okay.
You don't have to hide
behind "no worries."
You don't have to be
the strong one.
Give yourself permission
to not suffer in silence.
(Alexandra Elle)
20.04.2022
We attract the people, places,
and things that are a vibrational
match to ourselves.
So if a lesson is presenting itself
to you again and again,
you must allow yourself to
confront it head on and to truly
experience it. Be still, be present,
and breathe. Look for what it is
trying to teach you. Push through
the fear, push through the emotions,
and invite change within.
By fully experiencing the lesson,
you will move through it, beyond it,
and you will no longer attract it
into your life. Through the experience,
you will identify and confront the
barriers that keep you from peace,
happiness, abundance, intimacy,
and love. This is growth.
This is the evolution of consciousness.
This is the art of becoming.
This is self love.
(Creig Crippen)
19.04.2022
There are two basic motivating
forces: fear and love.
When we are afraid,
we pull back from life.
When we are in love,
we open to all that life
has to offer with passion,
excitement, and acceptance.
We need to learn to love
ourselves first, in all our glory
and our imperfections.
If we cannot love ourselves,
we cannot fully open to our
ability to love others or
our potential to create.
Evolution and all hopes for
a better world rest in the
fearlessness and open-hearted
vision of people who embrace life.
(John Lennon)
18.04.2022
There's no one right way
to be. Life is joyous and sad.
Devastating and miraculous.
Full of loss and full of grace.
It's messy and weird.
We find the sweet spot and
then lose the groove.
The rules feel rigid but
the heart is bendy.
Being alive is a ride, you know?
Crazy beautiful ride.
(McCall Erickson)
17.04.2022
When you are constantly feeling
driven to help & fix others,
in reality what you are doing
is attempting to manipulate
the dynamic between you,
by making sure they somehow
need you. So, you are in essence
trying to control their feelings
towards you & therefore secure
your place in their lives.
And this way, your fear of
abandonment gets soothed,
resting in what you deep down
believe about how relationships
with humans really work:
"as long as they need you,
they won't leave you".
(Evita Pk)
16.04.2022
If you ever want your soul
to dance in the clouds,
you will at some point
have to juggle lightning
and taste the thunder.
(Christopher Poindexter)
15.04.2022
A tulip doesn’t strive to impress anyone.
It doesn’t struggle to be different
than a rose. It doesn’t have to.
It is different.
And there’s room in the garden
for every flower.
You didn’t have to struggle to
make your face different than
anyone else’s on earth.
It just is.
You are unique because you
were created that way.
Look at little children
in kindergarten.
They’re all different without
trying to be.
As long as they’re unselfconsciously
being themselves, they can’t help
but shine. It’s only later,
when children are taught to compete,
to strive to be better than others,
that their natural light
becomes distorted.
(Marianne Williamson)
14.04.2022
You never know how strong
you are until being strong
is your only choice.
(Bob Marley)
13.04.2022
We are uncomfortable because
everything in our life keeps changing -
our inner moods, our bodies, our work,
the people we love, the world
we live in. We can't hold on to anything -
a beautiful sunset, a sweet taste,
an intimate moment with a lover,
our very existence as the body/mind we
call self - because all things come and go.
Lacking any permanent satisfaction,
we continuously need another injection of
fuel, stimulation, reassurance from loved ones,
medicine, exercise, and meditation.
We are continually driven to become something
more, to experience something else.
(Tara Brach)
12.04.2022
You must understand the whole of life,
not just one little part of it.
That is why you must read,
that is why you must look at the skies,
that is why you must sing, and dance,
and write poems, and suffer,
and understand, for all that is life.
(Jiddu Krishnamurti)
11.04.2022
YOUR EYES
On a dark, cold evening in the middle of december, many years ago, I saw it the first time.
In your eyes. In your shining eyes, reflecting the flames of the open fire.
But it wasn't the fire, it was this bright inner light in your eyes which put a spell on me.
It attracted me so deeply, that I couldn't resist looking directly into it, every second.
Missing just one second of this light would have caused a strong painful regret in my entire being.
"Who are you?" I thought. Again and again this question in my mind.
I could sense that the answer was hidden in that light.
So I took a deep breath and decided to get involved and to REALLY look into your eyes.
Not like in everyday life, superficial without profound contact, but from soul to soul, to enter into your world.
The first seconds felt like a rollercoaster.
Adrenaline pulsated through my body.
My heart trembled, not knowing what would happen next.
Then I noticed these movements in your face, like energy waves, creating hundreds of different appearances, shy children, wrinkled old women, archaic warriors, wild animals, fiery grimaces, beautiful high priestesses.
There was no face you didn't show me.
You showed me everything.
All these faces melted together, fading away, coming back, creating an unimaginably mighty hologram beyond time and space.
I had to fasten my seatbelt. Seeing all your different faces confronted me with my own faces and the longing in the depth of my soul to create my own all-embracing hologram. It felt like dying and being born in the same moment.
No fear. Just this one moment. NOW.
Suddenly the waves became slower and foggier.
This bright light in your eyes started a journey, conquering your forehead, your hair, your nose, your lips, your cheeks, your throat. The whole head surrounded by this glorious light.
The rollercoaster transformed into a cloud, a soft, soothing, cozy and warm cloud. There I sat, bathing in the divine light, all polarity vanished.
Tears in my eyes. They had nearly forgotten this brightness from the eternal space.
The tears were a physical reaction, but more than this, they were the expression of a deep remembering in me.
My whole body resonated in the melody of that light, in the delight of its unbounded peace.
Viewing each other with two knowing and recognizing smiles on our faces.
(RWYA)
10.04.2022
If you want to strengthen your faith,
you will need to soften inside.
For your faith to be rock solid,
your heart needs to be as soft
as a feather. Through an illness,
accident, loss or fright,
one way or another, we are all faced
with incidents that teach us
how to become less selfish and
judgmental and more compassionate
and generous. Yet some of us learn the
lesson and manage to become milder,
while some others end up becoming
even harsher than before…
(Shams Tabrizi)
09.04.2022
It is a process of transformation,
a learning to live from a certain
truth of soul rather than the
more common truth of culture.
Because most people live from
the truth of culture, they can't,
by orientation, understand
what you are doing or why.
(Stephen Harrod Buhner)
08.04.2022
The discomfort you are having
right now, needs attention.
Feel everything your body
is trying to tell you.
(Mila Zambrano)
07.04.2022
There's no disaster that
can’t become a blessing,
and no blessing that
can’t become a disaster.
(Richard Bach)
06.04.2022
I know a lot of people make fun of
the idea of having an 'inner child' but
I think that's just because they don't
understand the science behind it.
Whatever neural firing pattern got
established when you were a child,
when it opens again, it's like your brain
is firing in a similar way as it did when
you were young because that pattern
got templated. It's like in that moment,
we become the child again.
When we can approach our parts with
compassion, it changes everything.
Why? Because when understanding and
compassion are given to our parts, it
allows for some really deep healing
work... where our parts can finally feel
safe enough to relax.
It's almost like through our love toward
them, that they can realize they aren't in
the trauma scene anymore. The sciency
way of saying this is that we are working
to change implicit memory.
There is something important about not
only thinking about or approaching our
parts as 'neural firing patterns' or
'conditioning' or 'schemas' but rather
visualizing them as like human because
there is a way we are dealing with human
consciousness. It's a human story.
It's not a what, it's a who.
When I have a client who is depressed,
I'm not thinking: What is this depression?
Is it a chemical balance? Is it a coping
strategy? How do I get rid of it? I'm
thinking: Who in there is depressed?
Who in there gave up hope and why?
Who in there got so punished for the
anger that they learned to shut down
instead?
That part needs someone to find it and
build a relationship to it. To listen to it.
Because just like with humans, a part
will only be able to change, be able to
learn and shift, once it feels heard first.
(Dr. Tori Olds)
05.04.2022
Life can only be understood backwards;
but it must be lived forwards.
(Søren Kierkegaard)
04.04.2022
SALT AND SUGAR
The thing is, I still believe in it.
The sky during its thunder.
The sea during its storm.
The earth during its darkest hours.
You. Yes you, reading this.
I am tired of us abandoning the
parts of ourselves we do not like
and calling ourselves lost things.
The sun does not abandon us
when a storm visits.
The sea does not abandon the
cliffs because they are hardened
to her touch.
I am asking you not to abandon
the parts of yourself that
are in need of more love.
I am asking you to hold
the parts of you that shatter,
that scare you, close.
I am asking you to become better
at loving those portions of yourself
you wish to abandon - to learn
from them as much as you learn
from everything about you
that is beloved.
The salt as well as the sugar.
The gentle breeze as well
as the coarse sand.
(Nikita Gill)
03.04.2022
HEALING: TRUST THE PROCESS
Sometimes you have to commit to feeling worse in order to feel better.
Sometimes you have to lose the hope of ever getting better, before you feel better.
Sometimes healing involves staying very present as powerful waves of sensation move in the body. Sometimes the body shakes, convulses, aches, sweats, burns, as it rids itself of toxins, releases bound-up energy.
The mind says, "I'm getting worse".
The heart knows you're so okay.
True healing is not the removal of symptoms, then, but courage, and trust, and connection with the breath, and knowing that symptoms may intensify before they disappear. And they may never disappear. Yet you may fall in love with yourself as you are, despite the future, and you may drop to your knees in gratitude, for you have been given another day on this precious earth.
Maybe getting worse was the best thing that ever happened to you. Because you've never sensed the presence of love so clearly, and your path has never been more obvious, and you've never felt so alive.
(Jeff Foster)
02.04.2022
I’m a free spirit who never
had the balls to be free.
(Cheryl Strayed)
01.04.2022
We do not grow absolutely,
chronologically.
We grow sometimes in one dimension,
and not in another; unevenly.
We grow partially. We are relative.
We are mature in one realm,
childish in another.
The past, present, and future mingle
and pull us backward, forward,
or fix us in the present.
We are made up of layers, cells,
constellations.
(Anaïs Nin)