Loving Along the Way

Children, Love, Parenting 0

In spite of all my efforts as a mother, my children will not wake up one morning and be perfect. Just as I will never “arrive” as a mother, they will never “arrive” as children. My work is to companion them on their journeys, guiding, loving, and teaching them to love themselves along the way. Maybe that’s what our responsibility is to ourselves, too, as parents — loving ourselves at our best, in uncertainty, and in spite of flat-out failure.

— Lisa Groen Braner, The Mother’s Book of Well-Being, p. 168

Until They Are Found

God 0

What may we say was the reason for the lost sheep becoming found? Was the sheep saved by the doing of good works? Was the sheep saved by the following of law or commandment? Was the sheep saved because it recognised its own state of ‘lost-ness,’ and went searching for its shepherd? Heaven forbid! The lost sheep was found for one reason and one reason alone. The lost sheep was found because the Good Shepherd came looking. The shepherd commenced a search and rescue operation that would never finish, until his sheep was found.

His is a personal search, a persevering search, a successful search. He will search until they are found. The lost sheep contributed nothing to its being found.

— Peter Gray, Until They Are Found, p. 26

Moving Forward

Growth, Letting Go, Relationships 0

Much as we would like, we cannot bring everyone with us on this journey called recovery. We are not being disloyal by allowing ourselves to move forward. We don’t have to wait for those we love to decide to change as well.

Sometimes we need to give ourselves permission to grow, even though the people we love are not ready to change. We may even need to leave people behind in their dysfunction or suffering because we cannot recover for them. We don’t need to suffer with them.

It doesn’t help.

It doesn’t help for us to stay stuck just because someone we love is stuck. The potential for helping others is far greater when we detach, work on ourselves, and stop trying to force others to change with us.

— Melody Beattie, The Language of Letting Go, p. 164

Only Love Them.

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We cannot force others to change. We can offer them a positive mental atmosphere where they have the possibility to change if they wish. But we cannot do it for or to other people. Each person is here to work out his or her own lessons, and if we fix it for them, then they will just go and do it again, because they have not worked out what they needed to do for themselves. All we can do is love them. allow them to be who they are. Know that the truth is always within them and that they can change at any moment they want.

— Louise L. Hay, Heart Thoughts, p. 167

Accomplishing What We Need

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Take our eyes off the future and the enormity of the task. If we have envisioned the goal, it will be ours. We do not have to do everything today, or at once.

Focus on today. Focus on the belief that all is well. All we need to do to reach our goal is to focus on what presents itself naturally, and in an orderly way, to us today. We shall be empowered to accomplish, peacefully, what we need to get where we want to be tomorrow.

— Melody Beattie, The Language of Letting Go, p. 162

Pursuing Happiness

Joy, Letting Go, Peace 2

It’s ironic that the only joy you ever experience while pursuing happiness is when you very occasionally allow yourself to rest, relax, and stop pursuing happiness. Think of what joy you’d experience if you dared to stop pursuing happiness completely. Think how fearless you would be, how creative and at peace you would be, and how free you would be to enjoy the world more fully if you were to stop pursuing happiness and simply start accepting and allowing happiness to happen.

— Robert Holden, PhD, Happiness Now!, p. 46

The Sanctity of the Present

Children, Joy, Life, Parenting 0

Too often, we miss the sanctity of the present. The present usually arrives peacefully, offering itself as a refuge over and over again while we sit muddled in our minds. We might believe that our thoughts are productive or even interesting, but we’re really ignoring the gift of the day before us.

This is where our children can teach us. babies absorb the world around them, touching, tasting, and seeing. They delight in their senses, enjoying the unexpected swoop of a robin or the warmth of the sun emerging from a cloud. Let’s suspend our thinking for a change, return to the simple and original mind with which we were born. Let’s immerse ourselves in the river of the senses — to drift, swim, and float in the day.

— Lisa Groen Braner, The Mother’s Book of Well-Being, p. 100-101

Rooted in the Present

Gratitude, Peace 0

Being in a state of deep Appreciation is a surefire way to keep us rooted in the present.

Now, after years of facilitating Appreciation exercises, we’re convinced that when you’re in the act of appreciating someone, something, or yourself, all worries about the past and anxieties about the future evaporate. You’re only attuned to what is good in the here and now. And that’s a great place to be. A common thread of multiple world philosophies and religions is the profound value of being in the moment or fully present.

— Rick Foster & Greg Hicks, Choosing Brilliant Health, p. 155