Imagination

God, Growth, Healing 0

And imagination is from God. It is part of the way we understand the world. I think it’s okay to imagine God and grace the best you can. Some of the stuff we imagine engages and connects and calls for the very best in us to come out. Other imaginings disengage us, and shut us down. My understanding is that you get to choose which of your thoughts to go with.

Imagining God can be so different from wishful thinking, if your spiritual experiences change your behavior over time. Have you become more generous, which is the ultimate healing? Or more patient, which is a close second? Did your world become bigger and juicier and more tender? Have you become ever so slightly kinder to yourself? This is how you tell.

— Anne Lamott, Help Thanks Wow: The Three Essential Prayers, p. 21

Prayer

Healing, Prayer 0

Prayer is talking to something or anything with which we seek union, even if we are bitter or insane or broken. (In fact, these are probably the best possible conditions under which to pray.) Prayer is taking a chance that against all odds and past history, we are loved and chosen, and do not have to get it together before we show up. The opposite may be true: We may not be able to get it together until after we show up in such miserable shape.

— Anne Lamott, Help Thanks Wow, p. 5-6

What’s Wrong With Verbal Abuse

Growth, Healing, Relationships 0

No matter how overt or covert the abuser is, all abusers do one thing universally. That one thing is this: abusers define their partners as if they were living within them and knew their inner world: what they are, their motives, thoughts, feelings, and so forth.

Abusers behave as though they were their partner, child, friend, or acquaintance. That is, abusers act as if they know what another person is, thinks, needs, feels, wants, and is doing, did, and should do.

In summary, when someone defines you in any way, tells you what you are (“too sensitive,” “stupid,” “hopeless.”), or actually tells you your motives (for example, “You’re trying to start a fight,” “You want to win,” “You want to have the last word”), he or she is behaving as if he or she were you, or were God!

In normal discourse among people, if you criticize someone, you are usually quick to apologize when you realize that you have no right (unless invited) to critique the other.

If verbal abuse has slammed into your consciousness with assaults that attempt to erase your own awareness of who you are and how you perceive yourself and even your existence, then verbal abuse may brainwash you into believing that you actually are a person who is too sensitive.

This is what is wrong with verbal abuse and why I support your victory over it.

— Patricia Evans, Victory Over Verbal Abuse, p. 36

Bathed in Light

God, Healing, Prayer 0

In prayer, I see the suffering bathed in light. In God, there is no darkness. I see God’s light permeate them, soak into them, guide their feet. I want to tell God what to do: “Look, Pal, this is a catastrophe. You have got to shape up.” But it wouldn’t work. So I pray for people who are hurting, that they be filled with air and light. Air and light heal; they somehow get into those dark, musty places, like spiritual antibiotics.

— Anne Lamott, Help Thanks Wow: The Three Essential Prayers, p. 16

Two Kinds of Forgiveness

Forgiveness, Healing 0

Poor September! How much easier, to be hard and bright and heartless. Instead, a very adult thing was happening in that green, new heart. For there are two kinds of forgiveness in the world: the one you practice because everything really is all right, and what went before is mended. The other kind of forgiveness you practice because someone needs desperately to be forgiven, or because you need just as badly to forgive them, for a heart can grab hold of old wounds and go sour as milk over them. You, being sharp and clever, will have noticed that I used “practice.” Forgiveness always takes practice to get right, and September was very new at it. She had none of the first sort in her.

— Catherynne M. Valente, The Girl Who Fell Beneath Fairyland and Led the Revels There, p. 200

The Practice of Gratitude

Gratitude, Healing, Peace 0

Few practices soothe our spirits as much as gratitude. Feeling appreciative of all that life has given us and continues to give us makes life thrive in our systems. Make gratitude a practice. Do not look for only the large and obvious as a reason for gratefulness. Learn to see your life through a wide-angle lens that includes every detail.

— Carolyn Myss, Why People Don’t Heal and How They Can, p. 192

Remembrance

Healing, Reading, Story 0

Only now am I grasping the importance of looking backward. Of remembrance. My father finally wrote out his memories for a reason. I took on a year of reading books for a reason. Because words are witness to life: they record what has happened, and they make it all real. Words create the stories that become history and become unforgettable. Even fiction portrays truth: good fiction is truth. Stories about lives remembered bring us backward while allowing us to move forward.

— Nina Sankovitch, Tolstoy and the Purple Chair, p. 73

Positive Language

Healing, Joy, Uncategorized 0

I have already elaborated on the danger of living in the consciousness of woundology. Although there is no harm in expressing to another the pain and fear that illness brings into your life, you want to avoid falling into the pit of constantly “speaking pain.”

Toward that end, create a new vocabulary for yourself that describes your condition in optimistic, healing, or spiritual terms. . . . One person I met referred to her illness as “a friend who has come to teach me great truths.” . . . Once healed, she actually held a ritual saying farewell to her friend — a fine antidote to lingering woundology that more people should try.

The purpose of creating a positive vocabulary for your situation is to assist you in “outgrowing your illness.” You want to feel that you are larger and more powerful than the disease present in your body. You want to remind yourself constantly that you have numerous healthy resources in your body upon which you can rely to come to your assistance — you have love, you have hope, you have faith. These are powerful allies. . . .

Write of all the wonderful experiences you have had in your life. Don’t look for only the sad moments that could have contributed to your illness or life challenge. The positive times contribute to your health — use them. Write about the loving relationships you have now and have had in the past. Remember the fun times. Fill yourself with memories of times that made you feel in love with your life and grateful to be alive.

— Caroline Myss, PhD, Why People Don’t Heal and How They Can, p. 189-190