Our Own Thoughts

Healing, Letting Go, Life, Truth 0

All the painful and horrendous things I was imagining were not present, and I realized suddenly and completely that it was my thoughts — and only my thoughts — that were tormenting me. If I stopped my thoughts, the pain stopped. And so it had. For about nine seconds. Then it all came flooding back, although from that moment on I understood one very, very important thing, perhaps the most important of all: learning to work with the pain of a broken heart was about learning to work with thoughts, not about changing any kind of reality. Because in reality, right this second now, nothing is happening.

— Susan Piver, The Wisdom of a Broken Heart, p. 25

Thinking About Thoughts

Letting Go, Life, Truth 0

There’s nothing to fear from thought itself, once we understand that it’s just thought.

Perhaps the greatest misinterpretation of this principle is to believe that the goal is to control what you think about. It isn’t. The goal is to understand thought for what it is: an ability you have that shapes your reality from the inside out. Nothing more, nothing less. What you think about is not ultimately going to determine the quality of your life, but rather the relationship you have to your own thinking — the way you manufacture your thoughts and respond to them. Do you hear your thinking as reality, or as thought?

— Richard Carlson, PhD, You Can Be Happy No Matter What, p. 16

“It’s Your Responsibility to Keep Things Civil and Nice.”

Marriage, Relationships, Truth 0

You’re feeling confused, baffled, and wondering who belongs in the asylum. How could he be saying that it’s your responsibility to keep things civil and nice? He’s the one who was unfaithful, who broke his vows to you, who has inflicted hurt on you and your children. He just acted most uncivil and really, really not nice.

You think, “Isn’t it mostly his responsibility to be civil and nice?” Everything you’ve learned since childhood is that the one who committed the crime is the one who has the responsibility to right the wrong, to make up to those he harmed. You’ve learned that this is true whether the crime is murder or the crime is seven-year-old Adam stepping on his playmate Eric’s toy and breaking it. If the crime is murder, the best the perpetrator can do is to ask for forgiveness and serve time in jail. If it’s breaking the toy, we expect Adam to apologize and to do his best to fix or replace the toy.

Based on all the values, beliefs, and expectations you’ve lived by your entire life, what he’s saying doesn’t make any sense.

— Elizabeth Landers and Vicky Mainzer, The Script: The 100% Absolutely Predictable Things Men Do When They Cheat, p. 130

Remembering Truth

Core Value, Joy, Life, Truth 0

To be happy, it’s good to make a point of knowing what it is in your life that helps you remember truth. What is it that helps you to love, to be real, to be free? What is it that helps you wake up from the slumber of your conditioning? As for myself, I love the sounds of laughter and friendship. I love to look at the stars, to walk in nature, to listen to the river’s song, to smell the heavenly scent of stargazer lilies, to watch a roaring fire, to feel its warmth and see its light. I love to be still, to smile, to meditate, and to pray. How about you?

— Robert Holden, PhD, Happiness Now! p. 24-25

Working Out for Good

Forgiveness, Gratitude, Growth, Healing, Joy, Letting Go, Life, Peace, Truth 0

Noticing and counting the beautiful reasons unexpected things happen for us ends the mystery. If you miss the real reasons, the benevolent reasons that coincide with kind nature, then count on depression to let you know that you missed them. Anger, frustration, and aggressive reasons can always be imagined — and what for? People who aren’t interested in seeing why everything is good get to be right. But that apparent rightness comes with disgruntlement, and often depression and separation. Depression can feel serious. So “counting the genuine ways that this unexpected event happened for me, rather than to me” isn’t a game. It’s an exercise in observing the nature of life. It’s a way of putting yourself back into reality, into the kindness of the nature of things.

— Byron Katie, I Need Your Love — Is That True?, p. 187

When There Are Not Two Sides

Healing, Relationships, Truth 0

There are not two sides.  Abuse is not a conflict.  It is not a fight. . . .

When a child is molested or abused, there are not two sides.  Similarly, when an adult is verbally abused and threatened, there are not two sides.  One person is not attacking and the other counterattacking.  On the contrary, one is trying to understand and not upset the other, whose behavior is directed toward maintaining control and dominance with overt or covert attacks.

— Patricia Evans, Verbal Abuse Survivors Speak Out, p. 98

Feelings and Circumstances

Life, Peace, Truth 0

From my vantage point, you’d have seen many, many people who are deeply loved and still lonely, beautiful and still horribly self-conscious, professionally successful and still so terrified of failure that their nocturnal tooth-gnashing could crush diamonds.  Here’s something you’ll need to hold in your mind, at least temporarily, if you want to get a good look at your own North Star:  External circumstances do not create feeling states.  Feeling states create external circumstances.

— Martha Beck, Steering by Starlight: Find Your Right Life No Matter What!, p. 6