In All Our Grandeur

Core Value, Relationships, Uncategorized 0

Being ourselves naturally proceeds from living our purpose rather than living for approval. Our purpose is what we, of all the people in the world, can do the best. If we do not do it, if we are not true to ourselves, who will be? Who can be? If we do not do what it is we have come to do, no one can do it. It is left undone until we are willing to give our part, until we are willing to be ourselves. Most people are frightened of their own purpose and the greatness that it seems to call from them. In being frightened of our purpose, we are frightened of our own love, passion, and happiness. Most of us feel unworthy, or we try to control our good feelings so as not to be overwhelmed. These are just symptoms of fear that lead us away from our truth, our vision, and our greatness. The greatest art, the greatest gift, is to be ourselves. Being ourselves in all of our grandeur shows how much we love the world. As we unwrap our presence, we give ourselves as the best gift that we can give to life.

— Chuck Spezzano, If It Hurts, It Isn’t Love, p. 288

Your Gold

Core Value, Friends 0

Of all the people you know, who sees and relishes your true self? Who is not afraid of your passion or envious of your gifts? Who has the generosity of spirit to encourage you toward greater self-expression? These people are your gold. Practice leaning on them more, and giving more back to them.

— Ken Page, Deeper Dating, p. 73

Real Self-Love

Compassion, Core Value, Growth, Love 0

Real love allows for failure and suffering. All of us have made mistakes, and some of those mistakes were consequential, but you can find a way to relate to them with kindness. No matter what troubles have befallen you or what difficulties you have caused yourself or others, with love for yourself you can change, grow, make amends, and learn. Real love is not about letting yourself off the hook. Real love does not encourage you to ignore your problems or deny your mistakes and imperfections. You see them clearly and still opt to love.

— Sharon Salzberg, Real Love, p. 16

A Gift of Intimacy

Core Value, Love 0

Everyone’s heard the self-help platitude “You must love yourself before you can love anyone else.” This may sound wise, but it misses a great truth: if we want to experience true intimacy, we need to be taught to love aspects of ourselves — again and again — by the people around us. As much as most of us want to control our own destiny, the humbling truth is that sometimes the only way to learn self-love is by being loved — precisely in the parts of ourselves where we feel most unsure and tender. When we are loved in such a way, we feel freedom and relief and permission to love in a deeper way. No amount of positive self-talk can replicate this experience. It is a gift of intimacy, not of willpower. When we surround ourselves with people who honor our gifts and whose gifts we also honor, our lives blossom.

— Ken Page, Deeper Dating, p. 72-73.

Lies Don’t Get Along with Jesus.

Acceptance, Core Value, God, Love 0

That’s why the demons are afraid. Because Jesus always has something to do with them.

Which is exactly why our demons try to keep us from people who remind us how loved we are. Our demons want nothing to do with the love of God in Christ Jesus because it threatens to obliterate them, and so they try to isolate us and tell us that we are not worthy to be called children of God. And those are lies that Jesus does not abide.

— Nadia Bolz-Weber, Accidental Saints, p. 87

Work as to the Lord

Core Value, God, Life 0

Work is not, primarily, a thing one does to live, but the thing one lives to do. It is, or it should be, the full expression of the worker’s faculties, the thing in which he finds spiritual, mental and bodily satisfaction, and the medium in which he offers himself to God.

— Dorothy L. Sayers, Letters to a Diminished Church: Passionate Arguments for the Relevance of Christian Doctrine, p. 127-128, quoted in Called to Create, by Jordan Raynor, p. 51.

Starting Whole

Children, Core Value 0

Is it possible, since skin is the largest organ of the body, that new babies don’t know the inside from the outside when they first come out? That there is no difference? That they are Möbius strips? This is how we came; wow. Talk about whole.

— Anne Lamott, Hallelujah Anyway, p. 176

Outshine the Resentment

Core Value, Forgiveness 0

Forgiveness and mercy mean that, bit by bit, you begin to outshine the resentment. You open the drawer that was shut and you take out the precious treasures that you hid there so long ago and, with them, the person who marvels at tadpoles, who pulls for people to come clean and then have a second chance, who aches and intervenes for those being bullied, forgives the evil brothers and unforgivable you.

— Anne Lamott, Hallelujah Anyway, p. 170-171

Better in Small Ways

Beauty, Compassion, Connection, Core Value, Life 0

If you focus continually on making the world a better place in some small way by improving, appreciating, connecting, and protecting, you’ll develop conviction, stand for something, and model those things for other people. In a small way, you’ll make the world a better place. You and those you love will be happier, your life will have more meaning and purpose, and you’ll create a legacy that will give you peace in your later years.

— Steven Stosny, Soar Above, p. 165