“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

God First

God, Love, Relationships 0

When I have learnt to love God better than my earthly dearest, I shall love my earthly dearest better than I do now. In so far as I learn to love my earthly dearest at the expense of God and instead of God, I shall be moving towards the state in which I shall not love my earthly dearest at all. When first things are put first, second things are not suppressed but increased.

— C. S. Lewis, Letters, 8 November 1952

Living More Fully

Books, Life 0

The point of reading is not reading but living. Reading helps you live with greater appreciation, keener insight and heightened emotional awareness. For proof, look to the innumerable great readers who have been great doers, from John Adams to Teddy Roosevelt to Paul Theroux to George Plimpton. Reading and action reinforce each other in an ever-escalating manner.

Your well-read life is a path for living more fully.

— Steve Leveen, The Little Guide to Your Well-Read Life, p. 31

A Single Purpose

Growth, Life, Love 1

We are all here for a single purpose: to grow in wisdom and to learn to love better. We can do this through losing as well as through winning, by having and by not having, by succeeding or by failing. All we need to do is to show up openhearted for class.

— Rachel Naomi Remen, MD, Kitchen Table Wisdom, p. 80

Validation from God

Core Value, God, Healing, Relationships 0

No man can tell you who you are as a woman. No man is the verdict on your soul…. Only God can tell you who you are. Only God can speak the answer you need to hear. That is why we spoke of the Romance with him first. It comes first. It must. It has to. Adam is a far too unreliable source — amen!

Now, yes, in a loving relationship, we are meant to speak to one another’s wounds. In love we can bring such deep joy and healing as we offer to one another our strength and beauty…. But our core validation, our primary validation has to come from God. And until it does, until we look to him for the healing of our souls, our relationships are really hurt by this looking-to-each-other for something only God can give.

— Stasi and John Eldredge, Captivating, p. 152-153

Enjoy What’s Good.

Healing, Joy, Letting Go 0

I have learned that, if we set our mind to it, we have an incredible, almost awesome ability to find misery in any situation, even the most wonderful of circumstances.

Shoulders bent, head down, we shuffle through life taking our blows.

Be done with it. Take off the gray cloak of despair, negativity, and victimization. Hurl it; let it blow away in the wind….

We can stand in our power. We do not have to allow ourselves to be victimized. We do not have to let others victimize us. We do not have to seek out misery in either the most miserable or the best situations.

We are free to stand in the glow of self-responsibility.

Set a boundary! Deal with the anger! Tell someone no, or stop that! Walk away from a relationship! Ask for what you need! Make choices and take responsibility for them. Explore options. Give yourself what you need! Stand up straight, head up, and claim your power. Claim responsibility for yourself!

And learn to enjoy what’s good.

— Melody Beattie, The Language of Letting Go, p. 282-283