Speaking to Others with Kindness

Compassion, Forgiveness, Love, Marriage, Relationships 0

Whenever possible, you want to speak of your lover and your relationship with kindness.  That is the overarching message of this book.  Look for any way you can be kind to the person you share your life with.  Don’t be tempted to say nasty things when your lover screws up or to put your lover down when he or she fails….  Setting boundaries and expressing ourselves is good, but talking about our relationship negatively and highlighting our lover’s failings is bad….

Remember that what comes out of your mouth says more about your character than it does about your partner’s….  We think that we are describing our lover’s weaknesses, but our words and actions are actually showing our own….

The truth is that we can choose how we talk to and about our partner.  Sadly, many people choose to discuss their lover negatively….  A lot of relationships struggle with the cost of holding a grudge and the sense of blame it causes.  Getting rid of the blame quickly and regularly is hugely important if you want your relationship to thrive and move forward.

Dr. Fred Luskin, Forgive for Love, p. 201-203

Serving Through Libraries

Librarians 0

One of the great intangible benefits of library work is the sense of self-worth that comes when we realize that, no matter how humdrum the day or week, we are playing a part in bringing the good things of life to everyone and improving our communities, one life at a time.  A library serving a community of any kind (a village, school, city, college or university, corporation, government) enriches that community, which would be impoverished and weakened if that library did not exist.

— Michael Gorman, Our Own Selves:  More Meditations for Librarians, p. 191

Living Today

Joy, Life, Peace 0

I find myself planning and working for the future, for payoffs and rewards in a month or a year, for which I am willing to pay with happiness now.  Only to find of course that there is always another month, another year to wait.  True, the future must be planned for, and there are surely rewards tomorrow for prudent action today.  But somehow, I am learning, I must discover how to live a life of happiness today.  Not someday when things quiet down and there’s enough in the bank and I’ve gotten beyond these problems — but today.  The idea that we can live temporarily unhappy lives in pursuit of payday/someday, when we will be set for life and ready for happiness, is a sad illusion.

Life is of a piece.  The future is woven of the thread we spin today.  It is silly to imagine that a “temporary” life of tension and stress is preparing us for a future day of relaxation and peace; that a provisional life spent compromising our ideals and deferring our deepest longings will one day give way to a future of fulfillment and deep joy.  It doesn’t work.  “What shall it profit a man,” Jesus asked, “if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?”  You can’t live a soul-ebbing life and somehow pull out happiness in the end.

In a culture of achievement we naturally assume a path to happiness:  get on it, do the work, and — enduring a baleful journey of indeterminate years — you will eventually arrive at bliss.  But there is no path to happiness, only a path of happiness.  In other words, happiness is a state, not a destination.

— David Anderson, Breakfast Epiphanies:  Finding wonder in the Everyday, p. 88-89

Something To Look Forward To

Life 0

I’ve been noticing that most mornings I don’t wake up super-happy, and I’m not sure why.  I’ve also been noticing for some time now that when I first wake up, I find myself racing through the coming day in my mind, bracing myself for what’s required of me, but even more so searching to see if there is anything to look forward to.  It’s not really voluntary.  It’s almost as if my heart has a life of its own, and it wakes up before I do and begins to assess the prospects before me.  “I slept but my heart was awake” (Song of Songs 5:2).

By the way, I think this is how our addictions get their claws deeper into us.  Our day-to-day grind isn’t anything close to Eden, and our hurting and desperate hearts look for something to which we can attach all those yearnings.  We’ll settle for a doughnut if that’s all there is to look forward to.  We have to be careful what we give our hearts to.

— John Eldredge, Walking with God, p. 92

Guaranteed

God, Life 0

In Christ, we have an ironclad, unfailing, all-encompassing God-given guarantee that every single circumstance in life will sooner or later turn out well for those committed to Him.

— Robert J. Morgan, The Promise:  How God Works All Things Together for Good, p. xviii

Listening

Letting Go, Marriage, Relationships 0

Go on the presumption that your partner has a bigger picture.  You may not see it now, and it may not be logical, but it will make emotional sense if you can allow yourself to hear her story.  You have a better chance of learning that story if you can continue asking questions like, “In addition to anger, what else do you feel? . . . And what else?”

Don’t get stuck on getting your point heard.  In Seething Stalemate, you tend to put the bulk of your energy into coercing your partner to hear your side.  Once you give that up, you’re likely to obtain clearer focus of what the argument is really about.

— Ellyn Bader, PhD, and Peter T. Pearson, PhD, Tell Me No Lies, p. 141

Enough

Core Value, Joy 0

Happy women understand that no matter what they own, they will always feel a bit insecure about having enough and being enough, but they don’t let these feelings rule their lives.

— Dan Baker, PhD, and Cathy Greenberg, PhD, What Happy Women Know, p. 234

Set Yourself Free

Forgiveness, Healing, Letting Go 0

Nothing clarifies boundaries more than forgiveness.  To forgive someone means to let him off the hook, or to cancel a debt he owes you.  When you refuse to forgive someone, you still want something from that person, and even if it is revenge that you want, it keeps you tied to him forever.

— Dr. Henry Cloud and Dr. John Townsend, Boundaries, p. 134

In Charge of No One But Ourselves

Letting Go, Life, Parenting, Peace, Relationships 0

It bears repeating:  We are not in charge of others!  Not their behavior, their thoughts, their dreams, their problems, their successes, or their failures.

Even the children we parent have their own journey to make, and our so-called control over them is, in fact, an illusion.  We can set an example for them, we can suggest a set of behaviors, we can demonstrate a code of ethics, we can even require that they live by certain “house rules” while under our roof, but finally it is they who will decide who they want to be and what they want to do, regardless of our efforts.  And for that we will become grateful in time.

I say:  Let’s celebrate the fact that we are in charge of no one but ourselves.  It relieves us of a heavy burden, and a thankless job, one that never blesses us.  Taking control of every thought we have and every action we take, and being willing to relinquish the past while savoring the present, will assuredly keep us as busy as we need to be.  Doing these things, and only these things is why we are here.  It’s only when we live our own lives and manage our own affairs, freeing others to do the same, that we find the peace we seek and so deserve.

— Karen Casey, Change Your Mind and Your Life Will Follow:  12 Simple Principles, p. 8-9

Recommitting

Forgiveness, Letting Go, Love, Marriage, Relationships 0

A good relationship is worth the effort of letting go of an annoying trait in your partner and being as kind as possible to this person you are connected to.  Those two ideas are central to your marriage vows.  A marriage is a choice to recommit to your partner every day.  Every spouse, whether recovering from a brutal betrayal or simply dealing with a sloppy partner, decides every day wehter to get up and dance with that partner again.  Every marriage goes through periods when each partner is not sure about continuing it. . . .  Forgiveness is based upon a continual recommitment to your relationship.  Forgiveness comes after grieving your losses, and it allows you to move forward in your relationship with happiness and a positive attitude.  This is true whether the losses were big (your spouse is a drug addict) or little (your lazy partner never does the grocery run) or somewhere in between — as when you accept the fact that you married a slob, you have grieved the neat person you should have married, and you have recommitted to the lovable human being you chose to be with.

Recommitting is an ongoing process; you have to recommit every time your lover says the same dumb thing again and you react with your same exasperated sigh.  You have to recommit when your lover is late yet again, or leaves a cheap tip for the third time in a week.  If your partner does something annoying but ultimately insignificant, acknowledge your dismay or loss for an instant and then connect right back again.  Try saying something to help put the annoyance in perspective and get back in the game.  You could remind yourself that “she’s worth it,” or “it was no big deal.”  Most of the time you don’t even need to let your lover know he or she has done anything wrong.

— Dr. Fred Luskin, Forgive for Love, p. 199-200