Tag: Joy

Growing resilience

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Each person can take one of two attitudes: to build or to plant.
The builders might take years over their tasks, but one day, they finish what they’re doing. Then they find they’re hemmed in by their own walls. Life loses its meaning when the building stops.
       Then there are those who plant. They endure storms and all the many vicissitudes of the seasons, and they rarely rest. But, unlike a building, a garden never stops growing. And while it requires the gardener’s constant attention, it also allows life for the gardener to be a great adventure.
Paulo Coelho, Brida

Grace and gratitiude

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Grace and gratitude share the same root word along with gravitas, and there is a strong interconnection among these three states. When people internalize and integrate their experience of grace, their character naturally deepens and they develop gravitas. In Latin, gravitas is similar to charisma, and is defined as a quality that draws us to those who embody dignity, integrity, wisdom, substance, and presence. Being conscious of where grace is present in our lives motivates our expression of gratitude and cultivates gravitas. Gratitude is the external expression. These moments are rare gifts in which we open to an expansive place within our nature, where all is ‘right with the world.

Angeles Arrien

Sunday Quote: Magical

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This world, after all our science – is still a miracle;

wonderful, inscrutable, magical and more.

Thomas Carlyle, 1795 – 1881, British historian,  essayist, philosopher, mathematician, and teacher.

Navigating safely

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Most of us unknowingly go through life with a tight grip in our inner core. this inner psychological grip corresponds to an outer physiological one. The mind is designed to grasp ideas, and the hands and arms are made to grasp objects. Each form of grasping is an attempt to be in control. Grasping ideas of ourselves and the world – virtual models of reality – allows us to plan, which provides a sense of control, however illusory this control may be. In times of stress we may believe that we need to get a stronger grip on ourselves. In truth, we need to relax it. Our main stress comes from being too tightly wound. When I explain this principle to clients I will sometimes use the metaphor of driving a car: if our grip on the steering wheel is too tense we become a less safe driver. We need to be both alert and relaxed to gracefully navigate the road, as well as life

John J. Prendergast, In Touch: How to Tune In to the Inner Guidance of Your Body and Trust Yourself

 

You are all possibilities

Karl Duffy1 Comment

Recall the way mere mortals are overwhelmed
by circumstance, how great reputations
dissolve with infirmity and how you,
in particular, stand a hairsbreadth from losing
everyone you hold dear.

Then, look back down the path to the north,
the way you came, as if seeing
your entire past and then south
over the hazy blue coast as if present
to a broad future.

Recall the way you are all possibilities
you can see and how you live best
as an appreciator of horizons
whether you reach them or not.

David Whyte, Mameen (extract)

Sunday quote; Ordinary

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The real challenge lies in just being able to integrate awareness into the most ordinary things.

Ajahn Sumedho