Tag: Life

Threatened

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

The peace that we are looking for is not peace that crumbles as soon as there is difficulty or chaos. Whether we’re seeking inner peace or global peace or a combination of the two, the way to experience it is to build on the foundation of unconditional openness to all that arises.

Peace isn’t an experience free of challenges, free of rough and smooth, it’s an experience that’s expansive enough to include all that arises without feeling threatened.

Pema Chodron, Taking the Leap, Freeing Ourselves from Old Habits and Fears

Simple truth

Karl Duffy2 Comments

No amount of anxiety

makes any difference

to anything that is going to happen

Alan Watts

Comparing

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

The real essence of good is found only within things under your own control.

If you keep this in mind, you won’t find yourself feeling jealous or lonely, pitifully comparing yourself and your accomplishments to others. 

Epictetus, died 135 AD, Stoic philosopher, Enchiridion, Chapter 19

The beautiful flags

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

Keep your eyes open: God, his angels, are planting the beautiful flags we need to get home, to get others home.

Keep your vision clear, your heart open, and the hand outstretched.

Keep the beauty for only a second, then pass it on. Die with your heart full and your hands empty.

Tennessee Williams

Begin now

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

The first day of Spring yesterday was marked in Ireland with a fall of snow, heavy at times, but passing quickly.

Begin doing what you want to do now. We are not living in eternity.

We have only this moment, sparkling like a star in our hand and melting like a snowflake.

Marie Beynon Ray

Into the unknown

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

A new month begins….

We are daily forced to choose between depression and anxiety. Depression results from the wounding of the individuation imperative; anxiety results from moving forward into the unknown.

That path of anxiety is necessary because therein lies the hope of the person to more nearly become an individual. My analyst once said to me, “You must make your fears your agenda.” When we do take on that agenda, for all the anxiety engendered, we feel better because we know we are living in ‘bonne foi’ [good faith] with ourselves.

Courage is not the absence of fear. It is the perception that some things are more important to us than what we fear.

James Hollis, Jungian Analyst, Swamplands of the Soul: New Life in Dismal Places