“Love in action can only produce happiness. Fear in action can only produce suffering.
The only way to master love, is to practice love. You don’t need to justify your love, you don’t need to explain your love; you just need to practice your love. Practice creates the master.”

from “The Mastery of Love” by Miguel Ruiz

I printed this out and put it on my refrigerator. I need to remember this every day of my life. STOP fear dead in it’s tracks! Practice love, lather, rinse and repeat. Every day.

I just found this amazing website, Thinking is Causative .com  There are lots of FREE e-books to download there , including my all time favorite book, The Edigburgh Lectures on Mental Science, by Tomas Troward.

“The  Universe is governed by Law – one great Law. Its manifestations are multiform, but viewed from the Ultimate there is but one Law. We are familiar with some of its manifestations, but are almost totally ignorant of certain others. Still we are learning a little more every day – the veil is being gradually lifted.” (From “Thought Vibrations” by William Walker Atkinson)

“In the beginners mind there are many possibilities, in the experts mind there are few.”

I saw this saying on someone’s blog recently. And I instantly felt validation. I googled the origin of the quote and found it on several Zen websites. Surprisingly, many of them interpreted it to say the beginners mind is good and the expert view is narrow, or bad.

In the true spirit if Zen … neither is good or bad, they just are what they are.

It really helped me resolve an old hurt. I had been accused of “narrow thinking” at work. On my yearly review, someone had said I was not willing to do consider their pitch to do things differently. I was devastated. I truly do listen to all other points of view, and factoring in the constraints of the environment, choose a path that achieves the end user needs. When I heard this quote I realized the accuser had a beginners mind, they thought many things were possible, that simply WERE NOT possible. I used my expert knowledge of the subject to rule out the impossibles and was left with the few possibles. The problem was that either I did not explain this sufficiently, or the accuser simply did not trust my judgment. The next time I run into this situation, now I will know what to say.

I thought when I was laid off from my day job, that I would have all the time in the world to do whatever I want. And Iwanted to get organized and clean my house. All the things I have not had the time to do becuse I was always working. 12 years straight, no break. And school at night.  I have been able to fill up all my days with working on things around the house and getting organized. 12 years worth of tangled cords are neatly bundled with rubberbands in a drawer.  Closets are cleaned, walls painted, many forgotten projects dragged out of the garage. I have negelected my online family, all my website babies. I sat down today to write, and I am so tired from all that organizing and cleaning, that I had no inspiration. So I googled inspiration. And to my surprise, definition 2 is “the drawing of air into the lungs”. Oh my god, just breathe!
Breathe in the air……so I am going outside to sit by a tree and breathe. See you tomorrow.  

1. Pay attention
2. Figure it out
3. Why is this here?
4. Never give up

-Me

These are my rules for just about everything.
You cannot Pay attention too much. It is the most powerful thing you can do.
Figure it out, do not let any one person tell you the answer.
Why is this here? Asking this simple question will lead you to amazing insights.
And once you are on the trail, never give up. I was happy to find this quote (below picture) by a very brainy guy who agrees with me on rule #4…

“Men are motivated and empowered when they feel needed. Women are motivated and empowered when they feel cherished.”

-John Gray Phd

I guess that is the problem with strong women, men don’t feel needed. Strong, smart women can take care of every thing. They fix the car, do their own taxes, use power tools, make websites, and pretty much everything else including clean the house do the laundry and dishes.

However,  don’t men realize that they are really still needed?
They are the only ones who can make women feel cherished!

“You know, Rick, I have many a friend in Casablanca, but somehow, just because you despise me, you are the only one I trust.”
-Peter Lorre in Casablanca

Trust is a funny thing. You don’t have to like somebody to trust them. In fact if I had to choose, I would rather trust you than like you. Then there’s people you can always trust to screw things up. Without fail. There are people I can always trust to make me feel better. Some people I can trust will ALWAYS do exactly what they say they are going to do, for better or for worse. They are all my friends. Without trust of some sort, there can be no friendship. If I cannot trust you, why would I even wantto be your friend?

“In a one-to-one relationship with another person, the killers of love are disappointment and resentment. Disappointment is like drops of water that can eventually eat away a stone.”
-kevansindeep.wordpress.com

Every broken trust, every broken word, every time you say you will do something and you don’t, Or say you won’t do it and them you do it anyways, is another dissapointment that leads to resentment.

“Our greatest duty and our main duty is to help others.” And then he smiled a little bit and said, “And please if you can’t help them, would you please not hurt them?”

– Dali Lama quote from Leo Buscaglia’s book “Living, Loving, Learning”

Reminds me of the old saying “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything!”
Really, how is your judgement or criticism going to make me a better person?
Your love and encouragement however, can help me move mountains.
Or at least feel good enough to clean up the house, take out the trash, change the oil in the car,  do all of the laundry, chop some wood, and be happy about it.

“Man who follows the paths of knowledge is confronted with imminent annihilation every turn of the way, and unavoidably he becomes keenly aware of his death. Without the awareness of death he would be only an ordinary man involved in ordinary acts. He would lack the necessary potency, the necessary concentration that transforms one’s ordinary time on the Earth into magical power.”

-Carlos Castaneda

Someone commented that my remark about approaching death was odd. Well, you see I have all these things inside my head, all these books I have read over the years, and all these concepts that I have embraced. Usually because the truthfullness of them is so apparent, it cannot be denied. One of the things in my head is this constant nagging thought about death, and how little time we have on this planet. It keeps me focused, and keeps me from lapsing into complacency. It keeps me moving and doing. It keeps me intense and this very attribute helps to ward off flaky people. So, Is that odd? Maybe. Would I change? Never!

From The Tao ( the way)

True words are not beautiful
Beautiful words are not true
Those who are good do not debate
Those who debate are not good
Those who know are not broad of knowledge
Those who are broad of knowledge do not know
Sages do not accumulate
The more they assist others, the more they possess
The more they give to others, the more they gain
The Tao of heaven Benefits and does not harm
The Tao of sages Assists and does not contend

“Be content with what you have;
rejoice in the way things are.
When you realize there is nothing lacking,
the whole world belongs to you.”

– Lao Tse from the Tao de Ching

I really needed to hear this one today. I woke up feeling blue. I felt disappointed that my life was not the way I wanted it to be. I immediately chastised myself and acknowledged that I have everything I truly need. Still felt a teesny bit blue tho….. Until I read this.
I am rejoicing in the way things are, now. I can recall a time when I had a lot less, and I was wishing for what I have now.

“Letting someone else run your life is like letting the waiter eat your dinner.”

– by Vernon Howard

Vernon Howard is one of my FAVORITE authors.  I call him the “no bullshit philosopher”
He really tells it like it is. Sadly, he is gone from this planet now, but you can find out about him here : http://www.anewlife.org  He can really deliver on the “new life”. Reading his books changed my life!