The best part of us is not what we see, it's what we feel. 

We are what we feel. 

We are not what we look at… 

People believe their eyeballs and they're totally wrong… 

That's why I consider most photographs extremely boring…another waterfall, another sunset... 

But that whole arena of one's experience…grief, loneliness…how do you photograph lust? 

I mean, how do you deal with these things? 

This is what you are, not what you see.

-Duane Michals-

NITCH

 

 

 

WAT JE NIET VERANDERT 

DAAR KIES JE VOOR 

 innerbalans

 Je hoort best vaak mensen zeggen: ik heb geen keuze. Het is gemakkelijk om in de val van een slachtoffermentaliteit te trappen door echt te geloven dat je geen keus hebt. Echter, besef dat je volledige zeggenschap over je leven hebt. Je bent misschien niet verantwoordelijk voor bepaalde dingen die zijn gebeurd of die jou overkomen, maar je bent wel verantwoordelijk voor jouw reactie en wat je besluit te doen. Ook als je ervoor kiest om niets te doen. En dat is helemaal oké als je tevreden bent met hoe de situatie is.

Het is goed om jezelf af en toe af te vragen: zijn er dingen in je leven die je wilt veranderen? En wat houdt je tegen als je nog geen actie hebt ondernomen?
Als je zegt dat je wil dat dingen veranderen, en je verandert ze niet, dan kies je ervoor. En soms is dat om zeer reële, legitieme redenen. Echter, mijn punt is als je besluit niets te doen, dan is dat een keuze.

En als je wilt dat dingen veranderen en je actie wil ondernemen om dat te realiseren, dan moet je volledig eigenaar worden van jezelf. Het is jouw gevoel, jouw keuze, jouw leven. Dat betekent verantwoordelijkheid nemen voor wat er met jouw leven gebeurt - op zowel de goede als de slechte momenten. Het betekent niet afhankelijk zijn van andere mensen of gebeurtenissen om ons geluk te bepalen. Het is bereid zijn tegen de stroom in te gaan en te doen wat je moet doen om de gewenste resultaten te bereiken, zelfs als andere mensen je willen tegenhouden. Het gaat erom eerlijk tegen jezelf te zijn over je sterke en zwakke punten en tekortkomingen en deze dingen te zien als een kans voor jou om te groeien en jezelf te verbeteren. Je kiest letterlijk en figuurlijk voor jezelf.

En heel diep in de kern gaat het over zelfliefde, zelfrespect en compassie.
❤️

 

 

 

It's not the destination 

 

it's all about the journey

 

 

 

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice--
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.

"Mend my life!"
each voice cried.

But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.

It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.

But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do…
determined to save
the only life you could save.”

- Mary Oliver - The Journey -

 

 

10cc - The Things We Do For Love

 

KIDS ARE NOT RESPONSIBLE

FOR OUR EMOTIONS.

WE ARE.

END OF STORY.

 raising_yourself

Let's raise a generation of kids who aren't co-dependent people-pleasers!

I've posted on this topic before and I am anticipating this question (below), so I will go ahead and address it here. :)

Q: "What about when my child hits or insults me? Shouldn't I tell them they hurt me/my feelings?"

A: Okay, here is my response...and these are just my personal convictions based on my years of reading/learning/exploring conscious parenting. I am not here to evangelize or claim I am "right" and you are "wrong." These are just things to consider and questions I ask myself.

- What is our goal in telling our kids they hurt us? Do we actually think that is "teaching" them something they don't already know? Do we think that this will change their future behaviors?

They are lashing out because they are dysregulated and they *know* they are hurting us (although it's not pre-mediated and malicious - they have simply run out of ways to communicate and articulate and have resorted to ways that tell us as the parent they are desperate and overwhelmed).

I honestly don't think telling them they hurt us helps - they don't need our lectures in that moment, they need our support, redirection and and co-regulation (and, of course, a firm boundary...more on that below). They have an inner compass just like we do and they know when they've messed up. Unless you believe kids are inherently "bad" (they are not) our job is not to emphasize their mistakes, but, rather to dig underneath what caused their outburst in the first place.

Also: YES, we set a compassionate boundary that may sound like this... "WOW, you are really upset. You may not hit me. That is absolutely not allowed." That's the boundary. Our personal emotions do not need to be tangled up in that. 

 

 

 “Music of the People” en la clave del destino. Harold Feinstein, Coney Island, 1950.

 

 After silence, 

that which comes nearest 

to expressing the inexpressible

 is music. - 

Aldous Huxley, Music at Night and Other Essays - 

 

 

In Tibetan, the word for “body” is lü, which means “something you leave behind,” like baggage. Each time we say lü, it reminds us that we are only travelers, taking temporary refuge in this life and this body. In Tibet, people did not distract themselves by spending all their time trying to make their external circumstances more comfortable. They were satisfied if they had enough to eat, clothes on their backs, and a roof over their heads.

Going on, as we do, obsessively trying to improve our conditions, can become an end in itself, and a pointless distraction. Would people in their right mind think of fastidiously redecorating their hotel room every time they checked in to one?

- Rigpa Glimpse of the Day -

 
 

 

Painting by Olaf Ulbricht (1951)
 

Perhaps the biggest tragedy of our lives is that freedom is possible, yet we can pass our years trapped in the same old patterns...

We may want to love other people without holding back, to feel authentic, to breathe in the beauty around us, to dance and sing. 

Yet each day we listen to inner voices that keep our life small.

- Tara Brach -

 

 In the moment we become truly ourselves, 

we aren't our family anymore. 

We are no longer identified with that collective psyche. 

We have our own self, our own values. 

We can choose. 

The more conscious we are,

 the less power family complexes have.

- Liz Greene -

 

 Everyone is our mirror,

and our reflection of things we don't like

about ourselves

is most vivid

in those who have the same qualities.

In other words,

you may see a piece of yourself 

in this other person 

even if you don't realize it.

This truth may come as a surprise to some of you 

and your initial reaction may be to disagree.

But I invite you to look deeper.

- Don Miguel Ruiz -

 

Rachel Portman - Main Titles

Rijkste man in de wereld

 

The man 

on top of the mountain 

didn't fall there. 

- Vince Lombardi Jr. -

 

 

 

Remember, 

if you are not speaking it,

 you are storing it, 

and that gets heavy.

- Christina Isabel -

 

 

 

 

 

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