“Everything is impermanent. This moment passes. That person walks away. Happiness is still possible.”
“Everything is impermanent. This moment passes. That person walks away. Happiness is still possible.”
We fall in love with another person not because we want to claim them, or own them in any way, but because we have found a partner who brings out the best in us.
There will be many times in our lives when we find ourselves alone. We can look to these times as fertile practice grounds for befriending and loving ourselves.
The first step in learning to experience love at all times is to realize that you are basically whole. You do not need external circumstances to make you whole, be it a relationship, a degree, or a perfect job.
happiness in love is maintaining a paradoxical mix of full commitment and nonattachment.
I was in pain. And the only way through the pain was to feel it all.
A broken heart is really just our natural heart stripped of its comfortable relationship armor.
The Dalai Lama has said, “Our prime purpose in this life is to help others. And if you can‘t help them, at least don‘t hurt them.”
It starts with that act of surrender, allowing your heart to soften and accept the other person for who they are. This tenderness.
Mistakes are valuable for one‘s spiritual path. When you make a mistake you can view that as an opportunity; your intention may end up coming into sharp focus. You see your situation for what it is, and know that you made the wrong move. The next step is to vow never to make that sort of mistake again and, if you can, try to make things right.
This is the point where love becomes possible. We see the other with the eye of the heart, an eye not clouded by fear manifesting as need, jealousy, possessiveness, or manipulation. With the unclouded eye of the heart, we can see the other as other. We can rejoice in the other challenge the other & embrace the other without losing our own center or taking anything away from the other.
Each true friendship creates a sacred container for our souls to reveal to each other what was hidden from us, what we couldn‘t see on our own. And to discover together, with compassion and trust, why we‘ve been brought together
true friendship means being able to be real with each other—to be the raw truth (both the light and the dark) in the presence of another without the fear or shame of being judged.
Ultimately, we recognize a true love in our lives, romantic or otherwise, because it illuminates aspects of ourselves that we couldn‘t see on our own.
Soul mate is all of those loves, platonic or otherwise, that come (again) into our lives to teach us about why we‘re here. That remind us of who we really are and that give us the opportunity to expand our capacity to love, to grow as a soul.
We‘re anticipating a village worth of goods and services to come from this one human soul.
those laughs that come from the gut, the ones that clear the lungs and make me cough.
“It‘s what you do in the present that will redeem the past and thereby change the future.”
“Everything is predetermined . . . until now.”
We constantly crave something solid, something permanent, something that will fulfill us, existing out there as opposed to in here.
“Lovers don‘t finally meet somewhere. They are in each other all along.”
“Everyone should cultivate a secret garden.”
soul mates—it is a couple vowing fidelity to their own souls, then, where their two souls align and overlap with authenticity; a sacred distance is created, space enough for each of them to become more than they could be on their own.
“I saw you. You did not see me nor did you know me. You mistook the garment I wore for my true self. And you did not recognize me.”
All my life, in nameless, indeterminate ways, I‘d tried to complete myself with someone else . . . and I didn‘t want that anymore. I wanted to belong to myself.
May I enjoy happiness and be free from suffering.
I fall more easily and with far more grace when I keep reminding myself that love is not deserved. I can never earn or prove that I am worthy of it. I simply am. My worthiness of love has nothing to do with this other person.
Love is a gift that goes both ways. Love is inherently reciprocal. Love is innate between two people. It‘s either there or it isn‘t. Of course it has to be made, and remade, again and again. It has to be nurtured, respected, and cherished.
“To love another person is to see the face of God.”
“they allow the other absolute freedom, because they know that if the other leaves, they will be as happy as they are now. Their happiness cannot be taken by the other, because it is not given by the other.”
I might not want to be without him, but I maintain the truth that my happiness is not dependent on him.
“The capacity to be alone is the capacity to love.”
“Nothing real can be threatened.”
You are a bleating, beating heart and every expression or step you make has the potential to leave you feeling gutted.
I want to share with you a feeling I have. I feel that my love does not have to remain within the limitations of my own life or body. I imagine that if I am no longer in the world, my love could still be present. I want to place my love on the moon and let the moon hold my love. Let the moon be the keeper of my love, offering it to everyone just as the moon sends its light to embrace the whole earth.
Our love flows freely, without the need to lock down or possess anyone.
“Understanding is the other name of love. If you don‘t understand, you can‘t love.”
The story lines may look different, but at our core we all suffer in similar ways.
If you cannot love yourself, you cannot love anyone else.
If you are constantly at war with yourself, how do you think you can live peacefully with another?
It involves us loving them as they are, for as long as we can, appreciating them for who they are as opposed to who we wish they would be. Recognizing the impermanence of our situation and seeing the other person with understanding is a true practice.
It‘s like we have held ourselves so tight, in our little cocoon of being self-involved, that we equate beginning to love another person with throwing ourselves off a cliff; we are falling without any parachute or sense of where we may land. It makes this simple act of opening our heart to others sound dangerous.
When we unleash the shark of fixed expectations we are bound to get eaten.
“The time has come to never be thirsty again. Hope springs eternal, and it springs from within,”
It‘s so incredibly hard not to take what‘s right here already in our lives. It‘s hard to distinguish what‘s a Dream, as in what we want most in our lives, from a fantasy, as in what is unattainable.
I wanted to move differently. I wanted to let my ego sit in the backseat and see where a will more than my own might lead me.
There‘s nothing “over there,” outside of ourselves. The real work of creating a fulfilling relationship with someone else comes from the depth of our capacity to accept and trust ourselves.
the true search for love happens within. There‘s nowhere I need to go, and there‘s no app I need to download, or couples workshop I need to attend.
It reminded me that my soul holds a deeper knowing than my conscious reasoning.
I have a chance to get to know myself and am going to exert myself in doing that.