After Acceptance

“It is certainly true that, when you accept your resentment, moodiness, anger, and so on, you are no longer forced to act them out blindly, and you are less likely to project them onto others. But I wonder if you are not deceiving yourself. When you have been practicing acceptance for a while, as you have, there comes a point when you need to go on to the next stage, where those negative emotions are not created anymore. If you don’t, your ‘acceptance’ just becomes a mental label that allows your ego to continue to indulge in unhappiness and so strengthen your separation from other people, your surroundings, your here and now.” ~ Eckhart Tolle

Welcome to . . . Holland?!?

When my younger daughter was 6, she had a stroke. At age eight, while the doctors were still trying to decide what was wrong, she had another one, bigger and badder, that left her with a number of deficits to overcome. She had to relearn how to walk, how to talk, and how to use her left hand instead of her right. As you can imagine, this was a devastating blow to her and to our family. Continue reading “After Acceptance”

Step Out Of The Pit

“The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way.” ~ Marcus Aurelius

Each of us has Teachers that come into our lives at various times. Each of these Teachers brings an important lesson. Until you learn the lesson, that Teacher comes back again and again. Until you learn the lesson, you can’t move on.

The Farmer and the Donkey

I once heard a story about an old donkey who had outlived it’s usefulness. It was too old to work any more. The farmer who owned the donkey thought about having it put down, but just couldn’t bring himself to do so. However, one day the donkey fell into a deep pit and couldn’t get out. “Well,” thought the farmer, “this is the end. I’ll just fill in the pit with dirt and bury this poor old donkey.” Continue reading “Step Out Of The Pit”

Take Two

“You don’t learn from successes; you don’t learn from awards; you don’t learn from celebrity; you only learn from wounds and scars and mistakes and failures. And that’s the truth.” ~ Jane Fonda

It seemed fool-proof. An easy $100. The carnival side-show barker had lured me, girl friend in tow, over to his game. Ten wooden bottles stacked in a pyramid. All I had to do was pay $1.00 and knock over all 10 bottles — ten times. If I missed and didn’t knock them over, my ante doubled . . . $2, $4, $8, etc. But I figured I could easily knock over the 10 bottles ten times in 10 or 12 or 14 tries. My “investment” would be well under the $100 I was sure to win. So I paid my $1.00 and tossed the ball. Knocked over all but 1. No worries. I was only down $2.00 and I was sure I’d get them all from now on. Continue reading “Take Two”

Suffering Is Optional

Have you ever admired an exquisite pearl necklace, each lustrous pearl perfect in shape and shimmering iridescence? Do you know how pearls are made? Natural pearls are created when an irritant, a grain of sand or a bit of stone, gets inside the shell of a mollusk. The mollusk reacts to the irritant by coating it with a substance to reduce the irritation. Over time, as layer upon layer is added, a pearl is formed. The source of a natural pearl is irritation. The mollusk responds to the irritation by creating something of beauty and value.

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Continue reading “Suffering Is Optional”