Saying Thank You to my mentors and heroes

This is what growing up means, being able to look back on Life and appreciate our good deeds as well as our wrong doings, and see how much we’ve learned from them.

Everybody knows no one is perfect, but we all have some very special people in our life. What makes them special it’s not that they are divine and unflawed, but they taught and helped us being better. They gave us their time and attention. Those are the mentors and heroes in our life.

We don’t often realize the teachings and growth we’re getting from them until, when walking by ourselves, we notice we’re thinking differently, maybe more calmly, loving, joyful, smarter, faster…?

Nothing happens just by pure chance. There is a path, a path that leads us to where/who we are today. The hard part to accept about it is that this path is rarely smooth or sweet.

Remember the famous mantra: no pain, no gain. Well, that’s exactly it.

Our wake-up calls are usually pretty hard to deal with and accept, but they do bring us growth, they do open our minds and spirit to new levels of existence. Greater and more fulfilling levels of living.

Our heroes and mentors went through it before they could teach us. One day, we will also be mentors to someone.

To grow is a challenge, and to live our life we actually need to be heroes. No one can walk our way,  love, dance or play in our place.

In our childhood we slowly challenge those around us to get out of psychological dependency and become self-responsible, but it’s scary. No one will pay the price of our choices. But it’s that journey, out from home, overcoming challenges, listening to ourselves, figuring out what we really want in life and then going out and make the best to get it, that builds up who we become.

And no one, not even Chuck Norris, can save the day by themselves. We need people. Loneliness kills as Mother Teresa said it so well, “One of the greatest diseases is to be nobody to anybody. (…) Loneliness is the worst kind of poverty”. So we create relationships, we share and we learn a lot from them. Sometimes we hurt the person that is teaching us (we don’t know any better at that time). Think about it, we all start as a selfish and needy baby, but by living and making mistakes, we do learn to be better. That’s why it’s really important to remember the mentors and heroes in our Life. They shaped us and gave the nurturing attention and Love that makes us who we are today.

To them, my deepest thank you
and my deepest sorry when I stepped away and did not say thank you.

When did I stop thinking? I don't mean, having one, two, three or four thoughts in a row. I mean, going inside our deviant mind, going in so deep that you loose track of where you began, where you've been and when there's an end to it, because the phone rang or it just happened that you looked accidentally at the time, you have to breathe in deeply to come back to the "living".

When was the last time you went inside your mind and watch it unveil and reveal the immense world it sustains?

Maybe we even do it often, but why do we come back empty handed? There's so much to collect and bring to life, or maybe some of the thoughts could actually be thrown away...

It requires some effort to dig in and pay attention.
I want to pay attention...
Well, breathe in, breathe out and get lost...

"(...) When I have a terrible need of - shall I say the word - ... religion. Then I go out and paint the stars."
_
Vincent Van Gogh

on The feeling of being at home in the Universe...

Sometimes in Life we just don't belong anywhere. We have friends/family ties, but how much are we in them? We might make an effort, out of Love, to be connected, to be a part of, but despite our long wish for belonging, we don't see ourselves belonging anywhere.

... what a pity it is that people tend to consider those that become distance or lost as bad seeds. If only they knew how painful it is not to fit in.

We´re all making an effort. All.

But what goes on in our minds is for most a big mystery. Interesting or not, this continuous search for understanding life's purpose is usually what drives us into accepting Life's or society's challenges or walk away from them.

We become people in order to understand the soul, as this soul seems always so much larger than Life. But, for those whos Life has become unpurposeful, there can be a strengthening perspective that does change everything, and in this I believe:

"I found Him in the shining of the stars,
I mark’d Him in the flowering of His fields.
but in His ways with men I find Him not….
Why is all around us here
As if some lesser god had made the world
but had not force to shape it as he would…?
_
Tennyson

"Many religions have attempted to make statues of their gods very large, and the idea, I suppose, is to make us feel small. But if that’s their purpose, they can keep their paltry icons. We need only look up if we wish to feel small."
_
Carl  Sagan

... There lives more faith in honest doubt. So don't hide your doubts from yourself, embrace them, but do take care that they do not control your satisfaction/happiness in Life. Aim to be happy. Think positive even if you don't "deserve" it. Regret only makes sense when is surpassable and a better version of you becomes possible.

Sadness of the Heart

The worst kind of sadness, I dare to say, is sadness of the Heart. We have this moral obligation to be happy, but as Albert Camus so well described "(...) there is no love of life without despair of life".

Life is a continuous challenge, lesson upon lesson... how easy it would be if it were easier... but we're not simple beings, and as Rottenberg smartly puts it, we have “the unaddressed business of filling our souls”.

That is why our Heart, for the sake of everyone, not just ourselves, needs to feel happy.

When we feed and support our own happiness, we are nourishing our ability to love and Love is our ultimate goal, the answer, da thing.

Because Love is learned, "What??!!", yes, Love is a learned dynamic interaction, when people around us, especially the ones that are there during our growth, Love each other, they're doing a great job teaching/educating us.

"If our parents didn’t love and understand each other, how are we to know what love looks like? … The most precious inheritance that parents can give their children is their own happiness. Our parents may be able to leave us money, houses, and land, but they may not be happy people. If we have happy parents, we have received the richest inheritance of all."
_
Thich Nhat Hanh

Love allows us to accept others as they are and then they have a chance to transform. But to Love, we must first understand ourselves, we must first look for ourselves. Nhat Hanh again puts it with simplicity and honesty what it is that search:

"Sometimes we feel empty; we feel a vacuum, a great lack of something. We don’t know the cause; it’s very vague, but that feeling of being empty inside is very strong. We expect and hope for something much better so we’ll feel less alone, less empty. The desire to understand ourselves and to understand life is a deep thirst. There’s also the deep thirst to be loved and to love. We are ready to love and be loved. It’s very natural. But because we feel empty, we try to find an object of our love. Sometimes we haven’t had the time to understand ourselves, yet we’ve already found the object of our love. When we realize that all our hopes and expectations of course can’t be fulfilled by that person, we continue to feel empty. You want to find something, but you don’t know what to search for. In everyone there’s a continuous desire and expectation; deep inside, you still expect something better to happen. That is why you check your email many times a day! (...) You can’t offer happiness until you have it for yourself. So build a home inside by accepting yourself and learning to love and heal yourself. Learn how to practice mindfulness in such a way that you can create moments of happiness and joy for your own nourishment. Then you have something to offer the other person"

We don't exist just by ourselves. nothing in the natural world does, so the worst kind of sadness is indeed the one of the Heart, because it means solitude, frustration, lostness from everything. We need to feel connected, we need to feel we belong, that we're understood. Life is in a way a form of affirmation, we come to this world screaming as loud as we can! so we need to be seen and recognized. Now, I ask, how will we feel if we're unemployed, unloved, with no home, with no place in the world? Find your way, if you have found your way, help another. That is Love.

Oliver Sacks on Life

"(...) Over the last few days, I have been able to see my life as from a great altitude, as a sort of landscape, and with a deepening sense of the connection of all its parts. This does not mean I am finished with life.

On the contrary, I feel intensely alive, and I want and hope in the time that remains to deepen my friendships, to say farewell to those I love, to write more, to travel if I have the strength, to achieve new levels of understanding and insight."

_
Oliver Sacks
in Gratitude

Soneto à moda antiga

"Depois de passar para o outro lado do espelho
Viu Alice o mundo do avesso
Inquieta, pasmou e tudo lhe parecia estranho
Mas era só da vida, o começo

Inquietar e pasmar são coisas de viver
Só é pena às vezes a gente ter de falecer!
Mas pouco importa o final triste
Se viajar for a razão que persiste.

Não têm fim as novidades do mundo
Não têm preço as histórias de encantar
Porque sem preço e sem fim é o teu olhar profundo

Surpreende-me a cada nova descoberta
Faz da vida um perpétuo celebrar
Olha em volta, do avesso, e faz a pergunta certa."
_
Carlos J Pessoa

"I can’t go back to yesterday because I was a different person then."

— 

Alice in Wonderland

"I'm standing in a field
A field of questions
As far as the eye can see
Is this what it means to be free?
Or is this what it means to belong to the free?"
_
Bill Callahan - Free's

She stands strong, back straight and challenging attitude.
Knowing how fragile her whole world is,
she stands strong
and in her dreams she trusts.

The real free people have always been the lunatics, dreamers,
fragile when facing normality, but capable of escaping it.

You're never alone. There's always yourself.
And we can be so gentle and warm towards strangers.

Relax within a smile. Let it ease in on you.
And from that warm place of acceptance,
defy your deviant dreamer and let yourself "fall" in love,
dangerously free and wild.

Getting lost and finding yourself

For some, losing themselves in the woods or while traveling, or losing themselves in their own thoughts, it's a release, it's freedom and peace of mind. For others, it's a fearful and sad feeling, for they do not know which direction they should take, which words they should say or even which Life to take on and call their own.

We feel lost and disoriented when we loose meaning. Even though Life has a wide range of experiences, we need to feel that there's meaning and purpose to them. That's why for so many of us, being a mom or dad, it's enough for feeling complete. That's why for others, a long honorable career, or the publishing of a book or the Love for a life-long partner, gives them that sense of self-completion.

But Life is unpredictable, in itself and inside each of us. Our dreams change, our relationships change, our surroundings change, and so, more often than we think, all of us feel lost in one way or another. So many of us, dig deep into busyness not to feel that, filling our heads and world with stuff, stuff that distracts us from questioning, what am I doing here?

Our Life will be understood at its end, but it's built now, it's happening right now, so now is the time where we need to think and decide what meaning do we want to give to it. But that search for meaning does not imply stress and frustration. It exists naturally. So I ask, how can we give meaning to Life, naturally, if we don't even know where we are or what we want?

Or do we know?

Maybe we know, but we keep looking for others approval or we compare ourselves too much. So we need to trust in ourselves, we need to believe we know our way.  But we also need the intelligence to recognize that some things still need to learned. Experience teaches us that. We grow from learning and learning happens when we open ourselves to the world and it's many shades. When you're open and flexible, you learn that you're not always right, that you don't know everything and that you always have a very personal point of view on things and people. You learn to accept that there might be many truths, but you also learn that it's in the origin of an action that the truth lies. Truth is what we believe in, Wholeness is that Truth but from an origin of Love, and we are searching for Wholeness.

If we wish to look back on Life and feel it's completion, purpose, meaning, then we need to make our choices from a place of Love. Then give up competing with yourself and simply trust the honesty in your effort, "(...) as if to say 'I'm ready now,' and the readiness is what matters."

Beautiful documentary...!

This will remind you what it is about being human...

More Humans

"Truth is, I'll never know all there is to know about you just as you will never know all there is to know about me. Humans are by nature too complicated to be understood fully. So, we can choose either to approach our fellow human beings with suspicion or to approach them with an open mind, a dash of optimism and a great deal of candour."
_
Tom Hanks

on Nonconformity

... to refuse to conform to established customs, attitudes or ideas. To question and think for yourself, and you know what, it's good for your mental health! It's better to ask inappropriate questions than to submit your soul to what is the norm, to rules you don't identify yourself with, to submission.

 

Deconstruct the thoughts that bring you down, that make you sick inside, at the heart. It's not crazy to speak to yourself alone, isn't it worst  to go through psychological imprisonment and be pseudo-normal? This is the opposite of being free. We are free in our mind first.

 

We're too shy to admit that we might be damaged, lost, but imagine your life as your favorite movie. As any good movie it needs some post-editing. Don't be afraid to re-edit your own Life. 

 

Tell a new story. Stories allow to become present what's in the past and closer what's yet far in the future.

 

It also needs some imagination and unfortunately that is not so much taught in schools. We learn to read and write, but not to imagine. We learn to calculate, add and subtract, but we're not encouraged to create a new math, a math were adding and subtracting might change the colours and sounds in the world.

 

So many people think of themselves being dumb, but they're just incapable of memorizing data and facts as the majority, and they only don't memorize that well because they were just too distracted creating new perspectives and so, what they heard in class or saw in a book, became the launching pad to new realities and imagined new places. There are just people that "travel" too much compared to the norm.

 

Why is it that usually it's only the little kids that ask a bunch of questions and then when they grow up, silence wins them over? 

 

... so question, think for yourself, in your own space find out about what you believe and search for it. All our Life we're conditioned by parents, school, society. Learn to play again!

 

As Eduardo Galeano questions, what is Utopia/Dreams for? "Utopia is on the horizon. I move two steps closer; it moves two steps further away. I walk another ten steps and the horizon runs ten steps further away. As much as I may walk, I'll never reach it. So what's the point of utopia? The point is this: to keep walking.”

 

 

 

Life as a glass half full. A beautiful glass.

"I am sick of haunting myself
from within
like an old house."
_
Erica Jong

Go, speak, play, yell if you need to, but pause for a second first and think about the reasons behind your words, choices and actions. We can all be half full glasses, even when Life deals us a bad set of cards. If we can't see the reason why, we can at least find a reason to change and ask, why not.

"The twenties are as frenetic a decade as the teens. You have a voice inside your head repeating I want, I want, I want, but you don’t know what you want or how to get it. You hardly know who you are. You go on instinct. And your instinct mostly pushes you toward adventures you won’t grasp until you look back on them. Life can only be understood backward, but it must be lived forward, some sage once said."

—  

Erica Jong, in Fear of Flying’s Afterword. 

 

 

Sobre o pensar antes de falar

Sobre o código da autocrítica...

"Elogie sempre antes de criticar ou apontar um erro.
Primeiro conquiste o território da emoção e depois o da razão.

Tenha reacções generosas e surpreendentes.

Fale menos e haja mais. Economize argumentos.

Humanize-se. Revele capítulos da sua vida. Conte aos outros as lágrimas que chorou, os seus dias mais difíceis e as aventuras que viveu.

Descubra quem ama. Interesse-se pelos seus gostos, pergunte-lhe que dificuldades tem e demonstre preocupação por essa pessoa.

Se tiver necessidade de ser perfeito, de se defender compulsivamente e de ter sempre razão, recicle-se, pois este tipo de comportamento destrói os relacionamentos. O leitor pode ganhar o debate mas perderá quem ama."

_
Augusto Cury, O Código da Inteligência

Oração do Silêncio

… achamos que tudo tem um princípio e um fim.
E assim nos parece ser, nascemos e morremos.
Por isso precisamos dar um princípio ao Mundo, mas que principio poderá ser razoável imaginar?

Estamos cá para ser e não sabemos como.

E se realmente o Infinito existe? E se não existe um princípio e um fim, mas uma eterna existência, um continuum, uma passagem de um estado para outro, e assim continuamente.

Por isso só nos resta o Agora, este aqui onde estamos, seja de que forma for, este aqui que respiramos e partilhamos sozinhos ou acompanhados.

Neste Agora, somos imensa coisa, e tanto do que somos nem desconfiamos.
Sinto pena por tantas vezes não conseguir desconfiar, porque é muito fácil estar errado sobre o que pensamos ser certo e ser regra.

Por isso pensar é mesmo o melhor que podemos fazer. Não há pensar demais. Existe sim criticar a mais, falar de mais, mas pensar e reflectir, principalmente antes de agir, faz falta. O silêncio da reflexão, o silêncio que permite que as lágrimas caiam ou que o sorriso subtil surja…

Cineastas, músicos, fotógrafos, artistas da alma e coração, procuram por tantos meios captar esse silêncio, porque o sentiram já e sabem o quanto nos fala, o quanto sustém, esse simples silêncio.

Por vezes dói, e talvez por isso o evitamos, mas não permitir que nos envolva e seduza é virar as costas a um céu de fogo e imensamente belo.

There was something formless and perfect
before the universe was born.
It is serene. Empty.
Solitary. Unchanging.
Infinite. Eternally present.
It is the mother of the universe.
For lack of a better name,
I call it the Tao.

It flows through all things,
inside and outside, and returns
to the origin of all things.
—
Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching

 

Learn & Live

Learning is such a hard thing but it's such a great thing...
But it's a hard thing because most of the time, and your memory will do its best to keep it that way, we learn from mistakes, from our dumbness and we learn not easiest way, "the ops, sorry, won't happen again", but instead the "too late, too hurt, too f*** gone".

And when a mistake it's not fully acknowledged, when is not fully accepted, it darkens you, just like a huge dark cloud can take over a magical sunset. Sometimes we enjoy watching that darkness and heaviness, but rain follows it and we end up feeling cold and unsheltered, looking for a safe place to hide, and that feeling can hurt, even for the ones that supposedly have it all, it damages and hurts. It hurts to learn that we make mistakes that go beyond what we ever thought could ever be our worst face/action.

But they're also a great thing because we do rise from the ashes. Just like the beautiful, untouchable phoenix, that regenerates or reborns by arising from the ashes of its predecessor, we also rise from the ashes of our previous self.

There's so much of this "World" we don't know. There's more than the eye can see, and "only with the heart that one can see rightly. What is essential is invisible to the eye."

It's only when we fall from our horse, from our nice cosy armchair, from the usual and well repeated, that we actually learn how little do we know about what Life is, and our only possible answer to how to live Life (redundancy?) is that we're here to learn and grow, and we should do it in the best loving and unselfish way.

Learn & Live.
How do we learn? By listening, paying attention, by trying to understand and asking questions when we don't. By being actively interested in learning, doing the homework and then hoping to pass the tests.

In Love I trust.

“I am not sure exactly what heaven will be like, but I know that when we die and it comes time for God to judge us, he will not ask, 'How many good things have you done in your life?' rather he will ask, 'How much love did you put into what you did?”
―
Mother Teresa

Reinvent Yourself

"Why waste time proving over and over how great you are, when you could be getting better? Why hide deficiencies instead of overcoming them? Why look for friends or partners who will just shore up your self-esteem instead of ones who will also challenge you to grow? And why seek out the tried and true, instead of experiences that will stretch you? The passion for stretching yourself and sticking to it, even (or especially) when it’s not going well, is the hallmark of the growth mindset. This is the mindset that allows people to thrive during some of the most challenging times in their lives."
_
Carol Dweck (psychologist)

To Live is to conquer, to experience, to engage and learn, to share, to find comfort in friends and one day finding that big true Love... but to Live is also loosing, is getting less strong, is being left out, is being forgotten. To Live means to be thrilled with others company and be amazed when our expectations are met, but it also means one day being disappointed and disillusioned.

If someone doesn't love you, you do. If you fail, remember when you succeed. Nobody lives forever, so be prepared to leave. Learn to use the saddest days of your existence as the most important chapters in your Life. Be resilient.

Create a passion for learning rather than hunger for approval, become Free from your own self-deceiving lies and be honest about what scares you, be true about what you're searching for or what you need to let go.

There some simple changes that can do so much...

Instead of saying I'll try, I hope, say I choose to, I will
Instead of saying I should or shouldn't say, I could or I don't need to
Instead of saying I'm on a diet say, I choose to eat healthier
Instead of saying I need to exercise say, I want to move, dance or play. 
I choose what makes feel good.

“All great inventions emerge from a long sequence of small sparks”
_
Keith Sawyer

 

(...)
I am not the things my family did
I am not the voices in my head
I am not the pieces of the brokenness inside

I am Light

I am not the mistakes I have made
or any of the things that caused me pain
I am not the pieces of the dream I left behind

I am Light
my soul inside
is all Light

I am a star
a piece of it all
I am Light
...

Fall in...

How, please tell me, how should I live? Tell me, what is that I keep getting it wrong? Life is full of a thousand delights, but so many bitter disillusions. Is it all just in my mind, am I the problem? Tell me, I'll follow the plan, the rules, the ritual, the leader... what, what do I need to do?!...

Silence... long silence... wow, the stars are really other planets and galaxies, so many... silence... how nice is to hear the wind teasing the leaves on the trees... silence... here I am breathing, so much have I lived, so much have I learned and share and so much am I thankful for... sigh... and so much wrong doing have I done and caused pain because... because I didn't know any better... eyes wet... the wind also pushes the clouds out of the sky... there's so much power in the wind, in nature.... there's also so much power in faith isn't there?

... silence...

I'm this.
I'm this and this is a lot.
I'm this and I could still be so much more.
Could you, or want to!
... I want.
I want to be better.

(you're not alone, we all are looking for the same thing. To be, in sweetness and joy, to exist in community, in peace, in love.)

So the first step is to exist. Done
Second step, can sweetness exist in bitterness? Nop, maybe glimpses of it.
So, I want to become gentle with myself and others. But how do I keep that promise?

We all need to feel, be, share Love. We all need that connection. We need that exchange with others, to feel at Home, to feel we belong and also that we welcome others. We need Emotional Intelligence. How to become Emotionally smarter? I want to read, research, there's so much information about it, I can study.

I want to take care of my body too. Read that we become more positive when we practice sports. It wasn't an opinion, it's proven scientifically. After 30 minutes of running your thoughts become more positive. Try it for yourself, the ideas/solutions that cross your mind make good sense. I also want to eat well, to nurture my body and turn it into an efficient machine.

Ah, and Nature, I want be in tune with nature. To wake up with the first sunshine rays and let my soul travel with a good early night sleep.

All of this I want to promise to myself.

I was inspired by this author and his book, David Servan-Schreiber's"The instinct to Heal". Besides choosing a natural, fresher diet and exercise, he also points out some very important things to experience daily:

Reach out (and touch someone!): Reach out to at least two friends for support (logistical and emotional) during times of stress. Hug people, often.

Remember to breathe: Learn a basic breathing relaxation technique to let out some steam whenever you start to feel stressed. Meditate, please.

Get involved: Find out how you can best give something back to your local community, then give it. Just give, expecting nothing in return.

Cultivate happiness like a garden: Make sure you do one thing you love for yourself on most days. Cultivate your spirit, cultivate good vibes.

and let music lead you where words or thoughts cannot...
close your eyes, turn off the lights and listen... fall in...

In the practice of Yoga, we learn more about our body, its limitations and reach, and we learn about our mind, with its infinite ability to change and open.

Life is challenging and very different for each of us, but with an open and playful attitude it can become a summit that we conquer, a fear that we surpass, a love greater than we ever imagine.

There is a place for forgiveness and failures, as there is for lessons learned and success. It all happens inside of ourselves.

You don't need to prove yourself to others, instead find the self-respect and love we all so seek. Find what is true to you and follow that path.

Be gentle, flow, let the natural rhythm of nature guide you, don't try to control it. You have still so much to learn about yourself. Stay open, create that space.

Self-Psychopath

Psychopathy is among the most difficult disorders to spot. The psychopath can appear normal, even charming, but underneath, there's lack of conscience and empathy, making them manipulative and volatile. Could we relate to this definition when it comes to listening to our own inner voice?

To be smart, happily smart, we must be able to auto-analyze our thoughts and choices. How many of us choose to be impetuous instead of smartly thinking about the consequences of our attitudes?

I believe that because we tend to be lazy, we tend to sometimes not really think things through, in depth. We're always thinking superficially and repeating the same thoughts over and over and most of the time it's so tiring that when the time comes and we really need to make a decent choice, we let it be and hope for the best. That's why get caught up in so many Life's surprises, like divorce, like unemployment, like lack of security... we weren't paying attention.

But people around us are, especially children, do. We communicate a lot more than we think through our body language. Some people believe they need to shout in order to be heard, but think of the person that speaks softly and from a place of peace, which one do you think we'll listen more attentively? Same thing when it comes to thinking about Love. If you're too big in yourself, how will someone fit you inside their heart? To fit, to be admired, to be Loved, we must first be a seed, a tiny seed that will eventually grow inside our partner, our parents, our friends.

And don't be afraid to fail. We all fail and most of the time it's how we really learn. Don't beat yourself up because you should have known better. Sometimes we don't know any better.

"Rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life."
—
 J.K. Rowling 

Release... let go, let it be... follow the direction of your smile.

You and me we’re meant to be free, but we get caught up in comparisons, “undwelled” fears, accommodation/conformity to rules, norms, so many times self-imposed. We become lazy when facing our inner storms and quit for the sake of some “peace”. We all aim to be free but how many of us puts the responsibility of his/her choices on something/someone else? You and me we’re meant to be free, but to be free we can’t conform, we can’t just close our eyes and hope for the best… To be free is to be actively alive and any action always starts and ends in us, so, if we’re searching for freedom in Love, we must first find the strength in ourselves to Love; if we’re looking for Freedom through Forgiveness, we must start by forgiving ourselves first. All of us, everyone, wants to have their story told or written in the best possible way. Even when there’s a bit of side tracking, in the end, we all want to overcome our losses and lame options, and give Life the meaning it deserves. That’s why there’s no fast lane for it, it’s a self-paced growing and learning process. It’s not having loads of money that will make you free, although it helps physically, you’ll wish for deeper things, like connection and respect, and you might not find them because you won’t recognize in any of the things and commodities you have around. We all feel that we need to be validated as people, good or smart, funny or kind. We need to feel we’re the writers and actors of our life story, more important than that, we need to feel we have a story to tell.

To be free we can’t be a victim.

… no one can asphyxiate, disregard, humiliate or punish yourself more than yourself. The last sentence it’s always said by you to you, so we can fight back what we think is untrue or that must be changed, or we can conform and choose imprisonment.

To be free we must be able to have a love affair with ourselves and when questioned, to have the courage to defend that Love despite criticism. The lack of self-love, especially from whom we expect it unconditionally, can make the richest person the poorest of its kind, and by poor I mean, with no choices, with no trust, with no Freedom.

… How can we change?
Through Desire and Ambition, together in action.

Usually both these words are seen as bad ones, but to conquer a challenge or a dream we must wish/desire to do so and later gather the ambition to overcome the tiredness or doubts. Desire gives us the willpower and Ambition the courage and determination to do it.

We are not perfect beings but how well do we accept that? We get hurt by criticism, we get upset when we loose, we get angry if rejected, just the simple popular expression of having your self-pride hurt, think about it, how immature does that sound? In parenting, for example, we can see how many parents won’t admit to be flawed in front of their kids but they’ll demand compassion and sincerity from them. How can you ask someone to act humanly if you behave as god? … and that also echoes in the way we treat ourselves. We demand to be impeccable in our goals and dreams, but we fail miserably in listening to our fears and sharing them with others, again, because we fear to be seen as weak, but it’s exactly the opposite, we get weaker by the constant inner fight of pretending to be perfect.

To be Free we must accept we’re not perfect.

I dare to say that not being perfect is what connect us all! We all fear something, from the little spider to the fear of saying you love someone, so we all take our chances, risks, and it’s only by putting ourselves out there that we grow and learn. We need to jump into the void to become creative, intuitive, to realize how much greatness there is in the smallest gesture, but please don’t confuse taking risks with irresponsibility. Life is a precious gift, irreplaceable, so we must take good care of it, but in living, we must also take notice that in order to reach the peak of a mountain, we need to start walking and face the elements. Just a simple example of how risk taking must be induced and pushed forward: how many students are afraid of questioning their teacher? Wouldn’t it be better if children were taught to think for themselves too? How many employees are afraid of questioning their boss? Wouldn’t a company gain from its employees input? and so on.

To be Free we must take chances.

Get to fully comprehend who you are, where you are and what you’re doing in the Present. You’re the one who chooses your friends, your actions, your way. The better we understand this idea the better we can become the managers, “storytailors” of our Life. That’s why we study and share our thoughts. To have the tools to better comprehend our place in the World. To build our very unique screening machine that alerts each of us when there’s too much fantasy or self-projection in our thoughts, when there’s too much pessimism or judgmental attitude in our words, hey! when there’s even too much thinking going on! and what we really need is to breath out and chillax…

To be Free you need to take it easy.

Imagine you’re watching a movie but the scenes were too fast, short and unconnected, what would you think about it? How would you feel? Confuse, frustrated maybe even angry? Well, that’s what we’ve been doing to our brain these last years. Multi-screening life with chats, news, loads of info all adding up with daily duties and “I have a dream” type of projects. The result of course are feelings of anxiety and misplacement, because all the different feelings and emotions are just too quick to process, too unstable. We can’t change the speed of evolution, but we can and must control our own speed. We have the power in our hands to judge and analyze if something brings any “profit” to our Life. Question things, speak your mind, have a good and audible conversation with yourself and stay open about your crazy ways. We’re all unique.
It is crazier who hides their “crazyness” from themselves.

To be Free is to be a bit crazy.

Because we Feel

Walking in thin ice...

We get educated, through school, through others, we learn to copy letters, words, sentences, whole texts! and by the time you're an adult we're really good at copying. Yes, that's what we're get good at: copying what others have done and have been doing ever since.

We also learn to think for ourselves, but that's "basic" instinct. That's the brain acting smart in order to protect its integrity, its sanity.

To be sane in a not very logic world it's a challenge that most of us, no matter how wealthy, which ethnicity or detected craziness, have a hard time to deal with it. We can be very smart, but there's always this sensation that we might be standing over a thin layer of ice that could break and we would easily drown in Lalaland, the land where emotions rule and logic works as a cubist painting: gives some shape, but ultimately it only messes things up.

Passionate people have fortunately spoke out loud about their convictions on the emotional world. Be it Damasio who made the connection between emotional world and physiology,  Cury who manages to see it through what makes the brilliant mind so brilliant, or Servan-Schreider  who through another scientific perspective brings light to what Neurology has been finding about our brain: that part of it is animal and the other a direct result of evolution in itself.

We're this grey mass, that speaks through a body, that collects impressions, but most importantly, that feels.

Some people try their best to hide their feelings away, to be more like machines, paying high prices for their mistakes for they're not allowed to be careless. But, even them, at some point, get caught by a feeling of inadequacy, and the beautiful castle of cards just falls into randomness again.

No one is 100% logic. We are humans, and as the words indicates, we're resilient but permeable, we're sympathetic and solidaric but individualistic, we're sensitive, but we choose in favour of self-sufficiency, self-living. And this sounds like a balanced way of responding to life's questions and challenges, but then we go too far and suddenly we are harassed by anxiety, by too much honesty, by angriness.

So we must think about things, but we must be the guards of how much thinking we're doing. As said by the great Master, "We should take care not to make the intellect our god; it has, of course, powerful muscles, but no personality." Einstein.

So, the continuum big question is, how do we connect the Heart to the thinking machine, aka, Brain? In some situations we get the perfect combination, Heart and Mind are in tune, but what makes that perfect combination?

"Each experience has its own velocity according to which it wants to be lived if it is to be new, profound, and fruitful. To have wisdom means to discover this velocity in each individual case."
_
Rilke

We make the experiences, the experiences make us. We choose and are chosen. We think and we shut down. Caught between a birth and a death, we try to be normal and live a Life that is recognized as honest and respectful. Inside ourselves we give it meaning, we tell the story that will most appease our dreams and fears, for one is the other side of another. So we connect our Heart to our Brain through meaning, so how do we get the sense of meaning?
Through strong connections, through full relationships.

Physically we connect to existence through taste, smell, touch, listening, looking...
Emotionally we connect through Love. When we look at each other in the eye and feel our hearts beating, we answer most of our existential questions. Intimate relationships anchors us firmly in our existence. We don’t question the meaning of life when we're engaged in meaningful and loving actions... closeness give us meaning.

It can be hard to trust in one another, so much of ourselves is offered through intimacy, but... "The purpose of life is to be defeated by greater and greater things." - Rilke, and through that process of living and learning, we get wiser on what speed, rhythm, colors or language does our Heart speak softly to our brain and our brain responds to our Heart.

"When you judge, you see differences. When you love, you see people." (...) When you judge another, you do not define them, you define yourself."
—
Michael Barata

COURT ROOM...

"She has something of her very own,
something suffered,
accomplished, perfected."
—
Rainer Maria Rilke

"Mistakes are almost always of a sacred nature. Never try to correct them. On the contrary: rationalize them, understand them thoroughly. After that, it will be possible for you to sublimate them."
—
Salvador Dali

Choose Life & Play

We think we've learned, we tell ourselves that we've got it! Things seem to make sense and fit in our nicely arranged boxes, seem to be working, seem to be steady, seem to answer most of our doubts/questions... yep, this must be it, this must be how life works... big smile on your lips, confident look, yeah! we can see it clearly now, the sky is blue! ... but wait, no... what's that??? no, no, no... that doesn't fit our plans, that doesn't go with the scenario, no, it's not supposed to work like this, come on! really??? ... Yeah, Life is full of surprises... and we shouldn't be surprised by that.

That's why words like flow, let it be, let it go, just be here and now, quiet the mind etc, are supposed to help us. But we can't just be still, we have to do something! We need to breathe, eat... There are problems to be solved. So how can we balance being still and active at the same time?

Well, I guess it's about being round, complete, balanced, being one in all.

To be here you need to be actively here. There's only day and night because the Earth keeps rotating around the Sun. In sum, Presence = being quiet, but alive.

How you choose to be present that's your active choice. Active choice.

"Be an artist of consciousness. Your picture of reality is your most important creation. Make it powerfully profoundly beautiful."
—
Alex Grey

So the power of Choice is usually a misunderstood one, because we question, what choice??? Most likely we say: "Oh, if I had a choice I would...", ok, would what?
What would you do?

Ah, you would, but you can't, you don't have the means for it, it's not the right time, you need to take care of some things first... sure, you're free to choose whatever it's important for you right now, but be reminded that you're choosing.

... What's important for you right now?

For most children is to play and interact, because not only they have fun, they actually learn a lot, they share experiences, discover new things, they learn to think for themselves in the messy environment of other selves, playground!
For adults... well, for adults it's the exact same thing: to play and interact.
We desire to experience life and share it. We want to discover new things and learn to think for ourselves in the messy environment of society.

So what's important for you is the same for everybody. It just gets different shapes, shades and rhythms, but the nature is the same.

We experience the world through interaction with others in the workplace, in sports, in hobbies, in social gatherings, and that is what being alive means: being one with all. One (you) with All (everything).

It's when we break that flow of being, that we get sick and unbalanced. It's when we quit, give up, stop, recoil, hide, that we break the natural energy flow.

You know what it's important for you. Of course it requires effort, everything, from humans to machines, requires effort to function, but you can choose your focus and style (grace).

"Grace is the beauty of form under the influence of freedom."
_
Friedrich Schiller

And you can also choose to IGNORE what doesn't serve your purpose.
Ignore it. Intentionally disregard what not brings you health, peace or love.

Respect being alive. Purge negativity. Starve guilty feelings.
Listen to music, play, stay curious, "use all of your life's string, as in a kite".



If you have a bit more time, read the next text from Meggie Royer.
It will take you very much to the point.

The morning after I killed myself

"The morning after I killed myself, I woke up. I made myself breakfast in bed. I added salt and pepper to my eggs and used my toast for a cheese and bacon sandwich. I squeezed a grapefruit into a juice glass. I scraped the ashes from the frying pan and rinsed the butter off the counter. I washed the dishes and folded the towels. The morning after I killed myself, I fell in love. Not with the boy down the street or the middle school principal. Not with the everyday jogger or the grocer who always left the avocados out of the bag. I fell in love with my mother and the way she sat on the floor of my room holding each rock from my collection in her palms until they grew dark with sweat. I fell in love with my father down at the river as he placed my note into a bottle and sent it into the current. With my brother who once believed in unicorns but who now sat in his desk at school trying desperately to believe I still existed. The morning after I killed myself, I walked the dog. I watched the way her tail twitched when a bird flew by or how her pace quickened at the sight of a cat. I saw the empty space in her eyes when she reached a stick and turned around to greet me so we could play catch but saw nothing but sky in my place. I stood by as strangers stroked her muzzle and she wilted beneath their touch like she did once for mine. The morning after I killed myself, I went back to the neighbors’ yard where I left my footprints in concrete as a two year old and examined how they were already fading. I picked a few daylilies and pulled a few weeds and watched the elderly woman through her window as she read the paper with the news of my death. I saw her husband spit tobacco into the kitchen sink and bring her her daily medication. The morning after I killed myself, I watched the sun come up. Each orange tree opened like a hand and the kid down the street pointed out a single red cloud to his mother. The morning after I killed myself, I went back to that body in the morgue and tried to talk some sense into her. I told her about the avocados and the stepping stones, the river and her parents. I told her about the sunsets and the dog and the beach. The morning after I killed myself, I tried to unkill myself, but couldn’t finish what I started."

Bargain or rip-off?

... did you know that Life has a price? No, you can't buy it, but you can spend it.

And so many times we waste it in such foolish and pedantic ways. Acting on whims, thinking that we're being honest and sincere with ourselves and others. How well do you know yourself to trust blindly in your caprice?

But we know we all make mistakes, we all end up acting more or less mindless for most of the time, and because we're not that different from one another we forgive, we shrink our shoulders and hope for the best. And you keep being fortune on you careless way towards Life. Life's deviant nature carries you again out of another sad or desperate time and you find that right tune that keeps you going; sweet dreams lead you once more into another adventure, challenge or change. It's Life, and it's happening. But how much of your appreciation and respect goes towards this miracle?

Life can be wasted or gained. We can literally add years to our Life or loose them in memories that hurt too much to be recalled.

If when you look back, there are too many moments in your Life you wish you had done things differently, than while you still can, do things differently.

We know we can't change the Past, it's the Past that changes us, so we can only look straight ahead to what we have in front of us. Well, we should also look behind our shoulders because most probably that's where your attention should be. Who do you have that is there to look out for you, to listen, to dream with you, to laugh and bring you back to your senses?

Life can have a price that it's too much to bear, or it's a bargain for all you take out of it.
How do you feel about it?

"I live my life based on two principles. One, I live as if today was my last day on earth. Two, I live today as if I am going to live forever."
_
Osho 

“It is the time you have wasted for your rose that makes your rose so important“

 

"Stay away from people who belittle your goals. Small people always do that, but the really great ones make you feel like you can do anything."
—
Mark Twain  
 

And you look everywhere, towards all directions, towards all the faces you know and faces you see for the first time, and there's no recognition of what you know or lived. Everything feels disconnected from it's common place, from normality. There isn't anything that speaks to you or makes you feel at home. You're not in the wrong place but you're not somewhere close either...

And time flows like a river. The water just keeps sliding of your hands, passing through the sensitive skin between your fingers. It feels nice, but how can you sustain it for just a bit longer?

You don't feel like you belong anywhere, but you're here and you're part of everything. As if you've lost your clothes and you're standing naked in solitude.
Who are you when no one is watching?
Who is this ignorance person that questions him/herself about who they are and gets no answer?

You love but you say you're lost. You care, but you know very little about this all everything. You desire and wish but you complain there's hurt in believing with your eyes closed.


You can see your own shadow on the ground, and staring at your full grown hand you whisper to yourself that there's more in you than anyone will ever know.

"And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music."
—
Friedrich Nietzsche 

"Sometimes the questions are complicated and the answers are simple."
—
Dr. Seuss

How to be real rather than rehearsed?

"For a long time it had seemed to me that life was about to begin - real life. But there was always some obstacle in the way, something to be gotten through first, some unfinished business, time still to be served, a debt to be paid. Then life would begin. At last it dawned on me that these obstacles were my life.”
_
Alfred D. Souza

Living far too long in the "gotta do" Land, one gets tired of asking himself, or others, what is the purpose in all this rushing and planning and moving on to the next new "score".

The usual answer is that you gotta pay the bills, you gotta guarantee your kids future, you gotta provide for yourself, you gotta find a mate, you just gotta... so you gotta make a list, a plan, you gotta be better and faster, you gotta keep moving! ...  It's true that we must be independent and self sufficient, but if we don't search or give any substantial meaning to our existence, sadly we don't add anything else and we become mere consumers of reality. Consumers of others time, consumers of products and consumers of stuff.  And of course, because we don't value our own self that much we become disconnected, in the worst case we start feeling sad and our self-esteem goes down the drain. "(...) Low self-esteem is not due to not thinking enough about ourselves but rather thinking too much about ourselves and how others perceive us."


So, go on with your "gotta's" but everyday, make an assessment of where you're going, of who you're becoming. It is never too late to turn back and start a new path. The biggest obstacle to self-realization/happiness is ourselves: "me?! get me!". It's the self-imposed dreams and goals and the never ending demands on life that set up our rhythm, our soul beat. Lets get excited, let's be foolish, lets talk seriously, but, most important of all, let's be honest with our own self. Lets be real rather than rehearsed.

"No one in the world was ever you before, with your particular gifts and abilities and possibilities. It's a shame to waste those by doing what someone else has done."
_
Joseph Campbell

 

So we must all be insane

If you're insane you continue to live, if you're sane you die. Ironic, isn't it?
But that's what any religion in the world will tell you. We're here to learn our way towards enlightenment, we're here to clean our soul from sin, we're here because we are prone to evil.
... Could it be that everyone in the world is insane?
Then a second question pops up, which is about forgiving. If you've done something really wrong, does it really matter if you knew at the time that it was wrong? Does ignorance excuse our faults? Is killing because you're commanded to do so, less severe then killing because you can? Is lying because you don't want to hurt someone worst than lying because it's just in your nature?

… and everything is all a question of Life or Death, except when you stop caring anymore and all the commitments you hold towards what makes daily life a full lived life, become just a series of repetitive facts. We live with our owns or someone else's should's/could's/would’s and that is, for the majority of us, the main focus of our life.

Life "keeps" happening, we have no clue what we're doing on this planet, and the only thing you know for sure is that no one has it easy, just apparently. But we keep chasing the dream of being better, cooler, of being in love or flying free. Why?! ...  Well, why not? At least let’s have some fun and excitement, right?! We don’t know what’s on the other side, or even if there’s an other side to this story so, while we can, we could “try” to do the best it’s humanly possible to make the most out of it. That includes jumping over our limits, recognizing our mistakes, raising our voice or quietly and warmly listen to another soul.

WE’RE FREE. We’re free to be, think or feel whatever we want. We’re just not entitled to own and experience all we want, but we can CHOOSE.

We forget we’re free in order to live accordingly with self-imposed standards, but how much do you know yourself? Who's inside your head?

We’re usually good at coping and surviving. We try the best we can not to let our losses keep us back. We focus on music, on a particular book, on a particular place, on a special hug or conversation, on a job promotion, on a new car, house, family, on a crazy experience and thrilling adventure, we travel and we share with our friends our "amazing" findings: yes, the world is round! As a last resource, we focus on breathing!

So, everyday, we're survivors. We CHOOSE life. We ask Why and we reply Why not, “He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.” – Nietzsche. We even do more than that, we give meaning to our Life, also known as Happiness “a combination of pleasure, engagement and meaningfulness.”

Written somewhere was this idea that we ought live as if we were living already for a second time. Well, why not?

"... ninguém é feliz sozinho, porque ninguém vive sozinho. O ser humano é o ser mais mortal no planeta, porque ele sabe que vai morrer, e o problema não é a morte, a morte é um facto, toda a gente morre, mas o valor da nossa vida, que falta vamos fazer? Seremos importantes para alguém? Uma vida pequena é uma vida que é fechada em si mesma. Uma vida grande transborda, vai para além da nossa borda, uma vida repartida. (...)  Ser é ser-se percebido. (...) Uma amizade que acaba nunca começou. (...) Só gente desocupada começa alguma coisa... (...) Não seja uma pessoa "morna". Uma pessoa "morna" não faz mais do que é preciso, não dá mais do que é necessário, só ajuda se puder.

"Claim the experience, don't let the experience claim you"
_
Debra Jarvis



MORE LIKE THIS ON:
http://www.npr.org/programs/ted-radio-hour/335287595/growing-up?showDate=2015-07-02

Stop the blaming and move on

... I would like to start this post with "F#%... what was I thinking", and of course, the answer is: I wasn't. But wait! I was thinking, subconsciously. It's so hard to see the whole picture, better put, to see the other side of events, like the moon that has one unknown side. It's just easier to point at what's wrong, at what we think it's not fair, name all the things we could have done, because it's just easier to blame ignorance. Well, that's how we learn to strive as kids, blaming the other, something else other than ourselves. If the toy got broken or missing, it was never our fault!!! And when we actually had to admit that maybe there was no one else in the room, well we could still blame randomness!

Very rarely we defend ourselves, our self unknown cause. We don't know exactly why we did it, but we did, and it felt OK, except when the final results came. Maybe at this point you can say that's commonly known has being stupid. Ok, it is being stupid, but that stupidity had meaning. You choose to be stupid.

And it doesn't happen only when we're kids, even as full grown adults we still have the same reaction when things go wrong: "oh it wasn't my fault...!" because, even if there's no one to blame we can still shrunk our shoulders and pity ourselves, therefore, not really owning the blame, and in the same line of though, never owning the solution either. So the point I'm trying to get is that, we are the ones to blame, but we don't have to.

That's why, over and over, the guru's of thought and consciousness repeat the same mantra, be honest with yourself, let go, stop judging, embrace your true self, etc, meaning, yeah, you're "stupid" sometimes but that's all part of it, no need to scrutinize that. Let it be. In that stupidity there might be a meaning for something you're missing out.

Another example of that non-real acceptance of the self. When we get into an elevator and there's a mirror what do we do? If there's someone else inside we turn around and face our back to it, but if you're by yourself, confess it, you just stare at your own reflection and try to look the best you can. But we're shy to do it in front of others, as if it was a sign of weakness or proof of shameful vanity.

Neither. When you're honest about who you are, good or bad, you enjoy your own reflection, even if there's someone also being reflected in that same picture. Things get easier when you're not ashamed of yourself, and for others it's actually a relief to be close to someone real. We all want to look our best, which is the same as saying, we all want to be our best. Watching someone trying is so inspiring, as failing can be too. It's only when we don't take that good look at ourselves and admit our own flaws in front of others, that we go around being shitty.

I wish I could go back and do things differently, I wish I had been awaken to all the open windows in front of me, I wish I had had the courage to take that good look at myself and see it clearly how wrong my actions were. But hey, no blaming, no excuses. Plain simple observation. I wasn't right, I did wrong, I was selfish. I don't want to repeat the same mistakes again, but now I need to step out of this cross and get on with it.

Let's learn to name things exactly as they are and stop pretending. There's always a mirror somewhere for us to look at. "Just" be yourself to know yourself well. Don't waste time blaming. Take note of the mistake, repeat the test again if you can, but if not, move on, lesson learned. As once said "The unexamined life is not worth living." But sorry Socrates, Life itself is so worth living. Take that good look in the mirror, specially if you're not alone, laugh at it, appreciate it, improve, but leave the elevator.

unexamined life is not worth living

"(...) you can ask the Universe for all the signs you want, but ultimately, we see what we want to see when we're ready to see it"
+
“You don’t awaken to Truth by analyzing the dream. Find out who the dreamer is.”
— 

Mooji

... give LOVE that one more chance.

(...)
Can't we give ourselves one more chance?
Why can't we give love that one more chance?
Why can't we give love, give love, give love, give love, give love, give love, give love, give love?..

'Cause love's such an old-fashioned word
And love dares you to care for
The people on the edge of the night
And love dares you to change our way of
Caring about ourselves"
_
Under Pressure, Queen 

Need a push towards feeling better... here : )

“If you don’t like something, change it. 
If you can’t change it, change your attitude.”
—
Maya Angelou
 



















“You’ve always had the power … 
you just had to learn it for yourself.”
—
Glinda the Good Witch of the North from “The Wizard of Oz

 

Embrace your playful heart... choose Love

Unlock it

Why do we feel we need to search for ourselves? We're right here...
But we get sad, or we get frustrated or we get indecisive on which way to go and boom, you need a psychologist, you need a Reiki Master, you need a super flirting date... something.

This whole thing of finding your purpose, yourself, your connection, your strength or magnetic field alignment, oh man, it's for heroes only, right? Well, ask someone who has survived something far worst than feeling sad and they will probably tell you a bit about that promised land, where the truth and wholeness are possible. They kind of have found it. But do we need to be throned away against a solid wall to get it? Is that the only way? Why aren't we smarter about being?

Well, maybe we don't talk much about it when we're growing up, and later in Life, we don't want to be labelled loonies for bringing that subject up. So we're a bit left alone when it comes to learning how to be. Despite the well known Shakespeare drama-question "To be or not to be", we don't consider that time must be put in figuring that one out. In daily Life we basically have two choices:  we can make jokes about it or go "Lock, Stock and two Smoking Barrels".

We secretly wish to be a hero, successful, happy... but...

What it is that we feel has something is missing?
...

What it is that makes you fight yourself or with others?
...

What it is that we feel as not part of this great world?
...

The answer: Breathe.

Stop everything you're doing, stop that guilty trip, stop the excuses, stop... and take one long deep breath. To just breathe it's such an amazing feeling. If you doubt that than stop breathing or imagine a wave coming in and you didn't get that extra inhale...

We are here, and we only get frustrated if we say to ourselves, or others, that we are frustrated because of this and that. So, stop blaming. Be here, move, speak, dance but stop blaming. Stop blaming you or others. Deal with it, fix it, change it, don't waste more time trying to feel good about something you feel it's wrong.

You feel lost. How can you be lost, if you know where you are? You're only lost if you want to be somewhere else and you don't know how to get there. But if you just want to be, you know where you are, here.

And if you feel that there's a connection missing, with the world, with nature, with people, with self ideologies, then, I'm sorry to upset you one more time, but make that connection. Make shit happen.

If you don't paddle to a wave, you will not surf any wave. You have to paddle, paddle, paddle hard and go for it! Then let it flow... feel it, be present, be attentive to what's in front of you, enjoy the ride while it lasts. P.S. You'll have to paddle again after.

It's your effort and preparation, and then your letting go, your trust in the unknown, that makes life an amazing miracle experience. That positive attitude, that good vibe, comes from pushing yourself beyond what you know with a strong trust in your preparation.

If you're feeling fragile, and we all get broken with Life's sneaky "surprises", hey, accept it and recognize it, but don't just stay there, do something about it. Preparation is key, whether in school or in Life. Same thing. Prepare yourself for life's exams. If you flunk, you will have to repeat the test, don't doubt it. You'll go over it again and again until the lesson is learned... you're wasting time if you're waiting for a miracle.

When it comes to Life, here some simple guidelines...

1) Hangout with your family, kids, friends, make new friends...
2) If it matters (but really think first), speak it out loud;
3) Find the problem and really work it out, don't just hunch your shoulders;
4) Try it and be surprised, be more generous and helpful, let yourself change and be the change;
5) Find that "bigger picture", there's always more than you think behind words and behaviors;
6) Pray, meditate... and forgive, yourself or others. Let the past go.

Each of us it's like a cloud on it's own. Together we're an immense sky. It can rain or shine. Be as open and helpful as you can be, without ever forgetting that you can change that sky. It's all good, whether it rains or the sun is shining. Both moods are important.