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.