We look for happiness in all the wrong places. Like a moth flying into the flame, we destroy ourselves in order to find temporary relief. Because we often find such relief, we continue to reinforce old patterns of suffering and strengthen dysfunctional patterns in the process. ~
If we learn to open our hearts, anyone, including the people who drive us crazy, can be our teacher.
Be Ground
Be crumbled, so wildflowers will come up where you are.
You've been stony for too many years.
Try something different.
Surrender.
At the time, I did what I knew to do, and when I knew better, I did better.
"No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it."
The time will come when, with elation you will greet yourself arriving at your own door, in your own mirror and each will smile at the other's welcome, and say, sit here. Eat. You will love again the stranger who was your self. Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart to itself, to the stranger who has loved you all your life, whom you ignored for another, who knows you by heart. Take down the love letters from the bookshelf, the photographs, the desperate notes, peel your own image from the mirror. Sit. Feast on your life.
And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.
This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they are a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing and invite them in.
Be grateful for whatever comes.
Because each has been sent as a guide from beyond.
Do not worry if you have built your castles in the air. They are where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.
You cannot prevent the birds of sorrow from flying over your head, but you can prevent them from building nests in your hair.
For a long time it 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 to still be served, a debt to be paid. Then life would begin. At last it dawned on me that these obstacles were my life.