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Imagination is absolutely critical to the quality of our lives. Our imagination enables us to leave our routine everyday existence by fantasizing about travel, food, sex, falling in love, or having the last word—all the things that make life interesting. Imagination gives us the opportunity to envision new possibilities—it is an essential launchpad for making our hopes come true. It fires our creativity, relieves our boredom, alleviates our pain, enhances our pleasure, and enriches our most intimate relationships.
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Bessel van der Kolk (The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma)
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We might not know we are seeking people who best enrich our lives, but somehow on a deep subconscious level we absolutely are. Whether the bond is temporary or permanent, whether it succeeds or fails, fate is simply a configuration of choices that combine with others to shape the relationships that surround us. We cannot choose our family, but we can choose our friends, and we sometimes, before we even meet them.
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Simon Pegg (Nerd Do Well)
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Relationships are steppingstones for the evolution of our consciousness. Each interaction we have, be it one of joy or contrast, allows us to learn more about who we are and what we want in this lifetime. They bring us into greater alignment…as long as we continue to move forward and do not get attached to hurt, anger, or being a victim.
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Alaric Hutchinson (Living Peace: Essential Teachings For Enriching Life)
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The moment we accept our pain is the moment we release our suffering. Suffering is created when we offer life resistance, and what we resist most are the experiences that bring us pain.
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Alaric Hutchinson (Living Peace: Essential Teachings For Enriching Life)
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It is very possible to acknowledge another person’s concerns without entering into their vibration.
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Alaric Hutchinson (Living Peace: Essential Teachings For Enriching Life)
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Unconditional Love is the outer expression of Inner Peace.
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Alaric Hutchinson (Living Peace: Essential Teachings For Enriching Life)
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Love is being able to view a situation without adding duality to it.
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Alaric Hutchinson (Living Peace: Essential Teachings For Enriching Life)
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Respect everyone who crosses your path, even if you feel they don't deserve it.
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Alaric Hutchinson (Living Peace: Essential Teachings For Enriching Life)
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Holistic Wealth is something to cultivate in many areas of your life, from enriching your sense of purpose, to nourishing yourself spiritually and physically, to creating good relationships, and giving back. Developing in these areas helps us to better rebound from setbacks.
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Keisha Blair (Holistic Wealth: 32 Life Lessons to Help You Find Purpose, Prosperity, and Happiness)
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Be honest. This applies to every area of your life. Sketchiness is not an attractive trait. No more trying to cover up your baggage, sweeping things under the rug, withholding truth, blatant lying, or even telling seemingly ‘harmless’ white lies or half-truths – release the need to lie completely! Start NOW.
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Alaric Hutchinson (Living Peace: Essential Teachings For Enriching Life)
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You can trust everyone to be human, with all the quirks and inconsistencies we humans display, including disloyalty, dishonesty and downright treachery. We are all capable of the entire range of human behavior, given the circumstances, from absolute saintliness to abject depravity. Trusting someone to limit their sphere of action to one narrow band on the spectrum is idealistic and will inevitably lead to disappointment.
On the other hand, you can decide to trust that everyone is doing their best according to their particular stage of development, and to give everyone their appropriate berth. For this to work, you have to trust yourself to make and have made the right choices that will lead you on the path to your healthy growth. You have to trust yourself to come through every experience safely and enriched. But don’t trust what I am saying. Listen and then decide for yourself. Does this information sit easily in your belly? You know when you trust yourself around someone because your belly feels settled and your heart feels warm.
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Stephen Russell (Barefoot Doctor's Guide to the Tao: A Spiritual Handbook for the Urban Warrior)
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Your judgments about another person say more about your own character than the character of the person you are pointing a finger at.
This is the key and one of the most fundamental insights about the ‘red flags’ that we often dismiss regarding the people in our lives. If someone complains a lot to you about other people, guess what? That is part of their current character. And, as quickly as the tide changes, you can just as easily become the person they target and criticize, point fingers at, and negatively judge. Forever and always, until vibrations are raised, this will be the cycle of the relationship. So, it’s your choice to continue to engage in the cycle with them, or to move on.
There are plenty of people who do not criticize, point fingers, or judge. THIS is the kind of character we want to foster within ourselves. THIS is the character of the kind of people we DO want to develop close relationships with.
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Alaric Hutchinson (Living Peace: Essential Teachings For Enriching Life)
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Good… Bad? I’m not here to judge where you’re at or where you’ve been. I’m simply here to encourage you in where you would like to go. You have the map; I’ll shine the light on it so you can better read it. And eventually, the sun will rise again in your life and you’ll no longer need my light to assist you.
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Alaric Hutchinson (Living Peace: Essential Teachings For Enriching Life)
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What we learned about love and relationships from our childhood feels normal. But just because something feels familiar doesn't mean it is healthy. Spend five minutes today quietly reflecting on one of your relationships. Does it enrich your life? If you find that it doesn't, consider what changes you need to make so the relationship feeds you.
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Judith Hanson Lasater
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There is no excuse good enough to ever be out of alignment with love. You’re going to get hurt, and you will feel pain. Yet your purpose is to keep loving, anyway. Keep moving forward with an open heart. Love is a Divine gift given to humanity. Wasting it is no longer an option. Love is what brings light to a dark place. Love is what transforms a dying world into a thriving planet.
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Alaric Hutchinson (Living Peace: Essential Teachings For Enriching Life)
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If we are unable to tolerate ourselves when we are alone, how can we expect anyone else to be enriched by our company? Before we can have a solid relationship with another, we must have a relationship with ourselves. We are challenged to learn to listen to ourselves. We have to be able to stand alone before we can truly stand beside another.
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Gerald Corey (Theory and Practice of Counseling and Psychotherapy)
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Be generous with encouragement. It is verbal sunshine; it warms hearts, costs nothing, and enriches lives.” – Nicky Gumbel
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Michael S. Sorensen (I Hear You: The Surprisingly Simple Skill Behind Extraordinary Relationships)
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When I was a kid my mom would send me off to school each day with the words, ‘Remember: be happy! The most important thing today is that you are happy!
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Alaric Hutchinson (Living Peace: Essential Teachings For Enriching Life)
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The years with Barbara taught me a great lesson: how having a good relationship can enrich your life.
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Arnold Schwarzenegger (Total Recall: My Unbelievably True Life Story)
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Harry’s letter to his daughter:
If I could give you just one thing, I’d want it to be a simple truth that took me many years to learn. If you learn it now, it may enrich your life in hundreds of ways. And it may prevent you from facing many problems that have hurt people who have never learned it.
The truth is simply this: No one owes you anything.
Significance
How could such a simple statement be important? It may not seem so, but understanding it can bless your entire life.
No one owes you anything.
It means that no one else is living for you, my child. Because no one is you. Each person is living for himself; his own happiness is all he can ever personally feel.
When you realize that no one owes you happiness or anything else, you’ll be freed from expecting what isn’t likely to be.
It means no one has to love you. If someone loves you, it’s because there’s something special about you that gives him happiness. Find out what that something special is and try to make it stronger in you, so that you’ll be loved even more.
When people do things for you, it’s because they want to — because you, in some way, give them something meaningful that makes them want to please you, not because anyone owes you anything.
No one has to like you. If your friends want to be with you, it’s not out of duty. Find out what makes others happy so they’ll want to be near you.
No one has to respect you. Some people may even be unkind to you. But once you realize that people don’t have to be good to you, and may not be good to you, you’ll learn to avoid those who would harm you. For you don’t owe them anything either.
Living your Life
No one owes you anything.
You owe it to yourself to be the best person possible. Because if you are, others will want to be with you, want to provide you with the things you want in exchange for what you’re giving to them.
Some people will choose not to be with you for reasons that have nothing to do with you. When that happens, look elsewhere for the relationships you want. Don’t make someone else’s problem your problem.
Once you learn that you must earn the love and respect of others, you’ll never expect the impossible and you won’t be disappointed. Others don’t have to share their property with you, nor their feelings or thoughts.
If they do, it’s because you’ve earned these things. And you have every reason to be proud of the love you receive, your friends’ respect, the property you’ve earned. But don’t ever take them for granted. If you do, you could lose them. They’re not yours by right; you must always earn them.
My Experience
A great burden was lifted from my shoulders the day I realized that no one owes me anything. For so long as I’d thought there were things I was entitled to, I’d been wearing myself out —physically and emotionally — trying to collect them.
No one owes me moral conduct, respect, friendship, love, courtesy, or intelligence. And once I recognized that, all my relationships became far more satisfying. I’ve focused on being with people who want to do the things I want them to do.
That understanding has served me well with friends, business associates, lovers, sales prospects, and strangers. It constantly reminds me that I can get what I want only if I can enter the other person’s world. I must try to understand how he thinks, what he believes to be important, what he wants. Only then can I appeal to someone in ways that will bring me what I want.
And only then can I tell whether I really want to be involved with someone. And I can save the important relationships for th
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Harry Browne
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Harmony is our natural state of being, and so, when our energies become too stagnant, chaos is thrown into the mix to stimulate what will eventually result in balance and invite flow. The trick is to not let chaos trap or define you… simply allow it to create movement in the vehicle of your life so that you can snap your eyes open and take back control of the wheel. Do not lose yourself in the storm, instead, be the calm in the storm.
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Alaric Hutchinson (Living Peace: Essential Teachings For Enriching Life)
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To be truly rich includes not only financial freedom but developing rich, meaningful relationships, enriching your health, and enjoying a rich balance between your career and your personal life.
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Jack Canfield (The Power of Focus: How to Hit Your Business, Personal and Financial Targets with Confidence and Certainty)
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The addiction crisis is terrifying, and many people don’t comprehend appropriate opioid use. When I first started taking pain medication, I remember a family member saying, “Dianne, you’re going to become an addict!”
We need to help people understand that taking pain medicine to maximize one’s ability to be productive and to sustain enriching relationships is very different than the disease of addiction, which limits one’s ability to contribute to society and maintain healthy habits.
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Dianne Bourque
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What do you think of yourself, your daily life, your body, your relationship with others? Ask yourself these questions. Write down the answers or speak them into a recorder. But in one way or another objectify them.
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Jane Roberts (The Nature of Personal Reality: Specific, Practical Techniques for Solving Everyday Problems and Enriching the Life You Know)
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Be vulnerable! It is not someone else’s responsibility to break down your walls to get to you. It is your responsibility to let them in. This is crucial. Be more vulnerable with people in your life today. Know that being vulnerable is not a weakness – vulnerability means you are strong and secure enough within yourself to walk outside without your armor on.
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Alaric Hutchinson (Living Peace: Essential Teachings For Enriching Life)
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There is never a reason good enough to be out of alignment with peace.
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Alaric Hutchinson (Living Peace: Essential Teachings For Enriching Life)
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We are treated exactly the way we expect to be treated by the world and its people.
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Alaric Hutchinson (Living Peace: Essential Teachings For Enriching Life)
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How is my communication today laying the foundation for my relationships tomorrow?
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Alaric Hutchinson (Living Peace: Essential Teachings For Enriching Life)
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Love is the expansion of two natures in such fashion that each include the other, each is enriched by the other
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Felix Adler
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Confusing being mortal with being threatened can occur in any realm. The fact that something could go wrong does not mean that we are in danger. It means we are alive. Mortality is the sign of life. In the most intimate and personal of arenas, many of us have love and trusted someone who violated that trust. So when someone else comes along who intrigues us, whose interests we share, who we enjoy being with, with whom there could be some mutual enrichment and understanding, that does not mean that we are being violated again. Experiencing anxiety does not mean that anyone is doing anything to us that is unjust.
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Sarah Schulman (Conflict Is Not Abuse: Overstating Harm, Community Responsibility, and the Duty of Repair)
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Never close the door of your heart to anyone. They may not be in vibrational alignment today, so you must place physical distance between you and them for your own well-being, but later in life, they may awaken and seek forgiveness, understanding, and peace. If you close the door to your heart, when they come seeking later on, they will find their way blocked and may walk away without knocking, since it took all the courage they had to just approach. Yet, if you leave the door open to your warm heart and they see that you are full of welcoming energy, co-creation will always be the reward, allowing you to make together a more beautiful world for all.
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Alaric Hutchinson (Living Peace: Essential Teachings For Enriching Life)
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God never meant us to be purely spiritual creatures. That is why He uses material things like conversations, shared meals and trips, hugs, small kindnesses, and gifts between friends to enrich the new life He’s given us. We may think this rather crude and unspiritual. God does not: He invented human relationships. He likes friendship. He invented it.
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Wesley Hill
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Be YOU. There is nothing sexier than someone who is confident enough to be themselves, quirks and all. It is often your unique nature that separates you from the crowd in the best way possible for your romantic match to notice you.
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Alaric Hutchinson (Living Peace: Essential Teachings For Enriching Life)
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[The] association of wealth with whites and poverty with blacks is not accidental. It is the nature of the imperialist relationship that enriches the metropolis at the expense of the colony i.e. it makes the whites richer and the blacks poorer.
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Walter Rodney (The Groundings with My Brothers)
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Sex does not enrich or deepen a relationship, it permanently cheapens and destabilises one. Everyone I know who is unfortunate enough to have a sex-mate, joy-partner, bed-friend, love-chum, call them what you will finds that--after a week or two of long blissful afternoons of making the beast with two backs, or the beast with one back and a funny shaped middle or the beast with legs splayed in the air and arms gripping the sides of the mattress--the day dawns when Partner A is keen for more swinking, grinding, and sweating and Partner B would rather turn over and catch up with Jeeves and Bertie.
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Stephen Fry
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The present moment is all that ever is, and in each new moment we die and are reborn. For example, people block love and close off their hearts out of fear of being hurt again. If they lived in the present moment, there would be no fear and they would walk forward in life with confidence and certainty that there is the joy of new experiences to be had.
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Alaric Hutchinson (Living Peace: Essential Teachings For Enriching Life)
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Differences don’t just threaten and divide us. They also inform, enrich, and enliven us. Indeed, differences are the only way we learn. If our intimate relationships were composed only of people identical to ourselves, our personal growth would come to an abrupt halt.
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Harriet Lerner (The Dance of Connection: How to Talk to Someone When You're Mad, Hurt, Scared, Frustrated, Insulted, Betrayed, or Desperate)
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Being authentic will get you where you need and want to go, and it will be your path to building the most meaningful and enriching connections with others.
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Michelle Tillis Lederman (11 Laws of Likability)
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We're so afraid of being hurt that we become the abuser first.
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Alaric Hutchinson (Living Peace: Essential Teachings For Enriching Life)
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If we aren't willing to change, we aren't willing to unconditionally love.
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Alaric Hutchinson (Living Peace: Essential Teachings For Enriching Life)
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We are enriched not by what we possess, but by what we can do without. IMMANUEL KANT
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Christopher Ryan (Sex at Dawn: How We Mate, Why We Stray, and What It Means for Modern Relationships)
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It is impossible for partners not to grow bored unless they work to discover new challenges in each other’s company, and learn appropriate skills for enriching the relationship. Initially
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Mihály Csíkszentmihályi (Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience)
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Even if you’re not broadcasting your personal life to the universe through social media, choose your confidants wisely and with discretion. Your ability to keep your personal details close to your vest will encourage others to feel that you are trustworthy enough to be trusted with their personal details.
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Susan C. Young (The Art of Connection: 8 Ways to Enrich Rapport & Kinship for Positive Impact (The Art of First Impressions for Positive Impact, #6))
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On the road to success, there is always room to share appreciation and gratitude for other people’s successes. Feeling gratitude for other people raises our own vibration, while adding cement to the bricks we lay. Finding the best qualities in others allows us to build those qualities within ourselves. And when we focus on our personal growth with open hearts and minds, the speed with which we construct dramatically increases, because all the while, we are attracting more like energy and like-minded people into our lives to assist us.
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Alaric Hutchinson (Living Peace: Essential Teachings For Enriching Life)
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Your life is written in indelible ink. There's no going back to erase the past, tweak your mistakes, or fill in missed opportunities. When the moment's over, your fate is sealed.
But if look closer, you notice the ink never really dries on any our experiences. They can change their meaning the longer you look at them.
Klexos.
There are ways of thinking about the past that aren't just nostalgia or regret. A kind of questioning that enriches an experience after the fact. To dwell on the past is to allow fresh context to trickle in over the years, and fill out the picture; to keep the memory alive, and not just as a caricature of itself. So you can look fairly at a painful experience, and call it by its name.
Time is the most powerful force in the universe. It can turn a giant into someone utterly human, just trying to make their way through. Or tell you how you really felt about someone, even if you couldn't at the time. It can put your childhood dreams in context with adult burdens or turn a universal consensus into an embarrassing fad. It can expose cracks in a relationship that once seemed perfect. Or keep a friendship going by thoughts alone, even if you'll never see them again. It can flip your greatest shame into the source of your greatest power, or turn a jolt of pride into something petty, done for the wrong reasons, or make what felt like the end of the world look like a natural part of life.
The past is still mostly a blank page, so we may be doomed to repeat it. But it's still worth looking into if it brings you closer to the truth.
Maybe it's not so bad to dwell in the past, and muddle in the memories, to stem the simplification of time, and put some craft back into it. Maybe we should think of memory itself as an art form, in which the real work begins as soon as the paint hits the canvas. And remember that a work of art is never finished, only abandoned.
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John Koenig
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I know of no other place that is so fascinating yet so frustrating, so aware of the world and its own place within it but at the same time utterly insular. A country touched by nostalgia, with a past so great - so marked by brilliance and achievement - that French people today seem both enriched and burdened by it. France is like a maddening, moody lover who inspires emotional highs and lows. One minute it fills you with a rush of passion, the next you're full of fury, itching to smack the mouth of some sneering shopkeeper or smug civil servant. Yes, it's a love-hate relationship.
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Sarah Turnbull (Almost French: Love and a New Life in Paris)
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When faced with contrast, take nothing personally and don’t try to defend yourself. Defending one’s self is a vibrational relative of guilt. People will think what they like; do not feed fuel to the fire by reacting. Simply ask questions for clarity and in response say ‘Is that so?’ Take responsibility for the energy you brought to the situation, acknowledge the illusions without attachment, and move forward. Other people’s opinions are none of your business. Remember that each person is on their own unique path, and the mirror of contrast you hold up to them may be exactly what is necessary for their conscious growth at that time.
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Alaric Hutchinson (Living Peace: Essential Teachings For Enriching Life)
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When you are moving toward an objective,” said Petrus, “it is very important to pay attention to the road. It is the road that teaches us the best way to get there, and the road enriches us as we walk its length. You can compare it to a sexual relationship: the caresses of foreplay determine the intensity of the orgasm. Everyone knows that. “And it is the same thing when you have an objective in your life. It will turn out to be better or worse depending on the route you choose to reach it and the way you negotiate that route.
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Paulo Coelho (The Pilgrimage)
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Rather than dilute our relationship, the freedom I was claiming helped solidify it. For in the long run, when a woman breaks out of boxes that have limited her, when she sets her plucky self free and begins to nourish and enrich herself, her relationships are nourished and enriched as well.
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Sue Monk Kidd (The Dance of the Dissident Daughter: A Woman's Journey from Christian Tradition to the Sacred Feminine)
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As long as we keep our native language on our tongue, we will penetrate so much more deeply the distinctiveness of each language. Here we will find gaps, there superfluity; here riches, there a desert, and we will be able to enrich the poverty of the one with the treasures of the other. For, in what precise relationship do language and mentality stand? Whoever masters the entire scope of one language surveys a field full of thoughts, and whoever learns to express himself precisely in it thereby gathers for himself a treasure of clear concepts. The first words we stammer are the foundation stones of our knowing, and our nurse-maids are our first teachers of logic.
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Johann Gottfried Herder
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Imagination is absolutely critical to the quality of our lives. Our imagination enables us to leave our routine everyday existence by fantasizing about travel, food, sex, falling in love, or having the last word—all the things that make life interesting. Imagination gives us the opportunity to envision new possibilities—it is an essential launchpad for making our hopes come true. It fires our creativity, relieves our boredom, alleviates our pain, enhances our pleasure, and enriches our most intimate relationships. When people are compulsively and constantly pulled back into the past, to the last time they felt intense involvement and deep emotions, they suffer from a failure of imagination, a loss of the mental flexibility. Without imagination there is no hope, no chance to envision a better future, no place to go, no goal to reach.
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Bessel van der Kolk (The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma)
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A common and traditionally masculine marital problem is created by the husband who, once he is married, devotes all his energies to climbing mountains and none to tending to his marriage, or base camp, expecting it to be there in perfect order whenever he chooses to return to it for rest and recreation without his assuming any responsibility for its maintenance. Sooner or later this “capitalist” approach to the problem fails and he returns to find his untended base camp a shambles, his neglected wife having been hospitalized for a nervous breakdown, having run off with another man, or in some other way having renounced her job as camp caretaker. An equally common and traditionally feminine marital problem is created by the wife who, once she is married, feels that the goal of her life has been achieved. To her the base camp is the peak. She cannot understand or empathize with her husband’s need for achievements and experiences beyond the marriage and reacts to them with jealousy and never-ending demands that he devote increasingly more energy to the home. Like other “communist” resolutions of the problem, this one creates a relationship that is suffocating and stultifying, from which the husband, feeling trapped and limited, may likely flee in a moment of “mid-life crisis.” The women’s liberation movement has been helpful in pointing the way to what is obviously the only ideal resolution: marriage as a truly cooperative institution, requiring great mutual contributions and care, time and energy, but existing for the primary purpose of nurturing each of the participants for individual journeys toward his or her own individual peaks of spiritual growth. Male and female both must tend the hearth and both must venture forth. As an adolescent I used to thrill to the words of love the early American poet Ann Bradstreet spoke to her husband: “If ever two were one, then we.”20 As I have grown, however, I have come to realize that it is the separateness of the partners that enriches the union. Great marriages cannot be constructed by individuals
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M. Scott Peck (The Road Less Traveled: A New Psychology of Love, Traditional Values and Spiritual Growth)
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Well-crafted and open-ended questions typically begin with What, Why, When, Who, How, and Where, all of which can prompt the most delightful of conversations.
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Susan C. Young (The Art of Connection: 8 Ways to Enrich Rapport & Kinship for Positive Impact (The Art of First Impressions for Positive Impact, #6))
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No person is ever wrong in how they experience their reality.
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Alaric Hutchinson (Living Peace: Essential Teachings For Enriching Life)
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Keep your opinion to yourself unless it’s asked for.
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Alaric Hutchinson (Living Peace: Essential Teachings For Enriching Life)
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Drop the Ball: to release unrealistic expectations of doing it all and engage others to achieve what matters most to us, deepening our relationships and enriching our lives
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Tiffany Dufu (Drop the Ball: Achieving More by Doing Less)
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Do you approach people with a heart of service or with a hidden agenda? Make no mistake, will feel your intentions, even when not spoken.
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Susan C. Young (The Art of Connection: 8 Ways to Enrich Rapport & Kinship for Positive Impact (The Art of First Impressions for Positive Impact, #6))
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Learn to choose your battles carefully. When you exercise discretion, you will realize that most fights are best avoided. Let those sleeping dogs sleep!
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Susan C. Young (The Art of Connection: 8 Ways to Enrich Rapport & Kinship for Positive Impact (The Art of First Impressions for Positive Impact, #6))
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The truth may be true, but a discreet person understands that speaking the truth isn’t always helpful. It can also be hurtful and harmful.
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Susan C. Young (The Art of Connection: 8 Ways to Enrich Rapport & Kinship for Positive Impact (The Art of First Impressions for Positive Impact, #6))
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1. Building Trust & Rapport. Trust and rapport are the heartbeat of business, the backbone of high performing teams, and the secret sauce for healthy relationships.
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Susan C. Young (The Art of Connection: 8 Ways to Enrich Rapport & Kinship for Positive Impact (The Art of First Impressions for Positive Impact, #6))
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Be Interested & Interesting. People will be more interested in you when you are interested in them. If you want to impress, talk to them about . . . them.
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Susan C. Young (The Art of Connection: 8 Ways to Enrich Rapport & Kinship for Positive Impact (The Art of First Impressions for Positive Impact, #6))
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Women are the jewels, but for them to feel that way, they must focus on enriching their body, mind and soul.
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Linda Alfiori
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Want to enhance your family life and relationships? PUT DOWN YOUR PHONE! You will be surprised how enriching it can be.
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Steve Maraboli
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As soon as someone believes you cannot be trusted, you are stopped dead in your tracks. Whether this perceived loss of trustworthiness is true or false, the perception alone can be damaging.
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Susan C. Young (The Art of Connection: 8 Ways to Enrich Rapport & Kinship for Positive Impact (The Art of First Impressions for Positive Impact, #6))
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It’s okay to experience the flow of all emotions; however, if we get caught up in feeling pity for others and take on the responsibility of being their ‘savior’, we often take away their power to ‘save’ themselves. If I see someone as ‘messed up’ then I am projecting my ‘messed up’ vibration onto them, so I am unable to hold space. Yet, if I already view them as whole, well, and beautiful – then I am able to be a vibrational key (vessel of Spirit) that uplifts their energy so that it may come into alignment with being whole, well, and beautiful. It’s not that I do any of the healing; I’m simply a mirror reflecting acceptance and loving them for exactly who they are, right where they are. That is all that is ever truly asked of us, to accept and to love.
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Alaric Hutchinson (Living Peace: Essential Teachings For Enriching Life)
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When we look at our words and deeds in this context, it strengthens our resolve to be incredibly selective. Everything we say and do becomes a part of who we are and how we connect to others.
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Susan C. Young (The Art of Connection: 8 Ways to Enrich Rapport & Kinship for Positive Impact (The Art of First Impressions for Positive Impact, #6))
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So, how can you move beyond awkward silence with virtual strangers to becoming new friends? By asking great questions! Once a few inquiring questions were placed, I would let them do all the talking.
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Susan C. Young (The Art of Connection: 8 Ways to Enrich Rapport & Kinship for Positive Impact (The Art of First Impressions for Positive Impact, #6))
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If you lack open communication and honesty in your life – It’s time to look within. Are you someone who handles heavy, emotional, or tough information well or do you often get excessively agitated, upset, or depressed? My rule of thumb is that no topic ‘should’ ever be off limits with a loved one. That is the goal to work towards. The point being, if you’re easy to talk to, people will talk to you! If you’re not, then they won’t!
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Alaric Hutchinson (Living Peace: Essential Teachings For Enriching Life)
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We might not know we are seeking out the people who best enrich our lives, but somewhere on a deep, subconscious level we absolutely are. Whether that bond is temporary or permanent, whether it succeeds or fails, fate is simply a conflagration of choices that combine with others to shape the relationships that surround us. We cannot choose our family but we can choose our friends, and we do, sometimes before we have even met them.
”
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Simon Pegg (Nerd Do Well)
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Choosing to spend energy on your relationships will be much more fulfilling than wasting it on unnecessary clutter and accumulating "things" that in the long run don't really matter anyway. Most of us will not be canonized in history books nor have monuments built in our honor because of what we owned or the things we accomplished at work. Our legacy will be found in the lives and endeavors that were enriched while we were passing through this life.
”
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Brent Bost (The Hurried Woman Syndrome: A 7-step Program to Conquer Fatigue, Control Weight and Restore Passion to Your Relationship)
“
A discreet person . . .
• is strong, yet humble;
• expresses genuine concern and interest;
• exercises caution to avoid unnecessary risks;
• knows intuitively when a situation or conversation is heading in the wrong direction;
• does not need to tear others down to build himself up;
• refrains from using foul language or speaking brashly;
• regulates her reactions and responds appropriately;
• takes the higher road rather than wrestling in the mud;
• remains gracious and poised in the heat of the moment;
• refrains from unnecessary confrontations;
• does not break confidence or share other people’s secrets with which they have been entrusted;
• communicates with deliberation and confidence.
”
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Susan C. Young (The Art of Connection: 8 Ways to Enrich Rapport & Kinship for Positive Impact (The Art of First Impressions for Positive Impact, #6))
“
I have never understood the importance of having children memorize battle dates. It seems like such a waste of mental energy. Instead, we could teach them important subjects such as How the Mind Works, How to Handle Finances, How to Invest Money for Financial Security, How to Be a Parent, How to Create Good Relationships, and How to Create and Maintain Self-Esteem and Self-Worth. Can you imagine what a whole generation of adults would be like if they had been taught these subjects in school along with their regular curriculum? Think how these truths would manifest. We would have happy people who feel good about themselves. We would have people who are comfortable financially and who enrich the economy by investing their money wisely. They would have good relationships with everyone and would be comfortable with the role of parenthood and then go on to create another generation of children who feel good about themselves. Yet within all this, each person would remain an individual expressing his or her own creativity.
”
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Louise L. Hay (You Can Heal Your Life)
“
Communicating on the surface can be easy. But when you want to dig deeper and connect with more profound impact, you’ll need to achieve greater understanding, especially when others have personalities, experiences, needs, and preferences different from your own.
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Susan C. Young (The Art of Connection: 8 Ways to Enrich Rapport & Kinship for Positive Impact (The Art of First Impressions for Positive Impact, #6))
“
Sticking to the people we know is a tempting behavior. But unlike some forms of dating. A networker isn't looking to achieve only a single successful union. Creating an enriching circle of trusted relationships requires one to be out there, in the mix, all the time.
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Keith Ferrazzi (Never Eat Alone: And Other Secrets to Success, One Relationship at a Time)
“
Whether it is in a sales situation, love at first sight, a husband and wife having an important conversation, a parent disciplining a child, or a teacher instructing her students, eye contact is a powerful body language for enriching engagement, focus, and communication.
”
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Susan C. Young (The Art of Body Language: 8 Ways to Optimize Non-Verbal Communication for Positive Impact (The Art of First Impressions for Positive Impact, #3))
“
I’ve Got to Trust You to Like You
People want to do business with people whom they like and trust. If anything in a business presentation raises concerns or doubt about your trustworthiness, everything shuts down. And then there's little hope of moving forward in a positive way—you’re done.
”
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Susan C. Young (The Art of Connection: 8 Ways to Enrich Rapport & Kinship for Positive Impact (The Art of First Impressions for Positive Impact, #6))
“
UN-Impressive Acts of Indiscretion
• Forwarding other people's emails without getting permission.
• Throwing other people under the bus to save yourself.
• Talking loudly, being boorish and insensitive to the others around you.
• Flagrant cheating.
• Burning bridges.
• Talking smack.
• Dissing your competitor to your customer.
• Oversharing and revealing too much personal information about yourself and others.
• Breaking trust by sharing someone else’s secrets.
• Being passive-aggressive to manipulate a situation or person.
• Saying one thing and doing another.
• Being two-faced.
• Lying by omission.
• Dispensing bulls#@%!
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”
Susan C. Young (The Art of Connection: 8 Ways to Enrich Rapport & Kinship for Positive Impact (The Art of First Impressions for Positive Impact, #6))
“
When we start a relationship, professional, romantic or otherwise, even when we're born, we establish these threads of energy that connect us to another person...Even by just being here, you're creating one with me. Many times, as people grow or change, or hurt us, the energy that was flowing gets confused and trapped. Especially in the case of loss, where the energy doesn't have anywhere tangible to move forward. We can become very sick by storing up outdated energy. Cord cutting isn't always about severing completely from someone, but it is about separating ourselves off from the iteration of the relationship that no longer enriches our life. It's a ceremony, really. And a difficult one. But it's tremendously important.
”
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Courtney Maum (Touch)
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Oversharing
Why do some people feel the need to share their deepest, darkest secrets with complete strangers or on social media? How could saying too much, too soon possibly help their case or earn the respect of others? Perhaps their insatiable need to share every sordid detail of their existence satisfies a yearning to get attention, gain sympathy, or make friends.
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Susan C. Young (The Art of Connection: 8 Ways to Enrich Rapport & Kinship for Positive Impact (The Art of First Impressions for Positive Impact, #6))
“
In a sudden and soundless eruption, as if he has fallen into a waking dream, a stream of images pours down, images of women he has known on two continents, some from so far away in time that he barely recognizes them. Like leaves blown on the wind, pell-mell, they pass before him. A fair field full of folk: hundreds of lives all tangled with his. He holds his breath, willing the vision to continue.
What has happened to them, all those women, all those lives? Are there moments when they too, or some of them, are plunged without warning into the ocean of memory? The German girl: is it possible that at this very instant she is remembering the man who picked her up on the roadside in Africa and spent the night with her?
Enriched: that was the word the newspapers picked on to jeer at. A stupid word to let slip, under the circumstances, yet now, at this moment, he would stand by it. By Melanie, by the girl in Touws River; by Rosalind, Bev Shaw, Soraya: by each of them he was enriched, and by the others too, even the least of them, even the failures. Like a flower blooming in his breast, his heart floods with thankfulness.
”
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J.M. Coetzee (Disgrace)
“
He felt a little cheated. He'd fallen in love with a rootless girl who wanted nothing but to pack a bag of plimsolls and jeans and go on any adventure he took her on. Who embroidered his initials into jumpers and spent the entirety of a party locked in a bathroom with him, sitting in the empty bath, staring at his face with eyes like saucers. He ended up with a woman with her own adult identity and a preoccupation with her work.
I felt our relationship had been one of the most enriching experiences of my life, and I knew he would always be a huge part of the person I'd become, but we had outgrown each other. I knew I had to let him go, so he could be with someone who really wanted to be in a relationship, with all the love and commitment he deserved.
”
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Dolly Alderton (Everything I Know About Love)
“
Find and foster your Passions in life! People who are passionate about what they do are in alignment with Spirit and become magnetic to those around them. This also applies to those already in long-term relationships. How do you keep the love and intimacy alive? Keep your personal Passions alive and the rest will fall into place. We can’t share passions with others unless we first have it within ourselves.
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Alaric Hutchinson (Living Peace: Essential Teachings For Enriching Life)
“
The irony is that their enthusiasm for personal revelation can backfire badly and have the opposite effect. People become their own worst enemies and don’t need anyone else’s help in making themselves the brunt of gossip, judgment, and ridicule. A person who overshares demonstrates a lack of dignity, maturity, and discrimination, and it may also be a strong indicator of self-absorbed narcissism and exhibitionism.
”
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Susan C. Young (The Art of Connection: 8 Ways to Enrich Rapport & Kinship for Positive Impact (The Art of First Impressions for Positive Impact, #6))
“
Love is not static. We grow dissatisfied and move apart; affection returns and we pull together again. Some people, ignorant of the process, pull away when the good times end and assume the bad times will last forever. These people flee, mope, or drift into affairs. Others see the ups and downs as part of a dynamic process, which, when anticipated and understood, can enrich and revitalize their relationship, even give it an added punch.
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Janis Abrahms Spring (After the Affair: Healing the Pain and Rebuilding Trust When a Partner Has Been Unfaithful)
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One of the greatest challenges today is the relationship between unity and diversity. If we don't have a sense of what holds us together, what unites us - our common humanity and a common earth, a common creation, a common cosmos - then our differences, our diversity, will become cause for division and conflict, one seeking to dominate the other. But if we have a sense of what unites us, then our differences, our diversity, will enrich our lives.
-Bishop Mark S Hanson
”
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Jules Naudet, Gedeon Naudet (In God's Name: Wisdom From the World's Great Spiritual Leaders)
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Environmentalists believe that monolithic solutions - be they in the auto, nuclear, or genetics field - are doomed to fail and lead only along the path to dependence. They feel rather that it is far more sensible to approach the future by opening up more possibilities. Likewise, polyamorists believe that monogamy sterilizes love and fosters unhealthy codependence, whereas multiple relationships feed off of each other's differences and ultimately lead to an enriching fulfillment.
”
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Françoise Simpère (The Art and Etiquette of Polyamory: A Hands-on Guide to Open Sexual Relationships)
“
Unhappiness and dissatisfaction with life are common themes in the American culture today.
Folks sometimes mistake my meaning when I say, “You have the freedom of choice and the ability to create your best life”, because they all too often rush to drop everything that is weighing them down. They quit the job, ditch the unhappy marriage, cut out negative friends and family, get out of Dodge, etc. I do not advocate such hastiness; in fact, I believe that rash decision-making leads to more problems further down the road. Another unsatisfying job manifests; another unhappy relationship results. These people want a new environment, yet the same negative energy always seems to occupy it.
This is because transformation is all about the internal shift, not the external. Any blame placed on outside sources for our unhappiness will forever perpetuate that unhappiness. Pointing the finger is giving away your power of choice and the ability to create our best life. We choose: “That person is making me unhappy” vs. “I make myself happy.”
When you are in unhappy times of lack and feelings of separation – great! Sit there and be with it. Find ways to be content with little. Find ways to be happy with your Self. As we reflect on the lives of mystics past and present, it is not the things they possess or the relationships they share that bring them enlightenment – their light is within. The same light can bring us unwavering happiness (joy).
Love, Peace, Joy – these three things all come from within and have an unwavering flame – life source – that is not dependent on the conditions of the outside world. This knowing is the power and wisdom that the mystics teach us that we are all capable of achieving.
When I say, “You have the freedom of choice and the ability to create your best life”, I am not referring to external conditions; I am referring to the choice you have to look inward and discover the ability to transform the lead of the soul into gold.
Transformation is an inner journey of the soul. Why? Because, as we mentioned above, wherever we go, ourselves go with us. Thus, quitting the job, dumping relationships, etc. will not make us happy because we have forgotten the key factor that makes or breaks our happiness: ourselves.
When we find, create, and maintain peace, joy, and love within ourselves, we then gain the ability to embrace the external world with the same emotions, perspective, and vibration. This ability is a form of enlightenment. It is the modern man’s enlightenment that transforms an unsatisfying life into one of fulfillment.
”
”
Alaric Hutchinson (Living Peace: Essential Teachings For Enriching Life)
“
Fixate on whole cultures, not specific pieces of poverty. No specific intervention is going to turn around the life of a child or an adult in any consistent way, but if you can surround a person with a new culture, and different web of relationships, then they will absorb new habits of thought and behavior in ways you will never be able to measure or understand. And if you do surround that person with a new, enriching culture, then you had better keep surrounding them with it, because if they slip back into a different culture, and most of the gains will fade away.
”
”
David Brooks
“
8 Ways to Shine a Positive Light on Others
1. Let the other person appear smart. The person who desperately tries to be the smartest person in the room inevitably comes off as the least.
2. Don’t bring attention to anything which may embarrass another person. Whether your conversation partner has poor grammar, a pimple on his chin, or lacks social grace, a discreet person does not say or do anything which would make another feel ashamed, embarrassed, or humiliated. Allow the other person to maintain his own grace and dignity.
3. Ask their opinions, seek their advice, ask them inquiring questions. By allowing them to reveal their opinions and knowledge, you will demonstrate respect and make them feel important.
4. Practice patience. Sometimes it takes a person a moment to gather her thoughts, process information, or respond appropriately. Your patience is respectful and appreciated.
5. Maintain your calm. Rather than react with anger or defensiveness, regulate your response and shift the energy into a more positive direction.
6. Put your ego aside. Allow another to triumph and enjoy the spotlight.
7. Be aware and concerned for the feelings of others.
8. Purposely seek ways to put others at ease and make them feel comfortable.
”
”
Susan C. Young (The Art of Connection: 8 Ways to Enrich Rapport & Kinship for Positive Impact (The Art of First Impressions for Positive Impact, #6))
“
We don't get to move from puppy love straight to the golden years of a decades-old marriage, where every joke and wrinkle is a testament to the enduring strength of your bond. First we have to really learn each other. And, in doing so, we have the opportunity to learn about ourselves in the context of that most wonderful, enriching, confounding entity: a committee relationship.
It's not always as dreamy or exhilarating as falling in love. But this stage isn't about champagne and sweet nothings; it's about bricks and mortar. The idea is to build a solid foundation for your love - hopefully one that will serve you for many years to come.
”
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Ellen McCarthy (The Real Thing: Lessons on Love and Life from a Wedding Reporter's Notebook)
“
One feels, in this possessive relationship, enriched, creative, and active; one feels one’s own little flame of being is increased by another and so in order not to lose this source of completeness one fears the loss of the other, and so possessive fears come into being with all their resulting problems. Thus in this relationship of psychological dependence, there must always be conscious or unconscious fear, suspicion, which often lies hidden in pleasant-sounding words..
Though one is dependent on another, there is yet the desire to be inviolate, to be whole. The complex problem in relationship is how to love without dependence, without friction and conflict; how to conquer the desire to isolate oneself, to withdraw from the cause of conflict. If we depend for our happiness on another, on society, or on environment, they become essential to us; we cling to them and any alteration of these we violently oppose because we depend upon them for our psychological security and comfort. Though, intellectually, we may perceive that life is a continual process of flux, mutation, necessitating constant change, yet emotionally or sentimentally we cling to the established and comforting values; hence there is a constant battle between change and the desire for permanency. Is it possible to put an end to this conflict?
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J. Krishnamurti (Relationships to Oneself, to Others, to the World)
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Over the years, “black theology” has brought profound new insights about race to our understanding of the biblical texts. “Feminist theology” opened our eyes to the prominent role of women in the Bible. “Liberation theology” focused our attention on the Bible’s liberating gospel for the poor and oppressed. Today, “queer theology” is illuminating our understanding of the role of sexual minorities in the biblical text. In each case, the theological insights of formerly marginalized groups have enriched the whole church’s understanding of Scripture. In the process, these liberating theologies have helped to bring many Christians into a closer relationship with God.
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Jack Rogers (Jesus, the Bible, and Homosexuality, Revised and Expanded Edition: Explode the Myths, Heal the Church)
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Minna Bernays was determined to make Sigmund Freud the embodiment of everything she cared for and all she hoped to be. She vowed to enrich her life through him; gain insight and knowledge by him; imitate him as much as she possibly could; even steal from him, if need be. She would merge her body and blood, her hopes and emotions, with his. They would share souls, become one--indelibly, irrevocably--forever more.
But the relationship would be anything but simple, anything but easy. He was all she ever wanted and everything she ever feared. His absence threw her into torment and distress. But just as frightening--sometimes his presence did the same.
--excerpt from BELLE VUE
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Barry G. Gale
“
13 Ways to Make Other People Feel Important
1. Ask people questions about themselves, their interests, their families, their passions and their lives.
2. Catch people doing things right, pat them on the back, and acknowledge them for a job well done.
3. Celebrate their successes.
4. Be lavish in your compliments and sincere in your praise.
5. Be appreciative and say thank you.
6. Listen with genuine interest.
7. Respect their opinions.
8. Encourage people with words of affirmation and validation.
9. Brag about people behind (and in front of) their backs.
10. Make the time and space to be fully present and engaged.
11. Spend quality time together.
12. Share your authentic self and be real.
13. Offer comfort and compassion.
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Susan C. Young (The Art of Connection: 8 Ways to Enrich Rapport & Kinship for Positive Impact (The Art of First Impressions for Positive Impact, #6))
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Earning Trust & Cooperation
The number one thing which stands between you and meeting a new person is tension. What is the number one thing which stands between a sales person and their prospect? You guessed it . . . tension. One of our first priorities as we initiate a first impression must be to focus on how to effectively minimize or eliminate tension.
Regardless of your relationship or venue, when tension is high, trust and cooperation are low. When tension is reduced, trust and cooperation increase. It is an inverse relationship. So, how can you move to reduce tension in your first impressions to increase trust and cooperation? Put yourself in their shoes and seek to relate to them with an equal footing on a level playing field. Demonstrate how you can bring value to their lives.
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Susan C. Young (The Art of Connection: 8 Ways to Enrich Rapport & Kinship for Positive Impact (The Art of First Impressions for Positive Impact, #6))
“
If the ecological community is ever achieved in practice, social life will yield a sensitive development of human and natural diversity, falling together into a well balanced, harmonious whole. Ranging from community through region to entire continents, we will see a colorful differentiation of human groups and ecosystems, each developing its unique potentialities and exposing members of the community to a wide spectrum of economic, cultural and behavioral stimuli. Falling within our purview will be an exciting, often dramatic, variety of communal forms—here marked by architectural and industrial adaptations to semi-arid ecosystems, there to grasslands, elsewhere by adaptation to forested areas. We will witness a creative interplay between individual and group , community and environment, humanity and nature. The cast of mind that today organizes differences among humans and other lifeforms along hierarchical lines, defining the external in terms of its "superiority" or "inferiority," will give way to an outlook that deals with diversity in an ecological manner. Differences among people will be respected, indeed fostered, as elements that enrich the unity of experience and phenomena. The traditional relationship which pits subject against object will be altered qualitatively; the "external," the "different," the "other" will be conceived of as individual parts of a whole all the richer because of its complexity. This sense of unity will reflect the harmonization of interests between individuals and between society and nature. Freed from an oppressive routine, from paralyzing repressions and insecurities, from the burdens of toil and false needs, from the trammels of authority and irrational compulsion, individuals will finally, for the first time in history, be in a position to realize their potentialities as members of the human community and the natural world.
”
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Murray Bookchin (Post-Scarcity Anarchism (Working Classics))
“
Why can’t a night like that be longer? If Alectryon could put a foot wrong,101 why can’t the sun be compassionate enough to do the same? Still, now it is over and I want never to see her again. Once a girl has given away everything, she is weak, she has lost everything; for in the man innocence is a negative factor, while for the woman it is her whole worth. Now all resistance is impossible, and only when it is there is it beautiful to love; once it is gone, love is only weakness and habit. I do not wish to be reminded of my relation to her; she has lost her fragrance, and the time has gone when, for pain over her untrue lover, a girl is transformed into a heliotrope.102 I will not take leave of her; nothing disgusts me more than a woman’s tears and a woman’s prayers, which change everything yet are really of no consequence. I have loved her, but from now on she can no longer engage my soul. If I were a god I would do for her what Neptune did for a nymph: change her into a man.
Nevertheless, it would really be worthwhile knowing whether one couldn’t poetize oneself out of a girl, whether one couldn’t make her so proud that she imagined it was she who had wearied of the relationship. It could become a quite interesting epilogue, which in its own right might be of psychological interest, and besides that, enrich one with many erotic observations.
”
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Søren Kierkegaard (Either/Or: A Fragment of Life)
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To understand how shame is influenced by culture, we need to think back to when we were children or young adults, and we first learned how important it is to be liked, to fit in, and to please others. The lessons were often taught by shame; sometimes overtly, other times covertly. Regardless of how they happened, we can all recall experiences of feeling rejected, diminished and ridiculed. Eventually, we learned to fear these feelings. We learned how to change our behaviors, thinking and feelings to avoid feeling shame. In the process, we changed who we were and, in many instances, who we are now. Our culture teaches us about shame—it dictates what is acceptable and what is not. We weren’t born craving perfect bodies. We weren’t born afraid to tell our stories. We weren’t born with a fear of getting too old to feel valuable. We weren’t born with a Pottery Barn catalog in one hand and heartbreaking debt in the other. Shame comes from outside of us—from the messages and expectations of our culture. What comes from the inside of us is a very human need to belong, to relate. We are wired for connection. It’s in our biology. As infants, our need for connection is about survival. As we grow older, connection means thriving—emotionally, physically, spiritually and intellectually. Connection is critical because we all have the basic need to feel accepted and to believe that we belong and are valued for who we are. Shame unravels our connection to others. In fact, I often refer to shame as the fear of disconnection—the fear of being perceived as flawed and unworthy of acceptance or belonging. Shame keeps us from telling our own stories and prevents us from listening to others tell their stories. We silence our voices and keep our secrets out of the fear of disconnection. When we hear others talk about their shame, we often blame them as a way to protect ourselves from feeling uncomfortable. Hearing someone talk about a shaming experience can sometimes be as painful as actually experiencing it for ourselves. Like courage, empathy and compassion are critical components of shame resilience. Practicing compassion allows us to hear shame. Empathy, the most powerful tool of compassion, is an emotional skill that allows us to respond to others in a meaningful, caring way. Empathy is the ability to put ourselves in someone else’s shoes—to understand what someone is experiencing and to reflect back that understanding. When we share a difficult experience with someone, and that person responds in an open, deeply connected way—that’s empathy. Developing empathy can enrich the relationships we have with our partners, colleagues, family members and children. In Chapter 2, I’ll discuss the concept of empathy in great detail. You’ll learn how it works, how we can learn to be empathic and why the opposite of experiencing shame is experiencing empathy. The prerequisite for empathy is compassion. We can only respond empathically if we are willing to hear someone’s pain. We sometimes think of compassion as a saintlike virtue. It’s not. In fact, compassion is possible for anyone who can accept the struggles that make us human—our fears, imperfections, losses and shame. We can only respond compassionately to someone telling her story if we have embraced our own story—shame and all. Compassion is not a virtue—it is a commitment.
”
”
Anonymous
“
The difference between passion and addiction is that between a divine spark and a flame that incinerates. Passion is divine fire: it enlivens and makes holy; it gives light and yields inspiration. Passion is generous because it’s not ego-driven; addiction is self-centred. Passion gives and enriches; addiction is a thief. Passion is a source of truth and enlightenment; addictive behaviours lead you into darkness. You’re more alive when you are passionate, and you triumph whether or not you attain your goal. But an addiction requires a specific outcome that feeds the ego; without that outcome, the ego feels empty and deprived. A consuming passion that you are helpless to resist, no matter what the consequences, is an addiction.
You may even devote your entire life to a passion, but if it’s truly a passion and not an addiction, you’ll do so with freedom, joy and a full assertion of your truest self and values. In addiction, there’s no joy, freedom or assertion. The addict lurks shame-faced in the shadowy corners of her own existence. I glimpse shame in the eyes of my addicted patients in the Downtown Eastside and, in their shame, I see mirrored my own.
Addiction is passion’s dark simulacrum and, to the naïve observer, its perfect mimic. It resembles passion in its urgency and in the promise of fulfillment, but its gifts are illusory. It’s a black hole. The more you offer it, the more it demands. Unlike passion, its alchemy does not create new elements from old. It only degrades what it touches and turns it into something less, something cheaper. Am I happier after one of my self-indulgent sprees?
Like a miser, in my mind I recount and catalogue my recent purchases — a furtive Scrooge, hunched over and rubbing his hands together with acquisitive glee, his heart growing ever colder. In the wake of a buying binge, I am not a satisfied man. Addiction is centrifugal. It sucks energy from you, creating a vacuum of inertia. A passion energizes you and enriches your relationships. It empowers you and gives strength to others. Passion creates; addiction consumes — first the self and then the others within its orbit.
”
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Gabor Maté (In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction)
“
MY PROCESS I got bullied quite a bit as a kid, so I learned how to take a punch and how to put up a good fight. God used that. I am not afraid of spiritual “violence” or of facing spiritual fights. My Dad was drafted during Vietnam and I grew up an Army brat, moving around frequently. God used that. I am very spiritually mobile, adaptable, and flexible. My parents used to hand me a Bible and make me go look up what I did wrong. God used that, as well. I knew the Word before I knew the Lord, so studying Scripture is not intimidating to me. I was admitted into a learning enrichment program in junior high. They taught me critical thinking skills, logic, and Greek Mythology. God used that, too. In seventh grade I was in school band and choir. God used that. At 14, before I even got saved, a youth pastor at my parents’ church taught me to play guitar. God used that. My best buddies in school were a druggie, a Jewish kid, and an Irish soccer player. God used that. I broke my back my senior year and had to take theatre instead of wrestling. God used that. I used to sleep on the couch outside of the Dean’s office between classes. God used that. My parents sent me to a Christian college for a semester in hopes of getting me saved. God used that. I majored in art, advertising, astronomy, pre-med, and finally English. God used all of that. I made a woman I loved get an abortion. God used (and redeemed) that. I got my teaching certification. I got plugged into a group of sincere Christian young adults. I took courses for ministry credentials. I worked as an autism therapist. I taught emotionally disabled kids. And God used each of those things. I married a pastor’s daughter. God really used that. Are you getting the picture? San Antonio led me to Houston, Houston led me to El Paso, El Paso led me to Fort Leonard Wood, Fort Leonard Wood led me back to San Antonio, which led me to Austin, then to Kentucky, then to Belton, then to Maryland, to Pennsylvania, to Dallas, to Alabama, which led me to Fort Worth. With thousands of smaller journeys in between. The reason that I am able to do the things that I do today is because of the process that God walked me through yesterday. Our lives are cumulative. No day stands alone. Each builds upon the foundation of the last—just like a stairway, each layer bringing us closer to Him. God uses each experience, each lesson, each relationship, even our traumas and tragedies as steps in the process of becoming the people He made us to be. They are steps in the process of achieving the destinies that He has encoded into the weave of each of our lives. We are journeymen, finding the way home. What is the value of the journey? If the journey makes us who we are, then the journey is priceless.
”
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Zach Neese (How to Worship a King: Prepare Your Heart. Prepare Your World. Prepare the Way)