Spontaneous Relationship Quotes

I've never regretted it. Questioned it? Sure. But never regretted." "Is there a difference?" I ask. "Absolutely. Regret is counterproductive. It's looking back on a past that you can't change. Questioning things as they occur can prevent regret in the future. I questioned a lot about my relationship with your father. People make spontaneous decisions based off of their hearts all the time. There's so much more to relationships than just love.

So many events and moments that seemed insignificant add up. I remember how for the last Valentine´s Day, N gave flowers but no card. In restaurants, he looked off into the middle distance while my hand would creep across the table to hold his. He would always let go first. I realize I can´t remember his last spontaneous gesture of affection.

It was a relationship, and also not a relationship. Each of our gestures felt spontaneous, and if from the outside we resembled a couple, that was an interesting coincidence for us. We developed a joke about it, which was meaningless to everyone including ourselves: what is a friend? we would say humorously. What is a conversation?

There is no need searching for love, it cannot be found-it happens!

Every man should make the effort occasionally to throw the rule book out,” I said. “It doesn’t matter if the relationship is BDSM or vanilla – every man should go out of his way to make the woman in his world feel desired and wanted. It’s worth the effort and planning to occasionally appear spontaneous.

Because they’re so attuned to feelings, internalizers are extremely sensitive to the quality of emotional intimacy in their relationships. Their entire personality longs for emotional spontaneity and intimacy, and they can’t be satisfied with less. Therefore, when they’re raised by immature and emotionally phobic parents, they feel painfully lonely. If there’s anything internalizers have in common, it’s their need to share their inner experience. As children, their need for genuine emotional connection is the central fact of their existence. Nothing hurts their spirit more than being around someone who won’t engage with them emotionally. A blank face kills something in them. They read people closely, looking for signs that they’ve made a connection. This isn’t a social urge, like wanting people to chat with; it’s a powerful hunger to connect heart to heart with a like-minded person who can understand them. They find nothing more exhilarating than clicking with someone who gets them. When they can’t make that kind of connection, they feel emotional loneliness. From

People make spontaneous decisions based on their hearts all the time. There’s so much more to relationships than just love.

I am not, as you will have observed, a man greatly enamored of his fellow human beings. I do not enter lightly into the foibles and whimsicalities of others, I do not suffer fools gladly, I seem able, in conversation, only to needle or be needled. My relationships, as a result, are few, and those few are tenuous, prickly sorts of arrangements, altogether lacking in the spontaneity and intimacy for which humans, I'm told, have an instinctive need. I am aware of no such instincts myself.

Can I ask you, what is your relationship to God?” “Limited,” I say. “Limited with the exception of spontaneous prayer in times of distress.

When she touches him spontaneously, applying a little pressure to his arm, or even reaching to brush a piece of lint off his collar, he feels a rush of pride, and hopes that people are watching them.

A deep love resides inside each of us. This love is independent of the desires, thoughts, and opinions, good or bad, which are readily offered to us. It is a love that is gentle and kind, accepting and nonjudgmental, playful and spontaneous, courageous and curious. It is always encouraging and always evolving. This love can be discovered only through turning off the noise around us, coming to ourselves in silence, meditation, and prayer. If we listen carefully we will hear the murmurs of our inner voice tell yearnings of our truest selves. What is available to us is a profound understanding, appreciation, and full acceptance of self, all of the good and all of the bad. Only when we truly know that we are able to tap into this part of ourselves can we begin to love others fully. Love for others is the manifestation of love for self. We cannot love another more than we love ourselves. Life is a mirror. If you want to know what love for yourself looks like, look at your love for others. If you want to know what your love for others look like, look at your love for self. When you love yourself this way, you love God this way. This relationship is the divine love triangle; self, God, and others in any order.

He says, Love yourself . . . This can become the foundation of a radical transformation. Don’t be afraid of loving yourself. Love totally, and you will be surprised: The day you can get rid of all self-condemnation, self-disrespect—the day you can get rid of the idea of original sin, the day you can think of yourself as worthy and loved by existence—will be a day of great blessing. From that day onward you will start seeing people in their true light, and you will have compassion. And it will not be a cultivated compassion; it will be a natural, spontaneous flow.

In time, as if by magic, we will realize that we have developed a deep bond with this person. The madness and excitement and spontaneity of the dopamine hit is replaced by a more relaxed, more stable, more long-term oxytocin-driven relationship. A vastly more valuable state if we have to rely on someone to help us do things and protect us when we’re weak. My favorite definition of love is giving someone the power to destroy us and trusting they won’t use it.

Because they’re so attuned to feelings, internalizers are extremely sensitive to the quality of emotional intimacy in their relationships. Their entire personality longs for emotional spontaneity and intimacy, and they can’t be satisfied with less. Therefore, when they’re raised by immature and emotionally phobic parents, they feel painfully lonely.

Sexuality is spontaneous chemical reaction between two parties, not a process of negotiation. It’s sex first, then relationship, not the other way around.

A relationship that has become artificial, and connected, on one side, with a sense of duty rather than with spontaneous affection, is always an uncomfortable one.

Every organized religion holds that certain behaviors, rituals, personalities, places, and/or books are sacred. These organized teachings are proper in their own place, but they are mere options for the one infused with devotion. To such a one, God is direct and spontaneous, providing him with an immediate source of guidance and direction. His relationship with God is not mediated through anyone or anything. (104)

By no means would I describe Adolph Hitler as sexually normal in his relationships with women. In the case of Eva Braun in particular, it seems clear to me that aside from occasional passionate episodes there was no sexual activity at all for long periods of time. The effect of this on Hitler I do not know, but Eva Braun's misery was well-known at headquarters. During the long dry spells she was irritable, impatient and quick to anger. She smoked much more and was incessantly lighting one cigarette after another. By contrast, when once in a great while Hitler's more human feelings expressed themselves in a sudden cloudburst, her manner changed completely. Eva at such times was radiant, flushed with happiness. Her natural warmth and high spirits returned, and she seemed to sparkle again like the cheerful and spontaneous girl she once was. Though it seems obscene to pity one individual human being with so many millions dead, I do believe that Eva Braun was the loneliest woman I ever knew.

When two people in a marriage are more concerned about getting the golden eggs, the benefits, than they are in preserving the relationship that makes them possible, they often become insensitive and inconsiderate, neglecting the little kindnesses and courtesies so important to a deep relationship. They begin to use control levers to manipulate each other, to focus on their own needs, to justify their own position and look for evidence to show the wrongness of the other person. The love, the richness, the softness and spontaneity begin to deteriorate.

Spontaneous prayer, sincerely expressed, may be a very important way to speak to the Lord. However, the prayers that we have received from the Church are important ways of teaching us how to pray in theologically correct ways and may even be superior if our spontaneous prayers express untrue notions of God or our relationship to him.

Mom?” I say as I slip on my boots. “I know you were only eighteen when you met Dad. I mean, that’s really young to meet the person you spend the rest of your life with. Do you ever regret it?” She doesn’t answer immediately. Instead, she lies back on my bed and clasps her hands behind her head, pondering my question. “I’ve never regretted it. Questioned it? Sure. But never regretted." "Is there a difference?” I ask. “Absolutely. Regret is counterproductive. It’s looking back on a past that you can’t change. Questioning things as they occur can prevent regret in the future. I questioned a lot about my relationship with your father. People make spontaneous decisions based on of their hearts all the time. There’s so much more to relationships than just love.

when we have the right relationship with God, life is full of spontaneous, joyful uncertainty and expectancy.

Spontaneity is a fabulous idea, but in an ongoing relationship whatever is going to “just happen” already has. Now they have to make it happen.

People make spontaneous decisions based off of their hearts all the time. There's so much more to relationships than just love

surprise? I had a love-hate relationship with surprises. On one hand, I loved them and the spontaneity of it all, while on the other hand, my inner control freak wanted to know everything.

If we approach nature and the environment without this openness to awe and wonder, if we no longer speak the language of fraternity and beauty in our relationship with the world, our attitude will be that of masters, consumers, ruthless exploiters, unable to set limits on their immediate needs. By contrast, if we feel intimately united with all that exists, then sobriety and care will well up spontaneously.

The path to accepting your sexuality has to start somewhere. For those identify as heterosexual, the childhood bliss of an early crush is typically encouraged and praised. Milestones such as your first date and the prom are celebrated by parents and friends. But when you’re anything other than straight, it’s more complicated; your growth gets shrouded and stunted. That’s why a lot of queer people, when they fall in love and get into a relationship for the first time, revert to a kind of prepubescent puppy love: spontaneous, impulsive, obsessive, and ecstatic. I’ve heard many people express annoyance at friends who “just came out and it’s totally cool and whatever, but do they have to talk about it all the time?” My answer to that is “Yes. Yes, they do. Don’t you remember puppy love? Well, imagine if you had to hide it for twenty years. So yeah, if they wanna gush about it, let them gush. There’s a first time for everything.

To the extent that propaganda is based on current news, it cannot permit time for thought or reflection. A man caught up in the news must remain on the surface of the event; he is carried along in the current, and can at no time take a respite to judge and appreciate; he can never stop to reflect. There is never any awareness -- of himself, of his condition, of his society -- for the man who lives by current events. Such a man never stops to investigate any one point, any more than he will tie together a series of news events. We already have mentioned man's inability to consider several facts or events simultaneously and to make a synthesis of them in order to face or to oppose them. One thought drives away another; old facts are chased by new ones. Under these conditions there can be no thought. And, in fact, modern man does not think about current problems; he feels them. He reacts, but be does not understand them any more than he takes responsibility for them. He is even less capable of spotting any inconsistency between successive facts; man's capacity to forget is unlimited. This is one of the most important and useful points for the propagandist, who can always be sure that a particular propaganda theme, statement, or event will be forgotten within a few weeks. Moreover, there is a spontaneous defensive reaction in the individual against an excess of information and -- to the extent that he clings (unconsciously) to the unity of his own person -- against inconsistencies. The best defense here is to forget the preceding event. In so doing, man denies his own continuity; to the same extent that he lives on the surface of events and makes today's events his life by obliterating yesterday's news, he refuses to see the contradictions in his own life and condemns himself to a life of successive moments, discontinuous and fragmented. This situation makes the "current-events man" a ready target for propaganda. Indeed, such a man is highly sensitive to the influence of present-day currents; lacking landmarks, he follows all currents. He is unstable because he runs after what happened today; he relates to the event, and therefore cannot resist any impulse coming from that event. Because he is immersed in current affairs, this man has a psychological weakness that puts him at the mercy of the propagandist. No confrontation ever occurs between the event and the truth; no relationship ever exists between the event and the person. Real information never concerns such a person. What could be more striking, more distressing, more decisive than the splitting of the atom, apart from the bomb itself? And yet this great development is kept in the background, behind the fleeting and spectacular result of some catastrophe or sports event because that is the superficial news the average man wants. Propaganda addresses itself to that man; like him, it can relate only to the most superficial aspect of a spectacular event, which alone can interest man and lead him to make a certain decision or adopt a certain attitude. But here we must make an important qualification. The news event may be a real fact, existing objectively, or it may be only an item of information, the dissemination of a supposed fact. What makes it news is its dissemination, not its objective reality.

I feel more passionately about the importance of healing from our abuse issues. I feel more passionately. I’ve become more spontaneous, embraced my femininity, and learned new lessons along the way—about boundaries, flexibility, and owning my power. And about love. I’m learning to respect men. My relationships have deepened. Some have changed.

Create your own “LUCK” in your personal life—instead of relying on “fate” and hoping that your happiness will spontaneously materialize sometime and somehow, as if by magic. Be the “magician” of your own destiny. Take control of your own fate.

Perhaps marriage should be spontaneous, based more on feeling than on thinking. Maybe the harder someone worked to create a perfect union, the more power one gave the institution of marriage, rather than the relationship itself, which is where the focus should be.

Create your own “LUCK” in your personal life—instead of relying on “fate” and hoping that your happiness will spontaneously materialize sometime and somehow, as if by magic. Be the “magician” of your own destiny. Take control of your own fate. Be aware. Instead of following the crowd of complainers and repeating their common mistakes, use the Smart Dating Strategies, which are clearly described in the chapters of our exclusive eBooks. Be successful in your personal life and genuinely loved by the woman of your dreams. Read how to do it; learn the secrets to use and master them. Get the keys to the door of your own happiness. Make things happen. Choose to be a WINNER!

If you have seen your teacher only in school, it feels strange to come across them in a market. If you have seen your milkman or newspaper boy only at sunrise, it feels strange to see them in broad daylight when they come to collect payment. When a friend or loved one breaks away from your circle, it feels strange to see them in their new circle. It is not jealously. It is a spontaneous and neutral feeling. It turns into jealousy when it gets mixed with our fears and insecurities. Accept this feeling as-it-is before it turns into jealousy.

Game-free intimacy is or should be the most perfect form of human living. Because there is so little opportunity for intimacy in daily life, and because some forms of intimacy (especially if intense) are psychologically impossible for most people, the bulk of time in serious social life is taken up with playing games. Hence games are both necessary and desirable, and the only problem at issue is whether the games played by an individual offer the best yield for him. In this connexion it should be remembered that the essential feature of a game is its culmination, or payoff. The principal function of the preliminary moves is to set up the situation for this payoff, but they are always designed to harvest the maximum permissible satisfaction at each step as a secondary product. Games are passed on from generation to generation. The favoured game of any individual can be traced back to his parents and grandparents, and forward to his children. Raising children is primarily a matter of teaching them what games to play. Different cultures and different social classes favour different types of games. Many games are played most intensely by disturbed people, generally speaking, the more disturbed they are, the harder they play. The attainment of autonomy is manifested by the release or recovery of three capacities: awareness, spontaneity and intimacy. Parents, deliberately or unaware, teach their children from birth how to behave, think and perceive. Liberation from these influences is no easy matter, since they are deeply ingrained. First, the weight of a whole tribal or family historical tradition has to be lifted. The same must be done with the demands of contemporary society at large, and finally advantages derived from one's immediate social circle have to be partly or wholly sacrificed. Following this, the individual must attain personal and social control, so that all the classes of behaviour become free choices subject only to his will. He is then ready for game-free relationships.

Yeah! "I love you" is subject to the law of diminishing returns; like one or two other critical weekly elements of a relationship, it loses a bit of thrilling value every time you get it out.'... That's what happens with "I love you", that same phrase that you once shouted Hollywood or Heathcliff-like in the lashing raining, now- now you are saying it dumbly at the end of every phone conversation, a follow-on from," I'll be back for dinner." Once it came out spontaneous rush, it forced itself out; now it's reflex.

In fact, it seems that the more spontaneous and "healthy" a relationship, the more the relationship aspect of communication recedes into the background.

It was a relationship, and also not a relationship. Each of our gestures felt spontaneous, and if from the outside we resembled a couple, that was an interesting coincidence for us.

If there's anything romcoms have taught us about spontaneous gifting, it's that the big expensive presents are often a sign of guilt. But not the small, sort of rubbish presents. It seems to me that a cheap bag of crisps says a whole lot more than a gold necklace. It says 'You occupy such a vast space in my mind, I think of you so constantly, that my day-to-day life throws up constant reminders of you.' That person is, subconsciously or not, considered in everything you do and everywhere you go. Even in somewhere as mundane as the supermarket snack aisle.

...the story of liberty and its future is not only about the raw assertion of rights but also about grace, aesthetics, beauty, complexity, service to others, community, the gradual emergence of cultural norms, and the spontaneous development of extended orders of commercial and private relationships. Freedom is what gives life to the human imagination and enables the working out of love as it extends from our most benevolent and highest longings.

In contrast to emotional hunger, which has a profound detrimental effect on the growing child, real love sustains and nurtures. Genuine love may be operationally defined as those behaviors that enhance the well-being of children and assist them in reaching their full potential. Outward manifestations of love can be observed in people who make real emotional contact with another person; that is, they have frequent eye contact, display spontaneous, nonclinging physical affection, and take obvious pleasure in the other person's company. In an intimate relationship, love is expressed through direct, honest communication, mutual respect, acknowledgement of each other's boundaries, and a desire to share and cooperate.

But then she remembered a line, or even half a line, she had read in a book on raising children. She recalled it very clearly because it had unsettled her. It said that distance makes us love better and with greater respect. That distance wasn't, in fact, a bad thing. On the contrary, it was the lack of distance that could be harmful, and only the purest emotion, spontaneous and visceral love, was capable of healing a wound. Ah so, she remembered thinking, love is dangerous. And yet it's essential.

What is chemistry in a relationship, Really? Chemistry can be spontaneous combustion that excites, incites, often harms. But not understood. Chemistry can also be that which is studied, intentional, and knows how to be repeated and improved upon. Do you have the right chemistry?

What you do is you start loving responsive desire. Figure out what contexts give you a fantastic relationship and hot sex. Context-free spontaneous desire is just the man-as-default standard, and screw that. Don't use somebody else's standard to measure the quality of your sex life.

Thomas's mistake, like most of the behavior he leaked into the world, had been avoidable: to join another human being in a situation that virtually demanded unscripted, spontaneous conversation, and thus to risk total moral and emotional dissolution. Death by conversation, and all that.

Angie has never had sticking power. She dropped out of high school; she walked out of the GED exam. Her longest relationship, prior to falling for Andy, was seven months. But then they’d met (no epic tale there—the game was on at a hometown bar), and something in her character was spontaneously altered.

It was that difficult moment when we usually part ways. Outside on the doorsteps in the light of the night as we embraced each other. She rested her lips against mine and I couldn’t help but think of the first time we kissed. Spontaneous and unsure if we were riding the same wave, I reached for her lips only to end with our laughter at the awkwardness. But despite the error of the first time, this time felt like new.Sighing in awe of the soft and gentle embrace of our lips, it turned into a tug of war. Like a battle because we didn’t want to let go of that smooth and passionate feeling. That was the final shake as the bottle was about to burst from the pressure, then it came: “I Love You”, I said softly but firmly. The words seemed to echo for an eternity back and forth between our chests.She stopped and stared at me. Just like my Drill Sergeant badge, I wore my heart on my sleeve. There was so much that she said without words. What a genuine expression of agreement that reflected from her beautiful brown eyes, beyond the ability of any woman to fake or hide. Then she kissed me even more passionately than ever before. In my heart, I believe that it could be more, if it wasn’t for….THE TABLE BETWEEN US

Primary bonds once severed cannot be mended; once paradise is lost, man cannot return to it. There is only one possible, productive solution for the relationship of individualized man with the world: his active solidarity with all men and his spontaneous activity, love and work, which unite him again with the world, not by primary ties but as a free and independent individual.

Her thought drew being from the obscure borderland. She could not explain in so many words, but she felt that those who prepare for all the emergencies of life beforehand may equip themselves at the expense of joy. It is necessary to prepare for an examination, or a dinner-party, or a possible fall in the price of stock: those who attempt human relations must adopt another method or fail.

We feel that our actions are voluntary when they follow a decision, and involuntary when they happen without decision. But if decision itself were voluntary, every decision would have to be preceded by a decision to decide–an infinite regression which fortunately does not occur. Oddly enough, if we had to decide to decide, we would not be free to decide. We are free to decide because decision “happens.” We just decide without having the faintest understanding of how we do it. In fact, it is neither voluntary nor involuntary. To “get the feel” of this relativity is to find another extraordinary transformation of our experience as a whole, which may be described in either of two ways. I feel that I am deciding everything that happens, or, I feel that everything, including my decisions, is just happening spontaneously. For a decision–the freest of my actions-just happens like hiccups inside me or like a bird singing outside me. Such a way of seeing things is vividly described by a modern Zen master, the late Sokei-an Sasaki: One day I wiped out all the notions from my mind. I gave up all desire. I discarded all the words with which I thought and stayed in quietude. I felt a little queer–as if I were being carried into something, or as if I were touching some power unknown to me … and Ztt! I entered. I lost the boundary of my physical body. I had my skin, of course, but I felt I was standing in the center of the cosmos. I spoke, but my words had lost their meaning. I saw people coming towards me, but all were the same man. All were myself! I had never known this world. I had believed that I was created, but now I must change my opinion: I was never created; I was the cosmos; no individual Mr. Sasaki existed.7 It would seem, then, that to get rid of the subjective distinction between “me” and “my experience”–through seeing that my idea of myself is not myself–is to discover the actual relationship between myself and the “outside” world. The individual, on the one hand, and the world, on the other, are simply the abstract limits or terms of a concrete reality which is “between” them, as the concrete coin is “between” the abstract, Euclidean surfaces of its two sides. Similarly, the reality of all “inseparable opposites”–life and death, good and evil, pleasure and pain, gain and loss–is that “between” for which we have no words.

Adults who ground their parenting in a solid relationship with the child parent intuitively. They do not have to resort to techniques or manuals but act from understanding and empathy. If we know how to be with our children and who to be for them, we need much less advice on what to do. Practical approaches emerge spontaneously from our own experience once the relationship has been restored.

Obedience through fear is reluctant and resentful. Obedience through gratitude is joyful, instant, and spontaneous. Gratitude is like an overflowing stream, positive, outgoing. It is a powerful antiseptic, that kills the germs of bitterness. Gratitude is the glue that binds and unites you to your neighbor. It is the salt that flavors all inspired relationships. A grateful heart is a normal heart.

The mass media causes sexual misdirection: It prompts us to need something deeper than what we want. This is why Woody Allen has made nebbish guys cool; he makes people assume there is something profound about having a relationship based on witty conversation and intellectual discourse. There isn’t. It’s just another gimmick, and it’s no different than wanting to be with someone because they’re thin or rich or the former lead singer of Whiskeytown. And it actually might be worse, because an intellectual relationship isn’t real at all. My witty banter and cerebral discourse is always completely contrived. Right now, I have three and a half dates worth of material, all of which I pretend to deliver spontaneously. This is my strategy: If I can just coerce women into the last half of that fourth date, it’s anyone’s ball game. I’ve beaten the system; I’ve broken the code; I’ve slain the Minotaur. If we part ways on that fourth evening without some kind of conversational disaster, she probably digs me. Or at least she thinks she digs me, because who she digs is not really me. Sadly, our relationship will not last ninety-three minutes (like Annie Hall) or ninety-six minutes (like Manhattan). It will go on for days or weeks or months or years, and I’ve already used everything in my vault. Very soon, I will have nothing more to say, and we will be sitting across from each other at breakfast, completely devoid of banter; she will feel betrayed and foolish, and I will suddenly find myself actively trying to avoid spending time with a woman I didn’t deserve to be with in the first place.

a single outburst does not produce a difficult relational environment. It is only when a parent [or anyone] repeatedly and regularly uses anger to close conversations, in the broadest sense of 'conversation,' that a dilemma is framed. When a parent [or partner] uses anger or the threat of anger to dominate the emotional atmosphere, then even potentially good conversations with them lose spontaneity, openness and honesty.

First of all, it's friendship with God that makes possible friendship with one another in a manner that is not that we just like one another, but that were are joined by common judgments, by God, for the good of God's church. Such friendship occurs not by trying to be each other's friend, but by discovering you were engaged in common good work that is so determinative, you cannot live without one another. Now, if the church is that, it will talk about friendship in a way that avoids the superficiality of the language of relationship. Because relationships are meant to be spontaneous and short. Friendship, if it is the friendship of God, is to be characterized by fidelity in which you are even willing to tell the friend the truth. Which may mean you will risk the friendship. You need to be in that kind of community to survive the loneliness that threatens all of our souls.

relationships, to meet human needs, and to enjoy spontaneous moments on a daily basis. As a result, many people have become turned off by time management programs and planners that make them feel too scheduled, too restricted, and they “throw the baby out with the bath water,” reverting to first or second generation techniques to preserve relationships, spontaneity, and quality of life. But there is an emerging fourth generation that is different in kind. It recognizes that “time management” is really a misnomer—the challenge is not to manage time, but to manage ourselves. Satisfaction is a function of expectation as well as realization. And expectation (and satisfaction) lie in our Circle of Influence. Rather than focusing on things and time, fourth generation expectations focus on preserving and enhancing relationships and on accomplishing results—in short, on maintaining the P/PC Balance. QUADRANT II

While Brooke had been in previous relationships, most of them had lacked passion. It had been two superficial people partaking in superficial things. But everything with Cole felt real in a way that made Brooke want more. More spontaneity, more adventure, more behavior that would give her parents an aneurysm if they ever heard about them. This was how life was supposed to be. And she was suddenly overwhelmed with the desire to live every fucking millisecond of it.

Ibn Arabi was above all the disciple of Khidr ( Khidr). We shall attempt further on to indicate what it signifies and implies to be "the disciple of Khidr." In any event such a relationship with a hidden spiritual master lends the disciple an essentially "transhistorical" dimension and presupposes an ability to experience events which are enacted in a reality other than the physical reality of daily life, events which spontaneously transmute themselves into symbols.

In contrast to mainstream artificial intelligence, I see competition as much more essential than consistency," he says. Consistency is a chimera, because in a complicated world there is no guarantee that experience will be consistent. But for agents playing a game against their environment, competition is forever. "Besides," says Holland, "despite all the work in economics and biology, we still haven't extracted what's central in competition." There's a richness there that we've only just begun to fathom. Consider the magical fact that competition can produce a very strong incentive for cooperation, as certain players spontaneously forge alliances and symbiotic relationships with each other for mutual support. It happens at every level and in every kind of complex, adaptive system, from biology to economics to politics. "Competition and cooperation may seem antithetical," he says, "but at some very deep level, they are two sides of the same coin.

Here was another 'if only' — if only he had acted quickly, spontaneously, throwing 'tact' and 'good form' to the winds. Just then she had needed him, and he had failed. This bitter reflection positively, for a time, hindered his strange friendship with Louise, he avoided her almost to the point of boorishness, almost deliberately seeming to have lost his interest and his affection. The pain of his 'might have been' led him instinctively to devalue his loss, make it not a loss but something inconceivable and nil.

I see how lost the elder son is. He has become a foreigner in his own house. I know the pain of this predicament. In it, everything loses its spontaneity. Everything becomes suspect, self-conscious, calculated, and full of second-guessing. There is no longer any trust. Each little move calls for a countermove; each little remark begs for analysis; the smallest gesture has to be evaluated. This is the pathology of the darkness. I cannot forgive myself. I cannot make myself feel loved. By myself I cannot leave the land of my anger. I cannot bring myself home.

When two people in a marriage are more concerned about getting the golden eggs, the benefits, than they are in preserving the relationship that makes them possible, they often become insensitive and inconsiderate, neglecting the little kindnesses and courtesies so important to a deep relationship. They begin to use control levers to manipulate each other, to focus on their own needs, to justify their own position and look for evidence to show the wrongness of the other person. The love, the richness, the softness and spontaneity begin to deteriorate. The goose gets sicker day by day.

There's an old poem by Neruda that I've always been captivated by, and one of the lines in it has stuck with me ever since the first time I read it. It says "love is so short, forgetting is so long." It's a line I've related to in my saddest moments, when I needed to know someone else had felt that exact same way. And when we're trying to move on the moments we always go back to aren't the mundane ones. They are the moments you saw sparks that weren't really there, felt stars aligning without having any proof, saw your future before it happened, and then saw it slip away without any warning. These are moments of newfound hope, extreme joy, intense passion, wishful thinking, and in some cases, the unthinkable letdown. And in my mind, every one of these memories looks the same to me. I see all of these moments in bright, burning red. My experiences in love have taught me difficult lessons, especially my experiences with crazy love. The red relationships. The ones that went from zero to a hundred miles per hour and then hit a wall and exploded. And it was awful. And ridiculous. And desperate. And thrilling. And when the dust settled, it was something I’d never take back. Because there is something to be said for being young and needing someone so badly, you jump in head first without looking. And there's something to be learned from waiting all day for a train that's never coming. And there's something to be proud of about moving on and realizing that real love shines golden like starlight, and doesn't fade or spontaneously combust. Maybe I’ll write a whole album about that kind of love if I ever find it. But this album is about the other kinds of love that I’ve recently fallen in and out of. Love that was treacherous, sad, beautiful, and tragic. But most of all, this record is about love that was red.

A relationship of intimacy between two people may be thought of as existing independent of the first five ways of time structuring: withdrawal, pastimes, activities, rituals, and games. It is based on the acceptance by both people of the I’M OK—YOU’RE OK position. It rests, literally, in an accepting love where defensive time structuring is made unnecessary. Giving and sharing are spontaneous expressions of joy rather than responses to socially programed rituals. Intimacy is a game-free relationship, since goals are not ulterior. Intimacy is made possible in a situation where the absence of fear makes possible the fullness of perception, where beauty can be seen apart from utility, where possessiveness is made unnecessary by the reality of possession.

Mom?" I say as I slip on my boots. "I know you were only eighteen when you met Dad. I mean, that's really young to meet the person you spend the rest of your life with. Do you ever regret it?" She doesn't answer immediately. Instead, she lies back on my bed and clasps her hands behind her head, pondering my question. "I've never regretted it. Questioned it? Sure. But never regretted." "Is there a difference?" I ask. "Absolutely. Regret is counterproductive. It's looking back on a past that you can't change. Questioning things as they occur can prevent regret in the future. I questioned a lot about my relationship with your father. People make spontaneous decisions based on their hearts all the time. There's so much more to relationships than just love.

(from chapter 24, "Heather-scented Theology") "...I was more than ever what I had been becoming for a long time - a contemplative pastor. In these early years when I was becoming a pastor, I needed a pastor. Some deep and cultivated pastoral instinct in Ian responded: he became my pastor without making me a project, without giving me advice, without smothering me with his concerns... I learned, without being aware that I was learning of the immense freedom that comes in pastoral relationships that are structured by prayer and ritual and let everything else happen more or less spontaneously. The competitiveness didn't exactly leave me, but it developed a root system that didn't depend on artificial stimulants or chemical additives - like 'start another building campaign.

So the more attention you put on coincidences, the more you attract other coincidences, which will help you clarify their meaning. Putting your attention on the coincidence attracts the energy, and then asking the question “What does it mean?” attracts the information. The answer might come as a certain insight, or intuitive feeling, or an encounter, or a new relationship. You may experience four seemingly unrelated coincidences, then watch the evening news and have an insight. Ah-ha! That’s what they meant for me! The more attention you put on coincidences and the more you inquire into their significance, the more often the coincidences occur and the more clearly their meaning comes into view. Once you can see and interpret the coincidences, your path to fulfillment emerges.

Sex, like everything else, is good or bad, helpful or unhelpful, pleasant or painful, fulfilling or demoralising based on the participants’ thoughts. Within the context of love, sex is a force for good. For many people, a loving sexual connection is the closest they ever get to a transcendent sense of benevolence, bliss, and that feeling of all is well—the closest they get to God. This is because loving sexual oneness is the shadow of true spiritual Oneness. As such, it carries with it some of the same elements, some of the same promise. The desire for physical unity represents the more profound desire for spiritual completeness. Within a spontaneous, playful, respectful, and unselfish context, sexual closeness is a channel for light, but it cannot fulfil our deepest yearnings.

In fact, the summum bonum of his ethic, the earning of more and more money, combined with the strict avoidance of all spontaneous enjoyment of life, is above all completely devoid of any eudaemonistic, not to say hedonistic, admixture. It is thought of so purely as an end in itself, that from the point of view of the happiness of, or utility to, the single individual, it appears entirely transcendental and absolutely irrational. Man is dominated by the making of money, by acquisition as the ultimate purpose of his life. Economic acquisition is no longer subordinated to man as the means for the satisfaction of his material needs. This reversal of what we should call the natural relationship, so irrational from a naive point of view, is evidently as definitely a leading principle of capitalism as it is foreign to all peoples not under capitalistic influence.

The standard narrative of sexual desire is that it just appears-you're sitting at lunch or walking down the street, maybe you see a sexy person or think a sexy thought, and pow! you're saying to yourself, "I would like some sex!" This is how it works for maybe 75 percent of men and 15 percent of women...That's "spontaneous" desire. But some people find that they begin to want sex only after sexy things are happening. And that's normal. They don't have "low" desire, they don't suffer from any ailment, and they don't long to initiate but feel like they're not allowed to. Their bodies just need some more compelling reason than, "That's an attractive person right there," to want sex. They are sexually satisfied and in healthy relationships, which means that lack of spontaneous desire for sex is not, in itself, dysfunctional or problematic! Let me repeat: Responsive desire is normal and healthy.

Though not true in all cases, people with ADHD often have trouble planning ahead. Planning means organizing a number of different options into a workable game plan and anticipating what will happen in various scenarios. Executive function differences in the ADHD brain often don’t accommodate these common skills. One upside of not being natural planners is that people with ADHD can be really good at going with the flow, making things work in real time. It’s not unusual for a person with ADHD to be attracted to a partner who is a good planner. In courtship, her ability to organize and plan helps to make things happen, and his easygoing nature provides liveliness and spontaneity. They both benefit and thrive. After kids, though, the ADHD partner’s inability to plan becomes a real negative as the organizational demands imposed by taking care of children require that both pitch in to keep life from becoming overwhelming.

Spontaneous Comprehension We never say, “Let me see what that thing is that suffers.” You cannot see by enforcement, by discipline. You must look with interest, with spontaneous comprehension. Then you will see that the thing we call suffering, pain, the thing that we avoid, and the discipline, have all gone. As long as I have no relationship to the thing as outside me, the problem is not; the moment I establish a relationship with it outside me, the problem is. As long as I treat suffering as something outside—I suffer because I lost my brother, because I have no money, because of this or that—I establish a relationship to it and that relationship is fictitious. But if I am that thing, if I see the fact, then the whole thing is transformed, it all has a different meaning. Then there is full attention, integrated attention and that which is completely regarded is understood and dissolved, and so there is no fear and therefore the word sorrow is non-existent.

Love is not the result of adequate sexual satisfaction, but sexual happiness—even the knowledge of the so-called sexual technique—is the result of love. If aside from everyday observation this thesis needed to be proved, such proof can be found in ample material of psychoanalytic data. The study of the most frequent sexual problems—frigidity in women, and the more or less severe forms of psychic impotence in men—show that the cause does not lie in a lack of knowledge of the right technique, but in the inhibitions which make it impossible to love. Fear of or hatred for the other sex are at the bottom of those difficulties, which prevent a person from giving himself completely, from acting spontaneously, from trusting the sexual partner in the immediacy and directness of physical closeness. If a sexually inhibited person can emerge from fear or hate, and hence become capable of loving, his or her sexual problems are solved. If not, no amount of knowledge about sexual techniques will help.

Sure, spontaneity seems like a good trait, but I don't like it if it’s put into action repetitively. Sometimes things that may seem spontaneous are actually "the other person" only caring about their own schedule and not ours. The same thing goes with "indecisiveness," many say that they’re “open” to a relationship with the right person but not necessarily looking for one... Yes, some by their nature are smooth operators who know how to get what they want and get out; however, buttering me up doesn't lower my defenses. If someone tries to get into my good graces quickly so they can look for signs that I am down for a cheap hookup, I will let them think whatever they want to (that's their free choice not mine). Meanwhile, I will be analyzing and possible learning new tricks that were not familiar to me... like scientists, who amuse themselves analyzing lab rats. I am not going to sugarcoat it... After a certain age, you simply lose interest and you settle for pretending in order to be entertained.

The argument is not simply that some women are not beautiful, therefore it is not fair to judge women on the basis of physical beauty; or that men are not judged on that basis, therefore women also should not be judged on that basis; or that men should look for character in women; or that our standards of beauty are too parochial in and of themselves; or even that judging women according to their conformity to a standard of beauty serves to make them into products, chattels, differing from the farmer’s favorite cow only in terms of literal form. The issue at stake is different, and crucial. Standards of beauty describe in precise terms the relationship that an individual will have to her own body. They prescribe her mobility, spontaneity, posture, gait, the uses to which she can put her body. They define precisely the dimensions of her physical freedom. And, of course, the relationship between physical freedom and psychological development, intellectual possibility, and creative potential is an umbilical one.

In addition to work, ADHD can significantly impact family life and relationships. The effects of ADHD on relationships are not necessarily negative; in fact, they can bring out many positive attributes. Loved ones may feel energized around you and recognize that your sense of spontaneity and creative expression brings a lot of joy into their lives. On the flip side, friends and family may complain about imbalanced relationships, issues with intimacy, and/or fraught dynamics. If you get easily sidetracked, you may be late to dates with friends and family (or completely forget to meet). You may forget to respond to emails, calls, and test. Family and friends may take these behaviors personally. This can feel hurtful to you when you are trying your best with a brain that works differently than theirs. Of course, this does not have anything to do with how much you care for your loved ones, so communicating what you're going through and strengthening your organizational skills to respect important commitments can keep your treasured relationships humming along smoothly.

The word ‘emotion’ comes from the Latin e for exit and motio for movement. So emotion is a natural energy, a dynamic experience that needs to move through and out of the body. As children, however, we are often taught not to express our emotions; for example, we might have been told, ‘boys don’t cry’, or ‘don’t be a baby’. Or when we are angry we are taught that it’s not appropriate to express it: ‘Don’t you dare raise your voice to me!’ At some level most of us are taught that emotions are not OK. As healthy adults, we need to let go of the emotional patterns from the past that mess up our lives and no longer serve us. As Fritz Perls, the founder of Gestalt Therapy, often said, ‘The only way out is through.’ It’s not easy, and the vast majority of people deny the symptoms or anaesthetise themselves through work, TV, food, alcohol or some kind of drug. By discharging negative emotions attached to past memories we become more able to respond spontaneously in any given moment, allowing us to be more present in our relationships and to the gifts of the world around us.

If we could present an attainable ideal of love it would resemble the relationship described by Maslow as existing between self-realizing personalities. It is probably a fairly perilous equilibrium: certainly the forces of order and civilization react fairly directly to limit the possibilities of self-realization. Maslow describes his ideal personalities as having a better perception of reality—what Herbert Read called an innocent eye, like the eye of the child who does not seek to reject reality. Their relationship to the world of phenomena is not governed by their personal necessity to exploit it or be exploited by it, but a desire to observe it and to understand it. They have no disgust; the unknown does not frighten them. They are without defensiveness or affectation. The only causes of regret are laziness, outbursts of temper, hurting others, prejudice, jealousy and envy. Their behaviour is spontaneous but it corresponds to an autonomous moral code. Their thinking is problem-centred, not egocentred and therefore they most often have a sense of commitment to a cause beyond their daily concerns. Their responses are geared to the present

spontaneity begin to deteriorate. The goose gets sicker day by day. And what about a parent’s relationship with a child? When children are little, they are very dependent, very vulnerable. It becomes so easy to neglect the PC work—the training, the communicating, the relating, the listening. It’s easy to take advantage, to manipulate, to get what you want the way you want it—right now! You’re bigger, you’re smarter, and you’re right! So why not just tell them what to do? If necessary, yell at them, intimidate them, insist on your way. Or you can indulge them. You can go for the golden egg of popularity, of pleasing them, giving them their way all the time. Then they grow up without any internal sense of standards or expectations, without a personal commitment to being disciplined or responsible. Either way—authoritarian or permissive—you have the golden egg mentality. You want to have your way or you want to be liked. But what happens, meantime, to the goose? What sense of responsibility, of self-discipline, of confidence in the ability to make good choices or achieve important goals is a child going to have a few years down the road? And what about your relationship? When he reaches those critical teenage

Drawing and other forms of visual art can be an amazingly powerful tool for inner child healing. Drawing, painting, and playing with clay are things that children do spontaneously, happily, and naturally. We only lose our artistic inclinations as adults, when we are made to feel ashamed of something that we've created. Drawing is so ingrained in our natural human development that it comes well before writing. Art therapy is often used with children who refuse to speak or who feel they cannot verbalize their feelings. Inviting your inner child to color and draw can give you the freedom to finally say thins you were never able to put into words. If you are artistically inclined as an adults, you know that the process of creating visual art breaks you out of rational, analytical mental states. If you suffered with very restrictive parents or an education that prioritized verbal logic, drawing can help you reconnect with your natural, childlike creative impulses. Everyone is capable of making art. It's a natural, necessary part of our development. The stifling of creativity through shame or criticism leaves very real wounds on the inner child. Drawing through our self-doubts, self-criticisms allows us to speak with the child in its own language.

First, READ this book a chapter a day. We suggest at least five days a week for the next seven weeks, but whatever works for your schedule. Each chapter should only take you around ten minutes to read. Second, READ the Bible each day. Let the Word of God mold you into a person of prayer. We encourage you to read through the Gospel of Luke during these seven weeks and be studying it through the lens of what you can learn from Jesus about prayer. You are also encouraged to look up and study verses in each chapter that you are unfamiliar with that spark your interest. Third, PRAY every day. Prayer should be both scheduled and spontaneous. Choose a place and time when you can pray alone each day, preferably in the morning (Ps. 5:3). Write down specific needs and personal requests you’ll be targeting in prayer over the next few weeks, along with the following prayer: Heavenly Father, I come to You in Jesus’ name, asking that You draw me into a closer, more personal relationship with You. Cleanse me of my sins and prepare my heart to pray in a way that pleases You. Help me know You and love You more this week. Use all the circumstances of my life to make me more like Jesus, and teach me how to pray more strategically and effectively in Your name, according to Your will and Your Word. Use my faith, my obedience, and my prayers this week for the benefit of others, for my good, and for Your glory. Amen. May we each experience the amazing power of God in our generation as a testimony of His goodness for His glory! My Scheduled Prayer Time ___:___ a.m./p.m. My Scheduled Prayer Place ________________________ My Prayer Targets Develop a specific, personalized, ongoing prayer list using one or more of the following questions: What are your top three biggest needs right now? What are the top three things you are most stressed about? What are three issues in your life that would take a miracle of God to resolve? What is something good and honorable that, if God provided it, would greatly benefit you, your family, and others? What is something you believe God may be leading you to do, but you need His clarity and direction on it? What is a need from someone you love that you’d like to start praying about? 1. ______________________________________________ 2. ______________________________________________ 3. ______________________________________________ 4. ______________________________________________ 5. ______________________________________________ 6. ______________________________________________

None,” Einstein said. “Relativity is a purely scientific matter and has nothing to do with religion.”51 That was no doubt true. However, there was a more complex relationship between Einstein’s theories and the whole witch’s brew of ideas and emotions in the early twentieth century that bubbled up from the highly charged cauldron of modernism. In his novel Balthazar, Lawrence Durrell had his character declare, “The Relativity proposition was directly responsible for abstract painting, atonal music, and formless literature.” The relativity proposition, of course, was not directly responsible for any of this. Instead, its relationship with modernism was more mysteriously interactive. There are historical moments when an alignment of forces causes a shift in human outlook. It happened to art and philosophy and science at the beginning of the Renaissance, and again at the beginning of the Enlightenment. Now, in the early twentieth century, modernism was born by the breaking of the old strictures and verities. A spontaneous combustion occurred that included the works of Einstein, Picasso, Matisse, Stravinsky, Schoenberg, Joyce, Eliot, Proust, Diaghilev, Freud, Wittgenstein, and dozens of other path-breakers who seemed to break the bonds of classical thinking.52 In his book Einstein, Picasso: Space, Time, and the Beauty That Causes Havoc, the historian of science and philosophy Arthur I. Miller explored the common wellsprings that produced, for example, the 1905 special theory of relativity and Picasso’s 1907 modernist masterpiece Les Demoiselles d’Avignon.

A little later, Form is defined as manas (“manas is form, for through manas one knows it is this form”) and Name as vac (“for through vac one grasps the name”). Thus the two “mighty monsters” of Brahman turn out to be mind and speech, two psychic functions by which Brahman can “extend himself” through both worlds, clearly signifying the function of “relationship.” The forms of things are “apprehended” or “taken in” by introverting through manas; names are given to things by extraverting through vac. Both involve relationship and adaptation to objects as well as their assimilation. The two “monsters” are evidently thought of as personifications; this is indicated by their other name, yaksha (‘manifestation’) for yaksha means much the same as a daemon or superhuman being. Psychologically, personification always denotes the relative autonomy of the content personified, i.e., its splitting off from the psychic hierarchy. Such contents cannot be voluntarily reproduced; they reproduce themselves spontaneously, or else withdraw themselves from consciousness in the same way.81 A dissociation of this kind occurs, for instance, when an incompatibility exists between the ego and a particular complex. As we know, it is observed most frequently when the latter is a sexual complex, but other complexes can get split off too, for instance the power-complex, the sum of all those strivings and ideas aiming at the acquisition of personal power. There is, however, another form of dissociation, and that is the splitting off of the conscious ego, together with a selected function, from the other components of the personality. This form of dissociation can be defined as an identification of the ego with a particular function or group of functions. It is very common in people who are too deeply immersed in one of their psychic functions and have differentiated it into their sole conscious means of adaptation.

In looking for a vocabulary for this quest for authenticity, I found psychoanalysts more helpful than lawyers. The object-relations theorist D. W. Winnicott makes a distinction between a True Self and a False Self that usefully tracks the distinction between the uncovered and covered selves. The True Self is the self that gives an individual the feeling of being real, which is “more than existing; it is finding a way to exist as oneself, and to relate to objects as oneself, and to have a self into which to retreat for relaxation.” The True Self is associated with human spontaneity and authenticity: “Only the True Self can be creative and only the True Self can feel real.” The False Self, in contrast, gives an individual a sense of being unreal, a sense of futility. It mediates the relationship between the True Self and the world. What I love about Winnicott is that he does not demonize the False Self. To the contrary, Winnicott believes the False Self protects the True Self: “The False Self has one positive and very important function: to hide the True Self, which it does by compliance with environmental demands.” Like a king castling behind a rook in chess, the more valuable but less powerful piece retreats behind the less valuable but more powerful one. Because the relationship between the True Self and the False Self is symbiotic, Winnicott believes both selves will exist even in the healthy individual. Nonetheless, Winnicott defines health according to the degree of ascendancy the True Self gains over the False one. At the negative extreme, the False Self completely obscures the True Self, perhaps even from the individual herself. In a less extreme case, the False Self permits the True Self “a secret life.” The individual approaches health only when the False Self has “as its main concern a search for conditions which will make it possible for the True Self to come into its own.” Finally, in the healthy individual, the False Self is reduced to a “polite and mannered social attitude,” a tool available to the fully realized True Self.

I’d been reflecting on this--the drastic turn my life and my outlook on love had taken--more and more on the evenings Marlboro Man and I spent together, the nights we sat on his quiet porch, with no visible city lights or traffic sounds anywhere. Usually we’d have shared a dinner, done the dishes, watched a movie. But we’d almost always wind up on his porch, sitting or standing, overlooking nothing but dark, open countryside illuminated by the clear, unpolluted moonlight. If we weren’t wrapping in each other’s arms, I imagined, the quiet, rural darkness might be a terribly lonely place. But Marlboro Man never gave me a chance to find out. It was on this very porch that Marlboro Man had first told me he loved me, not two weeks after our first date. It had been a half-whisper, a mere thought that had left his mouth in a primal, noncalculated release. And it had both surprised and melted me all at once; the honesty of it, the spontaneity, the unbridled emotion. But though everything in my gut told me I was feeling exactly the same way, in all the time since I still hadn’t found the courage to repeat those words to him. I was guarded, despite the affection Marlboro Man heaped upon me. I was jaded; my old relationship had done that to me, and watching the crumbling of my parents’ thirty-year marriage hadn’t exactly helped. There was just something about saying the words “I love you” that was difficult for me, even though I knew, without a doubt, that I did love him. Oh, I did. But I was hanging on to them for dear life--afraid of what my saying them would mean, afraid of what might come of it. I’d already eaten beef--something I never could have predicted I’d do when I was living the vegetarian lifestyle. I’d gotten up before 4:00 A.M. to work cattle. And I’d put my Chicago plans on hold. At least, that’s what I’d told myself all that time. I put my plans on hold. That was enough, wasn’t it? Putting my life’s plans on hold for him? Marlboro Man had to know I loved him, didn’t he? He was so confident when we were together, so open, so honest, so transparent and sure. There was no such thing as “give-and-take” with him. He gave freely, poured out his heart willingly, and either he didn’t particularly care what my true feelings were for him, or, more likely, he already knew. Despite my silence, despite my fear of totally losing my grip on my former self, on the independent girl that I’d wanted to believe I was for so long…he knew. And he had all the patience he needed to wait for me to say it.

I put my hand on his forearm, I don't know why I do this, and it's not exactly natural, although it's not unnatural, except that I really want to touch his skin. It's smooth and tan just a little bit and feels like summer, like something familiar and warm and good, like my skin did on the first days aboard 'Fishful Thinking' before it salted and burned and peeled. 'We broke up three years after that.' I sit back in my chair and give a sly smile. Relationships are complex and sometimes you can't really explain them to an outside party. 'I can't believe I just told you that' 'YES! YOU! ARE! LIVING! YOUR! FULL! LIFE!' A third time. I am not imagining it. 'There you are.' This time my heart does skip a beat. I look down at his arm, and we are still touching, and he has made no attempt to retract his arm or retreat. All my surroundings, the red formica table top, the pink yogurt, the blue sky, the green vegetables in the market, they all come alive in vibrant technicolor as the sun peers from behind a cloud. I am living my full life. 'Honesty in all things,' Byron adds, lifting his cup of yogurt for a toast of sorts. I pull my hand away from him and the instant my hand is back by his side, I miss the warmth of his arm, the warmth of him. Honesty in all things. I should put my hand back, that's where it wants to be, that's Lily's lesson to me. Be present in the moment, give spontaneous affection. I'm suddenly aware I haven't spoken in a bit. 'Did you know that an octopus has three hearts?' As soon as it comes out of my mouth, I realize I sound like that kid from 'Jerry McGuire.' 'Did you know the human head weighs eight pounds?' I hope my question comes off almost a fraction as endearing. 'No,' Byron says with a glint in his eye that reads as curiosity, at least I hope that it does, but even if it doesn't I'm too into the inertia of the trivia to stop it. 'It's true, one heart called the systemic heart that functions much like the left side of the human heart, distributing blood throughout the heart, then two smaller branchial heart with gills that act like the right side of our hearts to pump the blood back.' 'What made you think of that?' I smile. It may be entirely inappropriate first date conversation, but at least it doesn't bore me in the telling. I look up at the winsome August sky, marred only by the contrails of a passing jet, and a vaguely dachshund shaped cloud above the horizon. I don't believe in fate. I don't believe in love at first site. I don't believe in angels. I don't believe in heaven and that our loved ones are looking down on us, but the sun is so warm and the breeze is so cool and the company is so perfect and the whole afternoon so intoxicating, ti's hard not to hear Lily's voice dancing in the gentle wind, 'one! month! is Long! Enough TO! BE! SAD!' ... 'I recently lost someone close to me....I don't know, I feel her here today with us, you, me, her, three hearts, like an octopus,' I shrug. If I were him, I would run. What a ridiculously creepy thing to say. I would run and I would not stop until I was home in my bed with a gallon of ice cream deleting my profile from every dating site I belonged to. Maybe it's because it's not rehearsed, maybe it's because it's as weird a thing to say as it is genuine, maybe it's because this is finally the man for me. Byron stands and offers me his hand, 'Let's take a walk and you can tell me about her.' The gentle untying of a shoe lace. It takes me a minute to decide if I can do this, and I decide that I can, and I throw our yogurt dishes away, and I put my hand in his, and it's soft and warm, and instead of awkward fumbling, our hands clasp together like magnets and metal, like we've been hand-in-hand all along, and we are touching again. ...

When creative imagination is used to improve your awareness of your true nature in relationship to the Infinite, the work is done as soon as you actually experience that desired change in Self-awareness and knowledge. When it is used to achieve goals or fulfill purposes, orderly unfoldments of events will spontaneously occur that will make possible the desired outcomes.

The unconscious is never considered to be a reality of our existence, so it is cast off as a useless preoccupation of the spiritually confused. But that “useless” unconscious conspires with fate in bringing to life the miracle of synchronicity and a relationship with Tao.

The future is dynamic and not fully in your control. Celebrate that fact instead of fighting it, and life gets a lot more interesting. Keep your eyes open, be humble and generous, and save time and attention for the spontaneous, the quirky, and the left field.

Further research revealed that lysergic acid, an extremely potent hallucinogen derived from ergot, has a structural biochemical relationship to the others. Then came the discovery that adrenochrome, which is a product of the decomposition of adrenalin, can produce many of the symptoms observed in mescalin intoxication. But adrenochrome probably occurs spontaneously in the human body. In other words, each one of us may be capable of manufacturing a chemical, minute doses of which are known to cause profound changes in consciousness.

Love, then, creates a dilemma for Americans. In some ways, love is the quintessential expression of individuality and freedom. At the same time, it offers intimacy, mutuality, and sharing. [...] The sharing and commitment in a love relationship can seem, for some, to swallow up the individual, making her (more often than him) lose sight of her own interests, opinions, and desires. Paradoxically, since love is supposed to be a spontaneous choice by free individuals, someone who has "lost" herself cannot really love, or cannot contribute to a real love relationship. Losing a sense of one's self may also lead to being exploited, or even abandoned, by the person one loves.

AUGUST 12 • Everyone suddenly burst out singing. — Siegfried Sassoon The child within us wants to come out and play. The adult in us may resist, but why not do it anyway? Having fun, being playful, and letting go of rigid personas is as necessary to recovery as good food and loving relationships. Having fun is an attitude as well as an activity. We can have a good time with everything we do — well, almost everything. But dancing around the living room, taking a day off work, doing something artistic, taking a child to the zoo — the world is full of things that are enjoyable. It might even be fun to make a list of things that are fun. Being willing to have fun frees the spontaneous, goofy, carefree parts of ourselves. We can show that side to people and practice not caring what they think. While we don’t have to abandon our boundaries, it’s good to take a risk and let go. In the end it’s our spirits that are freed. Who knows? We might even jump off the high pinnacle of the adult world and laugh as we take the fall. Discovering what I have fun at, and doing it, helps me grow in my recovery.

Children displaced from their families, unconnected to their teachers, and not yet mature enough to relate to one another as separate beings, automatically regroup to satisfy their instinctive drive for attachment. The culture of the group is either invented or borrowed from the peer culture at large. It does not take children very long to know what tribe they belong to, what the rules are, whom they can talk to, and whom they must keep at a distance. Despite our attempts to teach our children respect for individual differences and to instill in them a sense of belonging to a cohesive civilization, we are fragmenting at an alarming rate into tribal chaos. Our very own children are leading the way. The time we as parents and educators spend trying to teach our children social tolerance, acceptance, and etiquette would be much better invested in cultivating a connection with them. Children nurtured in traditional hierarchies of attachment are not nearly as susceptible to the spontaneous forces of tribalization. The social values we wish to inculcate can be transmitted only across existing lines of attachment. The culture created by peer orientation does not mix well with other cultures. Because peer orientation exists unto itself, so does the culture it creates. It operates much more like a cult than a culture. Immature beings who embrace the culture generated by peer orientation become cut off from people of other cultures. Peer-oriented youth actually glory in excluding traditional values and historical connections. People from differing cultures that have been transmitted vertically retain the capacity to relate to one another respectfully, even if in practice that capacity is often overwhelmed by the historical or political conflicts in which human beings become caught up. Beneath the particular cultural expressions they can mutually recognize the universality of human values and cherish the richness of diversity. Peer-oriented kids are, however, inclined to hang out with one another exclusively. They set themselves apart from those not like them. As our peer-oriented children reach adolescence, many parents find themselves feeling as if their very own children are barely recognizable with their tribal music, clothing, language, rituals, and body decorations. “Tattooing and piercing, once shocking, are now merely generational signposts in a culture that constantly redraws the line between acceptable and disallowed behavior,” a Canadian journalist pointed out in 2003. Many of our children are growing up bereft of the universal culture that produced the timeless creations of humankind: The Bhagavad Gita; the writings of Rumi and Dante, Shakespeare and Cervantes and Faulkner, or of the best and most innovative of living authors; the music of Beethoven and Mahler; or even the great translations of the Bible. They know only what is current and popular, appreciate only what they can share with their peers. True universality in the positive sense of mutual respect, curiosity, and shared human values does not require a globalized culture created by peer-orientation. It requires psychological maturity — a maturity that cannot result from didactic education, only from healthy development. Only adults can help children grow up in this way. And only in healthy relationships with adult mentors — parents, teachers, elders, artistic, musical and intellectual creators — can children receive their birthright, the universal and age-honored cultural legacy of humankind. Only in such relationships can they fully develop their own capacities for free and individual and fresh cultural expression.

Silence—true silence is universal. It is the profound stillness at the center of everything, at the center of every relationship—at the center of yourself. While it is always there, it can only be experienced beyond the veil of judgment, expectation, and attachment. From time to time, a person can spontaneously enter into a perfect moment of silence when dancing, watching a sunset, holding an infant, or making love; but for most,true silence remains elusive at best. Yet through various forms of meditation and prayer this veil can be lifted, allowing that inner silence to wash through you, leaving in its wake a cleansed mind and a compassionate heart.

Accepting of themselves and others More efficient in perceiving reality More spontaneous in their relationships Tendency to focus on the solutions to problems rather than the problems themselves An autonomy from cultural influences and societal injunctions A capacity for transcendence/intense mystical experiences A deep identification with humanity with empathy A sense of humor Ability to be creative

Alex wants marriage and kids and a home in one place, and he wants it all with someone like Sarah. Someone who can help him build the life that he lost when he was six years old. And I want a tetherless life on spontaneous trips and exciting new relationships, different seasons with different people, and quite possibly to never settle down. Our only hope of maintaining this relationship is through the platonic friendship we've always had. The five percent has been creeping up for years, but it's time to tamp it back down. To squash the what-if.

REACH” PRINCIPLES • Respect for the unknown • Ethics in our use of precognition • Accuracy of our precognitive skills • Compassion for ourselves and others • Honesty in all our dealings How to truly practise the REACH principles How can James or anyone in an unsupportive environment practise the REACH principles? It’s an important question to ask – not just for James, but for anyone who has already run into disorientation or destabilization as a result of their spontaneous precognitive abilities. We have heard from some of these people, and they tend to be desperate to control their abilities so they do not feel like “freaks” at the mercy of their gift. As we explore what James could do, we are also exploring what anyone could do to turn their relationship with precognition in a positive direction if they feel it has become disorientating for them. The first change would be to take a thorough inventory of your relationships – are they supportive of who you are and the gifts you have to offer? If not, the first change you need to make is to find one or two people whom you trust, and talk with them in confidence about your practice of controlled precognition. Tell them about your intention to be a Positive Precog and share with them what that means to you. Tell them why it is important to you to try out your gifts in this area. This will be a different conversation for each person, but the basic idea is that you need a few people in your life who accept and love you for who you are, especially when who you are is someone who has something controversial to offer. If precognition is a big part of your life, you need to tell them about that. You can expect three responses – scepticism (from science-minded people who haven’t read the literature about precognition or don’t believe it), concern (from people who fear you are messing with things you don’t understand), and support (from people who are open enough to support what you are interested in). Dealing with scepticism is easy – don’t try to convince anyone. Just let them know that controlled precognition is important to you, you feel that it is likely to be real, and you would like their support in trying this out. If they don’t support you, move on to the next person. Concern is a little tricky, because anyone concerned about you is already in your corner, so that’s a start. But if their concern is so great that they can’t be supportive, consider thanking them and moving on to the next person. Your goal is not to find someone who agrees with you about precognition, but someone who is supportive of you pursuing controlled precognition responsibly.

we included a section about scientist Bruce Damer’s experiences as a child? In one of the stories, his “future selves” appeared and he asked them to sign a contract to only send positive energy back in time. As you keep track of your spontaneous precognitive experiences or if you pursue controlled precognition as a practice, this kind of thinking will become commonplace. In other words, you will start to think of yourself as not just this version of your body that exists right now as you read this, but instead, as all past and future versions of your body and mind. As a result of this shift, your sense of self can feel more permanent and connected in both time and space. Imagine a line drawn through time, where each point in the line is wherever you have been and wherever you will be, from birth to death. Physicists call this your “world line” – the map of your entire existence in space and time. Similar to this world line, as you become more comfortable with your own precognitive experiences, you will probably start to include your past and future selves as part of your definition of yourself. This is a reasonable response to having first-hand experience with accessing information from the future. It doesn’t mean you always know what your future self will do, or that the future is necessarily determined at the present moment. But thinking of yourself as all of yourself – through time and space – is a shift that is likely coming your way as you continue your training as a Positive Precog. Fortunately, connecting with yourself in this way is likely to make you more compassionate with yourself (the “C” in the REACH principles) – and, as a result, more compassionate with others (also the “C” in the REACH principles). In addition to embracing connections in time, this shift in your sense of self will probably also embrace connections in space. That’s because, as you practise controlled precognition, you’ll notice that not only are you able to sometimes perceive uncannily accurate information from the future, but also this information can be from locations that are distant. You might end up thinking about these connections in space like the Iroquois, a Native American Indian tribe, have done. They speak of a long body. Your long body would include your mind, your body, the minds and bodies of people with whom you have relationships, the tools you use, and the places you live.a Again, this feeling of connection can be very positive. Any feelings of compassion you have for yourself as a result of extending your sense of yourself over time will also extend to those in your long body. And guess what? When compassion is passed around to others, it turns out that the originator of the compassion is more resilient to stress.b That brings us nicely to the changes you can expect in health and wellbeing as a result of your Positive Precog practice.

By surprising me, John had instantly found a way of making our wedding special and unique, however it turned out. Such a spontaneous ceremony wouldn't work for everyone, of course. But it's worth considering the role that unpredictable events might play in love and whether we can benefit by making more room for improvisation in our relationships. So much of our social experience, especially when it comes to romance, has to do with expectations. Maybe we have an image of the person we will marry long before we've met them. Usually, we call this a type, an ideal. Or maybe we have in our mind's eye the perfect first date—a walk by the lake, a hike in the woods, a romantic restaurant. When it comes to the wedding—an opportunity not only to proclaim our love but also to show off our good taste and social network—we probably know how it should look. Perhaps more importantly, we know how it should not look. If these expectations set us on a course toward genuine happiness, then they are all well and good. But I would argue that in many cases, such plans can become a kind of mind trap, forcing us to pursue a preconceived kind of happiness that we may never reach or that, once reached, may never make us happy.

When you think your partner is not doing his or her share, ask yourself whether being resentful and faultfinding will help you or your relationship. •​Practice the Three A's: awareness, appreciation, acknowledgment: 1.​Become aware of your partner's efforts. Try to notice the little things he or she does for the good of the relationship. 2.​Appreciate that those efforts demand compromise and sacrifice and that your partner loves you enough to try. 3.​Acknowledge your partner's contributions. Don’t keep your appreciation to yourself. •​After you establish a track record using the three A's, you might find that your partner's behaviour spontaneously changes. Sometimes people do things you don’t like because they don’t feel appreciated. •​If you still feel short-changed by your partner's lack of effort, ask yourself if your objections are fair and reasonable. •​If they are, try to express any hurt and frustration you might feel without sounding critical. •​Tell your partner what changes you would like him to make. Ask if he thinks these changes are fair and reasonable, and if he is willing to make the effort. •​Ask him if there are any changes he would like to see you make.

The most a historian can do is to take the particular processes of the historical world which he is supposed to elucidate, and let these events be seen in the light of higher and more general forces which are present behind and develop in these events; his task is to show the concrete sub specie aeterni. But he is not in a position to determine the essence of this higher and eternal force itself or to determine the relationship it bears to concrete reality. Thus he can only say that in historical life he beholds a world which, though unified, is bipolar: a world which needs both poles to be as it appears to us. Physical nature and intellect, causality according to law and creative spontaneity, are these two poles, which stand in such sharp and apparently irreconcilable opposition. But historical life, as it unfolds between them, is always influenced simultaneously by both, even if not always by both to the same degree. The historian’s task would be an easy one if he could content himself with this straightforward dualistic interpretation of the relationship between physical nature and intellect, as it corresponds to the Christian and ethical tradition of earlier centuries. Then he would have nothing more to do than describe the struggle between light and darkness, between sin and forgiveness, between the world of intellect and that of the senses. He would be a war-correspondent; and taking up his position (naturally enough) in the intellectual camp he would be able to distinguish friend from foe with certainty.