Thursday, September 26, 2019

Are You an Empath?


🌻💕Ca Yesterday, I came across a new article on Psychology Today from one of my favorite people, Judith Orloff, MD. The article, titled The Importance of Self-Care for Sensitive People: The art of self-care for thriving as an empath, excellently describes the empath person and goes on to talk about how important self-care is to an empath. (Self-care is VERY important!  MOST essential!)  If you experience a regular high sensitivity to the feelings of other people and the world around you, I recommend reading this article and also looking up all of Judith's books.  

A couple of years ago, when I first read one of Judith's books called The Empath's Survival Guide a whole new understanding dawned within my soul!  This book has been immensely eye opening and helpful to me, granting me a greater insight into myself and a greater compassion and understanding for myself.  

Monday, September 16, 2019

Entering Deeply Into True Understanding

Photo by Tom Gainor on Unsplash

"When we want to understand something, we cannot just stand outside and observe it. We have to enter deeply into it and be one with it in order to really understand. If we want to understand a person, we have to feel his feelings, suffer his feelings, and enjoy his joy...To comprehend something means to pick it up and be one with it. There is no other way to understand something." 
--Thich Nhat Hanh in his book Peace Is Every Step

We find ourselves saying we want to understand, but we fall short or are unwilling to go as deeply as it takes to truly understand. True understanding can be painful at times. Yet, it is by walking through the pain that we find healing and freedom from the pain.

Friday, September 13, 2019

Quotes on Forgiveness

Image thanks to https://www.guideposts.org/faith-and-prayer/prayer-stories/power-of-prayer/why-forgiveness-is-a-big-deal

Of all my weekly yoga class themes, this week’s on Forgiveness has been the one most requested for me to share via email.  Some of the things I shared were spontaneous and are not included here.  But this is the majority.  Enjoy.  

Quotes on FORGIVENESS OF SELF & OTHERS
Yoga Classes Week of September 9, 2019
Ho'oponopono: The Hawaiian Forgiveness Mantra
I am sorry, Please forgive me, I love you, Thank you.

               Many of the quotes I used this week came from Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s book:
Words in ( ) [ ] within other quotes are added by me.

Forgiveness has the power to bring harmony within and with others.Jonathan Davis article

If something troubles you, if some- thing sends prickles up your spine and you would like best to turn around and go away, and above all, if someone 'presses your buttons', always direct your thoughts to prayer…  it will lead us to face difficult conflicts within our relationships and help to heal our resentment of the past (thereby healing present and future). When we face what is wrong, take responsibility for our own feelings, and accept and offer unconditional love, unhealthy situations and relationships transform into more favorable experiences.  –Ulrich E. Dupree article on Daily Om

…the Hawaiian tradition teaches that all life is connected.  Ho’oponopono is, therefore, not only a way of healing ourselves, but others and our world as well. – Timothy Freke, Shamanic Wisdomkeepers

…the discordance we find in others and in the world outside ourselves is due to ‘errors’ in thought stored in our personal and collective memories.  Jonathan Davis article

If you want to change what is going on around you, change what is going on within you.  – Billy Cox

 “The practice of forgiveness is our most important contribution to the healing of the world.”   ― Marianne Williamson

 “Cultivate your forgiveness with your friends, with your family, with strangers, and with yourself. Remind yourself that every person you encounter carries a sorrow and a struggle. Recognize that we all share a fundamental humanity.”  - Desmond Tutu, The Book of Forgiving: The Fourfold Path for Healing Ourselves and Our World

 “The truth is, unless you let go, unless you forgive yourself, unless you forgive the situation, unless you realize that the situation is over, you cannot move forward.”  ― Steve Maraboli, Unapologetically You: Reflections on Life and the Human Experience

 “To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you.”  ― Lewis B. Smedes, Forgive and Forget: Healing the Hurts We Don't Deserve

 “I have learned, that the person I have to ask for forgiveness from the most is: myself. You must love yourself. You have to forgive yourself, everyday, whenever you remember a shortcoming, a flaw, you have to tell yourself
[I am sorry, Please forgive me, I love you, Thank you.]
 "That's just fine". You have to forgive yourself so much, until you don't even see those things anymore. Because that's what love is like.”   ― C. JoyBell C.

Be the one who nurtures and builds. Be the one who has an understanding and a forgiving heart, one who looks for the best in people. Leave people better than you found them.”   ― Marvin J. Ashton

Forgiveness is simply about understanding that every one of us is both inherently good and inherently flawed. Within every hopeless situation and every seemingly hopeless person lies the possibility of transformation.”   ― Desmond Tutu, The Book of Forgiving: The Fourfold Path for Healing Ourselves and Our World

 “When we think we have been hurt by someone in the past, we build up defenses to protect ourselves from being hurt in the future. So the fearful past causes a fearful future and the past and future become one. We cannot love when we feel fear.... When we release the fearful past and forgive everyone, we will experience total love and oneness with all.” ― Gerald G. Jampolsky

 “It is important that we forgive ourselves for making mistakes. We need to learn from our errors and move on.” 
― Steve Maraboli, Life, the Truth, and Being Free

Never forget the three powerful resources you always have available to you: love, prayer, and forgiveness. --H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

“Forgiveness is not an occasional act, it is a constant attitude.” 
― Martin Luther King Jr.

“…forgiveness, like happiness, isn’t a final destination. You don’t one day get there and get to stay.”   ― Deb Caletti

The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong. --Mahatma Gandhi

 “We don't forgive people because they deserve it. We forgive them because they need it—because we need it.”  ― Bree Despain, The Dark Divine

 “When you begin to see that your enemy is suffering, that is the beginning of insight.” ― Thich Nhat Hanh, Peace Is Every Step: The Path of Mindfulness in Everyday Life

Be the kind of person who can move on from the past, forgive people and, as a result, be healthy, happy, and free. It is an easier thing said than done.  But when was anything easy ever considered worthwhile or fully satisfying and inspiring?  When was anything easy ever considered heroic or miraculous?  --MaryAnn Broussard, Feisty ‘n Free Wholistic Living

Unforgiveness is like drinking poison yourself and waiting for the other person to die.

“Forgiveness is truly the grace by which we enable another person to get up, and get up with dignity, to begin anew. To not forgive leads to bitterness and hatred. Like self-hatred and self-contempt, hatred of others gnaws away at our vitals. Whether hatred is projected out or stuffed in, it is always corrosive to the human spirit.” ― Desmond Tutu, The Book of Forgiving: The Fourfold Path for Healing Ourselves and Our World

“Forgiveness is an act of the will, and the will can function regardless of the temperature of the heart.” Corrie Ten Boom

“True forgiveness is when you can say, "Thank you for that experience.”   ― Oprah Winfrey

 “Forgiveness is the only way to heal ourselves and to be free from the past. Without forgiveness, we remain tethered to the person who harmed us. We are bound to the chains of bitterness, tied together, trapped. Until we can forgive the person who harmed us, that person will hold the keys to our happiness, that person will be our jailor. When we forgive, we take back control of our own fate and our feelings. We become our own liberator.”  ― Desmond Tutu

 “Forgiveness is nothing less than the way we heal the world. We heal the world by healing each and every one of our hearts. The process is simple, but it is not easy.”  ― Desmond Tutu, The Book of Forgiving: The Fourfold Path for Healing Ourselves and Our World

 “Forgiveness is the key that unlocks the door of resentment and the handcuffs of hatred. It is a power that breaks the chains of bitterness and the shackles of selfishness.”  ― Corrie Ten Boom, Clippings from My Notebook

“In order to truly forgive oneself, one must either explicitly or implicitly acknowledge that one’s behavior was wrong and accept responsibility or blame for such behavior. Without these elements, self-forgiveness is irrelevant and pseudo self-forgiveness becomes likely.”  ― Desmond Tutu, The Book of Forgiving: The Fourfold Path for Healing Ourselves and Our World

 “You have stood at this junction before. You will stand at this junction again.  If you pause, you can ask yourself which way to turn. You can turn away from your own sadness and run the race named [Resentment, Bitterness, and] Revenge. You will run that tired track again and again. Or, you can admit your own pain and walk the path that ends. In this direction lies freedom. My friend, I can show you where hope [healing] and wholeness make their homes, but you can’t push past your anguish on your way there. To find the path to peace, you will have to meet your pain and speak its name.”  ― Desmond Tutu, The Book of Forgiving: The Fourfold Path for Healing Ourselves and Our World   --[MaryAnn Broussard, Feisty ‘n Free Wholistic Living]

 “Nothing erases the past. There is repentance, there is atonement, and there is forgiveness. That is all, but that is enough.”  ― Ted Chiang, The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate

“When we are uncaring, when we lack compassion, when we are unforgiving, we will always pay the price for it. It is not, however, we alone who suffer. Our whole community suffers, and ultimately our whole world suffers. We are made to exist in a delicate network of interdependence. We are sisters and brothers, whether we like it or not. To treat anyone as if they were less than human, less than a brother or a sister, no matter what they have done, is to contravene the very laws of our humanity. And those who shred the web of interconnectedness cannot escape the consequences of their actions.”  ― Desmond Tutu, The Book of Forgiving: The Fourfold Path for Healing Ourselves and Our World

“Forgiveness does not mean that we pretend things are anything other than they are. I am hurt, we say. I am betrayed, we announce. I am in pain and grief. I have been treated unfairly. I am feeling ashamed. I am angry this has been done to me. I am sad and I am lost. I may never forget what you have done to me, but I will forgive. I will do everything in my power not to let you harm me again. I will not retaliate against you or against myself.”  ― Desmond Tutu, The Book of Forgiving: The Fourfold Path for Healing Ourselves and Our World

“Offer it up personally, then. Right now. I thought of how many people go to their graves unforgiven and unforgiving. I thought of how many people have had siblings or friends or children or lovers disappear from their lives before precious words of clemency or absolution could be passed along. How do the survivors of terminated relationships ever endure the pain of unfinished business? From that place of meditation, I found the answer-you can finish the business yourself, from within yourself. It's not only possible, it's essential.”   ― Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray, Love


The following Corrie Ten Boom story I shared on Friday was copied from this website:   https://www.faithgateway.com/forgiveness-corrie-ten-boom/#.XXvVkChKggw

Corrie herself was put to the test in 1947 while speaking in a Munich church. At the close of the service, a balding man in a gray overcoat stepped forward to greet her. Corrie froze. She knew this man well; he’d been one of the most vicious guards at Ravensbrück, one who had mocked the women prisoners as they showered. “It came back with a rush,” she wrote, “the huge room with its harsh overhead lights; the pathetic pile of dresses and shoes in the center of the floor; the shame of walking naked past this man.”

And now he was pushing his hand out to shake hers, and saying:
“A fine message, Fraulein! How good it is to know that, as you say, all our sins are at the bottom of the sea!”
And I, who had spoken so glibly of forgiveness, fumbled in my pocketbook rather than take that hand. He would not remember me, of course — how could he remember one prisoner among those thousands of women?
But I remembered him and the leather crop swinging from his belt. I was face to face with one of my captors, and my blood seemed to freeze.
“You mentioned Ravensbrück in your talk,” he was saying. “I was a guard there… But since that time,” he went on, “I have become a Christian. I know that God has forgiven me for the cruel things I did there, but I would like to hear it from your lips as well. Fraulein” — again the hand came out —“will you forgive me?”
And I stood there — I whose sins had again and again to be forgiven — and could not forgive. Betsie had died in that place — could he erase her slow terrible death simply for the asking?
The soldier stood there expectantly, waiting for Corrie to shake his hand. She “wrestled with the most difficult thing I had ever had to do. For I had to do it — I knew that. The message that God forgives has a prior condition: that we forgive those who have injured us.”
Standing there before the former S.S. man, Corrie remembered that forgiveness is an act of the will — not an emotion. “Jesus, help me!” she prayed. “I can lift my hand. I can do that much. You supply the feeling.”
Corrie thrust out her hand.
And as I did, an incredible thing took place. The current started in my shoulder, raced down my arm, sprang into our joined hands. And then this healing warmth seemed to flood my whole being, bringing tears to my eyes.
“I forgive you, brother!” I cried. “With all my heart.”
For a long moment we grasped each other’s hands, the former guard and the former prisoner. I had never known God’s love so intensely as I did then. But even so, I realized it was not my love. I had tried, and did not have the power. It was the power of the Holy Spirit.1
Excerpted with permission from 7 Women: And The Secret Of Their Greatness by Eric Metaxas, copyright Thomas Nelson.
1.      Corrie ten Boom, with Jamie Buckingham, Tramp for the Lord. (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1975), 217–218.

Image thanks to http://www.positivehealth.com/article/healing/how-to-become-a-miracle-maker-with-your-life-steps-to-use-the-almighty-ho-oponopono