Snips

Sometimes we need to give ourselves permission to grow, even though the people we love are not ready to. We don't need to suffer with them. It doesn't help. It doesn't help for us to stay stuck just because someone we love is stuck.The potential for helping others is far greater when we work on ourselves, and stop trying to force others to change with us.Changing ourselves, allowing ourselves to grow while others seek their own path, is how we have the most beneficial impact on people we love. We're accountable for ourselves. They're accountable for themselves. We let them go, and let ourselves grow.Today, I will affirm that it is my right to grow and change, even though someone I love may not be growing and changing alongside me.Melody Beattie ©

When we surrender to God, we let go of our attachment to how things happen on the outside, and we become more concerned with what happens on the inside.Marianne Williamson

AA Thought of the Day / Above all, take it one day at a time. / As Bill Sees It, p.11
When we feel inadequate and unworthy, we hoard things. We are so afraid - afraid of losing, afraid of feeling even more poverty-stricken than we do already. This stinginess is extremely sad. This holding on causes us to suffer greatly. We wish for comfort, but instead we reinforce aversion, the sense of sin, and the feeling that we are a hopeless case.The causes of aggression and fear begin to dissolve by themselves when we move past the poverty of holding back. So the basic idea of generosity is to train in thinking bigger, to do ourselves the world's biggest favor and stop cultivating our own scheme. The more we experience fundamental richness, the more we can loosen our grip.Pema Chödrön

So how is your `inner' rose? Is it fragrant and full of light? Is your soul exuding its true nature which is love, peace, acceptance, joy, vitality, etc. Have you remembered to water and nurture your rose so that it does not wilt? Have you been pruning away the dead branches of old patterns and beliefs, so that the new growth can come out strong and unencumbered by the past? Have you given yourself plenty of natural `fertilizer' (love, gentleness, playful time, rest time, sunshine, good food, etc.) so that you radiate? Are you giving yourself plenty of space to grow?
Marie T. Russell

Spiritual love is a position of standing with one hand extended into the universe and one hand extended into the world, letting ourselves be a conduit for passing energy.Christina Baldwin

If you want your life to be a magnificent story, then begin by realizing that you are the author; and everyday you have the opportunity to write a new page.Mark Houlahan
Your friends will know you better in the first minute you meet than your acquaintances will know you in a thousand years.Richard Bach

Sometimes life's shadows are caused by our standing in our own sunshine.Ralph Waldo Emerson