Sadly, we who were founded in diversity also have a historical pattern of allowing in “foreigners”, often with suspicion, then causing them to feel separate and less-than. Time and again, after one group settled in, it became less than welcoming to the next group …
Ancient Wisdom teachings define love as, “…not an emotion, sentiment, desire or selfish motive for right action,” but as “an impersonal magnetic force that holds everything together.” Love works in harmony, encompasses all life and is in constant motion. All creation is an expression of love …
Dear Dad,
When we are children, we see a world where we make ongoing decisions about the nature of reality. We can make some very strong decisions that can affect the rest of our lives. And it could take many years of effort after we “grow up” to undo some of those decisions …
I have someone in my life, a family member, with whom I have had a long and difficult relationship. It has gotten so that it doesn’t take much, when we have an encounter, for me to get all stirred up and start spinning into negative thoughts about this person. I would get off the phone with her or come home from seeing her and complain to my husband about the upsetting things she did this time! Once that negativity got rolling, it could go on for awhile, and was difficult to get past. I grew to hate these times, hate this person for being the way she was and hate myself for feeling the way I did…
I feel like my life has been hijacked. Seven months ago, due to unsavory circumstances, my husband and I allowed our daughter and her twin babies to come live with us. This is not what we wanted – for ourselves, for our daughter, for our grandsons. It’s a complicated situation, with layers and layers of issues …
Have you ever said or thought: “There’s a part of me that wants to do this and there’s another part of me that doesn’t.”? This is a more frequent thought than I’d like to admit to . . .
With all the attention focused on the issue of bullying in recent times, I feel compelled to come clean. You see, I was a bully. My time as a bully was short-lived and early in my life, but I still have some vivid memories. I am moved to reflect on lessons learned and, hopefully, wisdom gained.
Some of my family members and I jokingly refer to the negative family traits as our family values. But they are not so funny and I personally would like to see them stopped and not handed down to future generations …
So. . . what if your happily-ever-after isn’t? Your marriage, or civil union, or cohabitation smacks more of poisoned apples than magic, life-giving kisses. But you can’t, or choose not to, leave the castle. Your current version of the fairy tale is that your white-picket-fence fantasy has become a chain link reality that you don’t much like.
Author: Michael Strelcheck “Recognizing The Emotions Of Being Abused” The aftermath of an incident of abuse is often physically apparent to the victim, but what is not so obvious is the emotional damage. Modern psychology has long struggled with trying to understand what unexpected trauma does to the human psyche. In recent years there has …
It’s a difficult thing to understand why a person would hurt or abuse the ones they love. I know from experience, being physically disciplined as a young child, that being victimized by a loved one (my father) is an emotionally traumatic experience. Although I felt that my father loved me, I couldn’t understand what I saw (and felt) in his angry behaviors …
Author: Mary Summerbell Every year, as part of our earnest self-improvement efforts, many of us set goals to better our lives. We welcome the new year with the time honored tradition of New Year’s resolutions, or we set new goals as the season’s change. Whatever our motivation, we look to ourselves and our lifestyles to …