Just Listen...

Just don't think or judge

Listen

Rachel Naomi Remen: “The most basic and powerful way to connect to another person is to listen. Just listen. Perhaps the most important thing we ever give each other is our attention.... A loving silence often has far more power to heal and to connect than the most well-intentioned words.”

Lessons from the Universe

"God does not play dice with the Universe." ~Albert Einstein 

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If you understand the extraordinary gifts every single challenge in your life makes possible, even inevitable, you'd celebrate your challenges, new and old alike, as the omens or signs that they are of new beginnings, spectacular change, and enhanced insight that gives us strength and knowledge.   Both help us grow into the person we are meant to be; bringing us the lives we deserve with immeasurable love and happiness.

Living with Integrity

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"Living with integrity means: * Not settling for less than what you know you deserve in your relationships. * Asking for what you want and need from others. * Speaking your truth, even though it might create conflict or tension. * Behaving in ways that are in harmony with your personal values. * Making choices based on what you believe, and not what others believe." ~Barbara De Angelia

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"If we believe a thing to be bad, and if we have a right to prevent it, it is our duty to try to prevent it and damn the consequences." ~Lord Milner

I've tried my whole life to live with integrity.  Although I'm not perfect and slip like we all do, I have a constant goal to stand up for those being taken advantage of or treated unfairly; those not given the opportunities they deserve; those who need a friend or just someone to believe in and fight for them.

I believe that if we all spoke up or stepped in when we see or hear someone doing something we know is wrong, there would be less abuse and more accountability in the world.  It seems that more people are concerned with their own  careers and social standing than they are with their own moral obligations as a human being.

How some people can can look away when they see someone is being abused; instead of stopping it and protecting vulnerable adults and especially children, is beyond my comprehensions.  How do those who don't speak up, doing nothing, look at themselves in the mirror or go home to their own children and families?  That is the hardest thing for me to understand.

I've been told that I care too much and that it's the mothering nature in me that brings me to help those I see hurting.  However, I feel that although none of us can control other people's actions; we should all care enough to speak up.  To stop situations we know are wrong, anyway that we can, making people accountable for their actions.

I know in my own abusive experiences that once someone was confronted, they were forced to be at least some what accountable.  Excuses for bad behavior seldom go on if others outside of the situation speak up and tell them they are abusive.  It's amazing how so many who believe they have a right to treat someone badly, can suddenly 'stop' when a peer speaks up to them.  But not when the person they are abusing tries to defend themselves.   Somehow it's always their fault according to the abuser.

An abuser has no integrity.  However the knowledge someone else has, can stop the abuse if they have the integrity to do what is right; even if it effects them negatively or has consequences either personally or professionally.  I have no respect for those who have the knowledge to change or stop a bad situations; but do nothing.

I haven't always had the knowledge in situations, where I wish I had.  However I can think of many times where someone has had the knowledge, but not the integrity, to use that knowledge to help others.  If more people lived with Integrity and didn't look the other way, the world would be a much better place.

"Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, and knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful." ~Samuel Johnson (Rasselas, ch. 41) 

Knowledge Changes Things

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"They say that 'time changes things' but I believe that it's really 'knowledge' that does." ~Me

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When I look back on my life, I realize that it wasn't time that changed feelings and relationships, it was the knowledge or the truth that did.   From finding out what someone did or what someone said that wasn't true.  To seeing the face of betrayal or hearing the words of abuse.   Those events cause change in our lives, not from the time that passes, but from the knowledge gained.  

As an example, many feel their first love will last forever, but then they fall out of love later.  It's not time that changed things for some couples, it's the realization that one or the other is not the person they thought or believed them to be.  Maybe they had blinders on and didn't see their true character; and that their real values in life were very different or they just grew in differenct directions.  No matter the reason, these couples just aren't a match or good for each other anymore.  Either way, I feel it's the knowledge gained that changed the feelings and relationship. 

In my own life I've reacted to situations or friendships badly at times, because I didn't have all the facts... so I could understand.  The knowledge at the time, of what was really going on or what someone was going through.  I've felt bad when the truth came out and I changed my opinions, perspectives and even feelings... because of the knowledge I received or gained.

Eye-opening experiences, both kind and not so kind, change who we are.  It's knowledge, realizing the truth and accepting responsibility for both our actions and the actions of others that we allowed or can't control in our lives, that help us to grow... not time.  

I know people who have not grown or changed in their entire life.  Instead of taking the knowledge and lessons from life to make positive changes, they blame and complain; not taking responsibility for either their actions or when they didn't do anything to better a situation.   They seem to have not learned (knowledge) from their experiences in order to change their lives.  In cases like these, time hasn't changed a thing.

I will say though, that taking the time needed to go through the processes of life is needed.  Because each step in a process, gives us strength and confidence to make good decisions with peace of mind.   No doubt that taking our time, especially when making life changing decisions, is a good idea.

"I hope you all use the knowledge gained in your lives to make the decisions that bring you happiness and peace!" ~Coreen

Intuition...

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"Intuition is a spiritual faculty and does not explain, but simply points the way." ~Florence Scovel Shinn

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Intuition is a natural ability or power that makes it possible to know something without any proof or evidence.  'Feelings' that guides a person to act a certain way without fully understanding why.  A 'sensing' or instinctive belief beyond conscious reasoning. 

Intuition draws on knowledge gained from past experience that has been stored in the subconscious mind.  It can also be a deep and heightened observation, allowing us to cut through the thickness of surface reality to see the truth or understanding of the situation.

"Intuition is the supra-logic that cuts out all the routine processes of thought and leaps straight from the problem to the answer." ~Robert Graves

"INTUITION may be defined as understanding or knowing without conscious recourse to thought, observation or reason. Some see this unmediated process as somehow mystical while others describe intuition as being a response to unconscious cues or implicitly apprehended prior learning."– Dr. Jason Gallate & Ms Shannan Keen BA

INTUITION ~By Gael Bage

Turn knowledge

on its head,

it happens,

flat earth

is now round.

Prelogical sensing

advances us.

Ideas, like

castles in the air,

are breached.

Braving the sceptics

our senses

propel us,

leaping wide chasms

to the future.

Gut feelings,

intuition,

and vision

may be

mans greatest gift.

I trust

implicitly

this organismic

sensing,

knowing...before logic.

"You have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition. What you'll discover will be wonderful. What you'll discover is yourself." ~Alan Alda