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~ Iris DeMent 

Fear makes a strange but undeniably solid bedfellow. We get sick. Our body betrays us by exhibiting signs and symptoms that feel like strangers inside our skin. A loved one dies. Friends grow old and infirm; still the world hums along as ever it did, with or without the presence of the departed. What of this mystery, death; what curse, this disease? What are we doing here, if we leave so little an impression that nothing seems to change, once we’re gone?

Imagine for a moment that we have impact, if not on some sweeping, massive, visible level, perhaps on a more internal and profound one. Consider this story, lovingly told by Robert Romanyshyn in his book The Soul in Grief:

Before Janet died, I had a vague sense that life was really a straight line, and I lived my life half committed to this unexamined prescription. I was responsible, and only on occasion did I explore a wilder, less conventional life. But these explorations were mostly the dreams of a reluctant gypsy soul, and for the most part I took very few risks.

After her death, however, my life coiled in on itself, and since then I have come to appreciate how my life is much more circular in its movements. Perhaps I always knew but forgot. I remember that two years before she died, I had a vivid glimpse of the way in which a simple event, like sitting on a park bench on a lazy Sunday afternoon, was the occasion for revealing how a singular moment in time can turn round on itself and open to archaic depths.

If we can learn to befriend death, perhaps we can begin to comprehend how to fully and unconditionally embrace life. For it does seem that confronting our mortality imbues us with a deeper appreciation for living, whether it be indirectly through the loss of a loved one or directly through experiencing illness and the growing knowledge of our own demise. Something inside us shifts over to accommodate the inevitable ebb and swell of feelings that society and the logical mind dismiss as too dramatic. For the soul, moments in time have a vertical depth, and moments, which for the ego-mind are separated into past, present, and future, are drawn together by an affinity of mood and image (R.R.).

While we stay perpetually busy holding death at bay, living out our days burdened with the mundane, mortality courts us at every turn. From time to time, we even feel its cold fangs nipping at our heels. We sense an overwhelming presence we are powerless to control, occupying ourselves instead with routine tasks which place mind over matter. We hope to remain undiscovered, invisible; or highly visible, yet even in this we seek a sort of oblivion.

Day to day we put things off. We get caught up; the doorbell rings, kids arrive home from school, the phone dings, texts summon. Before we know it, a day slips into night, a week turns the page, a month, then years swim before our eyes like slippery fish we can’t quite grasp. An unquiet underground river runs through us we choose to ignore, though it haunts us in our dreams. We flirt with our creativity  and make excuses as to why we can’t engage. A sudden call informs us that yet another friend or beloved elder is ill or dying. We feel lonely or bereft, seeking comfort in externals. We are tired and want to zone out. We are bone-weary, wishing only to bask on the beach of un-complication. Islands of inspiration erode and sink into a sea of confusion, once again.

It does not have to be this way. The human spirit is indomitable, and no matter our misfortunes, we have an uncanny ability to rally to life. The invitation remains open as long as we draw breath. If we have been ignorant of how profoundly death affects life and how the two are inseparably entwined, we may yet gather tremendous momentum toward enlightenment. Any key to any door can be helpful in the moment, as long as we are listening and learning. And helpful is the most we can ask and expect from others. Though our mind wants The Answer, and in this society we are conditioned to not only want but to expect it, we understand on a deeper level that satisfying our curiosity about something as complex as why we live and die is futile. Yet consider that this yearning might be what launches us onto our internal quest. Let us do our very best instead to embrace the moment, whatever it may hold, and awaken to our living, breathing, fully engaged and vibrant Being. It then becomes quite effortless to allow The Mystery to simply Be.

The post On Life, Death and Letting the Mystery Be appeared first on Bela Johnson Intuitive.

While it is easy to reflect on what we may perceive as more positive moments, what about those times when we experience pain, conflict or ongoing challenges? Medical Intuitive Caroline Myss speaks to this in her book, Sacred Contracts. She offers that before the soul incarnates, it determines what’s needed for growth. As this is, in a sense, predetermining one’s own destiny, we then choose which “teachers” can best help us achieve our life purpose. Though we all lose memory of these contracts at birth, there are yet agreements in place where we play roles for one another, presenting all involved with growth opportunities.

In many cases, our best teachers are our greatest adversaries. From parents to partners, we may discover that pain and adversity met through such encounters are necessary contributions to self-awareness. It is well known in certain spiritual traditions that suffering deepens understanding of what it is to be human. Liking or not liking pain and struggle are less important than enlarging one’s understanding of life, facilitating a more compassionate outlook.

Accepting pain as part of life paradoxically creates the potential to experience inner harmony. Although this concept may be difficult to grasp when we are in the throes of adversity, we can continually remind ourselves that the nature of life is cyclical. This gives rise to hope that we will emerge from our current situation with more strength and wisdom. Once the tension created from resistance abates, we may well experience joy as our senses have already been piqued by the painful encounter. This is presuming, of course, that we do not mask or medicate pain, but rather feel and experience it deeply with an open heart.

Open-hearted living can be challenging. If we are not vigilant, we might confuse the mythic Hero or Heroine’s journey, depicted in such beautifully crafted films as Spirited Away and Whale Rider with less evolved plots designed merely to heighten our senses or escalate our fears while garnering producers and studio magnates both accolades as well as financial reward.

Living in today’s society means that many of us have been moving too quickly to take time to honor rites of passage, observe sacred ritual, or to live our lives with deep, mythic significance. Popular media offers what appears to be a quick fix, for it may borrow the fantasy-like images and rapturous feelings from myth and project them onto the screen. This sets us up for longing, but much of this longing has an external object of desire. These fantasy projections are often cast onto other human beings, where they are found to be lacking or at the very least fleeting. What everyday Hero or Heroine can match the strength of Rocky, or the physical beauty of a (Charlie’s) Angel? It becomes unfair for us to expect another person to carry these projections, the source of which is deeply personal and symbolic in nature. When our all-important life’s journey seems insignificant as compared to a superbeing saving the world, we are left with disappointment and feelings of failure. On the other hand, when media inspires us to acknowledge our part in the current awakening of human consciousness, when we observe characters working through situations which parallel our own life challenges, we can accept a more grounded version of reality permeated with the magic of the Mystery. Many consider this nourishment for the soul.

Making time to nourish the soul includes reflective time where we allow the deeper parts of ourselves to integrate experience. When we find ourselves trying to reduce life to something rational or logical; when we measure the soul’s journey by a yardstick borrowed from our work ethic, we might expect life to grant us a fairy tale, happily-ever-after existence in exchange for all the hard self-improvement work we have been doing. It is then helpful to remind ourselves life is what it is, that as surely as the sun rises, night will fall. Challenges will present themselves, and we can meet and move through them. They are key to us welcoming our destiny with as little resistance as possible. As we emerge from each challenge hopefully wiser, we more fully appreciate life’s little gifts, like the perfection of an unfolding flower or the grace of a hawk in flight. A deep attention to what is always around us elicits profound gratitude.

If we embrace life’s journey with attentiveness to the symbolic meaning inherent in all things, we become more discerning as a heightened awareness begins to permeate daily living. The attachment to our personal agenda becomes less overriding as we open ourselves to what is placed before us. We both actively make choices in life and let life come as it will. It is in holding this balance that we may discover greater levels of inner peace. We are less guarded by our fears of what is unknown, for we realize we are not in control of what lies ahead. In essence, we move into our destiny with openness and acceptance.

Imagine destiny as a river, flowing through the core of our lives. On the banks of this river are structures, houses, farms and businesses which inevitably will crumble and turn to dust. We remain busy throughout our lives, building, remodeling, tearing down, rebuilding. Still, the river flows on. We might move downstream, upstream or further away, yet it continues along throughout time, unchanged but for humans attempting to alter its course or its nature. Eventually though, even dams will disintegrate, and on and on the river flows. We might distract ourselves, yet even in this process of diversion, we deepen our experience of the river. Though we might not touch onto its banks for years at a time, when we do, we perceive it differently. We notice things about it that were not obvious before. In this way, we have not lost track of our destiny. It is foundational. Our peripheral experiences, whether painful or blissful, contribute to our perception of the river. And perhaps that’s how it is meant to be.

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One common happiness question is: How do you give yourself a boost? If you’re feeling anxious, blue, angry, scared, what can you do to soothe yourself?

A few days ago, I posted 5 myths for fighting the blues. Okay, those don’t work very well. So what does?

One suggestion: find a “comfort food” for your mind. Know what you can do with your brain that will give yourself a comforting break from your worries, at least for a little while. By doing so, you’ll re-charge your battery, find it easier to stay calm and cheerful, find it easier to take action to remedy your situation—and you’ll sleep better. But this is easier said than done.

We all suffer from “negativity bias,” that is, we react to the bad more strongly and persistently than to the comparable good. (What do you remember better, a compliment or a criticism?) Research shows one consequence of negativity bias is that when people’s thoughts wander, they tend to begin to brood. Anxious or angry thoughts capture our attention more effectively than happier thoughts.

So if you’re feeling blue, look for ways to pull your mind away from your worries onto positive topics. One great way is to watch a movie—not something upsetting!—or a favorite TV show. Don’t muddy the experience by trying to multi-task; if you’re paying bills or folding laundry, you’re not going to get the benefit of taking a break from your own thoughts to watch Shrek. Give yourself a proper vacation: sit down and enjoy what you’re doing.

My favorite activity is reading, and when I really need “comfort food” for my mind, I read children’s literature. I always re-read, too; when I’m upset, I want the comfort of knowing that I’ll love the book and that I won’t be upset by some unexpected plot twist. (For instance, I can’t bear any plot that includes unjust accusation. You wouldn’t believe how often unjust accusation pops up in books, movies, plays, and TV.) Just this weekend, I re-read Philip Pullman’s masterpiece, The Golden Compass, for the tenth or eleventh time, and it made me so happy.

I do find that some activities that are usually happiness-inducing don’t work very well when I’m preoccupied with bad thoughts. Listening to music, for example, is generally an extremely effective way to boost mood, but I find it too easy to start thinking about my worries when I’m listening; others might not have this problem. Similarly, although going for a walk usually cheers me up, it also gives me an excellent opportunity to brood if I’m in a brooding mood.

Cooking, cleaning, playing with your kids, playing video games, playing basketball—different people find different solutions. If you can find an activity that gives you exercise, gets you outside, or brings you in contact with other people, that’s especially effective.

So if you’re feeling overwhelmed, give yourself some mental comfort food. By giving yourself a break and a bit of comfort, you’ll make yourself feel better, and you’ll also equip yourself to deal more effectively with tough situations.

What mental comfort food works for you?

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Sixteenth century English philosopher Francis Bacon credits three inventions for having changed the course of history: the magnet, the compass and gunpowder. Along with these arrived a hubris which allowed certain people to assert dominion over nature unprecedented in our time. From the late Jungian James Hillman, who along with W.H. Roscher penned the spellbinding Pan and the Nightmare: When Pan is dead, nature can be controlled by the will of the new God, man, modeled in the image of Prometheus or Hercules, creating from it and polluting in it without a troubled conscience.

Who is Pan, except for a harmlessly playful mythological nymph-snatching nature sprite? According to Hillman, Pan manifests as a nightmare figure in many of our dreams due to the fundamental nature of man who, as sexual being, is at one with animal being, with instinct, and thus at one with nature.

Our entire Christian belief system is based upon a sky God rather than someone we can identify with here on earth. It is justifiably removed from our physical surroundings, allowing all manner of distortions in our perception of ourselves as stewards of sacred ground. To continue with Hillman, It is through the nightmare [that] the reality of the natural God is revealed. As the human loses personal connection with personified Nature and personified instinct, the image of Pan and the image of the Devil merge.

With our instinctual nature absent from everyday life, we lose touch with our intuitive, feeling qualities and ego assumes a dominant role. Judgment predominates, along with fear of those different from ourselves. Anything or anyone that is suspiciously Other is perceived as a threat. Ego is invested in identifying us as separate, unique. When taken to a collective level, earth may be seen as a battleground between the righteous versus evil interlopers. We can more easily demonize the Other while justifying our own self-righteousness.

On a national scale, a dangerous crosscurrent threatens the hallowed ground we all walk upon. There are powerful archetypal forces at play, and we may examine them to assist in our understanding of how our disregard for natural law has taken the struggle between intellect and humanity (mind vs. body) deep into the collective unconscious. To bring about healing and promote wholeness, we might begin to allow some of this conflict to resurface within ourselves in the form of simple awareness. Bringing some of these shadowy aspects to light and dealing with them in a self loving and forgiving way can facilitate a greater sense of inner peace and harmony. Sustainable living begins with a shift in awareness from self and other to self in relation to our world. Separation remains an illusion.

To return to a sustainable form of living, we must learn how to respect differences between people, cultures, countries, and species. We must unlearn the old mind-set that the right over nature [belongs to us] by divine bequest, as ecopsychologist Theodore Roszak offers in his biblically-proportioned saga Where the Wasteland Ends.

Indeed we might explore how we thought we had to choose between honoring the planet and honoring our Christian God; between loving our Mother and obeying our Father; between listening to the voice of an outside authority vs. trusting the inner voice of conscience. Ask the tough question, as did poet and artist William Blake, why our love of nature [must] be purchased at the cost of divine love.

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 Most of us have considered the wisdom in going with the flow. Surely life would be much easier if only we could! If we listen to the wisdom of the ages, we are familiar with the saying that God helps those who help themselves. We are also reminded to surrender to the will of the divine, as in “I will to do Thy will.” What is correct action, then? Surrendering completely to something greater, or using our God-given minds in decision making? And if a partnership is to take place, how do we know when to step in and do our part?

Going with the flow implies living in the moment, does it not? Yet few of us of any age or persuasion have fully mastered this. Our lives seem ever pregnant with choices, many involving simply being able to function in today’s hectic world. How do we meet unplanned expenses within a limited budget? Where can we squeak in some downtime with work, community and family obligations? How are we going to meet with another’s approval, or even pull up even with our own standards?

From Ezra Bayda, in his book Being Zen: “… perhaps the one question that we don’t ask often enough is What do I have to offer?” For asking this question can lead us into a more authentic means of self expression, no matter the challenge. We can only offer what we have to give, and that contribution is unique for each of us.

The more we confront the unknown, the more The Mystery may reveal itself to us. Thus we are able to enter into a partnership with the divine. Yet even knowing this, we cannot eliminate forays into the places which frighten us. In The Places That Scare You, Pema Chodron reminds us not to use spirituality as a way to bypass fear. We cannot awaken to our true nature while making choices based on moving away from anything. Yet there is always the potential to transform fear if we can surrender to the moment. For it is there that Creation awaits our participation.

Given the complications of modern-day existence, we can embrace flow by beginning where we are, with all our petty thoughts, annoying habits and other human imperfections. Wherever we go, there we are, the old Zen saying goes. Right now is the only time in which we hold the power to make different choices. Over time – often years – we gain confidence in our ability to remain present. Surrender becomes a learned response to the challenge of the personality’s desirous nature.

Change is constant, so we might as well get used to the ground shifting under our feet. Fighting it never makes it less true. Everything is in flux at all times. When we surrender to the flow, we learn to observe life as it unfolds, often to our delight. To ask Creation to show us a sign then miss the hawk flying overhead or the book virtually popping off the shelf into our hands is to require the numinous to become mundane. We cannot expect a personal note from God to float into our hands while waiting for the bus. Surrender is key to participating in the dance of all living things, to life in the flow.

Pema Chodron suggests that even enlightenment, or being fully awake, “is just the beginning of fully entering into we know not what.” If we do not begin to confront our groundlessness, we will ever be trapped in the illusion of security and safety.

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Most men … are so occupied with the factitious cares and superfluously coarse labors of life that its finer fruits cannot be plucked by them. He has no time to be anything but a machine. How can he remember well his ignorance – which his growth requires – who has so often to use his knowledge? We should feed and clothe him gratuitously sometimes, and recruit him with our cordials, before we judge of him. The finest qualities of our nature, like the bloom on fruits, can be preserved only by the most delicate handling. Yet we do not treat ourselves nor one another thus tenderly.

I sometimes wonder that we can be so frivolous, I may almost say, as to attend to the gross but somewhat foreign form[s] of servitude … there are so many keen and subtle masters … worst of all when you are the slave-driver of yourself. Talk of a divinity in man! How godlike, how immortal is he? See how he cowers and sneaks, how vaguely all the day he fears, not being immortal nor divine, but the slave and prisoner of his own opinion of himself. Public opinion is a weak tyrant compared with our own private opinion. What a man thinks of himself, that it is which determines, or rather indicates, his fate. Think also of the ladies of the land weaving toilet cushions against the last day, not to betray too green an interest in their fates! As if you could kill time without injuring eternity.

Who shall say what prospect life offers to another? Could a greater miracle take place than for us to look through each other’s eyes for an instant? We should live in all the ages of the world in an hour; ay, in all the worlds of the ages. I know of no reading of another’s experience so startling and informing as this would be.

Beware of all enterprises that require new clothes, and not rather a new wearer of clothes. If there is not a new man, how can the new clothes be made to fit? If you have any enterprise before you, try it in your old clothes. Perhaps we should never procure a new suit, however ragged or dirty the old, until we have so conducted, so enterprised or sailed in some way, that we feel like new men in the old.

I would rather sit on a pumpkin and have it all to myself than be crowded on a velvet cushion.

We now no longer camp as for a night, but have settled down on earth and forgotten heaven.

And I’ve not yet gotten to page forty! Hope you enjoyed reflecting on these as much as I did.

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~ Marianne Williamson

image: toltecartist.wordpress.com

Powerful forces of change are afoot in the world today. Yet we can still experience peace in our daily lives. Moving into a place of hope and positivity is a choice, though sometimes it surely seems otherwise. However with practice, I’m convinced that it’s within the grasp of most anyone, for each decision and movement we make is based in freedom or from fear.

In The Four Agreements, Don Miguel Ruiz expands on his philosophy that we live life in a dream. This societal dream is one in which we are immersed from an early age. Based on dominance, control and fear, it reveres technology while ignoring our sacred relationship to earth and the natural world. We are reminded that knowledge lies within each of us. Becoming aware of it is the challenge of our human condition. Ruiz teaches that “We go deep into hell and we suffer in order to acquire awareness … To get from hell, we need awareness which we acquire through intent and spirit … Heaven is a place without fear.”

Toltecs perceive humans as part of the earth’s greater ecosystem. As plants convert the sun’s energy through photosynthesis, so humans recycle energy back through emotional energies. We work for the earth twenty-four hours a day, just like the bees and the ants. “The work we do for the planet is to make emotions. Making emotions is the main function of the human mind.”

The prime emotion we may move toward when we release trepidation is love. Ruiz studies all the world’s major spiritual traditions, discovering a common thread of love running throughout. Churches teach it, so do parents. Often however, the kinds of love we see demonstrated carry a charge of fear – from the fire and brimstone preacher to individuals who give love with strings attached. True love is unconditional and cannot exist in the presence of fear. We fail to experience it while under the threat of losing it if we do the wrong thing.

Many Western religions scorn the physical body and its propensity for desire and physical love. Yet if we dissociate from our bodies because we’ve learned not to trust them and to fear their sensate nature, we break faith with the natural world and deny our inherent knowing. The body conveys consciousness into the world. In addition, spiritual practice with an unquiet mind in abandonment of the physical body is like driving a car with our eyes shut and our hands off the wheel. Most physical and mental exercise in our society is based on this sort of driven philosophy, where we push ourselves beyond endurance to “perfect” the body or to “challenge” the mind.

Perhaps we are less afraid of our inadequacies than of not measuring up to some perceived standard. Realize such standards are set to rein in the masses and foster social order. They then are disseminated by the minions of media, hypnotizing many into believing their mandates. As far as I can see however, our spirits are limitless. Accessing the truth of this allows us to blossom and flower into our full potential as sentient human beings, contributing to a more peaceful and just planetary community. We become the change, liberating ourselves and others, instead of kicking back, zoning out and becoming swept up in its jaw-clenching grip.

image: beautiful-tree.blogspot.com

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~ Albert Einstein

image: Leonardo Da Vinci

I recently posted this to Facebook, where a friend commented that it’s a difficult task to be limitless. Yet I think in some ways this is the very thing we most, in the deepest recesses of being, want for ourselves. It almost feels like an imperative, driven from a need to yearn for limitlessness, like the Universe possessing a longing to express itself through all its life forms (we humans likely being the most recalcitrant when it comes to a reception of that nature).

And what is it that makes us perceive ourselves separate from, say, the snail? Many agree it’s because humans alone possess a rational mind from which springs thought. Reflection. Emotion. I love my mind; thrill at its accomplishments – how I can, for example, pick up a set of pastels after having put them down over twenty years ago and render a decent portrait.

I love crafting words into sentences – tweaking this and cutting and pasting that. I love that birds can fly and have such an expanded view of the sky and the forest and sea – but I wouldn’t actually wish to be a bird. Instead if I could, I would project my consciousness into that creature enough that I could experience flight without distressing it in any way. But as a bird, I would be exposed to a great deal of uncertainty as well as having too short a life span to grow beyond my species’ limitations.

The human mind can rule a person to such an extent that some of us truly do forget quite easily (thus the optical delusion of consciousness). We forget where we placed our keys, but also we have difficulty in connecting with our primal origins, which is another form of forgetting, perhaps a kinesthetic one. To free the mind, I must be willing to release that which I once felt supported me. The walls of personhood begin to crumble, and who am I, if not my history, my heartbreaks, my victories? Yet these are the same walls preventing me from granting a greater power more direct access. Ironically, relinquishing walls gifts me with a wider freedom and ease. But it can be alarmingly unfamiliar too, and I have a built-in resistance to change that must be DNA-deep (though I work to soften it daily).

As I open and relax into expansiveness, I discover other, deeper layers that begin to soften as well. Yet words and concepts are one thing. Actually embodying this sort of magnitude of change takes practice. But as it becomes more familiar, it feels right, somehow. I begin glimpsing how my own life works. Conversely, I notice the underpinnings of others – their pain and suffering at living illusion and making it real. I know. I’ve been there. Now I can wish for them to awaken to that spacious beauty within, just like the trees and the ocean and the wind. The forest becomes my home, as does the sea (and, when I fly in an airplane or in dreams, the sky). This home is sacred. Thus I seek balance – not just for myself, because I do not exist outside the cosmos. What is personal extends beyond boundaries to all of life – for we are all dancers in this great cosmic experiment.

image: homeinteriordesignthemes.com

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Elaine Aron, in The Highly Sensitive Person, asks not that we get over our sensitivities, but, in effect, to get with them and learn to honor ourselves just as we are. A general trait of highly sensitive people is that we have no control over stimulation. And though some of us can get used to certain stimulations, overstimulation still depletes us. When we feel depleted, it seems to me that some of us retreat into ourselves and others lash out (as if to say Leave me alone! without quite knowing how to ask). Waiting until we are grossly over-stimulated can create several unpleasant scenarios. One might be that we unintentionally hurt others. Then we are bound to feel badly about ourselves.

Society and many of our family members do not like it when we seem to require special treatment (thus we need to learn to treat ourselves with care). Another consequence of failing to honor our needs is that we push ourselves until we become ill. In both cases, we can learn to appreciate our sensitivities and set guidelines to help us cope. This begins with more fully exploring who we are and what we are made of, so that we might better understand what our needs might be.

When my children were young, we lived out in the country. Coming from a large family myself, I didn’t get a lot of one-on-one time with my parents while growing up. After bringing my daughters into the world, I was determined to give them what I felt I did not get enough of, including time and parental attention. As young girls, they wanted to interact with others and to experience the world outside familiar surroundings. One of the only ways for them to do this, given where we lived and the lack of structured youth activities, was by visiting a distant city or even the mall! No matter when they asked to go somewhere, I would drop what I was doing and arrange a trip. After all, they didn’t ask very often and I was their only mode of transportation. But at certain times, I felt so overwhelmed that, during our drive, I would blurt out in frustration, “I just can’t do this one more time! Can’t you just be satisfied being home?” and so on. Taken aback, one of them would invariably respond, “Well, Mom, why didn’t you just say ‘no’?” 

Though saying ‘no’ seems simple to me now, at the time it seemed absurd. As a highly sensitive person, I recognized the incredible gift I was given in mothering my daughters. I wanted them to be exposed to art, music, culture, friends. I wanted them to have all I could provide, putting myself last on the list. If you are a parent, perhaps you know what I mean. However when we put ourselves last, we invariably grow to resent it. We can’t draw water from a dry well. No matter how much we love those we are here to serve, we need to serve ourselves first, in a profound way. This doesn’t mean we are selfish. It does mean we learn to honor our need for rest, introspection and regrouping. As we do this, we set a healthy example for others to follow, including our children.

We live in a very driven culture, and increasingly, a driven world. Sensitive or not, we all need to stop and refuel. Yet the sensitive person needs down-time. If you are one of “us,” please stop waiting for someone to give you permission to live your life. Stop simply hoping others will treat you kindly, the way you would treat them. You might be waiting a very long time. Start with honoring your own feelings, treating yourself with respect. (If you have trouble doing this, honor yourself enough to get help.) Learn to ask for what you need and stick with it. Don’t backdoor your needs by trying to earn others’ approval first. As Rick Nelson sang in Garden Party, “You can’t please everyone, so you got to please yourself.”

image: Scott Parrish

And to view Rick Nelson performing Garden Party:

watch?v=fxdiraVxwkI

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