Love

While doing some cleaning i came across a paper I had kept from a retreat some years back. It describes love and I would like to share the message with you. Here goes….

Love is not love until it hurts
for it is only in forgiveness that
it proves itself.
But how can pain, pride,
anger and tears possibly
be part of loving?

Sometimes the battle seems
too much for us and the vision
of love we once held so dear
seems unobtainable.
Perhaps the foundation stone
beneath all the conflicting emotions
is the genuine desire to love
not to be wholly content
with things as they are

For this is not the whole story
Somewhere, somehow, one day
we shall find the pain and joy
fitting together at last into a
pattern. And we shall say
‘Yes we were not mistaken
this is love – and it is glorious!’

Then we shall be able to see the pain
as part of the whole process
and not give up on loving
because we think it is joy only.

Really beautiful words, unfortunately I don’t know its author, maybe some of you might have come across it somewhere and can tell me who wrote it. It is worth reading once or twice and reflecting on its message…

Just Do It - Being at cause

I recently realised that my biggest regrets in life so far have been things that I have not done, and not those that i did try. This means that there have been opportunities and situations that for some reason I have not taken action upon and now I regret the fact that I didn’t do anything about them. I wonder how many people feel the same way too, I would be interested to have some feedback on this.

For me and others who feel the same way, it clearly means that we have to start being less shy, more spontaneous and having a ‘Just Do It’ attitude. After all, even if things do not turn out as planned, it’s an occasion to get feedback and learn something useful for the future.

Now in order to empower ourselves in order to start taking action on whatever the problems/opportunities are, we need to step up our belief system and get rid of all the negative beliefs we have about ourselves, such as ‘I’m not a good talker, I’m not so attractive etc.’. I’ll go ino more detail on believe systems later on, however the basic principle is that most of us have alot of limiting beliefs which we need to analyse and eliminate as they are holding us back from achieving our full potential.

We also have to consider the Cause>Effect principle. It is important to be aware of whether we live our life at cause or at effect. It is quite rare to find someone who always lives his or her life at cause, indeed far too many of us live a large portion of our lives at effect — responding to the whims, desires or emotional states of others.

Being at cause means that you are decisive in creating what you want in life and taking responsibility for what you have achieved or will achieve. You see the world as a place of opportunity and you move towards achieving what you desire. If things are not unfolding as you would like, you take action and explore other possibilities. Above all, you know you have choice in what you do and how you react to people and events.

If you are at effect you may blame others or circumstances for your bad moods or for what you have not achieved or for your life in general. You may feel powerless or depend on others in order for you to feel good about yourself or about life — If only my spouse, my boss, my coworkers, my parents, my children, … understood me and helped me achieve my dreams or did what I wanted or what is best for me, then life would be great. If you wait and hope for things to be different or for others to provide, then you are at effect or a victim of circumstances. And really, how much fun is that? And how much fun do you think it is for others to be around you? Believing that someone else is responsible or making them responsible for your happiness or your different moods is very limiting and gives this person some mystical power over you, which can cause you a great deal of anguish.

Being at cause means you have choices in your life — you can choose what is best for you while ensuring the choice is ecological for those around you, those in your community and your society. That is, you consider the consequences of your actions on others, while not taking responsibility for their emotional well-being — believing you are responsible for the emotional well-being of someone else places a heavy burden on you and can cause a great deal of stress.

Those who live their lives at effect often see themselves or live their lives as victims with no choices whatsoever. The irony is that they do have choice and they have chosen not to choose but to be responsive to whatever is given to them.

Techniques to start a conversation

Ever been in a situation where you would really like to talk to someone but have no clue how to start the conversation? Let’s make sure that doesn’t ever happen again shall we? Here are three tried and tested tips that will get you talking to anyone!

1. Whatzit technique
   A whatzit is any object that the other person is wearing which is a bit strange or interesting. So look for such things and then just go up to the person and ask “I like this, what is it?” or “What an interesting piece of jewellery, where did you get that from?”. Chances are the other person will be happy you asked about it and will gladly start a conversation with you. You should also wear a whatzit to draw people’s attention and give them something that inspires them to talk to you.
2. Whoozat technique
   Another great technique is one that is frequently used politicians. Ain’t it funny how these guys always seem to know so many people. Well one of the main techniques they used is in fact the whoozat technique. Let’s say that you are at a party and you only know a few people. These few people that you know probably know alot of others that you don’t know yet. So just go to one of your friends and say “That man/woman over there looks interesting. Who is he/she?”. Your friend will probably say something along the lines of “Oh that’s Francesca, she’s really nice and she’s really into sports”. So there, you’ve just been given the icebreaker you need, now all you have to do is go up to Francesca and say “Hi, you’re Francesca, aren’t you? James was just telling me how good you are at sports. Do you have a preferred sport?”. That’s the idea.
3. Eavesdrop in technique
   Ok so let’s say that the person you want to talk to is not wearing any whatzit, and none of your friends happen to know him/her. Furthermore the person is engaged in conversation with some others, so you would think that the situation’s hopeless. Not so, there is always the useful eavesdrop technique you can use. Just stand in the vicinity of the group and when you hear something you can comment on just say “Excuse me, I just heard you talking about Rome, I’m going there next month, any suggestions?”. That’s it, you’re in the group now

There they are, three top techniques that will get you talking in no time at all. Also remember to match the mood of the other person in the opening phase of the conversation. If a person looks tired don’t go happily shouting and full of body movements, likewise if a person is really in a great energetic mood you won’t score any points if you talk with a boring voice and tired look. If you ever want to bring people around to your thoughts, you must match their mood and voice tone, if only for a moment.