Our real hearts, vs the "Wounded" heart

Our real hearts love.

Love the other person.
Love ourselves.
Love our good days.
Love our bad days.
Love the other person's good and bad days.

We are curious and compassionate and generous about our and their
bad days, or moments.

We know that people don't "act out," or act mean, or lie, or act selfishly unless they are
in
pain.

Pain is enough
of a pain,
and if we condemn it, this isn't love.

This is the same old shit of parents,
and teachers,
and religious leaders who disguise the God thing
for various control trips.

Oh, well.

That's their business.

Our business,
if we want a happy, awakened and useful life:

Watch for others' real nature:
under the wound,
under the "behavior" we think
"should"
be different:

who is the real,
amazing,
same as us,
even though completely unique
person?

AND ON THE OTHER HAND
za wounded heart:
wants others to be wounded,
envies others,
lashes out,
can't be kind,
wants to complain,
wants to put down,
wants to run away when things get "too good,"
wants to run away when things get "tricky,"
wants to control
wants to self absorb

blah, blah, blah

basically:
when we are unhappy, and wanting the other (or ourselves)
to be different,
we
are
not present
and our wounded heart,
which means our mindless self,
which means our unhappy conditioning can run the show.

It's all or nothing,
not in a big Hollywood movie way,
but moment by moment:

are we mindful
or
are
we
mindless

Choose

the choice is the glory
of human life
and the amazing grace
is that this choice is
always

NOW


wow


good for us
good for life
good for all our awakened moments,
good for the suffering from our mindless moments, the pain of which is the
WAKE UP ALARM

YES.

good

Vows for Relationship Enlightenment

1. I vow to be present and authentic in and apart from our relationship.

Authentic means true to my feelings, wishes, goals and moment by moment inclinations.
It does not demand of you to match, join, or even approve of my authentic self.

And most especially, authentic does not include the cowardly "honesty" of complaining about what's going on in me and blaming that on you.

2. I vow to have zero tolerance for any complaining about you from me. I.e. not to do it.
Ever.

3. I do vow to be honest in my feelings, rather than repressed. To combine this with #2, I vow to state my feelings only in this shortened form:
"I feel angry."  Period. No "because you..."
"I feel sad." Period. No "because you..."

4. I vow to take total responsibility for all the "because-s" after any feelings I have.
These usually include some or all of these:
a. lack of being present
b. a story about how the other is not (and should) match some picture in my mind
c. a trigger from some past "wound," which means an area I haven't "done" the Work on yet.
d. a cowardly attempt/ habit  to blame others outside for what I feel inside.

5. I vow to do the Work ( the Work of Byron Katie, TheWork.com) on any and all of my stories.

6. I vow to commit myself to your happiness, to your achieving your life goals and wishes, to your need for space, time and respect.

7. I vow to listen when you wish to communicate. Fully. In the present. No interrupting. No interpreting.

8. I vow not to interpret any of your behavior, thinking or feeling, unless you are doing some inner work and ASK for this.

9. These are my vows.
You can join them or not. I invite you to, and that's your business.
I you join them, I vow not to nag, scold, or even point out when you "fail" to meet them.

10. On the other hand, I vow to listen to your observations about when and how I have missed the mark on keeping them.

11. I vow to make requests, not demands. Which means I vow to honor and even enjoy any and all "no's" to my requests, as what they are: you exercising your right and joy to be precisely the one whom I love: you being exactly yourself, moment by moment.

Good

Other people love us, and sometimes they forget

So much of life
is so agonized by wising, wanting, demanding
that some one,
or some ones
appreciate or love or approve of us more.

Trick and truth is:
they do love us.
They may be capable of appreciating us.
They may have the generosity to approve of us.
They may not.

And they do love us.

They just don't know it.

This is an exercise from the book, for sale to the right:
And it's a doozy.

Take someone with whom things seem not to be "going so well,"
and write a if from them to you,
a pretend
letter
to you.

In that letter say exactly what you want to hear.

This is them.

If the letter is kind and loving and apologetic and open
and insightful and seeing how you and they are the same,
and admiring and loving you.

This is who they really are.

You'll feel it.
You'll notice it.

They might never notice nor ever feel this love.

Oh, well.
It's there.

Life is good.

Just relax when someone can't come through with the goods.

Life is good.

They would love you if they could.

They are afraid,
or don't know how to love,
or are afraid to love more,
or afraid to love at all,
or never really learned how to love.

And where are they going to learn?

You loving them, even when they forget that
they love
you.

That's one way they'll learn.

And another: they'll discover the pain of not loving themselves,
and stop.
If they are wise and alert and notice what's what.

If not, they'll keep suffering and
not yet knowing how to love you,
and so be it.

Love them all you can.

They are you, when you forget how much
love you have.

When you forget how much love,
you
are.

Good.

Where does Love Live?

Look for yourself with the eyes: nothing to see
Listen for yourself with your ears: nothing to hear
Reach for yourself with your hand: everything to touch

the soil and the baby's face
the hammer and the pen
the skin and the boot

and they are not you

where are you?

Seamless
un-namable
we spring from the Nothing

and in the middle of this Nothing:
love

a light to guide us
back
to
Truth

which can't be tasted
or seen
but can be
Lived

#1054: If God is love, is Valentine's day holy?

Here's how to be present:

Don't try
Just realize:
you are alive

go with the obvious:
you are breathing
and
you are in gravity
and
you are in light
and
there is sound
around

that's four anchors to the now:

your breath

the bones and flesh of your legs and spine and arms creating
the shape
whatever shape of you
is now
right now
in gravity

feel gravity's pull
feel / sense your arms and legs and spine

that's two

three:
realize experience pay attention to enjoy:
whatever light
is
right now
coming in your eyes

four:
sounds
ears
what's the nowness
of that

that's a good solid anchor

in bed
walking
fixing breakfast
eating
talking
quieting
driving a car
working
talking on phone;;

breathing
light
gravity in arms and legs and spine
sound in ears

this is you
alive
now

full
sweet
amazing wonderful


And if God is love, is Valentine's day holy?

if God is love
every day is holy

every hour

every moment

every now

wow

good

The importance of love, 22

How many times can you say

that
love is
important?

As many as you want to.

And that seems a little silly.
And silly is one of the best wrods
in the English language.

Along with land and love and work
and joy and ease and laughter.

It's okay to be silly every once in
a while
and it's good to fall in love
often

preferably with the same person
but if that person dies
or leaves you
or you leave
them,
fall in love with someone else

And can you love someone who leaves
you?
Yes.
And can you love someone you leave?
Very important: yes.
Love them while you are with them
and then love them when any
parting comes.

For half a day.
For a week.
For the rest of your lives.

Why stop loving just
because the roof isn't shared
any more?

And what about marriage?

Marriage is good.
An agreement to share the roof,
come hard times or good, come this or that.

Basically: an agreement to work it
out
if things need to be worked out.

I'm a big fan of working things out
as
foreplay.

Let me repeat that:
I'm a big fan of working things out
as
foreplay.

Not this old theatrical way:
of screaming and arguing and then someone
or both bursting into tears
and then the hugs
and then the sex.

Yikes. That's just a recipe for rewarding
screaming cat fights.

No, the working out of listening:
Oh, that's what you think.
Oh, that's what you feel.
Oh, that's how you see it.
Oh, of course you are right from your point of view
and of course I'm right from my point of view
and we don't have to be so coarse as
to demand that only one of us be right.

Let's both be right.
Let's both be wrong.
Let's both be smart.
Let's both be fools.

Ah, their is so much the same
about us.

We are one,
the human family,
the you and me and our love
family,
the awakening to reality family,

and that's the foreplay.

Waking up to the love
that is there

always
for everyone
when we are awake

and certainly for our mate
if we have one

and for ourselves and the trees
and our dogs and cats
and friends
if we don't

love is important
like breathing

it's always there
and when we remember
and experience it:
it feels like our life
is being lived
as we were meant
to
live

ah
yes

good