We become so invested in OUR views and opinions that those who think differently become our adversaries. We become a fundamentalist: one who feels strongly that we are right and we close our mind to those who think otherwise. (Pema Chodron. Taking the Leap: Freeing Ourselves from Old Habits and Fears.)

Wishing you peace and well being as you pause and look at your attachments.

PS: Remember to hold the one's you love just a little closer and tighter this week._/l\_

In Jill Bolte Taylor's book My Stroke of Insight, she points to scientific evidence showing that the life span of any particular emotion is only one and a half minutes. After that we have to revive the emotion and get it going again. Our usual process is that we automatically do revive it by feeding it with an internal conversation about how another person is the source of our discomfort. (Pema Chodron. Taking the Leap: Freeing Ourselves from Old Habits and Fears.)

Wishing you peace and well being as you become more familiar and at home with dropping the storyline and trusting that you have the capacity to stay present and receptive to others.

PS: Remember to hold the one's you love just a little closer and tighter this week._/l\_

There is difference between WISHING for a thing and being READY to receive it. You are never ready for a thing until you believe you can acquire it. The state of mind must be BELIEF, not mere hope or wish. Open-mindedness is essential for belief. Closed minds do not inspire faith, courage, and belief. (Nathan Hill. Think and Grow Rich).

Wishing you peace and well being as you open you mind.

PS: Remember to hold the one's you love just a little closer and tighter this week._/l\_

Too many people have the habit of measuring everything and everyone by their own impressions and beliefs. These habits have been created because their thinking is steeped in poverty, want, misery, failure, and defeat. (Napoleon Hill. Think and Grow Rich!)

Wishing you peace and well being as you confront your thinking and learn the art of changing your mindset.

PS: Remember to hold the ones you love just a little closer and tighter this week._/l\_

Life isn't about finding yourself, life is about creating yourself. (E.W. Wilcox)

Wishing you peace and well being as you create yourself._/l\_

PS: Remember to hold the one's you love just a little closer and tighter this week.

When you share your throughts, wishes, and desires with others, it immediately gives them substance and meaning. In doing so they create an energy that can then be changed into physical things and create new experiences. (Jeff Voorhees. My Big AHA. Inviting Dialogue: Inspiring Stories about the power of master mind. [Ed] Jodee Bock & Brenda Levos.)

Wishing you peace and well being as your create new experiences.

PS: Remember to hold the one's you love just a little closer and tighter this week._/l\_

Idiot compassion is the well-intentioned but ineffectual kindness that does not help others cut through their confusion but instead supports the habitual patterns and ego-clinging that perpetuates theirsuffering. (Karen Kissel Wegel. The Courage to be Present).

Wishing you peace and well being as you cut through your confusion.

PS: Remember to hold the one's you love just a little tighter and closer this week. _/l\_

The only way to relax with yourself is to open your heart. Then you have a chance to see who you are. This experience is like opening a parachute. When you jump out of an airplane and open the chute, you are there in the sky by yourself. Sometimes it is very frightening, but on the other hand, when you take this step, the whole situation, the whole journey, makes sense. You have to actually do it, and then you will understand. (Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche. Smile at Fear: Awakening the True Heart of Bravery.)

Wishing you peace and well being as you open your chute.

PS: Remember to hold the one's you love just a little closer and tighter this week._/l\_

In the middle of the road of my life
I awoke in a dark wood
where the true way was wholly lost. (Dante)

In three brief lines Dante say that the journey begins right here. In the middle of the road. Right beneath your feet. This is the place. There is no other place and no other time. Even if you are successful and follow the road you have set for yourself, you can never leave here. Despite everything you have achieved, life refuses to grant you, and always will refuse to grant you, immunity from its difficulties.

"One day, in the middle of everything, we awake and see our life as we have made it." (David Whyte. The Heart Aroused.)

Wishing you peace and well being as you wake to your life.

PS: Remember to hold the one's you love just a little closer and tighter this week._/l\_

Mishaps are occurances, big or small, that jolt us back to the present moment. They can be small, annoying, or unexpected events that make us realize we are not paying attention to what is happening to us at the moment. How we regard them and choose to handle them is what makes them either a nuisance or an opportunity for growth. (Walt Hernandez. There Will Be Mishaps. Shambhala Times. August 29, 2009.)

Wishing you peace and well being as you work with your mishaps.

PS: Remember to hold the one's you love just a little closer and tighter this week._/l\_

When a friend is in tremendous emotional or physical pain, sometimes we're afraid to go and be with him or her, or afraid of communicating honestly when we visit. We think we should know how to relieve our friend's pain, or have just the right things to say. Yet what a person who is suffering most needs is our presence. (The Wisdom of Listening. [Ed] Mark Brady.)

The Greek word for one who comforts is paraclete, literally meaning "one who comes to walk along side." Wishing you peace and well-being as you walk aside those who are suffering and in pain.

PS: Remember to hold the one's we love just a little closer and tighter this week._/l\_

Courage is about being emotionally comfortable with ourselves - letting go of anger, arrogance, prestige, greed - and being honest with ourselves right here, right now, on the spot. (Michael Carroll. The Mindful Leader.)

Wishing you peace and well being as you discover and let go of arrogance, rigidness, and small-mindedness of all kinds.

PS: Remember to hold the one's you love just a little tighter and closer this week._/l\_

Taking the leap involves making a commitment to ourselves and to the earth itself - making a commitment to let go of old grudges, to not avoid people and situations and emotions that make us feel uneasy, to not cling to our fears, our close-mindedness, our hardheartedness, our hesitation. Now is the time to develop trust in our basic goodness and the basic goodness of our sisters and brothers on this earth; a time to develop confidence in our ability to drop our old ways of staying stuck and to choose wisely. We could do that right here and right now. (Pema Chödrön. Taking the Leap.)

Wishing you peace and well being as you “take the leap.”

PS: Remember to hold the one’s you love just a little closer and tighter this week._/l\_

The only person who is consistently present, in every scene of that long-running drama we call our life, is ourselves. (James Hollis. Finding Meaning in the Second Half of Life.)

Wishing you peace and well being as you recognize that you are also the author.

PS: Remember to hold the one's you love just a little closer and tighter this week._/l\_

Life is not a problem to be solved but an experiment to be lived. (James Hollis, PhD.  Swamplands of the Soul.)

Wishing you peace and well being as you live your experiment.

PS: Remember to hold the one's you love just a little closer and tighter this week._/l\_

Frequently our choices lie between the lesser of two evils, but it is still within our power to make these choices. You can try to avoid responsibility by trying to give your power, your freedom, to another person or organization or entity, but we choose every step and the manner in which we are going to respond. (M. Scott Peck, The Road Less Traveled.)

Wishing you peace and well being as recognize that the choices you have are almost unlimited.

PS: Remember to hold the one's you love just a little closer and tighter this week._/l\_

The key aspect of living together harmoniously is the discipline of each individual. When each individual has discipline and confidence, that begins to exude into the environment. (The Kongma Sakyong, Jampal Trinley Dradul.)

Wishing you peace and well being as you practice discipline and confidence.

PS: Remember to hold the one's you love just a little closer and tighter this week._/l\_