Recently I was having a conversation with someone about how hard it is to leave a relationship. They were talking about how there never seems to be the right time or the right moment to leave. She was trying to find a way to leave this relationship without hurting the other person. It had been a long journey to arrive at the space where she realized she had done all she could and given all she had to make it work, but that this relationship had served its purpose in her life. She had learned so many valuable lessons, but the growth they had enabled each other to do was now taking them in completely different directions. She was staying in this relationship out of fear and not out of love. As she saw breaking up, it was about how she had failed. It seems like this is how most people feel when a relationship ends; there is a focus on what did I do wrong. However, when we shift the perspective and begin to give thanks for the gifts that have come through this relationship, the growth we have experienced, and the blessings we have received, it becomes easier to give thanks and let go because we are focused on the positive.
Read moreMerriam and Webster’s dictionary
defines uncomfortable as “causing or feeling slight pain or physical discomfort.”
Some people when thinking about what makes them uncomfortable think about things
they wear. Things such as shoes may start feeling comfortable when first put on,
however by the end of the day, you can be so ready to slide your feet out of
them and slip into something far more comfortable. Sometimes after eating a filling
meal, the waistband on our clothes can make you wish you were wearing something
stretchable because it is beginning to feel a little uncomfortable. My female
friends will tell you that one of the most uncomfortable things they wear is a
bra and many cannot wait to get home and take that off as soon as possible.
Read moreWhen I was a little girl, there was nothing I enjoyed more then when my parents would tell me a story. I guess I inherited that gift because today I telling stories and using them to teach important lessons. Lately I have been thinking about one of my favorite stories. It’s a simple, but powerful story called “The Rabbi’s Gift.”
There was a famous monastery, which had fallen on very hard times. Formerly its many buildings were filled with young monks and its big church resounded with the singing of the chant, but now it was deserted. People no longer came there to be nourished by prayer. A handful of old monks shuffled through the cloisters and praised their God with heavy hearts.
Read moreGrowing up I remember hearing my parents and other adults say “When you assume, you make an ASS out of U and ME.” For the last 18 months, I have been working on no longer making assumptions in my life. I am not even sure that in the beginning I realized how often I made assumptions. I knew that I like so many people made assumptions. However, it was not until I consciously began to work on not making them that I realized how often I did. I began to realize how many times I made assumptions about the little things in people’s lives.
It really hit me one day when I was having coffee with a few of my students and they began talking about a couple at a table near us and creating this whole life about them just by looking at them.
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