A great deal of...

hurt, pain, distress, heartache, trouble, misunderstanding..........can be spared if only one observes this wonderful Arabian Proverb -

The words of the tongue should have three gatekeepers:

Is it true?

Is it kind?

Is it necessary?


And it's never too late to start over, and over, and over...

Some thoughts...

I read this in Diffenbaugh's 'The Language of Flowers' - When Victoria, who is a mis-and a dis-everything because of her life experiences except for her love for and talent with flowers, was struggling to find out which flowers she could use in a bouquet for a customer who was looking for 'desire' in her relationship with her husband, for a moment thinks - 'I could give Annemarie a bouquet of something bold and bright and lie about its meaning....,' she brings herself up short and realizing that she just could not do something like this. Her thoughts were ' I had been loyal to nothing except the language of flowers. If  I started lying about it, there would be nothing left in my life that was beautiful or true.' And with that thought, she went to another flower expert, who she trusted, for help, and gave Annemarie the right kind of flowers.

We do so many things - but in all that there has to be something - one thing - which we love, which we are good at and which we enjoy doing.....we have to remain loyal to that no matter what the obstacles that come in our way.

Loyalty is also to ourselves - our values and beliefs - the core of who we are - so in a relationship, we have to see that while compromises and adjustments may have to be made, we must never hide, or try to change or re-model that deep core - because that is who we are. .........I cannot be a carbon copy of you, or your clone, but I can be a good friend and companion. This is also a hugely difficult thing because all the time we come across people who desperately try to make us who they would wish us to be.......This is also where dear honest friends come in, who love us for what we are, and who nudge us reminding us of who we are, bringing us back on our own rails...

A relationship...

is all about investment of yourself...

How much are you willing to invest of yourself in a relationship - any relationship.

For,

What  you get in return is in direct proportion to what you invest.

Agreed a relationship has two people in it. If one does all the investing, the relationship is never going to hold. Both have to invest - both have to want to invest.

No relationship can ever be taken for granted - least of all the one with your children. So you have a relationship with friends, with a spouse, with an organization, with an employer, with employees, with the neighborhood shop, with the vegetable vendor, with your country....... .And each of these needs an investment.

So first of all are you willing to invest?

and next,

how much are you willing to invest?

You even have a relationship with yourself. Which therefore means that you have to invest in yourself too. And what you invest in yourself, is what forms the corpus of what you are going to invest in others. And, better still, what you invest in others comes back to you as interest on investment and thus strengthening you... .The catch is that if you invest in yourself, either to the exclusion of investing in others, or don't invest enough in others, then what comes back is also a mean quantity.....

This whole process of investing can be joyful and very, very rewarding!!

Everything...

but everything............ but everything.............

is built one single step at a time.

Those steps may be big or small, painful or happy, stressed or relaxed, difficult or easy.....

but if you seek not to skip the steps, or jump over them, or be negative about them, then you move - one step at a time.

You may balk at a particularly dicey-looking step, or cry before one, or hesitate because you are apprehensive about something. But step you must, and if you do, and hang in there, no matter what - without looking back - it will be easier for you to negotiate the steps by and by. They don't get easier, but you find them easier just by carrying on...

Three...

powerful thoughts...

Disbelief in ourselves is disbelief in God - Kabbalah.

If you accept a limiting belief, then it will become a truth for you - Louise Hay

History, despite its wrenching pain, cannot be unlived, but if faced with courage, need not be lived again - Maya Angelou


We have to believe in ourselves...for those of us who find this hard to do, for whatever reason, use the belief that those who love you have in you - for they love you for those very qualities that you find it hard to believe you have. Do so before these limiting thoughts become your truth. Forget the past, for every time you let it steal into your mind, you are reinforcing them and preventing them from letting you see today as it is, and you as you are... .You can also rest in the faith and belief that mistakes made become history in the next instant - that should give us the courage to keep moving on in a better and better way...

Look...

into the eyes of another, when waves of pain threaten to engulf you, and you will find that there is always something to be grateful for...

Your child...

never asked to be born.....she is a gift, to be treasured, and nurtured.......