Here are 7 quotes about frenemies for this week. Let me know which one(s) ring true for you.
Thank you fake friends! You’ve only made me stronger and wiser. ~Unknown
Time will prove the worth of friendship. As time goes by we lose the false ones and keep the best. True friends stay when all the rest are gone. ~Ritu Ghatourey
Don’t worry about those who talk behind your back. They’re behind you for a reason. ~Unknown
An honest enemy is better than a false friend. When in doubt, pay more attention to what people do and less to what they say. Actions not only speak louder than words, they are more difficult to fake. ~Zero Dean
An insincere and evil friend is more to be feared than a wild beast; a wild beast may wound your body, but an evil friend will wound your mind. ~The Buddha
A friend who stands with you in pressure is more valuable than a hundred ones who stand with you in pleasure. ~Edward G. Bulwer-Lytton
Better to have an enemy who slaps you in the face than a friend who stabs you in the back. ~Unknown
Tomorrow we’re going to be talking about handling the feelings you have after being with a frenemy. Come back and join the conversation!
Recently, I tweaked my morning practice. I now spend the first 20 – 30 minutes of the day sitting in silence–not meditating but sitting in silence and listening. It’s through this updated practice that I discovered I don’t really thank myself. I console myself, treat myself from time-to-time, and I even spoil myself when I’m feeling particularly bruised.
But I hadn’t made it a regular practice to thank myself.
The benefits I’ve discovered in the short while that I’ve done this have been pleasantly surprising. As I said in yesterday’s post, it’s helping me turn away from the past, letting go of it, and, as I said in yesterday’s post, I’ve found that forgiveness–of myself and others–is a natural, welcomed consequence.
I’ve also discovered that it’s an effective way to “turn that frown upside down”. The disparaging things that people have said about me–and even the negative things I tell myself–can be neutralized with this technique.
For instance, if someone says that we’re stubborn, usually that has a negative connotation: that we’re ornery and prickly and not very nice people. Needless to say, this can have a very bad impact on our self-esteem!
But, what if we took that statement, “you’re so stubborn”, and instead dug a little deeper in ourselves to find what’s going on. We probably aren’t agreeing to go along with what the other person wants for a very good reason. It can be that the person didn’t think through what they’re asking us to do and we can see all sorts of pitfalls. We should thank ourselves for being the type of people who think things through and do reasonable due diligence before undertaking something. We need to thank ourselves for being in tune with our intuition and the warning bells that are alerting us to something that needs further investigation.
So, stubborn? Not hardly! And, Yay Us for having the skill and nerve to speak up and do what we think is right!
Also, I’ve found that thanking myself is a great way to start off the day. And, it’s also a great way to press the reset button on the day. Naturally, it’s an excellent way to fall asleep, too!
You don’t have to make a big ordeal out of thanking yourself and it doesn’t have to be for Big Stuff. It can be for simple things such as “Thank you, me, for enjoying Nature and being able to give myself a lift by gazing at it through my window.” Or “Thank you, me, for being diligent and persistent about understanding who I truly am.” Or “Thank you, me, for choosing such good friends.” Or “Thank you, me, for buying fresh flowers for my home once a month.” Or “Thank you, me, for always trying to see the good side of situations.” Or “Thank you, me, for giving people the benefit of the doubt.” Or “Thank you, me, for being a great cook!”
Simple things, ordinary things, the way you naturally are, the things you naturally do, are all excellent things to thank yourself for.
By making this a regular practice, you’ll find you feel lighter, more hopeful, and you’re more present in the moment and looking forward to the future. All good stuff!
Give it a try and let me know how it goes for you. Leave a comment!
Marie Shriver has a new book out entitled I’ve Been Thinking…. I just started reading it and what I’ve read is wonderful.
I came across the following bit that I thought was excellent to keep in mind:
…Because, let’s face it: Life is one hell of a roller coaster ride. At times we feel totally in charge of the journey and love the ride. At other times we feel completely overwhelmed and want to get off. Throught out our lives, we’re by turns strong, then weak. We’re quite sure we know what we’re doing, and then we’re utterly and totally lost. We feel elated, and then depressed. We act powerfully, then feel like victims. We’re buoyed by courage, then scared out of our wits. We feel a part of a community, and then we feel totally alone. We take pride In our accomplishments, then want to crumble with shame over our mistakes…
With that paragraph, Marie Shriver sums up all of Life’s experiences for each one of us. It’s comforting to know that we “common folk” aren’t the only ones tossed about by Life; the achievers, the successes, are just as thrown about as we are!
The next time you want to envy someone who seems to have a better job, more money, or a better family, remember Maria Shriver’s wise observations, not to take them down a peg but rather to understand that we are all equals on our journey here on Earth..
Self-forgiveness isn’t an easy thing to do. And it takes time. Our culture, along with many religions, create many opportunities for us to feel guilt over what we are or are not doing and to feel shame about who we are as a person–the fact that we weren’t perfect in the past, we aren’t perfect now, and we won’t be perfect in the future.
One technique that has helped me is sitting in silence, which I’ve talked about many times before. I find that when I block out the world and quiet myself down, I gain perspective on that which I’m feeling guilty and unforgiving about.
I’ve often found that when I look closely at the situation, I realize my guilt and shame is rooted in the presumption that I had much more control in the situation than what I actually had.
For instance, I can’t control other people. As much as I would like to, as much as I would wish, hope, pray, bargain, beg, to have more control over others, I don’t and I won’t have control over others. What they choose to do or choose not to do is out of my hands. That’s between them and Source to work out the consequences. All I can do is be mindful myself and my perceptions and my reactions and responses to those perceptions.
I’ve found that thinking through the situation with this realization in mind has helped me be more compassionate toward all involved–including myself–and has also helped me let go (forgive) myself and others.
Another technique I’ve found helpful is to turn my back on the past–to quit focusing on it. I’ve found when I was mired in the past, the past became so big that it obscured the present moment. And, since I wasn’t really living in the present, the result was that my future wasn’t too enticing; it looked like I’d have more of the same. Depressing thought and expectation, for sure!
Turning my attention to the present moment and the future helped cut the past down to size and loosened its grip on my life. As a result, I was able to see past situations more objectively. The past’s ability to distress and hurt me became less and less until, finally, it had no power over me and there was no room for it in the present or future.
Do you have a technique that helps you banish guilt and shame, that leads you to self-forgiveness? Please share it in the comments below. Thanks!
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Not forgiving ourselves keeps us chained to the past.
By keeping our focus on the past we think that somehow this will make up for or change the past. It won’t. Nothing we can say or do or think will change what happened.
Not forgiving ourselves punishes us over and over and over again.
Perhaps we’re punishing ourselves so that no one else will, because they won’t have to because we’ve already punished ourselves and are continuing to punish ourselves for good measure. That’s convoluted thinking but it makes good sense to those of us who continue to harbor unforgiveness toward ourselves.
Even so, it still doesn’t change the past or what happened.
Not forgiving ourselves doesn’t solve any problems.
Unforgiveness creates more problems in the form of anger issues, depression, stress related illnesses, and living a life way below our potential.
Not forgiving ourselves is NOT the way we’ll craft soul-prospering lives.
The only way to do this is through self-forgiveness, living in the present, and looking to the future.
Tomorrow we’ll talk about a few techniques for forgiving yourself. Be sure to check back in. Thanks!
~The devastating effects of guilt, shame, and not forgiving yourself;
~An explanation of the difference between guilt and shame;
~Obstacles to self-forgiveness;
~Forgiving yourself when you’ve harmed others.
The article takes a closer look at four avenues of self-forgiveness:
~Self-understanding;
~Common humanity;
~Earning forgiveness;
~Asking for forgiveness from Source.
My takeaway from this article was the discussion on forgiving yourself when you’ve caused harm to another. When people talk about forgiveness, usually it’s from the vantage point of having been harmed by someone. This is the first article that I’ve found that openly discusses how to forgive yourself when you’ve been the perpetrator of the harm.
What insights did you get from the article? Let me know in the comments below. Thanks!
Sometimes we allow ourselves to be defined by something that happened to us. If we forgive the others involved and forgive ourselves, and let it go…then who are we?
We no longer have that injustice to tell us who we are. We no longer have our outrage or indignation to fuel us, to help us get out of bed in the morning. We also don’t have it as an excuse of why we aren’t going for our dreams and why we have a life of ‘less than’.
Forgiving others and forgiving ourselves oftentimes requires redefining who we are. This is best accomplished by not looking backward to our past and the injustice, but rather facing forward and looking to the present and the future, and all the Goodness that awaits us there.
We all know forgiveness is important, but it’s so hard to do! As a result, we don’t actively work on forgiving and letting go. We don’t realize the terrible toll it’s taking on us and how it’s hampering our efforts of crafting a soul-prospering life.
Here’s a sampling of what you can look forward to if you have trouble forgiving, whether it’s forgiving others or yourself:
Impatience and frustration
Fits of anger
Difficulty getting along with others
Rigid personality
Being judgmental
Perfectionism
Blame, guilt, shame
Sadness or being in a ‘blue funk’
Depression
Negative thinking
Living a life of ‘less than’
Envy
Fixated on the past
Fatigue and lethargy
Stress
Cold-hearted
A sampling of the benefits of forgiving yourself and others:
Peace of mind, body, and spirit
Optimism
Forward looking
Feelings of connectedness
Willingness to give the benefit of the doubt
No longer a prisoner of guilt, shame, and blame
Energetic
Resiliency and perseverance
Freedom
Creative
Generous
Scary, huh? We’ll talk more about this tomorrow, including how you can move forward on this.
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After last week’s posts about trust and the work we did in discovering how much–or how little–we trust the Universe, our Vision, and ourselves, we may have discovered that our trust levels are lower than what we thought. This can lead to disappointment and discouragement.
The antidote is forgiveness, particularly self-forgiveness. This will be our topic for the week. Below are 16 wise quotes that can get us started on our journey this week.
Enjoy!
The more you know yourself, the more you forgive yourself. ~Confucius
Do as the heavens have done, forget your evil. And, with them, forgive yourself. ~William Shakespeare
You cannot travel back in time to fix your mistakes, but you can learn from them and forgive yourself for not knowing better. ~Leon Brown
To forgive is indeed the best form of self-interest since anger, resentment, and revenge are corrosive of that ‘summum bonum’, the greatest good. ~~Bishop Desmond Tutu
Forgiving does not erase the bitter past. A healed memory is not a deleted memory. Instead, forgiving what we cannot forget creates a new way to remember. We change the memory of our past into a hope for our future. ~Lewis B. Smedes
When you forgive, you in no way change the past–but you sure do change the future. ~Bernard Meltzer
Forgiveness is rediscovering the shining path of peace that at first you thought others took away when they betrayed you. ~Dodinski
Although you should not erase your responsibility for the past, when you make the past your jailer, you destroy your future. It is such a great moment of liberation when you learn to forgive yourself, let the burden go, and walk out into a new path of promise and possibility. ~John O’Donahue
Forgive yourself for what you think you’ve done or not done. At every moment, you had your reasons for all of your actions and decisions. You’ve always done the best that you could do. Forgive yourself. ~Doreen Virtue
I, who have never willfully pained another, have no right to pain myself. ~Marcus Aurelius
I found in my research that the biggest reason people aren’t more self-compassionate is that they are afraid they’ll become self-indulgent. The believe self-criticism is what keeps them in line. Most people have gotten it wrong because our culture says being hard on yourself is the way to be. ~Dr. Kristin Neff
We read that we ought to forgive our enemies; but we do not read that we ought to forgive our friends. ~Sir Francis Bacon
The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong. ~Mahatma Gandhi
Most of us can forgive and forget; we just don’t want the other person to forge that we forgave them! ~Ivern Ball
When you hold resentment toward another, you are bound to that person or condition by an emotional link that is stronger than steel. Forgiveness is the only way to dissolve that link and get free. ~Catherine Ponder
He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love. ~Dr. Martin Luther King
Which quotes rang true for you? Jot them down and keep them handy this week. Refer to them often to remind yourself that you’re doing your best. This will keep you on track with forgiving yourself.
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Do you trust yourself, really trust yourself–especially when it comes to crafting a soul-prospering life, which is also living the life of your dreams?
Stay in a contemplative mood today thinking about the question I just asked. Certainly carry on with your responsibilities and obligations throughout the day, but keep this question simmering on the back burner of your mind.
Be observant of yourself today: what do you habitually think and say about yourself, are they the same things that a person with a high level of self-trust would say and think; when you are working on tasks, do you start them knowing you have what it takes to get the job done; as you work your way through the small and large projects of the day, do you do them with the attitude of “Yes I Can!”?
At the end of the day, take time to review what you’ve observed about yourself. Ask yourself “Do I trust myself, especially when it comes to crafting my soul-prospering life?” Be honest! You aren’t helping yourself by not being totally honest! And answer the question with Yes or No.
If you’ve answered No to the question, don’t worry. Tomorrow we’ll talk about steps you can take to bolster your self-trust.
It can be done and you can do it!
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Yes I Can Pep Talks 
