Three Thoughts for Thursday – February 2020

Three Thoughts for Thursday

Well, we survived the January doldrums!  February has given us Valentine’s Day, Presidents’ Day and Mid-Winter Break, and spring is now just next door!  But rather than run ahead, I am choosing to honor the winter season and lessons of January, and to spend a little more time looking within and honoring this season of hibernation, dormancy and regeneration. I have been focusing on this idea of love and considering my own journey to love myself.  I have been pondering love as the foundation and nourishment needed to support the bloom, the reaching and fulfillment of our full and glorious potential. So, here are a few resources and thoughts, questions, quotes and moments of inspiration and love to support you on your journey of release and self-acceptance, love and fulfilling your purpose, wherever you are on that journey.

What does love mean to you? How do you receive love? How do you show love?  What makes you feel loved?  What do you love most about yourself? What gets in your way of giving or receiving love? How can you cultivate your capacity to love and be loved?

Quote or Passage I’m Pondering and Appreciating:

Love

 We cultivate love when we allow our most vulnerable and powerful selves to be deeply seen and known, and when we honor the spiritual connection that grows from that offering with trust, respect, kindness, and affection. Love is not something we give or get; it is something that we nurture and grow, a connection that can only be cultivated between two people when it exists within each one of them – we can only love others as much as we love ourselves. Shame, blame, disrespect, betrayal, and the withholding of affection damage the roots from which love grows. Love can only survive these injuries if they are acknowledged, healed and rare.

~ Brené Brown

 The Foundation of Love

 If we do not know how to take care of ourselves and to love ourselves, we cannot take care of the people we love.  Loving oneself is the foundation for loving another person.

~ Thich Nhat Hahn

Podcast I’m Listening To: 

The Tim Ferris Show, Episode #409:  Brené Brown – Striving versus Self-Acceptance, Saving Marriages and More…

“We chase extraordinary moments instead of being grateful for ordinary moments until hard shit happens. And then in the face of really hard stuff – illness, death, loss – the only thing we’re begging for is a normal moment.”   ~ Brené Brown

Dr. Brené Brown is a research professor at the University of Houston where she holds the Huffington Foundation – Brené Brown Endowed Chair at The Graduate College of Social Work. Brené is also a visiting professor in management at The University of Texas at Austin McCombs School of Business.

She has spent the past two decades studying courage, vulnerability, shame and empathy, and is the author of five #1 New York Times bestsellers: The Gives of Imperfection, Daring Greatly, Rising Strong, Braving the Wilderness, and her latest book, Dare to Lead, which is the culmination of a seven-year study on courage and leadership. Brené hosts the Unlocking Us podcast, and her TED talk – The Power of Vulnerability – is one of the top five most viewed TED talks in the world with over 45 million views.

Book I’m Reading:

The Mastery of Self: A Toltec Guide to Personal Freedom by don Miguel Ruiz Jr.

The ancient Toltecs believed that life, as we perceive it, is a dream. We each live in our own personal dream, and all of our dreams come together to form the Dream of the Planet, or world in which we live.

Most of us strive to live happy and peaceful lives, but the Dream of the Planet is full of mental and emotional traps that can knock us off balance and keep us bound in a prison of suffering.

In The Mastery of Self, don Miguel Ruiz Jr. teaches that most of our suffering occurs when we forget that we are the architects of our own reality, and we have the power to change our Dream if we choose. The Mastery of Self takes the Toltec philosophy of the Dream of the Planet and the personal dream and explains how a person can:

• Wake up
• Liberate themselves from illusory beliefs and stories
• Live with authenticity

Once released, we can live as our true, authentic, loving selves, not only in solitude and meditation, but in any place—at the grocery store, stuck in traffic, etc.—and in any situation or scenario that confronts us.

Don Miguel Ruiz Jr. is a Nagual, a Toltec Master of Transformation, a direct descendent of the Toltecs of the Eagle Knight lineage, and the son of don Miguel Ruiz (author of The Four Agreements, a must read!)