Gratitude Lounge

Liebe Ursula, this quote spoke to me also.

Perhaps it may mean something a little different to each according to specific need. Here is my take from where I am:

Making ourselves right is, to me, when I engage in that inner dialogue that points out the faults of whoever I am upset as if they have no good to be seen at all. They must be wrong, they must have done it intentionally, they hurt me, they always hurt me, they have a pattern of hurting…and so on down the spiral to Righteous Misery and the coveted Victim of the Year award. ????

Now sometimes, yes, they are indeed wrong, but in those cases, it is usually pretty obvious, and not a position I need to fight to maintain with my inner harangue. If there is a humpback whale in the corner of the living room, chances are you won’t need to point it out to anyone. They will already have noticed.

Making myself right is also a way I distance from the other as a way of attempting to minimize or diminish my hurt over the situation or over what I wanted and did not receive from the person in question. To distance is, in some respects, the first step towards dehumanizing, which opens up the field of unproductive behaviors something fierce. We feel much more justified in being nasty to someone we can declare “deserves” it, even if we are appalled by our behavior afterwards.

Making myself wrong is usually a sort of twisted power play on my part — it is me making a bid for control in what feels like an uncontrollable situation. If I can make myself wrong, you see, then I can figure out what the problem is and fix ME, so then poof, no problem anymore! The only problem is that it does not work that way. And, frankly, I am not always wrong anymore than I am always right! That has not, however, stopped me from taking on responsibility that was never mine in circumstances I did not create in my desperate bids to make things come out as I wanted. ????

Making myself wrong or making myself right can both be a way of stepping into the role of victim, and we all know that path leads nowhere good!

The polarizing Either-Or, black and white effect of making oneself right or wrong simply puts us farther away from solutions that actually WORK, but we do keep trying it, don’t we? ????

That shaky tender place allows for us to feel our feelings while maintaining a position of grace towards ourselves as well as the other. It leaves room for us both to be human, to get hurt, and to work it out more effectively, I think.

I am not there by any means, but I find that the more often I can visit this place of gentleness with myself and others, the more I like it…and the more I visit it. Maybe one day I will live there, after all. ????

I hope that explanation helps. It is just from what I have been noticing in myself.

Blessings to you, my friend. A nice hug…and have some more linden tea! Very calming!

Dear Diane,

I offer you a hug and some hot tea, and the warmth of shared grief.

One more heartbreaking loss. How are we ever to find the right answers to such tragedies when our leaders cannot even seem to ask the right questions?

In the face of such overwhelming situations, I think you and THenry and Mother Teresa are right. I think that all we really can do is the next right thing wherever we are.

We are not called to make every place better; the job would be too huge, and we would quit in frustration and despair. Rather, we are stewards of where we are, trusting that every positive act we put into our part of the web will reverberate to all the other parts as well, in ways we cannot imagine.

Every act that works toward calm and peace, justice and mercy, compassion and kindness benefits the whole. Every prayer, every meditation session, every bit of work we do on healing our own hurts counts as well. Every bit of volunteering, each smile extended to a stranger, every compliment, held door, or clasped hand, all add up to more loving energy in the world. The healing touch of your massage therapist as well as your taking gentle care of yourself that way also work for the greater good because then you have more energy and ability to share more love in tangible ways.

In Christian terms, it is being Christ’s hands in the world, reaching to all in love. In more general words, it is simply loving the world. And goodness knows it needs more of that.

Oh, Manda! I bet the smell in your snow globe was amazing!! I have spent so much of my life with dogs that I find I often interact with the world using my nose. That is one of the elements of our visit to Big Sur that has stuck with me despite it being nearly twenty years ago. What a smell! ????

Where we used to live we used to walk a mile track around a pond where there was residential housing as well as office nearby. I once decided to walk around one circuit with my eyes shut so I could experience it with my nose. Wow. The world changed! I smelled someone doing laundry and could tell what dryer sheets they favored. Another person was having chicken for dinner. Someone else wasn’t a very good cook. There was asphalt, duck, goose, fish, pond plants and trees, and lots of mud!

Thankfully, both my trusty dog and my trusty husband helped make sure I was safe. ????

This one made me tear up. I have had a number of old dogs throughout my life, and they have a special place in my heart. Such faithfulness!

Your poem made me think of the paintings by an artist, John Weiss. He does some wonderful dog art. I do not know how, ahem, mature in years you might be, so do not take the age of the man personally, please! It is more the love this artist captures, that feeling of old best friends. (Oh, gee, now I am tearing up again. There is a reason I don’t watch sad animal movies!)

By the way, once I get my blog going, I will have a poetry area. I plan to have some guest poets in that area. If you would be willing, I would love to have you contribute some of your pieces. I’m afraid there’s no money in the offer (for either of us!), but if you would be interested, I would love to have you. Here is one of the John Weiss paintings.