Rainer Maria Rilke
“We need, in love, to practice only this: letting each other go. For holding on comes easily; we do not need to learn it.”
“If you are patient in one moment of anger, you will escape a hundred days of sorrow”
“Let everything happen to you
Beauty and terror
Just keep going
No feeling is final”
“The only journey is the one within.”
“The purpose of life is to be defeated by greater and greater things.”
“That’s love: Two lonely persons keep each other safe and touch each other and talk to each other.”
W.H. Auden
“If equal affection cannot be, let the more loving one be me.”
Irish Blessing
May the road rise to meet you,
May the wind be always at your back,
May the sun shine warm upon your face,
May the rains fall soft upon your fields,
And, until we meet again,
May God hold you in the hollow of His hand.
The #144 Rule of a Lady
“Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional.”
88 Truths About Life
http://www.raptitude.com/2009/07/88-important-truths-ive-learned-about-life/
29. A person who is unafraid to present a candid version of herself to the world is as rare as diamonds.
44. People cause suffering when they are suffering themselves. Alleviating their suffering will help them not hurt others.
74. A good nine out of ten bad things I’ve worried about never happened. A good nine out of ten bad things that did happen never occurred to me to worry about.
83. The fewer possessions you have, the more they do for you.
85. When you’re sick of your own life, that’s a good time to pick up a book.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Whatever course you decide upon, there is always someone to tell you that you are wrong. There are always difficulties arising which tempt you to believe that your critics are right. To map out a course of action and follow it to an end requires courage.
Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities, no doubt, crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day, you shall begin it well and serenely…”
Shall We Dance?
“We need a witness to our lives. There’s a billion people on the planet, what does any one life really mean? But in a marriage, you’re promising to care about everything. The good things, the bad things, the terrible things, the mundane things, all of it, all of the time, every day. You’re saying ‘Your life will not go unnoticed because I will notice it. Your life will not go unwitnessed because I will be your witness’.”
David Schnarch
“The biggest trust issue in marriage isn’t about trusting your partner. It’s about whether of not you can really trust yourself. The better your partner, the better your ability to soothe and console yourself needs to be. It’s not safe to love your partner more than you can self-soothe, especially if you always need him or her to “be there for you.” Your partner won’t be there to hold your hand and comfort you through his or her death. You’ll go through that alone. The increasing vulnerability that arises from your partner becoming more important to you makes a passionate marriage daunting. Many of us know we can’t trust ourselves with this enormous risk.”
“Love is not for the weak, nor for those who have to be carefully kept, nor for the faint of heart…”
“Who among us has the strength to love on life’s terms? How many of us can say to our partner, ‘You go first. I don’t want you to die, but you’re entitled to your own life and your own death. Go easily. Don’t worry. I’ll take care of myself somehow. Holding onto myself with you has made me strong enough to do that.’”
“Being out of synch is normal. Being out of synch with your partner and maintaining yourself is just as normal as synchrony. Both are necessary for healthy interaction. Knowing this often changes your feelings about gridlock, being out of phase with your partner, time apart, and having to self-soothe… Just because you don’t have what you want doesn’t mean something is wrong.”
“Time out of synch with your partner is neither traumatic nor wasted – unless you insist on it. Time out of synch is not only not negative, it’s positive; it’s a functional, purposeful, part of the process: it helps infants and spouses reorganize themselves so they can sustain the overall interaction.”
“Clean pain comes from moving forward from an accurate self-picture, accepting what has been, is, and will be… Dirty pain comes from defending, denying, or deflecting, to keep from seeing or doing something. The dirty feeling comes from dodging yourself… Clean pain is different: there’s no shame and less anxiety in the hurting. You stop struggling and relax. It is the healing pain of accepting the reality of your life and embarking on effective assessment, planning, and implementation. It’s hard to soothe clean pain. It’s almost impossible to sooth dirty pain.”
“… Mary realized that she didn’t need “permission” to change herself or her marriage. It doesn’t “take two,” as the old saying goes. It takes two to keep your marriage the same; it only takes one to change it. When you change, the relationship changes. … She wanted to become sufficiently solid in her sense of herself that she would stop living in fear of John’s response.”
Nadine Stair
I’d dare to make more mistakes next time.
I’d relax, I would limber up.
I would be sillier than I have been this trip.
I would take fewer things seriously.
I would take more chances.
I would climb more mountains and swim more rivers.
I would eat more ice cream and less beans.
I would perhaps have more actual troubles,
but I’d have fewer imaginary ones.
You see, I’m one of those people who live
sensibly and sanely hour after hour,
day after day.
Oh, I’ve had my moments,
And if I had it to do over again,
I’d have more of them.
In fact, I’d try to have nothing else.
Just moments, one after another,
instead of living so many years ahead of each day.
I’ve been one of those people who never goes anywhere
without a thermometer, a hot water bottle, a raincoat
and a parachute.
If I had to do it again, I would travel lighter than I have.
If I had my life to live over,
I would start barefoot earlier in the spring
and stay that way later in the fall.
I would go to more dances.
I would ride more merry-go-rounds.
I would pick more daisies.
